As the war in Ukraine and tensions with China intensify, more Americans fear we’re on the brink of World War III, according to a new Convention of States Action poll.
The survey of more than 1,000 U.S. voters, conducted Feb. 22-26 by The Trafalgar Group, finds more than 43 percent of respondents worry that Russia’s continued war and threats against other European nations, as well as China’s aggressive actions, have put the world on the precipice of another global conflict.
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According to a report by Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, since Russia’s invasion in February of 2022, Ukraine has become far and away the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid. It’s the first time that a European country has held the top spot since the Harry S. Truman administration directed vast sums into rebuilding the continent through the Marshall Plan after World War II.
Since the war began, the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress have directed about $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine, which includes humanitarian, financial, and military support. The number is documented in a report by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute, analyzed by Masters and Merrow.
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The Tennessee Department of Military announced that the state’s Army and Air National Guard will be conducting an international joint readiness exercise, named Thracian Sentry 2023, throughout the nation of Bulgaria in June.
From June 12th-30th, “more than 170 military personnel from the Bulgarian Armed Forces, the Hellenic Air Force in Greece, and the Tennessee Army and Air National Guard will focus on developing and improving skills which include combat medical care, aircraft fire rescue, joint operations, logistics and sustainment, aeromedical evacuation, and weapons training,” the Tennessee Department of Military said in a Thursday statement.
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The Biden administration plans to provide lethal assistance to Ukraine for years after the war to end Russia’s invasion reaches a conclusion, the Pentagon’s top official for policy and planning testified before Congress Tuesday.
The U.S. has provided more than $30 billion worth of weapons and equipment since the war in Ukraine began one year ago, including millions of artillery rounds and high-end equipment that requires years to produce and months during which to train Ukrainian troops. Regardless of how the war ends, the U.S. will need to continue providing Kyiv with weapons and military support for years to discourage Russia from making a subsequent attempt at conquering Kyiv, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl told the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing Tuesday.
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During Biden’s latest visit to Kyiv and Warsaw, the Oval Office occupant defended his administration’s escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war and pledged unlimited U.S. taxpayer support in the name of “defending democracy.”
But is Ukraine a democracy?
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As President Biden boarded a European train destined for Kyiv, back in Washington, Rep. James Comer and his team drafted a long-expected letter.
Standing next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden pledged Monday that the lifeline of economic and military aid to that nation, support already well in excess of $100 billion, would not slack, and that the United States would stand with Ukraine “as long as it takes.”
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., announced Monday the creation of her “Save America, Stop Socialism” PAC to encourage the government to stop giving money to Ukraine.
“I’m fed up with our American government and Biden supporting the war in Ukraine and doing absolutely NOTHING to protect America’s border,” Greene wrote on Twitter. “Help me fund a national ad campaign to STOP WWIII!”
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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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Former President Donald Trump on Monday blasted Joe Biden for spending President’s Day with Ukrainians rather than the victims of a devastating train wreck in Ohio, suggesting it sent a powerful message of neglect to voters in a key election battleground state.
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Top officers in the U.S. Navy warned that the Ukraine war is putting a strain on an already stretched industrial base Tuesday, complaining defense contractors continue to fall behind in keeping up with the Navy’s needs, according to media reports.
Defense companies have struggled for years to keep pace with the Navy’s demands, citing pandemic-induced supply chain setbacks and a shortage of available labor, Navy Times reported. As the U.S. continues sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine, heightening the burden on weapons manufacturers, top Navy brass expressed worry that the fleet could fall dangerously low on needed assets if the war stretches out much longer.
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The U.S. announced a $3.1 billion security assistance package for Ukraine on Friday, including for the first time dozens of heavy infantry vehicles.
Of the total, $2.85 billion will come directly from existing U.S. weapons stocks, including 50 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles and 500 anti-missiles, according to a press release. Ukrainian officials expect Russia to conduct a second mobilization and renewed offensive in the coming months, according to Reuters.
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Members of Congress raked in profits from defense contractor stocks after voting to send billions in military aid to Ukraine, according to financial disclosures and voting records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Congress approved more than $20 billion worth of military aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24, a month before Russia invaded, and Nov. 20, including $12.7 billion in direct drawdowns from existing U.S. weapons stocks, according to data compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations. To make up for that aid, top defense companies have boosted production, and lawmakers trading on company stocks saw a financial windfall as a result, according to publicly available stock trading data.
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Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksiy Danilov this week rejected the idea that Kyiv would engage in peace talks with Moscow as the Russian invasion of Ukraine rages on.
“There’s no way to have conversations with them; you can’t talk with terrorists,” he told NatSec Daily, adding that Ukraine would not end the war until it had reclaimed all of its territory, including Crimea.”
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The Senate on Thursday passed a massive $1.7 billion omnibus spending bill, sending the bill to the House for a hasty vote before midnight Friday to avert a partial government shutdown.
The bill includes at least $44 billion in additional money to help Ukraine thwart Russia’s invasion and was thrown into peril overnight by a GOP effort to force a vote on an amendment to the measure to extend a Trump-era effort to limit illegal immigration amid the pandemic by using a decades-old legal authority known as Title 42.
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While a $1.66 trillion omnibus spending bill passed the Democrat-run Senate 75-20 this week with the support of many Republicans, House GOP members, including those representing Wisconsin, are voicing their disappointment.
Republicans point to exorbitant spending as the major driver of inflation which reached a 40-year high this year and now stands at 7.11 percent, well above the long-term average of 3.27 percent. The party likely cannot prevent the new spending legislation’s passage insofar as the GOP will not take control of the House of Representatives until January.
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Congress appropriated an additional $45 billion in emergency assistance to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion in its yearly spending bill released early Tuesday.
The bill is Congress’ largest assistance package for Ukraine to date, following a $40 billion package signed into law in May, a $12 billion supplement in September and $800 million authorized in Congress’ defense spending budget, bringing the total anticipated support for Ukraine in 2022 to nearly $100 billion. It exceeds President Joe Biden’s $37 billion request for military, economic and humanitarian support for Ukraine despite some Republican opposition to offering a “blank check” to Ukraine.
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Failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Friday America is now comparable to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Sudan after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, returning abortion decisions to the states.
“It’s so shocking to think that in any way we’re related to poor Afghanistan and Sudan,” Clinton said, according to Fox News, regarding abortion rights during the Women’s Voices Summit at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas. “But as an advanced economy as we allegedly are, on this measure, we unfortunately are rightly put with them.”
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Maria Katchmar was 7 when the troops came to her farm.
The soldiers entered her home in Cherkasy Oblast — a region of Ukraine along the Dnieper River — and immediately began to break everything. Windows and doors. Paintings and linens. Even pots for cooking. Her father was ordered to drown his livestock. When he refused, he was sent to Siberia — and the Soviet troops confiscated the animals anyway.
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Joe Biden, the military-industrial-congressional complex, State Department neocons, the War Party comprised of all Democrats and many corporate Republicans, and Western globalist elites have the United States and NATO in a Ukrainian proxy war against Russia. The warmongers are obsessed with destroying Russia. To achieve it, they are determined to fight to the last Ukrainian.
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There’s lots not to like about the war in Ukraine, and people should be allowed to argue the case without being demonized by those who have a different opinion. But the more those who urge caution are demonized as pro-Putin by the pro-war people, the more they, and probably their audience, become suspicious, or should become suspicious, of the pro-war faction.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaled a willingness to consider negotiations with Russia after it was reported Washington has urged Ukraine to ease up on its hard line against negotiations with Russia on Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Speaking ahead of his video address to the global climate summit held in Egypt, Zelenskyy laid out several conditions for returning to the negotiating table with Moscow, including respecting Ukraine’s pre-war borders, offering reparations for the damage done to Kyiv and prosecuting those who have committed war crimes, according to the WSJ. The U.S. urged Kyiv to maintain a public appearance of openness to negotiating with Russia, even while acknowledging Russian leaders will not agree to withdrawal from occupied areas of Ukraine, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
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The U.S. has troops on the ground conducting inspections and tracking the final destination of U.S.-provided weapons, a defense official confirmed Monday.
A contingent under the Defense attache and the Office of Defense Cooperation teams operating out of the embassy in Kyiv have initiated what are called “end-use” inspections to ensure some of the $17 billion in weapons the U.S. has provided to Ukraine are accounted for, the official, who spoke on a the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said at a press briefing Monday. The personnel monitor weapons stocks “whenever and wherever the security conditions allow” inside of Ukraine, far from the front lines where Ukrainian troops remain heavily reliant on U.S.-provided arms assistance.
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by Evan Stambaugh Rep. Ilhan Omar was confronted by protesters Thursday night over her support for Ukraine in its defense from Russian invasion. At a Thursday evening town hall event, a man stood up and accused Omar of failing to take the truly “anti-war” position on the issue. “You are supposed to be a progressive Democrat. Anti-war. Anti-war!” the protester said, raising his voice. “$80 billion to Ukraine is not anti-war.” When Omar noted that Congress is helping defend Ukraine from an aggressor, the protester shouted that “Ukraine is killing its own citizens in the Donbass” and implied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was responsible for some of the “mass graves” found in the country. “There are piles of bodies that are being found in mass graves. There are little children whose lives are being lost,” Omar said in response. “Unless you are someone like me that has been that child, you do not get to tell me what my votes mean and how I get to vote in supporting people.” “You’re pressing the big red button,” someone in the audience shouted. Omar called one of the protesters (it’s unclear how many there were) “sad” and “dangerous” after he suggested that America was responsible…
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The European Union (EU) announced Thursday that it will be outlawing the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035 even though EU countries are already struggling to fight soaring electricity costs.
EU member states and the European Commission agreed to force all new cars and vans registered in the EU to be electric by 2035, according to an EU press release. Europe is currently embroiled in an energy crisis and is preparing for blackouts as electricity prices remain more than seven times higher than they were in 2020, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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On Tuesday, a coalition of progressive Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives announced that it would be withdrawing its letter to Joe Biden calling for the White House to lead peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
As reported by Axios, the move comes just one day after the group of 30 lawmakers first released the letter, with signatories including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). The sudden about-face appeared to be the result of backlash against the lawmakers, who suggested that negotiations between Russia and Ukraine might be the only option left for bringing about an end to the war that has now been raging for eight months.
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Business leaders in Pennsylvania don’t see inflation subsiding in the near future, according to a survey released this week by the Harrisburg-based Lincoln Institute for Public Opinion & Research.
A total of 212 businesses from across the Keystone State responded to the institute’s poll, with just over half of the respondents being business owners; 20 percent serving as either chief executive officer, head of finance or head of operations; and about a fifth serving as either state or local manager.
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On Monday, a group of 30 progressive members of the House of Representatives signed a letter to the Biden White House, asking that Joe Biden consider negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin as a means for bringing about a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine.
The New York Post reports that the letter’s signatories include Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Yvette Clark (D-N.Y.). The letter asks Biden to consider beginning a “proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.”
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It’s a distinct possibility, though there are too many variables to predict it, that if the Republicans take the House there will be some sort of conclusion to the war in Ukraine.
This column has called for just that. Not in a shameful betrayal of the freedom-loving people who’ve fought by our side, like, for example, what the Democrats did to the South Vietnamese after an honorable peace was reached in Paris, but rather in a way that preserves our interests and keeps Joe Biden’s much-ballyhooed nuclear Armageddon away.
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Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) this week announced she is cosponsoring a measure alongside Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) to identify broadcasting content that foreign governments are underwriting.
Called the Identifying Propaganda on Our Airwaves (IPA) Act, the bill directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to mandate that radio and television broadcast companies check foreign-media databases to ascertain non-American sources of programming and advertising.
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American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten is in Ukraine this week to meet with Ukrainian students and teachers and “to offer solidarity and support” to Ukrainian students and teachers “amid heinous attacks on Democracy,” according to the AFT website.
The Ukrainian teachers union, the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers, invited the AFT reportedly, “to bear witness and call attention to the effects on children, families and educators and the impact of Russia’s attacks on democracy and democratic institutions.”
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Tennessee Congressman John Rose (R-TN-06) voted against the Continuing Appropriations and Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2023 on Friday.
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U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) this week urged allocation of additional funding to support Ukraine as it prepares to prosecute alleged war crimes committed by Russian military personnel.
The senator said his view of the need for more aid was informed through discussions he and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) had with Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin on Wednesday concerning how America can help its ally to pursue war-crime cases against enemy soldiers. Portman and Durbin co-chair the Senate Ukraine Caucus.
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Maybe Vladimir Putin SHOULD get the Nobel Peace Prize after all.
To be sure, Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine is an affront to humanity, given his targeting of civilians. Russia even fired upon medical and humanitarian aid convoys and is using a nuclear power plant as a shield for his military operations.
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Pentagon officials are concerned that U.S. ammunition stocks donated to Ukraine have severely depleted U.S. stocks, weakening U.S. readiness in the event of a conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The Biden administration has drawn much of the over $13 billion in weapons systems and accompanying ammunition the U.S. has provided to Ukraine from existing arsenals, according to the WSJ. While the Department of Defense has declined to disclose the number of ammunition rounds in storage at the beginning of 2022, before the war in Ukraine began, it has taken few steps to replenish depleting stocks, sparking worries that the U.S. may not have the ammunition it needs for its own protection.
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The City of Miami is hosting a gun buyback program Saturday and donating the weapons to Ukraine’s defense, according to the city.
The Miami website advertises the event as a way to prevent gun violence and support Ukraine. Donors will be offered up to $150 per gun, and the firearms will be either discarded or donated for use in the defense of Ukraine.
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The price of U.S. natural gas futures reached its highest point since 2008 as gas demand continues to spike amid the worldwide energy crisis and the passage of the Democrats’ climate bill, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Natural gas futures for November, December and January each surpassed $10 per million British Thermal Units (BTUs) on Monday, reaching highs that have not been seen since 2008, according to the WSJ. High prices are largely due to the strong demand for gas in Europe amid uncertainty surrounding Russian natural gas flows, the WSJ reported; furthermore, the Democrats’ new climate bill includes regulations that will hike expenses for natural gas producers.
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Per capita murder rates in major U.S. cities such as Chicago, Baltimore and St. Louis are outpacing Ukraine’s recorded civilian death rate from Russia’s invasion.
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Newly discovered emails prove beyond all doubt that the “true purpose” of Hunter Biden’s lucrative deal with a Ukrainian energy company was for Hunter to get “high-ranking US officials” to visit Ukraine and persuade the nation’s leaders to “close down” all criminal “cases/pursuits against” the firm’s primary owner, a notoriously corrupt oligarch with ties to Russia.
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Five months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war is now reduced to one of attrition. The current dirty, grinding slog is fought mostly with artillery and rockets. Everything from Ukraine’s shopping centers to apartment buildings—and the civilians in them—are Russian targets.
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Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement Friday to resume safe passage of grain as fears of global food insecurity spread.
Turkey and the United Nations (UN) mediated negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, hostile after months of brutal fighting, to reopen black sea ports from the Russian blockade, The Wall Street Journal reported. Disruption of Ukrainian grain exports has exacerbated a worldwide food shortage, and UN leaders have warned that soaring fertilizer and food prices will reach crisis levels in the next two years.
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President Joe Biden’s attempts to reduce the cause of high gas prices to the war in Ukraine initially, and corporate greed more recently, are disingenuous.
On day one this president clearly stated his opposition to oil and gas production and development. The president’s words and even more so his actions, have serious impacts on the costs of commodities, including oil.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed international relations expert and contributor for The Epoch Times, Dominick Sansone, in-studio to explain how the Russians are winning the war with Ukraine by attrition and what this means for the United States of America after giving $40 billion dollars in aid.
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White House economic adviser Brian Deese on Thursday told CNN that high gas prices were a necessary inconvenience to preserve the “future of the liberal world order,” amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The average price of gas exceeded $5 per gallon for the first time in U.S. history in early June.
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For a long time now, Sweden has had a history of being impressively ahead of the rest of the West in a number of areas: appeasing Nazis, remaining neutral during the Cold War, exporting porn, legalizing euthanasia, serving meatballs at furniture emporia, capitulating to Islam, putting legitimate Ukrainian refugees into asylum centers where they’re raped by bogus Muslim refugees, etc.
It should not come as a surprise, then, that Sweden was also ahead of the curve on the pronoun front. Way ahead.
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America’s geriatric senators increasingly represent a threat to themselves and to others. Take Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) for example. She has filed paperwork to run again in 2024, despite the fact she turns 90 next year and associates say she can’t hold a coherent conversation or remember the names of close colleagues.
This is a woman who has the power to vote to send Americans to war. Just this past spring, she helped pass legislation that sent billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine, a country currently at war with a nuclear power. America’s senators have enormous power to harm the country. They have access not just to firearms but to the world’s most powerful military force and even nuclear weapons.
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The U.S. depends on Russia to supply key minerals used in technology and defense industries, but the Russia-Ukraine war and Western economic punishment of Russia have suppressed supply lines, according to a report from Defense News.
Russia and Ukraine supply a large percentage of minerals like neon and aluminum that the U.S. uses in civilian and military applications, Deborah Rosenblum, a Pentagon acting spokesperson who works on industrial base policy, told Defense News. Sanctions levied on Russian companies and a war-related drop in mineral production have put these supply chains in jeopardy, she said.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – The Tennessee Star spoke with the Vice President of Engagement for Lifeline Children’s Services, Rick Morton, at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference about his family’s adoption of children from Ukraine and how the current situation is affecting children in that nation.
Rick and his wife Denise have been married for over 26 years, and they have 3 children, all of whom became part of their family through international adoption.
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Food prices in the U.S. may get worse in the coming months as European Union countries predict a dismal wheat harvest on top of the loss in Ukraine’s wheat exports, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The EU may produce 5% less wheat than 2021 because of dry weather, agriculture consulting firm Strategie Grains told the WSJ.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, official guest host Aaron Gulbransen welcomed former Trump appointed Ambassador to Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Jim Gilmore to the newsmaker line to update listeners on the current situation between Russia and Ukraine.
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GOP nominee in VA-08 Karina Lipsman wants to focus on public safety, the economy, education, and mental health. Lipsman is battling Representative Don Beyer (D-VA-08) in a deep-blue district, and was nominated at the end of May in a ranked-choice convention. “We live in Northern Virginia. We don’t live in, you know, Chicago or Baltimore. It’s unacceptable how crime is affecting our daily lives,” Lipsman told The Virginia Star. “The soft-on-crime policies need to end and we need to really start investing in our law enforcement and make sure that they have the resources they need in order to keep our communities safe,” she said. She said that fewer people want to work in law enforcement, and there’s a need to incentivize those that want to work in the field to stay. Lipsman highlighted high inflation, rising gas prices, and rising taxes. “Right now the government just continues to tax and tax and tax, without any real way of controlling our spending. We also need to have manufacturing here in the U.S.,” she said, calling for a “Made in America” agenda with incentives to keep jobs in the country. She called for energy independence with expedited drilling permits. Lipsman is…
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