Why Not Seize the $700 Million Yacht Putin Paid for by Stealing From Russian Workers?

I think the president and his minions would be happy with a standoff, a stalemate. That they are willing to concede a lot of turf to Vladimir Putin. 

President Biden with President Macron and Prime Minister Johnson at NATO Headquarters, Brussels, March 24, 2022. Brendan Smialowski, pool via AP

After asking yesterday whether the Biden administration really wants Ukraine to win its war with Russia, I watched President Biden with NATO in Brussels today and I think the answer is, “No.”

I think the president and his minions would be happy with a standoff, a stalemate. That they are willing to concede a lot of turf to Vladimir Putin. 

Humanitarian assistance is always good — permitting Ukrainian refugees to enter America is okay — but those things just make a stalemate easier.

They don’t get to the main point: “We win, they lose.” I think Senator Cruz the other day correctly called Mr. Biden’s approach a “managed decline.” By that I believe he meant a managed U.S. decline in world leadership and power. 

To that point, I will say that the idea of a managed decline in American power is something that should be devoutly opposed, and I know Mr. Cruz agrees with that.

Mr. Biden was on the world stage today and bungled what could’ve been a great opportunity to provide American leadership. He failed. He did not call for a Ukrainian victory. 

He did call Mr. Putin a “brute,” but he should’ve just called him a war criminal. I don’t know what “brute” means. I know what war criminal means. We all know what crimes against humanity mean and why Mr. Putin should be brought to the Hague regardless of the outcome of the war.

I didn’t hear any reference to tougher energy sanctions on Russia, like Senator Toomey’s call for secondary banking sanctions or columnist Holman Jenkins’s call to put oil cash in a special escrow bank account and thus stop financing Mr. Putin’s war machine. 

It does look like Senator Hagerty and his bipartisan group will succeed in getting secondary sanctions on Russian gold sales,

but that’s a congressional proposal that Mr. Biden did not mention at his NATO press conference today. 

I a;sp didn’t hear Mr. Biden endorse the transfer of Soviet MiG fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine. Frankly, I don’t care about sanctioning a bunch of Russian politicians in their parliament. That has no bearing on Ukrainian fighting.

Oddly, Mr. Biden mentioned “the most significant sanctions, economic sanctions regime ever, in order to cripple Putin’s economy and punish him for his actions.”

Then later he repeated his goofy point that sanctions were never meant for deterrence. Huh? Either they’re going to deter or they’re not going to deter, Mr. President. Make up your mind.

Speaking of sanctions, didn’t we sanction Vladimir Putin? Didn’t Europe sanction Vladimir Putin? So if NATO was totally unanimous about sanctioning Mr. Putin, why haven’t we seized his reported $700 million yacht? It is sitting offshore in Italy, badly furnished and all. It’s nothing but a big toy, but it’s Vladimir Putin’s big toy, and if we took away his big dingy it would be a great worldwide embarrassment. 

Not only is Mr. Putin a war criminal, but he’s a corrupt oligarch as well. Haul off his trophy to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and strip it down to sell the metal and perhaps the electronic component parts. Do something to Vladimir Putin for a change. 

Anyway, I’m still not hearing any echoes of Ronald Reagan’s “we win, they lose” or “evil empire” or “tear down this wall.” That would send an “American First” message. Do you want to win, Mr. Biden, or not? 

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.


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