Biden, Ukraine, and CBO: Unleash the cats

Every newspaper I saw on the street today had a picture of the violence in Ukraine. The carnage yesterday estimated at about 25 people killed and hundreds wounded was latest flare-up of protests that began last fall after President Viktor Yanukovych rejected a trade deal with Europe, turning to Russia for financial help. The fires burning on the square in downtown Kiev were awful and senseless.

The United States has been mostly mute on the situation in Ukraine. However, after this latest go round, our government unleashed the cat. We have had enough. While President Obama was power watching “House of Cards”.  U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called President Yanukovych to urge him to push back government forces and address the “legitimate grievances” of protestors. It was not our President who called to put some prestige to the call but Mr. Biden. Former Obama Secretary of Defense Gates recently noted in his memoirs that Mr. Biden has been wrong on every foreign policy issue of the last 30 years. The bench is not very deep here. 

Our Vice President Biden was tough when he telephoned Yanukovich to express what the White House called “grave concern” and urged the Ukrainian leader to pull back his government forces and resume political discussions with opponents. Note, he was talking to the same guy who 2 hours earlier unleashed his big dogs with guns on the dissidents.

Veep Biden “made clear that the United States condemns violence by any side, but that the government bears special responsibility to de-escalate the situation. I doubt Mr. Biden could find Kiev on the map.

According to one news report, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the Obama administration is “appalled” by the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in the Ukrainian capital. Appalled, indeed. I am appalled by many things every day.  

One last thing in the news to note.  Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office, (hardly a bastion of conservative thinking) issued a report stating as one of its finding that raising the U.S. federal minimum wage to $10.10, as most liberals want, could result in about 500,000 jobs being lost by late 2016. Of course, the natural thing for the Administration is to bludgeon the CBO, an organization that cooked the books on the Affordable Care Act 4 years ago only to backtrack after passage. The Administration does not understand jobs need to be added, not subtracted.

Washington is a bizarre, sad place at times. Hard to make some of this up.