As usual, Thom Hartmann has his finger on what is happening and why it is happening.
Hartmann points out that Saudi Arabia is conspiring with Russia to keep oil prices high and the psychopathic Crown Prince has even refused to take Biden’s call.
He also notes that all this fits right into the Republican playbook. They want to keep inflation high so they benefit in the 2022 midterms. Republicans are liars when they say they are opposed to high inflation and high oil prices. They’re only opposed to them when they are in power. They are purposely sabotaging Biden as they did Obama when they resisted everything he did to address the 2008 financial crash.
And trust me, they could give a shit about the Ukrainian people. As long as Putin doesn’t start a nuclear war, they are fine with the carnage because that will keep inflation high. After all, this is the party that undermined the vaccine effort to make it seem that Biden failed to deal with the pandemic; this despite the fact that most of the people who got sick or died were their supporters.
But back to Saudi Arabia. It’s time to play hardball. Since it is evident that Saudi Arabia is enabling the Russian invasion, perhaps it would be time to seize and freeze their assets as well. And while we’re at it, let’s park a couple of aircraft carriers off their coast. Maybe then, they’ll take Biden’s call.
(If this seems bellicose, or like a plan out of “Three Days of the Condor”, note that Saudi Arabia has forfeited the right to have its sovereignty respected when the are collaborating with a country committing war crimes, at least in my humble opinion. And then again, they’ve been committing war crimes in Yemen for years.)
And as Robert Reich writes, it is time for price controls and aggressive pushback at corporate greed.
Biden and the Democrats need to play hardball with not only Russia, but to all their enablers including Saudi Arabia, and they need to put the blame for inflation on those who are profiting from it both economically and politically.