Following their confab at the White House yesterday, Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a joint press conference. Both of them warned Russia not to weaponize the Nord Stream pipeline against Ukraine. If you listened closely, you could hear Vladimir Putin horse laughing in the Kremlin. Neither Merkel nor Biden is known for her/his toughness or foreign policy acumen.

Vladimir Putin was also guffawing because, in his introduction, Biden called the Chancellor the “2nd largest”. Well, you’ll see:

Joe Biden stumbles through introducing Germany’s Angela Merkel: “Second largest…longest serving chancellor” pic.twitter.com/c5Peh1sWfl

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2021

Never, ever use “largest” when describing a woman. I can’t stop laughing. Quite frankly, it is surprising that Merkel chose to make the trip to D.C.. She has massive problems home in Germany:

Outgoing #German Chancellor #AngelaMerkel's diplomatic swan song Thursday at #TheWhiteHouse was overshadowed by deadly flooding back home. https://t.co/rnJUBSzYYu

— Opoyi (@Opoyis) July 16, 2021

Two months ago, after cancelling American pipelines, Joe Biden and, my favorite spineless, metrosexual, Antony Blinken waived sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany. So, the pipeline will provide cheaper energy to Germany, while gas prices surge in the United States. I am a little torqued off, I had to fill my tank today. Thank you, Kroger, for the $.30 discount. Clearly, I am feeling some kind of way about pipelines in other parts of the world.

According to all the reporting, Biden has lifted sanctions, but still isn’t down with this Russian pipeline. Biden and Merkel, who desperately needs the pipeline for cheaper energy for Germany, have agreed to disagree. From Microsoft News:

“While I reiterated my concerns about Nord Stream 2, Chancellor Merkel and I are absolutely united in our conviction that Russia must not be allowed to use energy as a weapon to coerce or threaten its neighbors,” Biden said.

“My view on Nord Stream 2 has been known for some time. Good friends can disagree, but by the time I became president, it was 90% completed and imposing sanctions did not seem to make any sense,” he said.

Well, nothing makes any sense to Dementia Joe. Here’s more:

Merkel has supported the pipeline, but emphasized on Thursday that Nord Stream would not replace Ukraine’s transit pipelines for natural gas.

“Our idea is and remains that Ukraine remains a transit country for natural gas, that Ukraine, just as any other country in the world, has the right to territorial sovereignty,” Merkel said at the joint press conference.

“We will be actively acting should Russia not respect this right of Ukraine that it has as a transit country,” Merkel said.

Biden said he and Merkel asked their teams to examine practical measures that can be taken to determine if Europe’s energy security is “strengthened or weakened based on Russian actions.”

With these two feckless nimrods, practical measures means finger waving while Putin laughs.

Okay, so you are asking, other than why should Europeans get cheap energy when we pay through the nose, why should you care? First of all, Russia is a failing state. Putin needs the money. And, then there is the foreign policy aspect. Putin is a brutal dictator. From the Wilson Center:

Currently, one-third of Russian gas exports to Europe travel through Ukraine. As a result, several Central European states are highly sensitive to Russo-Ukrainian relations. Previous disputes between these two countries saw Russia turn off its gas pipelines to Ukraine, and this left millions of Europeans without gas during the winter months in 2006 and 2009. As a result of these events, some European states began to explore other avenues to acquire a gas supply without disruption. This eventually led to the push for Nord Stream 2 (as well as TurkStream, a southern pipeline that carries gas from Russia to the Balkans by way of Turkey).

In March, even the wormy Blinken said:

“What’s important first and foremost is that Germany is one of our closest allies and partners anywhere in the world,” Blinken said in an interview with Euronews at the end of his four-day visit to Brussels.

“And the fact that we have a disagreement over Nord Stream 2 – and it’s a real one – is not affecting and will not affect the overall partnership and relationship.

“But we’ve been very clear. President Biden has been very clear that he thinks that Nord Stream 2 is a bad idea and a bad deal for Europe, for us, for the alliance.

“It undermines basic EU principles in terms of energy security and energy independence. It poses a challenge to Ukraine, to Poland, to other countries that we care about.”

So, there you have it. this is a spectacularly bad idea, but Biden has been wrong on foreign policy for 40 years.

Just so you know, Biden cut the press conference short just before 6 p.m. Eastern Daily Time. He and Merkel had a dinner to go to and you can’t miss the Early Bird Special. Putin is still laughing.

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