Biden's sanctions

He should stop talking about "pain at the pump" and start causing some pain in Russian pockets.

We’ll have to wait for the details, but in a word: disappointing. More banks, more oligarchs. That’s not new, it’s just more of the same. We don’t yet know what “sanctioning” the banks means. Biden said the sanctions would “limit Russia's ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen to be part of the global economy." Fine, but how? And why “limit” it? Why not make it impossible, or all but impossible?

Biden made a big deal of the fact that the sanctions will “minimize the impact on the United States and our allies." He’s looking in the wrong end of the telescope. He should be emphasizing the pain sanctions will cause the citizens of Putin’s Russia. I didn’t hear anything about fixing it so when a Russian citizen goes to an ATM, his card doesn’t work. When they go to spend money on American-style jeans, their credit cards are rejected. When they try to use a bank card to buy food, the card doesn’t work. Those are the kinds of “bank” sanctions that are needed, the kind that make it impossible for ordinary Russians to live normally and comfortably.

There is no getting around the fact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is going to cost us money “at the pump” as Biden kept saying. And by the way, I don’t think he has to remind people of that over and over. They go to the gas station. They know. If we are going to pay more at the pump or anywhere else, then Russians should pay much much more.

No talk at all of banning Russians from traveling to the West, no bans on Russian passenger or cargo flights, and no details on the technology sanctions other that a vague statement that it will reduce Russia’s ability to use tech by 50 percent, or something like that. Not enough. A total ban on chips, on laptops, on TV’s, on cell phones any kind of other kinds of personal tech. Simply banning replacement iphone screens would drive at least some Russians crazy.

MSNBC just reporting that the FAA has made airspace over all of Ukraine and Belarus and 160 miles into Russia a “no fly zone.” Only U.S. military flights will be allowed in the no fly zone.

I have no idea what this means or how this would work. We have no plans to fly military aircraft of any kind into Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus. It seems a ban without much of an effect. Only banning Russian aircraft from landing in the West would cause pain.

I want to hear from Biden that we are locking down Russia and Russians within its borders. I think Biden should announce that all Russian students in U.S. colleges will be deported, all Russian citizens owning businesses or having assets in the U.S. will be deported. Take them out of their high-rise condos in New York and their luxury apartments on the beach in Miami and put them on planes and send them back to Russia. Let all those students and all those businessmen go home and tell all of their fellow citizens how much fun it is to have your education and your business and your property and your stocks and bonds and dollars taken from you, how much fun it is to be arrested by INS officers at your beachfront condo and put on a bus and taken to the airport and put on a plane and sent home.

Putin should be made to pay personally by losing access to his billions and he should be made to pay politically by costing him support of the populace. Unless and until those two things come to pass, nothing good is going to happen in Ukraine or anywhere else, including at our almighty “pump.”