On the debate stage, there could not be a starker contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The former is frail, incoherent, and frequently confused, while the latter is strong, almost bombastic, and pragmatic to a fault. However, thanks to the changes wrought by Trump and his campaign team to the GOP’s platform — if such it can still be called after its evisceration — the policy positions of the Democratic and Republican parties are harder to distinguish. If the Republican Party truly wishes to capitalize on Trump’s successes over the past eight years, it would do well to look to Catholic voters for direction. Catholic voters have largely abandoned the Democratic Party which once so heavily relied on them. Once predominantly staunch Democrats, American Catholics have been leaving the Democratic Party over the past several decades — at first in drips and drops, but in droves over the past decade in particular. A recent poll commissioned by CatholicVote has confirmed that Catholics have ditched the Dems. Among American Catholics in five swing states — Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — Trump was the favorite for President over Biden, by a staggering margin of nearly 20 points. (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: The Pernicious Persecution of Traditional Catholics) Despite the implicit proclamations of Trump’s newly-emaciated Republican platform, immigration and inflation are not the issues which have driven so many voters, including Catholics, out of the Democratic Party and into the arms of the GOP. These are, at present, hot-button issues, and necessary to address, particularly given the damage done over the past four years by Biden and his regime. But they remain, in short, the bare necessities. Abortion and the Catholic Vote One of the chief factors that has driven Catholics out of the Democratic Party is that of abortion. Since the end of the 20th century, the Democrats have become increasingly, exponentially extreme on the issue, jettisoning Bill Clinton’s fabled mantra of “safe, legal, and rare.” Even restoring the provisions of Roe v. Wade — gutted, remember, by Catholics! — isn’t enough for Democrats today, who clamor for abortion on demand, funded by the federal government, through all nine months of pregnancy — and possibly even after birth, as Trump himself has reminded voters. Abortion is condemned by the Catholic Church as an incontrovertible evil: it is the brutal ending of the life of an innocent child. While Catholic thinkers and leaders — from Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas to Popes John Paul II and Francis — may differ on such matters as the death penalty — that is, the justified execution of the most heinous of criminals — there is no room for differing in the Church on abortion. Another issue which has driven Catholics away from the Democratic Party is the LGBT agenda. While some dissidents — such as Jesuit James Martin — have tried to soften the Church’s rhetoric on sexual sin to such an extent that it is little more than a polite whisper, the Church has long held that homosexual acts and relationships are inherently disordered and gravely evil, rejecting both the moral and physical order designed by God. The Democratic Party’s LGBT obsession extends far beyond homosexual unions, though. The rapid, practically-orchestrated embrace of transgenderism has proven a bridge too far for many of even the most liberal Catholics. It has often been quipped that the Republican Party establishment is just the Democratic Party following the speed limit. The novel degeneracies heralded by Democrats today as new rights or civic necessities are picked up by Republicans ten or fifteen years down the road, when the Democrats have moved on to newer and more depraved sins. Catholic author and staunch conservative Evelyn Waugh, disgusted with the ineffectiveness and capitulation of the Tories he had once backed, swore off ever voting again, notoriously saying, “The Conservative Party have never put the clock back a single second.” Although Waugh was English, the principle he articulated holds true in America, too. While Trump’s recognition of the importance of economic concerns and the like is wholesome, the removing of a commitment to pro-life and pro-family principles from the GOP’s platform risks reducing Americans to little more than economic units. Furthermore, it risks alienating those who vote with their consciences. The vision articulated by Trump’s platform is certainly a pragmatic one, but only in the short term. He addresses only the bare necessities, the most common pressing issues of the day. But the day will, inevitably, end. Where will the Republican party find itself when night falls? The American nation is built on the family. As the Irish Dominican Fr. Vincent McNabb once so adroitly noted, the family is the basic unit of any society. While enabling families to grow and flourish financially is to be lauded, it is not to come at the expense of abandoning the most vulnerable of Americans — the unborn — and allowing the American family to crumble. (READ MORE: The Bogeyman: The Leftists’ Hatred of the Catholic Church) Catholic voters have largely abandoned the Democratic Party which once so heavily relied on them because its principles were those of national suicide. If the Republican Party wishes to keep the Catholic voters it has worked so hard to earn over the years, it needs a vision that will last through the night; it needs to espouse an eternal moral code, protecting the family and the unborn, instead of just short-term political strategies. The post GOP: Don’t Ignore the Valuable Catholic Vote appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — Most of the questions asked by political animals during President Joe Biden’s press conference at NATO Thursday night were variations of the same thought: What are you still doing here after you fumbled and stumbled through the June 27 debate? And, really, the left-leaning press corps was sending a message loud and clear: You shouldn’t still be here. The best version of that query came from Marek Walkuski of Polish Public Radio, who told Biden, “Many people in Poland and across Europe are worried that the former president may win the election. And there’s a lot of concern that Donald Trump may weaken NATO, stop supporting Ukraine, or push Ukraine to give up territories to Russia.” (READ MORE from Debra J. Saunders: Debate Over Isis Bride’s Citizenship Not About Trump) Then the Polish reporter asked the president, “Do you think that Europe will be left on its own if Donald Trump wins the election, and what’s your advice to European leaders to prepare for possible U.S. disengagement?” Given Trump’s many disparaging comments about NATO, Biden was delighted with the question — asked at a NATO conference, no less. (Not an accident.) Social media know-it-alls attacked Walkuski for asking a planted question — as if a man from a country that has been invaded by the Nazis and the Soviets needs prompting. And really, while Biden seemed to take the question as an opportunity to frame himself as the indispensable man, he didn’t seem to give much thought to Eastern Europeans who rightly or wrongly fear that Putin would see a Trump victory as a green light for his evil ambitions. Earth to Biden: That question wasn’t helpful. While Biden’s remarks showcased his fluency on international hot spots — and showed, yes, the 81-year-old is capable of having a good moment — his bad night on June 27 cannot be unseen. Also, Biden didn’t help himself leading with a malapropism — he referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” after he mis-introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin.” By the end of the hour, Biden changed few if any minds about whether he should stay in the presidential race. D.C. Democrats still see him as a gift to the Trump campaign. And, really, the left-leaning press corps was sending a message loud and clear: You shouldn’t still be here. Biden’s decision to flex his foreign-policy chops at this time, when Americans are concerned about meat and potato issues — especially their inflation-ravaged pocketbooks — shows a willful blindness to public discontent. The CPI is 20 percent higher than it was in February 2020 — about double what it should be, according to CNN. (READ MORE: Ex-FBI Deputy Director Has History of Misleading Statements) According to the numbers-crunching FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s approval rating is 37.3 percent. Biden’s response Thursday night: “How accurate does anybody think the polls are these days?” He doesn’t even know he is living in a bubble. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post NATO Reporters Want Biden Out appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In these incredibly harrowing times, I try to relax by watching movies late at night. Unfortunately, too many are horror films of one kind or another: Serial killers who torture their victims and stage their murders, or visions of our world destroyed by a nuclear or climate apocalypse, still peopled by a few, desperate survivors. In order to find Hitler’s special trove, the Monument Men had to descend 800 meters or (2,624 feet) below ground in the Alt Aussee Salt Mine in Austria. Little relaxation there. But even less relaxation exists in the many Holocaust-era films, set in Germany, France, Holland, Poland, Scandinavia, and Russia, on and on, they just keep on coming. I wonder if this is a way of sidestepping the reality of an Islamist invasion of the West and of the Muslim world in general. (READ MORE from Phyllis Chesler: The Only Chance for Peace in Israel) When one thinks about the Holocaust or about World War Two, one can barely grasp the number of  war-related deaths which are estimated to be one hundred million combatants, civilians, and those afflicted by war. Back then, not even the most avowed pacifists blocked traffic or shut campuses down on behalf of saving the “innocent” civilians of Europe or Japan. Somewhat bitterly, I note that today, only Israel is required to “save” Gazan civilians, feed them, make sure they have power — even as the Israelis themselves are engaged in a fierce and existential fight for their own survival. But, I digress. When contemplating the Holocaust, one thinks about lives lost, not about stolen or looted art work, or about the purposeful destruction of museums, churches, and synagogues. I am doing so now — because I have viewed a most remarkable documentary. Yesterday, on my go-to platform, ChaiFlicks, I watched a 2006 documentary titled The Rape of Europa, (based on Lynn H. Nicholas’s  1995 book on the subject), about Hitler’s systematic, industrial-level plunder of Europe’s art work. You’ve probably seen the 2014 film The Monument Men. Well — this documentary is about the real American soldiers, all there in black-and-white footage, who were commissioned to find, save, and restore the art work that Hitler systematically and strategically plundered. I had no idea how extensive this Nazi theft was. The GIs called them the “Venus fixers” but they came to be known as the Monument Men. They were American soldiers who were also art experts, (Deane Keller, Robert Posey, Lincoln Kirstein, James Rorimer, who would go on to run the Metropolitan Museum of Art), and they braved death daily in order to recover Hitler’s stolen Old Masters, (Botticelli, Boucher, Breughel, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Vermeer), ancient frescoes, church and monastery tiles and paintings, revered statues, and the moderns: Cezanne, Gauguin, Klimt, Monet, Matisse, Renoir, Van Gogh, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec. One must ask: Are lives more precious than culture? Does saving works of genius matter as much, perhaps even more than saving lives? Hitler and his inner circle, followed by individual Nazi soldiers, plundered everything of value in sight.  They first looted all that they could from Jewish art dealers, then from Jewish communities and individual Jewish families, (this included china, silverware, jewelry, invaluable Judaica including Torahs, Torah ornaments, candlesticks, Jewish memorabilia, and furniture). Only then, did the Nazis begin their massive and systematic looting of Western culture. Hitler also “purged” i.e. destroyed, what he viewed as “degenerate” art; this included works by Matisse, Van Gogh, and Picasso. I learned, for the first time, about a French hero named Rose Valland, described as “not so tall, her hair in a bun, little glasses, really above suspicion.” She worked at the Jeu de Paume, where Hitler had temporarily stored his stolen French treasures. “No one knew that she spoke German … no one suspected this little gray mouse creeping around the building. Nobody knew that every night when she went home with her remarkable memory, she kept a secret diary of what French paintings, owned publicly or privately, were taken by whom, sent where.”  She managed to stay on, despite the “constant danger of deportation or execution.” Based on her notes, these priceless works could be searched for, found, and even restored to their owners or to their heirs. Hitler also ravaged Russia. He stole all that he could from the famed Hermitage Museum, “violated” and destroyed Pushkin’s and Tolstoy’s homes;  looted and blew up palaces and churches that were precious to the Russian people. Nicolai Gubenko, a former Soviet Minister of Culture, described this as “an outrage committed on the memory, on the ashes, of all that is holy in our country.” Given the high body count, (“20 to 30 millions soldiers and civilians dead”), the Russians remained reluctant to return the artwork that, in turn, the Red Army subsequently seized from Germany. (READ MORE: Immigration of Cultures Hostile to the West Must End) But here’s what made me gasp. In order to find Hitler’s special trove, the Monument Men had to descend 800 meters or (2,624 feet) below ground in the Alt Aussee Salt Mine in Austria. If you watch this footage you will see the allied soldiers traversing Hitler’s underground tunnel and for a bizarre moment or two you will think that you’re beneath the earth in contemporary Gaza. Hamas/Iran’s labyrinth of weaponized underground tunnels in Gaza are only 50 meters below ground or 164 feet deep. However, in terms of height and width, Hitler’s tunnels alarmingly resemble those in Gaza which are not as deep but which are 350-450 miles long. What kind of lizard-people construct, work, live, operate, and hide in such living graves, far below the earth? Remember, like a rat, Saddam Hussein was found cowering in a hole about ten feet deep. I’m sure there is a long military history of tunnels, including those of the Viet Cong, who hid anywhere from six to fifty feet below the earth. Once, when he was eighteen years-old, Hitler auditioned for Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts and was rejected. The documentary gently reminds us that Hitler was a failed artist who may have harbored a lifelong grudge towards his superiors, both Jews, politicos, and the artists with whose work he could never compete. Was his the revenge of the less talented? Hitler actually planned a Fuehrer Museum in Linz, Austria, his hometown. According to American historian, Jonathan Petropolous, in an on-camera interview, Hitler planned an “opera house, a symphony hall, a great library, and a mausoleum with his tomb. At the center of the Linz complex, is gonna be the greatest museum … in the entire world.” When Hitler knew he had lost the war, he had explosives planted at the mouth of the salt mine, in boxes labelled “precious marble.” If he could not own the art work — he wanted it destroyed. He was a “spoiler” of monumental proportions. At least the Nazis coveted great art. I fear that their current incarnations — the Taliban, the Iranian Mullahs and their military proxies, (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis), and ISIS do not. The Taliban simply blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan, destroyed all proof that Afghanistan was once a Buddhist country. Down with history, let memory cease. ISIS destroyed or looted countless churches, monasteries, non-Salafist mosques and tombs, as well as the prophet Jonah’s Tomb and the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. They did not spare Assyrian-era statues that were 3,000 years old. This documentary allows us to meet another hero, the real Maria Altmann, played by Helen Mirren in the film, “The Woman in Gold.” After a torturous legal battle, and sixty, perhaps seventy years after the war, a panel of Austrian judges unexpectedly awarded Altmann and her family five paintings by Gustav Klimt, including the portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer. Ronald Lauder bought the painting of Adele for $135 million. The work now hangs near my home, in the Neue Gallery in Manhattan. I have visited it more than once and it never fails to impress, even stun, the worshipper with its golden radiance. The post Hitler Absolutely Plundered Europe appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

St. Louis — The 1st Congressional District of Missouri is the murder capital of the United States. Violent crime and property destruction are out of control. The district encompasses all of the city of St. Louis and the northern and central portions of the surrounding suburban St. Louis County. Moderate Democrats are fed up with Cori Bush. They are supporting her challenger in the August 6 primary, Wesley Bell.  Entire neighborhoods that were populous and safe as recently as the 1960s — including where I lived as a child at that time in north St. Louis city — have become depopulated zones where little but rubble can be seen over a long horizon. The city’s chief attractions are the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team and the St. Louis Blues hockey team. Fatal shootings and other violent crimes now are rampant near the downtown baseball stadium and hockey arena. The city’s July 4th celebration, which used to draw half a million people to celebrate with music and fireworks on the grounds of the Gateway Arch overlooking the Mississippi River, this year drew at most 50,000, and the celebration was marred by shootings and other violent crime. (READ MORE from Joseph P. Duggan: You Don’t Know Me: Take a Tour of Ferguson, Missouri) The destruction of St. Louis and many of its suburbs has been accelerated by lavish spending from billionaire currency speculator George Soros and his son Alex, and disciplined activism by Democratic Socialists of America — the electoral army of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ “Squad.” Soros dollars and DSA operations elected Kim Gardner as city prosecutor in 2016 and re-elected her in 2020. The same far-left network since then has elected a new city mayor, Tishaura Jones, and a new president of the board of aldermen, antisemitic extremist Megan Green, whose public safety policies are as Nero’s were to Rome.  Gardner became so notorious for negligence in office that she resigned in 2023 under threat of emergency action by the state government to remove her.  Meanwhile, the most stunning accomplishment of the Soros-DSA network has been to put one of its own in the U.S. Congress representing the 1st District. Democrat William Lacy Clay, Jr. had represented the district for 20 years, succeeding his father, who had been the district congressman for 30 years. Lacy Clay was a pillar of the Congressional Black Caucus. The elder Clay had been a founder of the caucus. The “Clay machine” was considered invincible. Soros, Ocasio-Cortez, and the DSA overthrew all of that. In a manner similar to Ocasio-Cortez’s shocking upset of House Democratic Caucus leader Joe Crowley in 2018, Soros candidate Cori Bush vaulted from obscurity to defeat Clay in the 2020 primary. The DSA waged a stealth campaign with an extraordinary ground game.  Representing the murder capital of the nation, Cori Bush is one of the most extreme forces for “defunding” the police and perhaps the most pro-criminal member of Congress. She is also under active investigation by federal prosecutors for alleged misuse of campaign funds. The congresswoman also has called for defunding the Pentagon — which may be a key reason why defense contractor Emerson Electric has decided to vacate its world headquarters, which has been in Ferguson in the 1st district since it was founded 133 years ago. The headquarters of Boeing’s defense and space divisions also is — for now — in Cori Bush’s district, along with many defense subcontractors.  Cori Bush also is one of the most vicious antisemites in Congress. More closely than any other member of Congress, she has aligned herself with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, who was censured by the House because of her sympathies for the Hamas terrorists.  Antisemitism is an evil anywhere, but it hits especially hard in Cori Bush’s home constituency.  In the 1st District are the principal Jewish neighborhoods of the St. Louis area, suburban towns including University City, Olivette, and Creve Coeur, where most of the area’s synagogues and Hebrew schools are. For more than a century, these neighborhoods gave refuge to survivors of pogroms and the Holocaust. Now they suffer the ignominy of being represented in Congress by a Hamas sympathizer. Moderate Democrats are fed up with Cori Bush. They are supporting her challenger in the August 6 primary, Wesley Bell.  Bell, an African American lawyer who entered politics as a member of the Ferguson City Council, won an upset primary victory in 2018 for the top prosecutor’s post in St. Louis County, a separate and much larger jurisdiction from Kim Gardner’s St. Louis city.  Bell’s two terms as county prosecutor have been relatively free of controversy. He contrasts his support for effective policing against Cori Bush’s nihilistic “defund the police” ideology. He also underscores his support for the Jewish community against Bush’s antisemitism and sympathy for Hamas terrorists.  Recent national coverage of the Bell vs. Bush contest focuses on the narrative that Bush is the next Hamas sympathizer to be knocked out following the primary defeat of Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). This ignores the fact that the Missouri 1st District is not Westchester County, New York. (READ MORE: Rep. Jamaal Bowman and the Toxic Rot of the Squad) The Cori Bush organization never should be underestimated. Bell has raised more money than Bush, but Bush’s DSA organization in 2020 proved it can overcome huge financial disadvantages. A recent private poll saying Bell was running one percentage point ahead of Bush might represent wishful thinking more than reality. The DSA under-the-radar operations for Bush always outperform her opinion polling.  In this district, the Democratic nominee is guaranteed election in November.  In 2022, 27 percent of the 1st District general election vote went against Bush and for the Republican and Libertarian nominees, who had virtually no funding. These voters are not completely disenfranchised, because in Missouri, anyone is allowed to vote in the primary election of his choice.  It is not unusual for Democrats and independents to vote in Missouri Republican primaries, and vice versa.  The danger and disgrace Cori Bush poses to St. Louis and the nation is a vital matter for everyone in the 1st District. November will not matter in this district. Rational voters from every political party or none have a duty to our community to vote on August 6 to put Cori Bush out of office. Take my congresswoman — please! Joseph P. Duggan formerly worked in government and public affairs in Washington DC. He is now an entrepreneur in his native St. Louis. The post Take My Congresswoman (Cori Bush) – PLEASE! appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In 1974, during a crucial period of shuttle diplomacy, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger orchestrated an agreement of cooperation with Saudi Arabia. This landmark accord, negotiated in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, where the U.S. backed Israel and faced a crippling oil embargo by Arab nations, was a pivotal moment in global geopolitics. The agreement, which recently expired and has been the subject of much chatter and hand-wringing, was never a secret and was extensively covered by mainstream media at the time. But the real story isn’t about the agreement; concern for the dollar arises from the agreement’s recently expired 50-year secret “side deal.”   The United States is China’s largest single trading partner — it needs a strong dollar to buy its exports.  Comprising just six pages, the original agreement created two joint commissions between the countries — one addressing Saudi Arabia’s military needs and the other focused on economic cooperation. Records of an Oval Office meeting between Richard Nixon and Prince Fahd on the day of the signing show both parties agreed on the need for a robust Saudi military to protect itself and all of the Gulf states.  After that, the military commission’s future work was detailed but relatively straightforward.  It focused on establishing what type and how much armament would be sold to the Kingdom for defensive purposes. The Economic Commission’s meetings were straightforward as well but much more secretive.  Negotiated by U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon, the details of economic cooperation remained in darkness until a Bloomberg 2016 Freedom of Information Act request brought them into the light.  Now, eight years later, that fifty-year side deal has recently expired, prompting predictions of economic doom by some and of total irrelevance by others.  Both reactions are extreme, but there is some truth in each. (READ MORE from Kevin Cochran: Inflation’s Puppeteer: The Government) At the time, Simon, the former head of the Treasury Department’s trading desk at Salomon Brothers, was faced with two tasks: insulating the U.S. from another oil embargo and finding an outlet for financing the growing national debt.  The agreement brokered with Saudi Arabia achieved both outcomes by requiring the Kingdom to sell oil to the United States denominated in dollars and then to invest the proceeds of those sales by buying Treasury bonds.  While not binding on other OPEC countries, they mostly all fell in line with Saudi Arabia, priced oil trades in dollars, and purchased U.S. Treasuries.  The Euro wouldn’t exist for another twenty-five years, and the British pound sterling was the only other currency marginally used for trades. There was no reasonable alternative. Because of the Saudis’ leadership role and OPEC’s dominance in world oil markets, other countries outside the Middle East correspondingly followed suit by trading oil in dollars. This standardization also provided economic benefits to countries beyond the commodity itself by pricing petroleum transportation and its insurance in dollars. The more significant effect, however, was that it cemented the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Global energy was denominated in dollars, and the profits from its trade were invested in U.S. Treasuries.   With the agreement’s expiration, many now fear a collapse or a highly weakened dollar as a consequence.  Doomsayers foresee a move by OPEC away from dollar-based oil trade settlements and into other currencies, most notably the Chinese Yuan.  If that were to happen on a large scale, global demand for U.S. currency would drop, weakening it and strengthening the Yuan.  The effects on Americans would be more expensive imports and increased interest rates needed to attract Treasury investors.  But is this relegation of the greenback to second-world status likely?  Looking behind the sensational hyperbole, there is some solid contrary evidence to the premise that the dollar will be abandoned. Because the agreement was only binding on U.S./Saudi trades, a not insignificant amount of oil has always moved outside the dollar’s purview.  JP Morgan estimates that as much as 20 percent of all petroleum sales are settled in other currencies.   The UAE recently took payment for a trade denominated in Indian rupees, while French oil giant Total Energies has made deals valued in Yuan for liquified natural gas (LNG).  And, because of U.S. economic sanctions, Russia and Iran have not unexpectedly moved to pricing oil trades in the Chinese currency.  Trading without dollars has always existed, and while it has marginally increased in recent years, the shift is not because of the 1974 agreement’s expiration. However, the dollar’s use for trading oil shouldn’t be the focus — its standing as a reserve currency is much more important.  It isn’t the currency you spend that matters; it’s the currency you hold.  All the big kids in the Middle East — OPEC’s major players — peg their currencies to the U.S. Dollar.  This includes not only Saudi Arabia and the UAE but also Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman as well.  Abandoning the dollar as their reserve currency would decimate their economies. It’s not going to happen. China, while not pegging the Yuan to the dollar, also has a hand in the game of maintaining the strength of the U.S. currency. The United States is China’s largest single trading partner — it needs a strong dollar to buy its exports.  Likewise, China is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries (behind Japan), and a devalued greenback means significant losses for those reserves.  Indeed, trading oil with the Yuan transactionally makes life a bit easier for the Middle Kingdom, but it still needs to hold piles of dollars to maintain its export volume. That won’t change. While the Biden administration hasn’t been overly friendly with the Saudi Kingdom, there is a decent chance that a new agreement on oil trading and treasury investment could be reached.  Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding its currency’s peg to the dollar, also holds a significant investment in Treasuries like China.  The exact amount isn’t known as the secret 50-year deal obfuscates its holdings by lumping them into the reporting category of “other countries.” Still, it is estimated to be well in excess of $100 billion.  Regardless of the status of diplomatic relations, economic ones typically drive solutions. (READ MORE: An Economist Looks at the Immigration Crisis) Yes, a few more independent oil trades may take place valued in Yuan, or even the Euro, but nothing significant enough to merit fear of the dollar’s collapse.  And, Russia and Iran may become used to using the Yuan and not abandon it even if the economic sanctions are removed. However, there is too much inertia behind maintaining the status quo for most oil trades. There’s a reason it’s called the Petro Dollar. Kevin Cochrane is an economist, former senior banking executive, and regularly published national columnist.  He is currently a visiting professor at the University of the West Indies in Barbados and has taught university economics for the past two decades in the United States. The post The Dollar Is Still Essential appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“Ukraine will stop Putin” declared America’s failing president whose uncertain political fate and cognitive issues loomed  over NATO’s 75th annual conference hosted last week in Washington, where many participants took time on the side to meet with some of Donald Trump’s top advisors such as former ambassador to Germany, Rick Grennel, and ex-NSC chief of staff, general Keith Kellogg. The Europeans are now “paying” more for NATO as 23 members cross the 2 percent of GDP for defense threshold this year, long insisted by Trump , so they may be looking to get their money’s worth in advice. But it will take a lot more than “twenty four hours” to convince Putin to settle for a bombed out sliver of Ukraine after losing a half million Russians. If they wanted to know whether Biden meant that Kyiv will stop Russia from overrunning all of Ukraine and threatening the rest of Europe as long as Western military aid keeps flowing, the Europeans would be told that  would not change under Trump. But if he meant that Russia can be stopped from taking over eastern Ukraine as is Putin’s currently declared goal, bets may be off. (READ MORE from Martin Arostegui: U.S. Policy Lets Russia Dock in the Americas) Situations both on the battlefield and in the increasingly active diplomatic front are not running in Ukraine’s favor. China has become a “decisive enabler of Russia’s war effort” according to the official statement issued by the NATO conference, allowing Putin an almost limitless capacity to prosecute his war. Western intelligence reports indicate that China is increasingly providing electronic software components through various guises for Russia’s production and perfection of its cruise missiles, which are becoming notably more accurate and stealthy. It’s also speculated that North Korea may feed troops from its 1.5 million man army  to replace Russia’s mounting  losses as part of a military alliance recently signed by Putin and Kim Jong Un, who is already supplying Russia with millions of 152 mm artillery rounds. Reports last week even indicated that Chinese or North Korean special units joined Russian Spetznaz for military exercises in Belorussia, Putin’s close ally bordering Ukraine to the north. While NATO pledged “unwavering” support for Ukraine, the $40 billion annual aid package committed to its war effort at the conference, falls short of what president Volodymyr Zelensky and other east European leaders now consider necessary. The main types of weapons mentioned for the package are largely defensive; lots of billion dollar Patriot air defense systems and a limited quantity of F-16 jet fighters, maybe 70, to be flown in  over the next several months. It’s about half of what Zelensky considers necessary to counter Russia’s air force capable of launching 300 air sorties a day. Despite Biden boasting that “NATO has never been stronger” cracks could develop within the alliance as support for Kyiv starts weighing against peace initiatives being proposed with increasing insistence by some members.  While the conference concluded that Ukraine’s path to full NATO membership is “irreversible” the fine print indicates that’s only “after the war with Russia is over,” according to an AP analysis based on statements by NATO secretary Jens Stoltenberg who gave no timetable for Ukraine’s adherence and signaled caution with Russia. “NATO does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia. We remain willing to maintain channels of communication with Moscow to mitigate risk and prevent escalation” said Stoltenberg who emphasized the need to “end the war as soon as possible” without mentioning the need to defeat Russia or force withdrawal of its forces from Ukraine as was NATO’s past position.  Putin launched his 2022 invasion because Ukraine wanted to join NATO. He attempted  to take  Kyiv using outdated armored tactics in an operation modeled on the Soviet Union’s 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, which ousted a reformist government threatening the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact at the time. He grossly underestimated Ukraine’s highly nationalistic armed forces already formed with Western arms and guidance, while overestimating the capabilities of his own army riddled with corruption under his regime. He has only recently started trying to fix that by firing top defense officials and reorganizing Russia’s military industrial base. Following his rout outside Kyiv, Putin refocused on the more limited goal of annexing eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region to secure a land connection to the Crimean peninsula, set up local puppet governments under ethnic Russians, and control key industrial zones. While initially encouraging Zelensky’s crusade to recover “every inch” of Ukrainian territory, NATO now seems resigned to conceding Moscow its land gains through negotiations in which Kyiv’s NATO membership could be a bargaining point. In exchange for at least de facto recognition of Russia’s control over Crimea and however much of Donbass its troops hold at the moment of a hypothetical ceasefire, Russia would have to accept NATO’s protection over Kyiv and the rest of Ukraine. A special new body set up at the U.S. army base in Wiesbaden, Germany to administer and channel assistance to Kyiv would serve as a “bridge” to eventual full membership, says Stoltenberg. A similar idea was floated  about a year ago as Ukraine’s “counteroffensive” failed to break through Russia’s highly fortified southern lines to siege Crimea. Zelensky threw a fit and NATO officially disavowed the leaked conversations. But the plan resurfaced behind closed doors at this week’s summit as the only viable peace solution that the West can propose at the moment, according to diplomatic sources. As the conference got underway, Ukrainian government spokesmen reluctantly expressed willingness to negotiate with Moscow without a prior Russian agreement to withdraw  from occupied areas, Zelensky’s main demand until now. But that may hardly satisfy Putin at this point. He wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from parts of the Donbass not fully occupied by Russia as the starting point for talks, according to Hungarian president Viktor Orban who is leading efforts to mediate a ceasefire. Orban had meetings with Putin in Moscow and China’s Premiere Xi Jing Ping in Beijing before heading to Washington. Turkey’s authoritarian ruler Tayyip Erdogan who has one of NATO’s largest armies and controls access to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus straights is also fence straddling, having participated at the meeting of a newly formed alliance of Central Asian nations including Iran, chaired by Putin and Xi days prior to attending the Washington conference. He openly disagrees with alliance policies in such key areas as supporting Israel and fancies his role as potential peace broker in Ukraine. The  peace lobby, however, faces  resistance from Poland and other east European states that feel most threatened by Russia and whose leaders have publicly criticized NATO for failing to do enough to support Ukraine. They would fiercely reject any move to turn over the north east province of Luhansk, for example, back to Russia after Ukraine retook it in 2022 and successfully fought off renewed Russian advances against its main city, Kharkhiv, in recent days. Neither can the east europeans or NATO founding states such as UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands which are supplying Ukraine’s F-16s and long-range cruise missiles, be expected to pressure Kyiv to just allow Russia to walk onto the strategic ridge line of Chasiv Yar controlling the industrial Donetsk valley and the key city of Kramatorsk. Despite months of pounding the area with the bulk of his forces deployed in Donbass, Putin has made only marginal gains, taking a small neighborhood on the eastern side of a canal that crosses the town of Chasiv Yar, at a cost of 5,000 men, according to the Institute for the Study of War. (READ MORE: Argentina Is Making Progress, But Not There Yet) Orban cut short his NATO summit attendance to fly to Mar-a-Lago to talk with Trump about the increasingly dangerous and precarious situation he would be facing in Ukraine if returned to the White House, thanks to the Biden administration’s indecisive mismanagement and poor planning. An intricate and multifaceted U.S. led peace initiative combining military pressures with direct personal diplomacy on Putin, requiring a degree of focus and coordination which Biden is clearly incapable of, is the only way of ending the Ukraine war on Western terms without reaching the MAD of WW3. But it will take a lot more than  “twenty four hours” to convince Putin to settle for a bombed out sliver of Ukraine after losing a half million Russians. He now has China and much of the Eurasian continent firmly behind him as Biden barely managed to articulate at Thursday’s press conference. The post NATO Worried About Biden and Ukraine appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

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