At the beginning of World War II, in September 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland with armored divisions that swept across the country.  This came to be known as blitzkrieg, the lightening war.  In the wake of the fall of Poland, although the major European powers had declared war on Germany, and indeed were at war, not very much happened until the Spring of 1940.  This period of relative inactivity came to be known as sitzkrieg, the sitting, or phony war.  Recent events in Ukraine have brought to mind a modern day parallel.  There is nothing phony about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  They have come in with armored columns, artillery, paratroopers, and aerial bombardment.  No doubt the Russian attack is a blitzkrieg.   Since the Russian invasion, and in the State of the Union speech, Joe Biden has expressed our opposition to the incursion, has ordered a variety of diplomatic and financial sanctions, and has vowed to stop the invasion, noting “an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny.”  Strong words, but in the end only words.  For all his bravado, Biden’s actions have amounted to no more than a sitzkrieg against Putin and his forces.  Not that I’m advocating that U.S. forces go to war with Russia in Ukraine, mind you.  Nobody wants that.  The point is, if all we’re going to do is jawbone the Russians and impose sanctions on them, then shouldn’t those sanctions be focused on the most vulnerable part of the Russian economy?  Love him or hate him, John McCain got one thing right.  Russia is not really a country.  It’s a gas station that happens to possess nuclear weapons.  Oil and gas are not just crucial to the Russian economy, they are the Russian economy.  Other than vodka, can you name one product Russia exports?  So while Biden is busy threatening to confiscate Russian oligarch’s yachts, and banning Russian airline flights, and threatening to exclude Russia from the banking system, he has yet to strike at the one area that actually could serve to deter Putin from continuing his attack.  The sanctions don’t apply to Russian oil and gas.  There are two reasons for this.  First, the Russian attack was made possible because and only because of the actions of Joe Biden.  And secondly, Joe Biden is funding the continuing Russian war even as this is written.  It has been oft repeated in recent days that “if Donald Trump was still president, Putin wouldn’t have done what he did.”  We’ve heard stories of Trump having warned Putin that, if he attacked Ukraine, Trump would hit Moscow.  I have my doubts about this story because, had Trump done that, it would have been leaked, and he would have been bashed for it, and I don’t remember that happening.  In any event, I think we can take for a given that Putin recognized that Trump was strong, and that Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden is the weakest excuse for a president since James Buchanan.  The truth is that it wasn’t necessary for Trump to threaten an attack on Russia, because he understood that Russia’s ability to threaten its neighbors is directly tied to the price of oil.  Trump didn’t have to threaten military action because he undertook an energy policy that drove down oil prices.  Russia can only do mischief when oil prices are near or over $100 a barrel.  When prices are low, Russia can’t afford a war.  When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, oil averaged $100, and went as high as $145.  In 2014, when they invaded Crimea, oil went as high as $108.  During the years of the Trump presidency oil prices averaged between $40 and $65.  At the end of 2019 oil was $57.  When Trump left office, due to pandemic depression, oil was under $40.  Trump created these conditions by opening up federal lands to oil and gas production, granting new leases, and encouraging American producers to produce enough oil and gas to reduce prices, to supply 100% of American energy needs and permit energy exports.  When Trump left office, the U.S. was not importing any foreign oil.  We were selling it to others, in competition with Russia.  On day one of the Biden Administration, that all changed.  To satisfy the new green deal Woketards in his Party, Biden cancelled the Keystone pipeline, he (illegally) cancelled existing leases on federal lands, banned new leases, threatened other pipelines, and is in the process of trying to force lenders to deny any new funding to oil and gas companies.  Our oil and gas production was greatly reduced, and as a result oil prices have risen from $40 to $110 in one year.  The high price of oil permitted Putin to invade Ukraine, which would be bad enough, but it’s worse.  Biden is buying some 595,000 barrels of oil a day – from Russia!  That’s right.  The country we’ve sanctioned, that we are threatening, and condemning as a rogue nation which is engaged in war crimes, our supposed enemy.  People go to jail for trading with the enemy.  Mumbly Joe is not only trading with the enemy, the U.S. is financing Putin’s war with Ukraine.  At currrent prices, while we’re sending weapons to Ukraine, we’re paying Russia nearly half a billion dollars a week.  Germany and the rest of the EU are also sending Ukraine weapons, while simultaneously buying a third of their oil and gas from Russia.  It makes you wonder how serious the EU and the U.S. are about opposing Russia.  Think about it, if you were Putin, and thought they were serious,  wouldn’t you cut off the oil and gas in mid-Winter?  He hasn’t.  That either means Putin knows it’s not serious, or he can’t afford to stop selling his oil and gas.  In either case, our actions don’t make any sense.  Even Nancy Pelosi understands this, as she has announced she’s in favor of ending our purchases of Russian oil.  Of course, she doesn’t want us to produce more oil either.  Mustn’t anger the Woketards.  Pelosi advocates the worst of both worlds.  Remove 595,000 barrels of oil a day from our supplies, don’t replace it with domestic oil, and see gasoline prices go from $4 to $7 a gallon.  Progressive, right?  The bottom line is, Biden’s weakness, his family’s corrupt ties to oil interests, and his single-handed destruction of our domestic energy industries have handed Putin the motive, means and opportunity to carry out his invasion of Ukraine.  Mumbly Joe can rant and posture all he wants, but he’s a phony warrior, waging a phony war.