Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, hos Leahy welcomed Congressman David Kustoff to the newsmakers line to answer tough questions on the Russia Ukraine conflict and US foreign policy.
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Every single one of senile president Joe Biden’s struggles was easily foreseeable.
It’s a bold statement, since many if not most of the issues that confront a new president can’t always be seen from a distance. If it can be said that elections are always about the future, it’s just as true to claim that the future would almost certainly be shaped by yet unseen events and circumstances that no politician could forthrightly discuss in the lead-up to his victory.
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Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called for additional support for Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion of the sovereign country.
Blumenthal’s remarks, which encouraged the passage of two measures to punish the invading country, follow a bipartisan Congressional visit to Poland and the Ukrainian border.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) leadership is allowing officials to waive a pandemic-related public health order for Ukrainians seeking asylum at ports of entry at U.S. borders, according to a memo obtained by CBS News.
“The Department of Homeland Security recognizes that the unjustified Russian war of aggression in Ukraine has created a humanitarian crisis,” the executive director of CBP’s Admissibility and Passenger Programs, Matthew Davies, wrote in a memo, CBS News reported. “CBP is authorized, consistent with the Title 42 Order, on a case-by-case basis based on the totality of the circumstances, including considerations of humanitarian interests, to except Ukrainian nationals at land border ports of entry from Title 42.”
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The day after President Biden announced that the United States would ban imports of Russian oil and gas, a group of eleven powerful European investment funds that includes Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager, outlined plans to force Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second largest bank, to cut its lending to oil and gas companies. The juxtaposition of these two events dramatizes the fundamental disunity of the West. At the same time as the Biden administration is sanctioning Russian oil and gas producers, Western investors are sanctioning Western ones. Under the banner of ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, the West’s capital is being deployed to create an artificial shortage of oil and gas produced by its companies and reward non-Western oil and gas producers such as Russia and Iran with higher prices. In doing so, the West is undermining its own security interests.
Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy markets were already extremely tight. In the past, high oil and gas prices stimulated a supply-side response leading to increased output and to prices falling back. This relationship has broken down. According to analysts at JP Morgan, capital spending by S&P Global 1200 energy companies peaked in 2015 at just over $400 billion and shrank to around $120 billion last year – less than half its previous trough of $250 billion in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, even though global demand is now around 15% higher than it was then.
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A member of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee called for the United States to punish Russia in a bizarre Thursday rant on the House floor.
“What Russia has done in Ukraine is immoral, it is illegal, it is and against the word, the acts, the intensions of every godly character ever,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) said. “God would not have approved. WWJD? What Russia has done deserves the entire condemnation of the world and everything we can do to condemn them and put them out of organized, civilized society is appropriate.”
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One. Reassuring an enemy what one will not do ensures that the enemy will do just that and more. Unpredictability and occasional enigmatic silence bolster deterrence. But Joe Biden’s predictable reassurance to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will show restraint means Putin likely will not.
Two. No-fly zones don’t work in a big-power, symmetrical standoff. In a cost-benefit analysis, they are not worth the risk of shooting down the planes of a nuclear power. They usually do little to stop planes outside of such zones shooting missiles into them. Sending long-range, high-altitude anti-aircraft batteries to Ukraine to deny Russian air superiority is a far better way of regaining air parity.
Three. Europe, NATO members, and Germany in particular have de facto admitted that their past decades of shutting down nuclear plants, coal mines, and oil and gas fields have left Europe at the mercy of Russia. They are promising to rearm and meet their promised military contributions. By their actions, they are admitting that their critics, the United States in particular, were right, and they were dangerously wrong in empowering Putin.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed The Epoch Times contributor and international relations specialist Dominick Sansone to the newsmaker line to give his take on the Russia-Ukraine escalation.
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Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed The Star News Network’s National Political Editor, Neil W. McCabe on the newsmakers line to comment upon Zelensky’s address to the US Congress.
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A new poll conducted by Insider Advantage for the Center for American Greatness shows Biden in big trouble with voters. 54% of likely voters disapprove of Biden’s job approval versus 42% who approve. Worse, this survey shows that only 36% approve of his handling of Ukraine. Other highlights from the survey are the 64% of people who believe high gas prices should be solved by eliminating Biden’s restrictions on pumping American oil and gas.
Perhaps most troubling, and portending more difficulty in the future for the country is the question that asked, “How much is rising inflation in the cost of goods and services impacting you and your family?” 85% of respondents said that inflation is having a “significant” impact on them and their families. Inflation, of course, is bad for the country, especially the middle class. But the politics of it spell trouble for Democrats whose policies have increased and accelerated the inflation currently beggaring the nation.
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U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to the Middle East to discuss increased oil production with leaders after they reportedly snubbed President Joe Biden’s requests.
Johnson met with United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nayhan on Wednesday and is traveling to Saudi Arabia to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later in the day, according to The Wall Street Journal. Johnson is reportedly set to deliver a message on behalf of the West, urging the two oil-rich nations to boost production.
“The Prime Minister set out his deep concerns about the chaos unleashed by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and stressed the importance of working together to improve stability in the global energy market,” the British government said in a readout of Johnson’s meeting with the UAE leader earlier Wednesday.
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What did Barack Obama and Joe Biden know about the Russiagate collusion hoax their fellow Democrats ginned up to kneecap Donald Trump – and when did they know it? How much did their chicanery contribute to Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade the Ukraine?
Those questions are coming into sharp relief following a definitive report by my RealClearInvestigations colleague Paul Sperry last week that places the worst political scandal in our nation’s history and Putin’s brutal war directly inside the White House.
Drawing on a wide range of documents, many never previously reported, Sperry details how the Obama administration worked closely with the Clinton campaign and a foreign government – Ukraine – in a “sweeping and systematic effort” to interfere in the 2016 election. It turns out Democrats were guilty of every false charge they lodged against Trump.
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With U.S. and world food prices set to soar due to inflation and supply shortages stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a key GOP lawmaker is asking the Pentagon to study the potential for conflict if the global food supply shrinks by 5%.
U.S. farmers will pay $300-$400 more per acre to grow crops this year due to inflation and costs associated with the war in Europe, Georgia Republican Rep. Austin Scott warned Monday on the Just the News TV show.
Shipping is another issue, as trade is throttled by war-related disruptions and tough economic sanctions against Russia.
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and soaring energy prices are a bracing wake up call to the West to abandon our anemic energy policies, which have pretended to be green but in reality have only shifted the dirtiest parts of our energy supply chains to bad actors like Russia and China. Western energy dependence on hostile powers limits our ability to preserve peace, to reduce our supply vulnerability, and to find the most cost-effective climate change solutions.
President Biden has acknowledged some of these problems, conceding that gasoline prices are too high and promising to do “everything in my power to limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.” But gas prices continue to rise, up by 10% in the last week.
One option President Biden has not yet explored is working with Congress to fix our incoherent domestic fuel policy to improve fuel efficiency across the board and reduce the amount Americans pay for gasoline. Currently, the EPA regulates fuels and automobiles separately, instead of as a single system. Automakers have the technological know-how to make much more efficient car engines, but regulatory barriers prevent them from doing so because they do not permit the use of cleaner fuels that would reduce carbon emissions and enhance performance.
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Part of a key pipeline transporting natural gas from Russia to Europe suddenly reversed its flow direction Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Flows in the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which sends natural gas to Germany via Poland, were recorded going eastward away from Europe on Tuesday morning, data from the European firm Gascade showed, Reuters reported, citing data from German network operator Gascade. Flows leaving Germany were moving at a whopping 4.3 million kilowatt-hours per hour at one section of the pipeline.
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Senator Hagerty says that the “Biden administration finds itself on both sides” of the Ukraine issue.
At a Tennessee welcome-home ceremony Monday for Greg Kelly, a Tennessean who has been held in the Japanese judicial system for several years, The Tennessee Star asked Senator Hagerty why he didn’t sign a letter signed by 42 of his Republican U.S. Senate colleagues and demanding action in support of the Ukraine. The letter, co-drafted by Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), urged the Biden administration to give the Ukraine tools like fighter jets and other support capabilities from the United States, NATO allies, and other European partners in order to enable them to set up their own No-Fly-Zone.
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Two members of the Arizona House have expressed support for the U.S. ban on Russian oil imports and called for the U.S. to increase its domestic energy production.
State Reps. David Cook, R-Globe, and Brian Fernandez, D-Yuma, sponsored a proclamation read on the Arizona House floor this week that offered support for these policies.
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President Biden and other White House officials dramatically changed their tune this week in defending their green agenda in the face of skyrocketing gas prices and Russia’s energy supply stranglehold over Europe.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden for months blamed increasing gas prices on supply-chain issues and pent-up post-pandemic demand for travel, deflecting questions on whether his push to move the country off fossil fuels was a factor.
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A bipartisan group of state lawmakers in Minnesota introduced legislation to terminate the state’s connections to Russia amid the country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
According to a release from State Senator Karin Housley (R–Stillwater), the legislation would “divest Minnesota’s state pension fund from Russia and codify Governor Walz’s Executive Order barring Minnesota from contracting with Russian companies into law,” if fully enacted.
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Goods and services around the country are becoming increasingly more expensive, but farmers may be among the hardest hit as inflation, supply chain issues, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to send food prices soaring even higher.
That impact is being felt by farmers around the country.
“The cost of fertilizer is up as much as 500% in some areas,” said Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron. “It would be unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it for myself as I priced fertilizer for our farm in southern Indiana. Fertilizer is a global commodity and can be influenced by multiple market factors, including the situation in Ukraine, and all of these are helping to drive up costs.”
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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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Tennessee Representatives David Kustoff (R-TN-08) and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) joined their colleagues in cosponsoring the American Ammo in Defense of Ukraine Act, (H.R.6981). The legislation, introduced Tuesday by Representatives Richard Hudson (R-NC-08) and Victoria Spartz (R-IN-05), will waive export criteria so donations from American ammunition manufacturers can reach Ukraine faster.
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Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN-02) on Thursday introduced new legislation that would direct Russian assets that were seized to humanitarian aid projects supporting Ukraine.
Specifically, the bill, known as the Confiscating Corrupt Criminal Proceeds (CCCP) Act, takes civil asset forfeiture from the sanctions imposed by the United States on Russian and Belarusian elites and sends support to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
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Friday 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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Radio host and TV commentator Dan Bongino built an army-sized following over the years on Twitter, with 2.4 million fans. In a few short weeks, he’s attracted about a tenth of the same following on President Trump’s nascent Truth Social platform.
But with millions fewer users and hundreds of thousands fewer followers, Bongino’s Truth Social account — like those of scores of other conservative stars — is creating substantially more engagement on posts than his long-time audience on Twitter.
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The Biden administration has pushed green energy in the wake of the Ukraine crisis — saying it would ensure U.S. energy independence — but has failed to address foreign mining and refining dominance, the key to renewable energy security, according to industry leaders.
The administration has argued that renewable energy technologies, like solar, wind and electric vehicles, aren’t dependent on fossil fuels and would lead to lower costs for consumers over the long term, a line of argument that Democratic lawmakers have also parroted in recent days. On Wednesday, the average price of gasoline nationwide reached $4.25 per gallon as of March 9, the highest level in history and more than 52% higher than a year ago, according to AAA data.
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Georgians are getting slammed at the pump by rapidly rising gas prices. However, despite what some might claim, this energy crisis began long before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The reality is that Joe Biden’s disastrous energy policies are largely responsible for why Georgians have seen gas prices rise by over a dollar over the past year.
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Six years ago, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of their country, the Ukrainians bet that a Hillary Clinton presidency would offer better protection from Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though he had invaded Crimea during the Obama-Biden administration, whose Russian policies Clinton vowed to continue.
Working with both the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign, Ukrainian government officials intervened in the 2016 race to help Clinton and hurt Trump in a sweeping and systematic foreign influence operation that’s been largely ignored by the press. The improper, if not illegal, operation was run chiefly out of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, where officials worked hand-in-glove with a Ukrainian-American activist and Clinton campaign operative to attack the Trump campaign. The Obama White House was also deeply involved in an effort to groom their own favored leader in Ukraine and then work with his government to dig up dirt on – and even investigate — their political rival.
Ukrainian and Democratic operatives also huddled with American journalists to spread damaging information on Trump and his advisers – including allegations of illicit Russian-tied payments that, though later proved false, forced the resignation of his campaign manager Paul Manafort. The embassy actually weighed a plan to get Congress to investigate Manafort and Trump and stage hearings in the run-up to the election.
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Virginia’s entire congressional delegation, Republicans and Democrats, voted Wednesday in favor of a ban on Russian energy imports. The bill passed 414 to 17, with two progressive representatives and several America-First Republicans voting against the bill.
“Tonight, I voted to send a unified message to Vladimir Putin that we do not wish to enrich Russia as it continues its unjustified invasion into Ukraine. Unfortunately, this legislation and President Biden’s ban will have little practical effect on Russia’s energy profits without a unified effort from our friends in Europe. I call on the Biden Administration to do more to rally the alliance he claims to have built to this cause and impose real economic sanctions on Russia,” Congressman Bob Good (R-VA-05) said in a press release.
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Thousands are dying from Russian missiles and bombs in the suburbs of Ukraine.
In response, the Biden Administration’s climate-change envoy, multimillionaire and private-jet owning John Kerry, laments that Russian president Vladimir Putin might no longer remain his partner in reducing global warming.
“You’re going to lose people’s focus,” Kerry frets. “You’re going to lose big-country attention because they will be diverted, and I think it could have a damaging impact”
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The United States is at war with Russia. Without a vote in Congress, a specific announcement by the president, or even meaningful awareness on the part of the bulk of the populace, the United States has stumbled into conflict with another nuclear power.
True enough, American “boots on the ground” are not yet (openly) engaged in combat in Ukraine. But the devastating sanctions put in place unilaterally by Joe Biden on Russian property constitute an act of war nonetheless. On Tuesday morning, Biden announced he was unilaterally banning the importation of Russian fuel and oil products into the United States. This decision is a direct attack on the Russian economy. It is designed to dictate a certain political outcome to the Russian government.
Such a dramatic act, therefore, constitutes participation in armed conflict against the Russian regime. It is an act of war.
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Republicans in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week introduced several measures to boost fossil-fuel production in the Keystone State, including a resumption of new state-land drilling leases.
Gov. Tom Wolf (D) imposed a moratorium on new leases for oil and gas development on state-owned areas in January 2015. A bill authored by State Rep. Clint Owlett (R-Wellsboro) would rescind that order and stipulate that all energy exploration performed under any resulting leases be subsurface. That means that the well site must be built off of commonwealth property and that underground channels would reach horizontally into the public lands, allowing for better environmental preservation than older drilling methods.
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An Ohio U.S. congressman and U.S. Senate candidate has joined many of his Democrat counterparts in blaming Russia and its President Vladimir Putin for skyrocketing gas prices.
“Today I’ll vote to ban U.S. dollars from funding Putin’s war machine. Now we must do everything in our power to shield working people from Putin’s price hike at the pump by fully restoring America’s energy independence and passing a working-class tax cut,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) said Wednesday on Twitter.
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The most important duty of government is to provide for the security of its citizens. Providing that security is a complex enterprise. Its most obvious feature is military power: providing the surface naval, air, and space forces necessary to protect national interests. Of course, military power depends on economic power. In today’s security environment, that means maintaining the capability to provide for both the prosperity of American citizens as well the high tech weaponry necessary for modern warfare.
While the world’s attention is focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we need to keep in mind that the People’s Republic of China is America’s foremost adversary. While the United States dominated the “third industrial revolution” based on computation and communications, China seeks to lead the “fourth industrial revolution” based on metadata and artificial intelligence. China’s grand strategy is focused on achieving that goal. For example, Beijing has employed its Belt and Road Initiative in combination with digital technology in order to integrate billions of people into China’s economic sphere.
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More soldiers stationed at Georgia’s Fort Stewart are headed to Europe as the war between Russia and Ukraine escalates.
Five hundred more soldiers – on top of 3,800 soldiers deployed already from Fort Stewart – will be sent to Germany in support of a infantrymen who have already been deployed.
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Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted during a Senate hearing on Tuesday that there are biological research facilities in Ukraine that are under the control of the United States government.
In response to a question from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Nuland said that any chemical or biological weapons release in Ukraine, would be the fault of the Russian invaders.
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More than two million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded the country, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency released Monday.
The agency said as many as four million people might leave Ukraine as a result of the crisis, with more than one million fleeing in the first week of the attack.
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The White House has repeatedly suggested the private sector can boost oil supply amid surging gas prices, but industry groups have countered that the administration has placed hurdles for new drilling.
“There are 9,000 unused, approved drilling permits,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday. “So I would suggest you ask the oil companies why they’re not using those if there’s a desire to drill more.”
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The U.S. trade deficit continued to grow in January as the import-export gap widened to a record high, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The trade deficit reached $89.7 billion in January, up $7.7 billion from December 2021’s $82 billion figure, the Census Bureau announced Tuesday. Economists surveyed by the WSJ predicted a January trade deficit figure of just $87.2 billion.
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Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order that will begin the process of regulating the trading of cryptocurrency, as crypto becomes a viable alternative for Russians seeking to avoid the impact of economic sanctions.
According to ABC News, at least two anonymous Biden Administration officials said that the order will be issued this week, and has allegedly been in the planning stage since before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. The order will outline the various steps that government agencies, including the Treasury Department, are to take to begin the process of imposing regulations on the buying and selling of digital currencies.
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U.S. Representative Mark Green (R-TN-07) on Monday introduced legislation to ban the U.S. from purchasing oil from Russia, Iran, and Venezuela.
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have expressed support for banning the purchase of Russian oil amid the country’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. However, the Biden administration has remained hesitant to make the decision.
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On Monday, Ammo Inc. offered to donate 1 million rounds of ammunition to the Armed Forces of Ukraine in support of “their fight for independence and freedom,” according to the company.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that NATO member countries have a “green light” to send fighter jets as military aid to Ukraine.
The United States is reportedly in talks with Poland to send U.S. planes to replace any Soviet-era fighter jets that Warsaw sends to Ukraine, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Sending planes to Ukraine “gets a green light,” Blinken told CBS News on Sunday.
“In fact, we’re talking with our Polish friends right now about what we might be able to do to backfill their needs, if, in fact, they choose to provide these fighter jets to the Ukrainians,” he said. “What can we do? How can we help to make sure that they get something to backfill the planes that they’re handing over to the Ukrainians? We’re in very active discussions with them about that.”
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A Russian prisoner of war claimed Moscow lied to soldiers before sending them to invade Ukraine.
Lieutenant Colonel Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich said soldiers were told Ukraine was “dominated by a fascist regime” and that “nationalists and Nazis had seized power,” according to a translation by the New York Post. He made the accusations during a media conference Thursday alongside two other captured Russian soldiers.
He explained that when he entered Ukraine and saw his favorite boxers, Ukrainians Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko, join the resistance, his doubts about the reasons for the invasion were amplified, the NYP reported.
Read the full storyThe best way to understand the current extraordinarily dangerous tragedy in Ukraine is to imagine a fight between a bear, a lion, and a bunny rabbit.
The bear of course is Russia, as President Ronald Reagan brilliantly evoked in his 1984 re-election commercial “The Bear.” As the narrator said:
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In light of the West’s united front against Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine, China will likely be forced to reexamine its plans for making Taiwan a part of the communist country, experts on the region told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“I think that the military planners in Beijing, as well as politicians in Beijing, have to be very concerned at a deeper level about their assumptions and plans regarding Taiwan,” David Sacks, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the DCNF. “The democratic world has really come together behind this and … the narrative would be very similar with a Chinese attack.”
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According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), gas prices in Tennessee – and in other states around the country – have increased by a stunning amount in the past month alone.
In Tennessee, the number is 54 cents per gallon.
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Gas prices in Connecticut have reached a decade-plus high after jumping 10 cents per gallon in a single day, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).
Friday, a gallon of gas in Connecticut averaged $4.07, a jump from $3.97 on Thursday. The last time gas prices reached four dollars per gallon was in August of 2008. The record high for gas prices in the state is $4.39 per gallon, just 32 cents higher than the current price.
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The warning signs are everywhere. We are stumbling toward an energy crisis that is likely to be far more severe and long-lasting than the upheavals of the 1970s. And no, this isn’t about Russia or Ukraine. This is about the perilous state of the U.S. electricity grid.
If action isn’t taken soon to address the unraveling reliability of the grid, the United States will face the specter of rolling blackouts, factory shutdowns, loss of jobs and soaring electricity bills. Our organization CASE recently released a policy brief highlighting just how dire the situation is.
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President Joe Biden’s approval rating received a significant bump after his State of the Union address and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National poll released Friday.
The poll, conducted March 1-2, showed Biden’s approval rating increase to 47%, an eight point jump compared to the last poll released in February. The change is mostly due to gains among Democrats and independents, rising to 90% and 39% approval, respectively.
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