Who's Putin's Puppet Now?

Earlier this week the Biden administration reportedly informed Israel, Greece, and Cyprus that it was pulling its support of the EastMed pipeline project. When taken together with other recent events, one has to wonder whose team Biden is playing on.

The EastMed project would have supplied natural gas from Israel to Western Europe via Cyprus and Greece. It would have eventually terminated in Italy, for distribution to the rest of the European Union.

The pipeline was promoted as an alternative to the Nord Stream network, which supplies natural gas from Russia to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea, and from there to the other European countries.

For those very reasons, former President Trump threw his support behind the EastMed pipeline — and introduced sanctions against any firms working on Nord Stream 2, which is currently under construction and running alongside the original Nord Stream network.

Nord Stream is not merely a source of revenue for Russia — it gives Putin power, knowing that he can theoretically turn it off any time Western Europe acts against Russian interests.

For that reason Trump saw Nord Stream 2 as a security risk for both the European Union and the NATO alliance — hence the sanctions on the project’s contractors.

Construction came to an immediate halt following that.

Four months after entering office, however, President Biden lifted Trump’s Nord Stream 2 sanctions, and construction resumed.

One therefore gets the feeling that international deals that benefit Russia are good, whereas international projects that benefit Israel are bad — at least according to the Biden administration.

In response to Biden’s green light on the Russian project, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced a bill to reinstate sanctions against firms attached to Nord Stream 2. The legislation received bipartisan support.

The Texas Republican took to the Senate floor to argue that the project had to come to an end in order to keep pressure on Putin — especially given its saber-rattling toward Ukraine.

"Days or weeks or months from now — If we turn on the television set and see Russian tanks in the streets of Kiev, the reason will be that the United States Senate heard the pleas of our Ukrainian allies and we turned a deaf ear to them," Cruz said. "I pray that we don’t do so. The eyes of history are upon us and this body, Republicans and Democrats, to rise to the occasion."

Although the bill received majority support in the Senate, it failed to meet the 60-vote threshold required under the Senate’s filibuster rule. The final tally was 55-44.

Given that Congressional Democrats have recently labeled the Senate filibuster rule as "racist" and "Jim Crow 2.0," the irony wasn’t lost on Donald Trump Jr.

So the democrats think the filibuster is great when they’re using it to help Vladimir Putin. Got it, he tweeted. "Democrats Use Dreaded Filibuster (in the same week they tried to eliminate it) to Block Ted Cruz Bill Sanctioning Russia's Nord Stream 2 Pipeline."

That was last week. This week’s news on EastMed added fuel to the fire and prompted House Republicans to voice their objections, beginning with Claudia Tenney of New York.

"First, Biden gifts a pipeline to Putin," she tweeted. "Now, he is abandoning Greek and Israeli interests by backing out of the #EastMed pipeline. Another win for our adversaries and a loss for our allies. Pathetic!"

Florida’s Brian Mast was a bit more blunt.

"Putin gets a pipeline, Israel gets the middle finger," he said. "Thanks, Joe Biden."

Trump’s critics — beginning with Hillary Clinton — accused him for years of colluding with Russia in order to win the 2016 presidential election. When the smoke finally cleared, it turned out that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign were the only ones "colluding" with anything Russian.

Strange times. Apparently being a Putin puppet is now a Democratic tradition.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter who can often be found honing his skills at the range. Read Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.