Commentary: Poland and Hungary Are What Healthy Democracies Look Like

“Even by today’s low standards, this is shockingly delusional,” I thought after reading Kati Marton’s diatribe against the current Polish and Hungarian governments in the Los Angeles Times last week.

Most such pieces are relatively standard and don’t warrant a response. This one, it seemed to me, mutilated the charred corpse of the truth. As a Polish citizen and Polish speaker who has lived in Hungary, I concluded it was too much to overlook. Allow me to share some of my experiences from these two countries, which most often bear no resemblance to the ones Marton describes.

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Ohio State Senator Blasts Biden for Prioritizing Ukraine over Americans Affected by Derailment

State Senator Michael Rulli (R-OH-Salem) this week castigated President Joe Biden for failing to visit East Palestine, Ohio in the aftermath of the train derailment and controlled toxic chemical burn. 

Speaking on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton radio show, Rulli described the president’s failure to visit communities surrounding the site where a 53-car train crashed on February 3. Rail company Norfolk Southern subsequently conducted a controlled vent and burn of five of the rail cars containing vinyl chloride. Biden did however visit Ukraine and Poland early this week to express his ongoing support for Ukraine’s military struggle against Russian encroachment — a trip that didn’t escape the state lawmaker’s notice. 

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Moderna Recalls More than 750,000 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses After ‘Foreign Body’ Found in Lot

The pharmaceutical company Moderna on Friday recalled 764,900 doses of its Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine after a “foreign body” was found in a vial.

The contaminated lot was manufactured at a contract manufacturing site, ROVI, in Spain, and was distributed in mid-January 2022 in Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and Spain, according to a company press release.

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Commentary: Who is Running the Biden Regime?

So how did that work when Joe Biden announced that Vladmir Putin is a “butcher” who “cannot remain in power” only for Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to follow up with a pay-no-attention-to-the angry-old-guy-shouting-at-the-clouds correction. According to Blinken, the United States does not “have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else.”

Well, that’s a relief. Otherwise Putin might get the idea that U.S. and NATO involvement in Ukraine poses an existential threat that would prompt him to do something really crazy like use tactical nukes or chemical or biological weapons to win at all costs. Because, after all, if the U.S. and NATO are trying to topple his government, then what does he have to lose?

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Hagerty Does Not Sign Ernst-Romney Letter Demanding Biden Help Ukrainians Secure Their Airspace, Effect Polish MiG-29 Swap to Ukraine

The Tennessee Republican senator, who served as President Donald J. Trump’s ambassador to Japan, stands out as one of six GOP senators who did not sign the March 10 letter drafted by Iowa’s Sen. Joni K. Ernst and Utah’s Sen. W. Mitt Romney demanded President Joseph R. Biden Jr. give the Ukrainians the equipment they need to secure their own airspace in support of that country, invaded on Feb. 24 by Russia.

The Star News Network reached out to Sen. William F. Hagerty IV, but his staff did not respond to inquiries before deadline.

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Russia Cuts Off Key Gas Pipeline to Europe Amid Rising Tensions

The flow of natural gas through a key Russian-controlled pipeline suddenly stopped Wednesday as tensions continue to increase between Russia and the West.

The Yamal-Europe pipeline’s liquified natural gas (LNG) flows, which are operated by Russian state-run firm Gazprom and have usually been pumped westward from Russia to Germany through Poland, were halted early Wednesday, European data showed, according to Reuters. The sudden stoppage reportedly represented a setback after leaders expected the pipeline to return to its normal flow pattern.

In December 2021, Gazprom slowed the pipeline’s gas flows, which represent 10% of the region’s supply, and the company reversed the flow direction from westward to eastward. The sudden reversal sent natural gas prices, which had already spiked amid a European energy crisis, even higher.

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Thousands of Migrants Stuck in Between Belarus and Poland as Tensions Flare

Thousands of migrants are stranded at the Belarus-Poland border, with Belarus and Russia performing military demonstrations amid rising tensions in the region, CNN reported Friday.

Up to 2,000 people are trapped between Poland and Belarus, enduring hunger and hypothermia in the freezing forests and camps along the border, CNN reported. The number of migrants at the border has the potential to grow to 10,000 people in the near future if the situation doesn’t change, according to Belarusian authorities.

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Poland’s Populist President Duda Edges Euro-Centric Challenger Trzaskowski, Earns Second Term

Polish President Andrzej Duda declared victory Monday in a runoff election in which he narrowly won a second five-year term, acknowledging the campaign he ran was often too harsh as he appealed for unity and forgiveness.

The close race followed a bitter campaign between Duda and Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski that was dominated by cultural issues. The government, state media and the influential Roman Catholic Church all mobilized in support of Duda and sought to stoke anti-Semitism, homophobia and xenophobia in order to shore up conservative support.

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Exit Polls Show Poland’s Populist Duda Leading in Presidential Runoff

A late exit poll for Poland’s presidential runoff Sunday showed the conservative, populist incumbent, Andrzej Duda, leading against the liberal, pro-Europe mayor of Warsaw, but with the race still too close to call.

It appeared to be the closest election in Poland’s history, reflecting the deep divisions in this European Union nation.

The exit poll by the Ipsos institute showed Duda with 50.8% of the vote and challenger Rafal Trzaskowski with 49.2%. An earlier exit poll had showed Duda with 50.4% and Trzaskowski 49.6%. The polls had margins for error of plus-or-minus 1 percentage point and 2 points, respectively.

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Trump Eyes More US Troops for Poland, Easing Poles’ Visa Travel to US

by Fred Lucas   President Donald Trump announced plans Wednesday to possibly station 2,000 more U.S. military troops in Poland and to add the country “fairly soon” to the Visa Waiver Program. “It’s a complex situation, as you know,” Trump said of finalizing a decision on the Visa Waiver Program. “But we are getting very close. We allow very few countries to join, but Poland is one we are thinking about allowing in, probably in about 90 days.” Polish President Andrzej Duda held a joint news conference with Trump on Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden. The Visa Waiver Program allows the citizens of the current 38 member states to travel to other participating countries for up to 90 days without having to obtain a visa. If approved, individuals are authorized to travel within a two-year period for up to 90 days at a time. Duda said he was optimistic this time, inasmuch as previous administrations have considered adding Poland to the list. “This is the first U.S. administration that has treated this in such a serious way and such a comprehensive way,” Duda said. “Covering Poles with the Visa Waiver Program is going to be possible before the…

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US Missile Defense System Intercepts Medium-Range Missile in Test

The U.S. military said it successfully tested a key missile defense system on Friday, in a milestone that experts say shows a growing U.S. capability to knock down an incoming, medium-range missile from countries like North Korea and Iran. The Aegis system used in the latest test was fitted with a Standard Missile 3 Block IIA (SM-3 IIA) interceptor being developed in a joint venture between Raytheon Co and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. It was the second successful intercept in a row for the SM-3 IIA and will give the U.S. Missile Defense Agency more confidence that it has resolved design flaws that previously caused intercept failures, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The officials said the successful test moved the system closer to production. MDA Director Lieutenant General Sam Greaves described the test as “a superb accomplishment and key milestone.” Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a non-profit organization that seeks to promote testing and development of missile defense systems, said the test would also keep plans on track to eventually deploy the system in Poland. The Poland site is part of a planned U.S. missile defense network aimed at deterring an attack…

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NATO Countries’ Spending Record Improves as President Trump Heads to Annual Summit

Donald Trump

Reuters   President Trump is poised to demand again that Europe and Canada raise defense spending at a two-day NATO summit in Brussels from Wednesday, even as billions more dollars are being pledged for allied militaries. NATO agreed in 2014 that each member state would boost military spending to 2 percent of its gross domestic product by 2024, and cumulative expenditure by Europe and Canada has risen by almost $90 billion since 2015. But only two-thirds of the 28 allies, excluding the United States, have a realistic plan to hit the 2-percent level in 2024, NATO diplomats say. The United States spent 3.57 percent of GDP on defense in 2017. However, European officials say while U.S. defense spending makes up 70 percent of combined allied governments’ military budgets, just 15 percent of U.S. expenditure is spent in Europe on NATO-related defense. Washington pays about 22 percent of the running cost of NATO, including the headquarters and commonly-funded equipment such as AWACS surveillance planes. Here is a rundown of the best and worst performers, based on North Atlantic Treaty Organization data. Top of the class BRITAIN has maintained its defense spending at just above 2 percent for several years and is set…

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Polish Interior Minister: Uncontrolled Migration a ‘Noose Around Europe’s Neck’

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak blasted the E.U.’s migration policies on Wednesday in the wake of a string of radical Islamic terror attacks across the Europe. “Paris, Stockholm, Brussels, Berlin, Manchester, Barcelona,” Blaszczak’s statement read. “How many more European cities have to be hit by terrorists so the European Union wakes up? So the European Commission…

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Commentary: Trump Joins Churchill And Reagan With Warsaw Speech

Tennessee Star

by George Rasley, ConservativeHQ.com Editor   President Donald Trump’s July 6 speech in Warsaw, Poland was a landmark in his presidency, and perhaps the best speech delivered by an American President since Ronald Reagan left office. President Trump eloquently evoked the spirit of Poland’s brave fight against Communism and Nazism to rally, not just the people of Poland, but all peoples who share the culture of the Western Enlightenment to which Poles have contributed so much, to win another war for liberty and to defeat the twin threats of Islamism and globalism. And the President was exactly correct in identifying how that war will be won – if it is to be won: We have to remember that our defense is not just a commitment of money, it is a commitment of will. Because as the Polish experience reminds us, the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have. The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost?…

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