Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Buffoon) Is At It Again
United States Senator Lindsey Olin Graham is at it again. Warmongering, that is. This time against Russia. In the honored guest position leading off this week's Fox News Sunday, the Honorable Sen. Graham stirs the war pot against Russia ever more vigorously.
ANATOLY ANTONOV, RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: It seems the atmosphere in Washington is poison, is poisoned. It's a toxic atmosphere.
GRAHAM: I think it's pretty ironic that he used the word poison. One of the reasons we are expelling diplomats is because the Russian intelligence services most likely poisoned a British citizen and his daughter, a former Russian agent in the United Kingdom. So, this is the `80s to me all over.
So, if I were Trump, I'd look at the Reagan playbook and economically isolate Russia. I would study every major recipient of Russia oil and gas and see if we could find ways to supply those countries with oil and gas somewhere -- from a source outside of Russia.
Because you know I'm all about that oil,
'Bout that oil, no piping
I'm all 'bout that oil, 'bout that oil, no piping
I'm all 'bout that oil, 'bout that oil, no piping
I'm all 'bout that oil, 'bout that oil
[With sincere apologies to Meghan Trainor.]
WALLACE: Senator, do we need a Trump-Putin summit meeting or do we need President Trump first to take some stronger actions against Russia?
GRAHAM: I think the problem is that Russia is running wild. Whatever we're doing is not working and the president for some reason has a hard time pushing back against Putin directly. So, again, economic isolation of Russia. They're an oil and gas economy. They couldn't survive very long without customers.
Because, like, you know, uh, no country in the history of mankind has ever gone to physical war because economic war was waged against it. No siree bob. Ain't gonna happen. Besides, if it does, we've got oceans protecting us from them thar European troubles.
Reference: Full Fox News Sunday transcript here
Comments
As Bugs would say:
What a maroon.
Europe would go broke without Russian gas. Hell, even England had to get emergency supplies from them this year.
Go ahead lindsey, try to ship LNG to them. The only way it would work would be to massively subsidize it.
I'll bet he's getting pushed by the gas drillers because Germany just gave the final permits for the Nord Stream.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Return on investment
First, they already have subsidized it. The US government has been subsidizing oil and gas in this nation for decades. This is nothing new.
Second, there have been billions and billions of dollars spent in the last few years to build massive LNG export terminals in the United States. The vast majority, but not all, of these terminals are along the Gulf of Mexico coastline. I drive past nearly half of those every seven days as I travel to and from work. Here's a map of them put out by the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Gulf and Atlantic coast terminals are intended to supply Europe with natural gas. They were purpose-built for this. Some are not finished, by the way.
The size and/or magnitude of these export terminals has to be seen to be believed. I can assure you that they weren't built to simply sit idle. They were built to allow the Wall Street investors who funded them to get a nice return on their risk - likely an obscene return on that risk. The people who built these plants want their money. If it means going to war in order to get it, they will. They certainly cannot allow land-based pipelines to interfere with their insatiable greed.
Thanks for the map to the gas
I really didn't realize that the US was going into the gas export business to that degree. It's extreme. This is what happens when you privatize oil, which by the way should belong entirely to the people after net extraction costs are paid to the free-lance plumbers. It would have stayed in the ground for future generations. I suppose the race to cash out on oil is inspired by China outpacing the US in innovation and determination to eliminate combustion vehicles by 2022.
But Nord Stream is happening. The investment is too great and the source is stationary and reliable. The US won't crush Russia's economy here, any more than it could crush Russia's Navy by stealing Crimea and installing NATO.
I cannot understand how they convinced investors a market in Europe made sense. The market is in China. I also don't get how the US can't see that by becoming a major exporter they further undermine Dollar hegemony and alienate OPEC.
If you build it .....
Yeah, for whatever reason, it seems they've written off China. Too easy to foresee a Russia/China pipeline or four perhaps? And too hard to stop one from being built?
I originally posted as I assume most folks have no idea that that these massive facilities have been constructed. The number of them and the tremendous size of them is something we have not seen before. At this scale, this is some kind of new game. This is why I'm convinced the development of these terminals must be seen as a large factor in U.S. foreign policy.
I mentioned that I regularly drive past some of these new terminals. You almost need to see them in person to understand the size and complexity of them. (I'd stop and photograph them, but then I'd have to change my address to some prison cell, so no.) To give you some idea, I also drive past the largest petroleum refinery in the nation, the massive Saudi-owned works in Port Arthur, Texas. These terminals rival that plant. The amount of money it took to build these things is beyond my comprehension.
So, I can't fathom the thinking for building these unless there has been some type of guarantee to the LNG producers from the U.S. government that they would indeed have a market ... a very large market. I can't help but remember General Butler saying that most of his military work was as muscle for American corporations. For this reason, I smell war.
Also, remember, this isn't "Trump stuff." All this would have been devised and planned during the Obama years. Trump might attempt to take credit, as he is wont, but none of this is Trump's baby.
Your description is chilling.
Of course, the entire world knows that they are there. So, at a level I cannot see, people are coming to grips with this geopolitical madness.
It's a little late to put a stop to it. In 2015, Russia and China signed the largest oil-gas contract in world history. One had been lingering for a decade, but once the US overthrew Ukraine's democratically elected government, the deal was quickly made and construction began. Oh, and they will be trading in their own currencies, eschewing the Dollar. Unintended consequences of NATO over-reach.
Meanwhile, China needs additional LNG. Hopefully, the US LNG investors are nimble enough to change markets. Certainly, Wall Street is not prepared to suffer losses from delays, just so the Neocons can stick it to Russia.
The more the US tries to block the rise of Eurasia — by crippling China with the TPP, and crippling Russia with sanctions — the more the US is diminished.
See? This is what doesn't make sense to me
The US could have made deals with countries to buy or sell our stuff like other countries do, but instead it invades, bullies and overthrows governments and installs puppet regime governments instead. This takes our money that could be spent on so many things that would help grow our economy and gives it to defense companies instead. This just does not make sense to me. The brutality that we think we know is actually ten times more worse then anyone can imagine. The amount of suffering that our country inflicts on others is unimaginable. And the PTB don't care.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Location, location, location
Thing is, look where they've built the LNG terminals - here's that map again. If you intend, or even wanted to consider, shipping LNG to China you wouldn't have concentrated your terminals on the Gulf and/or Atlantic coast. There are only three terminals on the West Coast and those are Canadian. Our Captains of Industry aren't looking too nimble here...
By the way, I didn't know the ESPO pipeline had started flowing until I read what you posted. Thanks.
Canal
LNG shipped from Gulf Coast terminals can go thru the recently widened Panama Canal to reach the Pacific and thus China.
Bigger and better
Thanks, edg! I have been right next to those tankers at the Sabine Pass LNG Terminal and there is no way I would have bet that those huge things could pass through the Panama Canal. I knew they had widened it, but not that wide!
That article you linked to was a good find!
If the canal were mine
I'd say "Take a hike".
The likelihood of an LNG tanker blowing up are remote but when they burn nothing within 1500 meters survives.
The gates of the locks would be useless for years.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
It would be pretty hard to sell our LNG
to anyone if the plants were a smoking pile of rubble now wouldn't it? This is what is going to happen if this stupid country keeps poking the Russian Bear. Putin has said that Russia will not fight another war on Russian soil.
Moon of Alabama has an excellent essay on the Israeli and Saudi missile defense shields that failed spectacularly this week. If you want the summary of the essay it's that they didn't work and Israel pissed away $1,00,000 of our money. Yep. That's right. We basically give them our money for their weapons while they have universal health care and we don't. Why don't we? Because we don't have enough money for it. I have an idea about how we could easily fix this problem, but it's not going to happen as long as congress puts Israel's needs before ours.
Awe, there we are again looking at the never ending gift of the Obama presidency.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Just to add to your excellent comment:
Damn good article, I must say.
https://www.politicususa.com/2015/06/09/report-shows-oil-industry-benefi...
Edit to add that while $5.3 trillion is a high annual price to pay for slow global murder, planetary life is priceless, which may be why The Psychopaths That Be don't value the latter and can't see anything in it for them.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
So, lovely Lindsey, is it not the same with us?
But we also have legalized high stake casino gambling called hedge funds and derivatives. Them Rooskies gonna hafta build their own Las Vegas containing space for Goldman-Sachs East if they're gonna catch up with us.
Find some love, Lindsey--hug a bomb.
Try dancing to this, Lindsey (don't let your dentures fall out)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4aUf5JC2W4]
Now, now... We all knew the crazy was in our future
...as the US Empire flops around on the world stage in its death throes.
Our European allies are just humoring us, hoping to avoid confrontation with a rogue and erratic agent of chaos. They calculated that it was less risky to piss off stoic, self-controlled Russia than to trigger god-knows-what horrific reaction in the Americans. As for the United Kingdom, she's simply run amok with a bad case of Munhausen Syndrome by Proxy.
We're experiencing a tacky version of "the fall of Rome" staring some painfully bad actors.
Chris Hedges has written about this many times: the causes and the effects of a powerful nation's collapse in the world. The over extension of brute force, the rejection by the world, and the contraction of Empire.
.
We must keep in mind that the contraction of the nation will cause some suffering (if we are still letting the war criminals run the place). But, it will end the wars and shut down the military outside the United States. The next generation and those that follow will have a chance to do it right. They will have our example to teach them the limits of democracy when capitalism is unregulated. They'll learn that if the government is not directly benefitting the people, it is conspiring against them.
Typo Hayes for Hedges...just so you know.
I had a double take moment there for a second. "Chris Hayes said *that*?? Really??" clicks link.."Ah, of course, Hedges..."
Oh gawd.
Chris Hedges' cognac to Chris Hayes malt liquor. I must correct the record. Thanks.
Why do chicken hawks become war hawks?
They certainly had their chance to go kill some fureners when they were younger, but how many of them chickened out and did something else? Most of them. And I would have thought that spending so many years as a prisoner of war would have killed McCain's bloodlust, but no. He became one of the biggest war hawk.
Russia could stop the lng going to Europe if May keeps this up. Now she's threatening to not let Russia sell their bonds. How much more patient is Putin going to be with all these false allegations? The Skripal story has so many holes in it that I can't believe anyone is falling for this. If they got poisoned with Thee most deadliest nerve agent ever then how were they able to drive for hours? How did that police man get exposed to it if it was on the front door?
Why did it take 3 weeks for them to determine where it was? First it was this, then it was that and now it's something else.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
A communard over at ZH made a similar observation:
:
Raul Ilargi Meijer at The Automatic Earth noted:
And, as always, there is no evidence that proves their allegations.
The Brits fear that the toxin is somewhere public.
Unfortunately, when the hazmat team went in for the photo-op of the removal of the park bench for deeper investigation, a week or so ago, they took the wrong bench.
They need to lighten up and stop trying so hard to convince us that their flag isn't false.
The front door doesn't make any sense
This was supposed to be the most deadliest nerve agent ever and yet they want us to believe that it took it 3-4 hours to work and then it didn't kill them. Then there's that police officer who first came across them who also got exposed and he too doesn't die from the most deadliest nerve agent ever. Next we have the nurse who helped her and she wasn't exposed. Finally we have the over 100 town citizens who also got sick but no one tells us where they got exposed or how they are doing.
One day a judge says that they have a 1% chance of being normal again and then the next day the woman wakes up and is now talking and eating.
May makes the determination that the nerve agent was created by the Russians even though it was created by a country in the USSR two decades ago and it was verified destroyed by the USA which took the samples with them and then a guy writes a book and includes the rescipe for how to make it and then Hillary told her staff not to discuss the book and then ....
Jeebus! How the Hell can anyone make sense of the false flag if they can't get their story straight? Oh yeah, the OPCW the world's chemical weapons experts are just now getting a sample of it and they say that it's going to be a few weeks until they can decide what it is and who made it?
Meanwhile , let's throw out a couple Russian diplomats just because.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Must be nice just to,
you know, war monger from the position of knowing full well that neither you nor your kids nor your grandkids won't so much as have an ounce of "skin in the game," that somebody else will fight it for you while you watch the "highlights" on CNN while sipping on wine and munching a lobster tail. "Hun, could you bring in some more melted butter, and pop some popcorn? This is the bestest war ever! I'm So damned glad I war mongered for this!"
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Well, if they're trying for war-crimes in Russia
Russia will bring it on back home to them. Putin's already stated that war will never again be fought on Russian soil and North America might wind up missing, even if some portions of the rest of the world survive for a time.
The only good part about this is imagining TPTB in their luxury bunkers, (where they'll have gone prior to initiating their first strike,) as a barrage of carefully directed bombs start exploding their way down to them. Not that the rest of us'll be around to imagine this at that point... assuming that we're lucky enough to be on ground zero and never know what hit us. Freaking lunatics!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.