The price of crude oil touched its highest level in nearly 11 years on Wednesday amid the ongoing Ukraine crisis which has roiled energy markets.
The WTI index, the U.S. benchmark index, surged to $112.09 per barrel, its highest level since May 2011, early Wednesday before receding near $108 per barrel, marketplace data showed. The global Brent crude benchmark approached $114 per barrel then dropped below $111 a barrel.
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Over 2,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia first invaded the country on Feb. 25, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Wednesday, CNN reported.
“More than 2,000 Ukrainians died, not counting our defenders,” the service said in a statement, CNN reported. “Children, women and our defense forces are losing their lives every hour.”
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Russia’s financial markets remain closed Wednesday for the third day in a row as the country’s economy continues to take massive hits caused by Ukraine-related sanctions from Western countries.
The closure of the Russian exchanges is the longest since since 1998, according to Bloomberg News.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will announce Wednesday that the central bank will begin raising interest rates this month – in an attempt to curb rising inflation expected to further increase as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In prepared testimony to a congressional committee, Powell says the Fed will “need to be nimble” in responding to unexpected changes resulting from the invasion and the resulting sanctions, according to the Associated Press.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), joined by Congresswoman Claudia Tenney (R-NY-22), introduced a joint resolution to ask the Biden administration to remove Russia from the United Nations Security Council.
If Russia were removed from the position, the country would no longer have veto power as a Permanent Member of the Council.
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Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN-06) called for increased energy independence from the United States amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to attack the neighboring country, the U.S. and other European allies have issued direct sanctions on the Russian economy and removed some banks from a crucial financial messaging service that connects banks and other institutions around the world.
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President Joe Biden will join other Western nations in releasing a total of 60 million barrels of crude oil amid the Ukraine crisis, the coalition announced Tuesday.
Overall, 31 member nations of the International Energy Agency (IEA), including the U.S., agreed to coordinate the release, according to the Paris-based group. The decision was made in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent effects on global energy security.
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Ukrainian and Russian delegations met at the Belarus border Monday morning but as of Tuesday afternoon they had yet to reach an agreement in the ceasefire talks.
On a Sunday phone call with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to send a delegation to meet with a delegation from Russia, announced a spokesperson for Ukraine’s president’s office, according to ABC News.
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Pennsylvania State Representative Stan Saylor (R-Red Lion) announced Monday he’ll introduce a resolution exhorting New Jersey and New York’s respective governors to allow construction of natural-gas conduits.
In 2014, Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s predecessor Andrew Cuomo (D) banned hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) for natural-gas extraction and thenceforth barred the creation of new natural-gas pipelines. Last month, Hochul endorsed a statewide prohibition of gas power for new buildings, the first such state-level interdiction in the U.S.
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Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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The Virginia ABC is removing seven Russian-sourced vodka brands from its shelves, although Stolichnaya and Smirnoff, which aren’t produced in Russia, will remain on shelves. That’s a response to Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Saturday directive to the Department of General Services to review Virginia’s procurement of goods and services involving Russian companies.
“The invasion of Ukraine by Soviet dictator Vladimir Putin cannot stand, and the people of the Commonwealth are ready to rally in opposition to this senseless attack on a sovereign nation and Western ideals,” Youngkin said in a press release. “Today, we are acting to show our solidarity with the Ukrainian people as they defend their country. And while these are important steps, it is incumbent upon President Biden to take a stronger, more decisive leadership position to end this war.”
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An Altoona-area Democrat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives filed a memorandum on Friday asking colleagues to cosponsor a resolution backing reopening of the Keystone XL pipeline.
In his message to the House, Representative Frank Burns (D-Portage) noted that the U.S. imports more than 800,000 barrels of oil daily from Russia and that oil prices reached more than $100 per barrel last week. The representative anticipated that Russian fossil fuels will only get more expensive—perhaps even unavailable—as the Russia-Ukraine military conflict continues.
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The infamous hacking group Anonymous appeared to declare an all-out digital war against Russia late this week, indicating the opening of a hacking front against Russian president Vladimir Putin amid his country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Anonymous is a loosely federated collective of hackers who regularly carry out digital sabotage of targets they claim deserve to be hacked. On Friday, a Twitter account purporting to represent some members of Anonymous issued a broad call for hackers to target the Russian government.
“Hackers all around the world: target Russia in the name of #Anonymous,” the account posted. “Let them know we do not forgive, we do not forget. Anonymous owns fascists, always.”
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Democrats and environmental groups were silent when asked about the importance of U.S. energy independence in light of the energy market volatility caused by the Ukraine crisis.
Several Democratic leaders in the House and Senate who hold leadership roles on committees or subcommittees tasked with overseeing energy policy ignored requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation on Friday about the importance of promoting U.S. energy independence. In addition, five major environmental groups chose not to address the issue or stayed silent when asked about the issue.
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I admit, I was surprised by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. I thought Vladimir Putin had decided, instead of invading, to recognize the separatist republics and send in “peacekeepers.” Given the binary choice of invading or losing face, Plan C seemed the most clever, something similar to the limited “hybrid” campaign in Crimea. Instead, he has launched a massive, multipronged attack on Ukraine with the goal of “demilitarizing” the country.
The best analogy is the Russian attack on Georgia in response to its attack on the separatist province of South Ossetia in 2008. There, Russia surprised the West with its swift, decisive, and effective action against the pro-Western Georgians. Russia succeeded in its aims to degrade Georgia’s military and strengthen the separatists. These actions sent a message to Georgian leaders and its neighbors that a dalliance with the West may come at a high cost if Russia perceives it as a threat.
A war of some kind has been going on for eight years in Ukraine. While the West is now hyper-focused on the Russian invasion and its costs, the people of Donetsk have been shelled nearly every day by Ukrainian forces since 2014. And the so-called Revolution of Dignity was the culmination of a months-long violent riot in Kiev.
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Over the past several months, senior Biden administration officials held six “urgent meetings” with Communist Chinese officials pleading with them to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade, according to the New York Times.
The Americans presented the CCP officials—which included the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States—intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine’s borders, U.S. officials told the Times.
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With a reconnaissance plane in tow Thursday, a small fleet of eight fighters deliberately probed disputed airspace before scrambled jets scared them away, an air-to-air episode that may be part of the larger international epoch which President Biden frequently describes as one of “democracy versus autocracy.” But these weren’t Russian fighters. They were Chinese.
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Two governors who serve as co-chairs of the bipartisan, presidentially-appointed Council of Governors – meant to give advice and opinions to the United States President’s Office along with heads of executive branch agencies like the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – Friday denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin. Governor Mike DeWine (R-OH) said the United States must stand with Ukraine because the two countries share the same values. “At the direction of President Vladimir Putin, Russian forces have invaded Ukraine in violation of international law. This is unacceptable, and all freedom-loving people should stand against this unprovoked invasion,” DeWine said in the release. “Ukraine has been a sovereign and independent state since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. The United States and Ukraine share common values including freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Our thoughts are with the Ukrainian people.” Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) appeared to be more worried that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was somehow a threat to America’s national security. “We stand with Ukraine and condemn Russia for these unprovoked and unlawful attacks,” he said in the release. “We stand ready to…
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed US congressman Scott DesJarlais to the newsmakers line to comment upon Russia’s attack on Ukraine and speculates whether or not Putin is concerned about sanctions.
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For all his caginess, dissimulation, and opportunism, Vladimir Putin is more or less predictable.
Putin’s aims? The Russian president’s two-decade dilemma has been how to reclaim the prestige and power of the former Soviet Union—but with only 75 percent of his country’s former territory and 140 million fewer people.
When does he strike?
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed international relations contributor for The Epoch Times, Dominick Sansone in studio to talk about his background and Russia Ukraine tensions.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed international relations contributor for The Epoch Times, Dominick Sansone in studio to access the current Russian attack on Ukraine and future domestic outlook in the USA.
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Members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation swiftly and uniformly condemned Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
While speaking out against the acts of violence and violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, many of the federal leaders called for a harsh response from President Joe Biden and other world leaders.
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The worldwide price of crude oil skyrocketed to more than $100 per barrel for the first time since 2014 as Russia launched a full-scale offensive against Ukraine.
The Brent crude index, the global oil benchmark, hit $101.66 per barrel Thursday morning, surging more than 4% overnight. The U.S. WTI index skyrocketed nearly 7% to $98.69 per barrel Thursday, its highest level since 2014.
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Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has already left at least 40 Russian soldiers and “a few” Ukrainian civilians dead as of Thursday, multiple sources reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine early Thursday as air strike sirens rang in Kyiv and Russian missiles reportedly struck multiple cities across the country.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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There is always a tweet, so says the online aphorism, developed during the chaotic Trump years, that now seems to hold true across administrations and perhaps even with increased significance after a Russian strongman decided to invade an eastern European neighbor over the holiday weekend.
The Russian in question is Vladimir Putin. The country invaded, Ukraine, or more specifically the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics that Russia recently recognized diplomatically. And the tweet, well, that came from Joe Biden.
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President Joe Biden suggested that Americans may be negatively impacted at the pump as a result of a sanctions package targeting Russia he unveiled Tuesday.
“As we respond, my administration is using every tool at our disposal to protect American businesses and consumers from rising prices at the pump,” the president remarked at the White House on Tuesday. “As I said last week, defending freedom will have costs for us as well and here at home. We need to be honest about that.”
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Noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “an evil man,” U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance Tuesday slammed proponents of U.S. intervention in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“The media and political elites are seething at me because I uttered aloud what everyone deep down knows is true: that the Russia-Ukraine border dispute has nothing to do with our national security, no American interest is served by our intervention, and that the obsession with Ukraine from our idiot leaders serves no function except to distract us from our actual problems,” Vance said in a press release.
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Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined 33 Republican colleagues in introducing the Never Yielding Europe’s Territory (NYET) Act to provide the “critical support Ukraine needs to defend itself and deter Russian aggression, while imposing real costs on the Kremlin for its ongoing and potential future aggression against Ukraine.”
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Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) is participating in the Munich Security Conference amid a tense moment between Russia and Ukraine. On Thursday, Warner said on a call with reporters that the situation would be one of the main topics at the annual conference, which wasn’t held during the past two years due to COVID-19.
“The challenging thing is that we have seen no real de-escalation efforts by Putin and the Russian forces. There may have been some forces that have moved around a bit, but no indications of de-escalation,” said Warner, who is chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed US SEnator Bill Hagerty to the newsmakers line to comment on the latest Durham report and his analysis of the Russia Ukraine conflict.
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An increasing number of Democrats believe Hillary Clinton should be investigated by special counsel John Durham in connection with her alleged involvement in manufacturing ties between 2016 presidential rival Donald Trump and the Russia, according to a recent survey.
The survey, by TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics, found 75% of respondents who follow the story think Clinton and her campaign advisers should be investigated for her role in so-called Russiagate, according to several news reports.
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Filings from Special Counsel John Durham this week allege the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign was working to establish a “narrative” linking the Trump campaign to a Russian bank, in an alleged gambit one expert said was an effort to “infiltrate” Trump servers to that end.
The allegations, first reported on by Fox News on Saturday, are another layer to the densely, multifaceted Durham investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, one that has continued long after Trump left office and that continues to produce fresh controversies on a regular basis.
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One way of understanding the 2009-2014 Obama Administration policy of “reset” with Vladimir Putin’s Russia is to recall two iconic incidents.
The first was the 2009 “reset.”
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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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President Joe Biden plans to send another 3,000 troops to Europe amid continued tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
Biden is sending about 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland and Germany this week. The president is also moving about 1,000 soldiers based in Germany to Romania, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing administration officials.
“They are trained and equipped for a variety of missions during this period of elevated risk,” a senior defense official told the Wall Street Journal.
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The Washington Post has recused its new national editor, Matea Gold, from the news organization’s coverage of the FBI and Justice Department over a personal conflict of interest. A month before Gold was promoted, her husband, Jonathan Lenzner, was named FBI chief of staff.
A Post spokeswoman told RealClearInvestigations that the paper’s managing editor, Steven Ginsberg, will be overseeing coverage of the Justice Department and the FBI. Kristine Coratti Kelly, the paper’s chief communications officer, said the decision does not reflect on Gold’s objectivity or credibility.
“We have every confidence in Matea’s professionalism and high standards,” Kelly said. “She has recused herself from this area of coverage to avoid even the appearance of partiality.”
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Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Congressman Mark Green to the newsmakers line to inform of his recent visit to Ukraine.
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Chaos is the new, the intentional, normal. A pandemic of nihilism has been unleashed upon the land. As in Lord of the Flies, when laws, rules, protocols, traditions, and customs are mocked and dismantled, primitive human nature in the raw is unleashed.
Madness now reigns in every quarter, from the iconic to the irrelevant to the fundamental. Statues of Lincoln, Douglass, and Jefferson are toppled or defaced. The rules of capitalization have been altered. We are told that 1619, not 1776, was our founding date—and this by a “civil rights” activist-journalist who had no idea of the date that the Civil War began.
Quite quickly after the revolutionary boilerplate, America began reverting to its natural Hobbesian or Thucydidean essence. If you dispute that, look at looted packages along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. Try walking the nocturnal streets of Chicago or Baltimore. Visit the sidewalk homeless of San Francisco. Fly over our constipated ports. Drive into our empty new car dealerships. Pull up to our European-priced gas pumps. Shop in the emptying shelves of our Sovietizing food and discount stores. The common theme of the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, apparently, is that the entertainers must have written lyrics threatening the police, denigrating women, using the N-word . . . and be worth $100 million.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday took a thinly veiled shot at Joe Biden, saying “I am the President of Ukraine. I am based here. I think I know the details deeper than any other president,” after Biden had warned him in a phone call that a Russian invasion was “imminent.”
According to a CNN report, which is disputed by the White House, Biden told Zelensky during an hour and 20 minutes long conversation on Thursday that the Capital city of Kyiv could be “sacked” by Russian forces, and to “prepare for impact.” Biden also reportedly said an invasion was “virtually certain” in February when the ground will be more frozen in Ukraine.
In response, Zelensky urged Biden to tone down his rhetoric about a potential invasion, citing concerns that it could cause panic or a run on supplies, CNN reported.
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Congressman Mark Green, who traveled to Ukraine with other members of Congress, urged a diplomatic resolution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict that has included Russia threatening an invasion.
While speaking at a meeting in Kyiv, the Tennessee lawmaker issued a stark warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin, if he opts to engage in military action.
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Special counsel John Durham and his legal team say they’re just learning about a March 2017 meeting between Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz and former Hillary Clinton campaign Michael Sussmann – indicted last year for allegedly lying to the FBI while pushing now-discredited claims about the Trump Organization.
Durham’s team said Tuesday in a court filing they learned only a week ago about the meeting between Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Sussmann, who made the claims in 2016 about communications between a Russia bank and the Trump organization.
“The OIG had not previously informed the Special Counsel’s Office of this meeting with the defendant,” the filing by Durham’s legal team states.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the West that its “panic” over Russia potentially invading his country risked hurting its economy, BBC News reported.
“There are signals even from respected leaders of states, they just say that tomorrow there will be war,” Zelensky told reporters at a press conference, BBC News reported. “This is panic – how much does it cost for our state?”
The Ukrainian criticized Western countries choosing to withdraw diplomats from Ukraine, calling the move a mistake, BBC News reported. “The destabilisation of the situation inside the country” is the biggest threat to Ukraine, he said.
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U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) joined a bipartisan delegation to travel to parts of Europe and Ukraine amid the country’s growing tensions with Russia.
The group, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY-05), will “meet with senior Ukrainian officials to discuss the security situation and reinforce U.S. support for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
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As usual, the media coverage on the Ukraine crisis is largely inadequate. Perversely, most of the aggressive left-wing media want to escalate the feud with Russian President Vladimir Putin to the point of driving Russia into the arms of China. This is the only way Russia (whose GDP is smaller than Canada’s) could seriously damage the West.
At the same time, some conservative commentators, including some of the stars at Fox News, are unreasonably accusing those who favor resisting Russian aggression in Ukraine of being warmongers and trying to propel America into endless, useless war. Again.
There is a legitimate American and Western interest in not allowing Russia to trample an independent nation of 40 million underfoot in the middle of Europe to the embarrassment of the Western alliance, and it is not a difficult scenario to avoid.
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Almost no one seems to grasp the colossal irony of the current American political condition. The uniquequality of it is that the country is divided between two political forces which, in the tedious hyperbole of contemporary political jargon, view each other as an “existential threat to democracy.” The Democrats can’t sell the bunk that January 6 was an “insurrection;” they can’t wish away concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election. All they have is the tired claim that Trump is a threat to democracy, and in their advocacy of that falsehood, they have made themselves the threat to democracy.
Trump emerged politically in 2015 to universal mockery. Nothing could have been more certain than that this vulgar and sleazy huckster (as he was portrayed,not without some reason), would bomb out trying to recalibrate his downmarket celebrity brand to catapult him into the White House.
As Trump cleaned up in the 2016 Republican primaries, the Democratic strategists reached to the bottom of their campaign bag of tricks. Late in the campaign came the 11-year-old Billy Bush tape, in which Trump had made some inelegant locker-room macho comments about how a celebrity could take almost unlimited liberties with women. This failed to kill him. It was stale, dated, and not exactly a startling revelation.
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Buffeted by a Russia scandal that proved false, Donald Trump ended the first year of his presidency on a high note with passage of historic tax cuts. In contrast four years later, Joe Biden’s first year in office is ending with a stunning rebuke from a senator in his own party.
On Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) gave a resounding “No” to Biden’s signature Build Back Better legislation, leaving an uncertain path for the Democrats’ ambitious agenda despite the fact they control the Senate, House and White House.
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History, it appears, is repeating itself—at least when it comes to the latest crusade to destroy Donald Trump and everyone around him.
For nearly three years, the American people were warned that Donald Trump had been in cahoots with the Kremlin to rig the 2016 presidential election. Trump-Russia election collusion, the original “stop the steal” campaign—that is, until questioning the outcome of American elections was designated a criminal conspiracy after November 2020—dominated the attention of the ruling class and the entirety of the national news media.
Every instrument of power—the FBI, a secret surveillance court, congressional committees, a special counsel—was leveraged to uncover the “truth” about the Trump campaign’s alleged dirty dealings with Mother Russia.
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A former U.S. defense contractor was arrested earlier this week on criminal charges in connection with espionage, according to the Justice Department.
John Murray Rowe Jr., a 63-year-old resident of Lead, South Dakota, allegedly attempted to provide classified national defense information to the Russian government.
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