Lateo.net - Flux RSS en pagaille (pour en ajouter : @ moi)

🔒
❌ À propos de FreshRSS
Il y a de nouveaux articles disponibles, cliquez pour rafraîchir la page.
Aujourd’hui — 28 mars 2024Presse

Stephen Colbert reveals why Trump has so many Bibles: ‘Every time he holds one he bursts into flames’

Late-night hosts have a field day with Republican presidential candidate’s attempt to look pious as he continues ‘non-stop grifting of the rubes’ with $60 holy book offer

Watch live: Donald Trump to attend wake of slain New York police officer Jonathan Diller

Warning: the following livestream has not been independently fact-checked and may contain misinformation. The Independent strives to counteract misinformation across its platforms. Click here for the latest on the 2024 US Presidential Election: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics

Judge recommends Trump election lawyer John Eastman is disbarred

‘Eastman failed to uphold his primary duty of honesty and breached his ethical obligations by presenting falsehoods to bolster his legal arguments,’ judge writes

Trump lawyers argue that even his ‘lies’ are protected in Georgia election interference case

‘This is all alleged as part of a pattern of criminal conduct and not protected by the First Amendment. Any argument otherwise is just to try to pretend like that’s not true,’ prosecutor says

Joseph Lieberman, Man of the Inside Party

Politics

Joseph Lieberman, Man of the Inside Party

Lieberman demonstrated how character can disguise morally radical politics.

11051090546_f14694d7af_o

Joseph Lieberman was a Democrat who somehow belonged to both parties without fully fitting in with either. This is another way of saying that Lieberman’s true party was the Inside Party. To the extent that Republicans and Democrats have to answer to outsiders who want to change Washington, the Connecticut senator couldn’t be entirely at home on either team.

Ironically, Lieberman won national office in the first place because change-minded conservatives wanted to purge one of the last fossils of the GOP’s old “Eastern establishment.” Sen. Lowell Weicker was a Rockefeller Republican who irked the likes of William F. Buckley Jr. so much that Buckley—a Connecticut resident—endorsed his Democratic challenger in 1988. The state went Republican in that year’s presidential election: George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis by more than 5 points. Lieberman, the Democratic challenger, beat Weicker by less than a single point in the Senate race.

Conservatives made the difference, but they paid a price. Connecticut has never again elected a Republican to the United States Senate. And the state—which voted for Ronald Reagan twice in the 1980s and even for Gerald Ford in 1976—has been won by the Democrat in every presidential election of the last 32 years. Rockefeller Republicans and conservative Republicans together could win federal elections in the state. But conservatives preferred a Democrat like Lieberman to a Republican like Weicker, and Rockefeller Republicans likewise came to prefer Democrats to any halfway conservative Republican.

Lieberman’s election was a disaster for conservatives in another way. The newly minted senator helped to accelerate the rise of the “New Democrats,” who presented themselves as more market-oriented than the big-government Democrats of old and less culturally radical than the left wing of the party. Bill Clinton and Al Gore were among the champions of this new movement, and the Clinton-Gore ticket would win both presidential elections of the 1990s. 

But from the start, the New Democrats were a fraud. In his first two years in office, while his party controlled Congress, President Clinton pursued left-wing policies on every front, from the FACE Act, which restricted the free speech and assembly rights of pro-life protesters, to gun control, gays in the military, and socialized medicine (“Hillarycare”). Lieberman was as socially liberal as Clinton, and later in the decade he even voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion. Yet he maintained an appearance of moderation by substituting the personal for the political: He voted radically, but he was serious about his Jewish faith and was outspokenly critical of violent video games and Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky—though that didn’t stop Lieberman from voting against Clinton’s removal from office after he was impeached for lying under oath about the tryst. 

Lieberman demonstrated how character can disguise morally radical politics. He was a kind of whitewash, and that won him a spot on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2000. Vice President Al Gore didn’t need Lieberman as his running mate to provide policy experience or factional balance—they were both New Democrats—and the Connecticut senator wasn’t going to win Gore any state he couldn’t already count on. What Lieberman did was to lend his good character to absolve the vice president from association with Clinton’s sins. 

If New Democrats like Lieberman were not so different from the earlier McGovernite left where abortion and other cultural issues were concerned, however, they were indeed a break with the progressive tradition when it came to foreign policy and neoliberal economics. Lieberman, like his close Republican friend John McCain, was one of the most consistently bellicose figures in American politics. He was an early supporter of the Iraq War—and a late one, too, which cost him his party’s nomination for the Senate in 2006. But he again used Republicans to win a general election that he would otherwise have lost. 

That November, the Republican nominee for Senate received less than 10 percent of the vote—and while Connecticut was very much a blue state by then, it wasn’t so blue that a Republican could expect to draw only single-digit support. The Republican vote simply went to Lieberman instead of the GOP candidate, and enough of the Democratic vote did so as well that Lieberman, running as an independent, beat the antiwar Democratic nominee. 

America as a whole turned against the Iraq War in that election, causing Republicans to lose both the House and the Senate. But Lieberman secured re-election with plurality support in a three-way race by representing the establishment positions within both parties—the hawkishness of the Bush-era GOP and the social liberalism of Democrats then and now.

He continued to vote and caucus with the Democrats, but Lieberman increasingly exploited his Inside Party prestige with Republicans as well. He endorsed John McCain for president and spoke at the 2008 Republican National Convention. McCain seriously contemplated making Lieberman his running mate and was only dissuaded by the unavoidable fact that social conservatives in the GOP would never countenance such a thing. But if the choice had come down solely to Inside Party preferences, Lieberman would have been the pick. There was no other politician in America closer to McCain’s priorities. They were warhawks of a feather.

Lieberman retrospectively recognized that voters wouldn’t have bought what he and McCain wanted to sell. He joked that if he’d been selected by McCain he’d have had “the opportunity to take a unique place in history to have run for vice president on two different party tickets—and to have lost twice.” He was glad that “God saved me from that—or the Republican delegates saved me from that.”

Yet up to his death on Wednesday, Lieberman still dreamed of making the Inside Party a force that could win elections. He became the founding chairman of “No Labels,” a project aspiring to field a centrist presidential candidate without a traditional party apparatus. Democrats, especially this year, perceive the initiative as a threat, given the conflicts within Joe Biden’s coalition over Israel and the risk that No Labels would split socially liberal voters with the Democrats while leaving social conservatives united within the GOP.

He will be remembered for being the first Jew on a major party presidential ticket. But he’s also significant as an archetype of his time. No politician better embodied the overlap between the Clinton and George W. Bush eras. Military adventurism, crony capitalism, and “character” as a quality that could spellbind social conservatives without inconveniencing social liberals—this was the Lieberman formula, and it’s still employed today, not least by those ex-conservatives who invoke “character” as their justification for siding with the party of the cultural left over the party of Donald Trump.

Lieberman was not a moderate. From war to abortion, his views were extreme. Those who only imagine a political spectrum with moderates in the middle and maniacs at the ends are wrong: Sometimes the middle is precisely where the culture of death is strongest. The senator was a man of good character but bad politics, and only voters more committed to the left and the right prevented him from doing greater harm in higher office.

The post Joseph Lieberman, Man of the Inside Party appeared first on The American Conservative.

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Jail for Fraud

Disgraced FTX CEO and Democrat Megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried on Thursday was sentenced to 25 years in jail for fraud after facing up to 100 years in jail.

The post Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Jail for Fraud appeared first on Breitbart.

Judge Casts Doubt on Hunter Biden's Attempt to Throw Out Tax Case

Judge Mark Scarsi, a district judge in California’s Central district, pushed back Wednesday on Hunter Biden's lawyer's argument to have his tax case thrown out of court.

The post Judge Casts Doubt on Hunter Biden’s Attempt to Throw Out Tax Case appeared first on Breitbart.

Three Vanderbilt U. Students Arrested at Anti-Israel Protest

Three Vanderbilt University students were arrested and 16 were suspended after a police officer was pushed at an anti-Israel demonstration this week. A fourth student was arrested at another time during the protest, after broken glass was found.

The post Three Vanderbilt U. Students Arrested at Anti-Israel Protest appeared first on Breitbart.

Star-studded Biden-Obama-Clinton fundraiser pulls ‘historic’ $25m haul in New York

The show of Democratic solidarity between the current president and two of his predecessors stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s isolation from the only living former Republican president and his own ex-VP

Senegal’s New President Was Unknown, but ‘This Family is Not New to Ruling’

How did Bassirou Diomaye Faye, age 44, go from obscurity to a resounding win in Senegal’s presidential election? At the family homestead, one relative explained, “This family is not new to ruling.”

The top opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye flanked by his two wives after voting in the presidential election in the West African nation of Senegal last Sunday, in his hometown, Ndiaganiao. He won resoundingly.

Poll: Half Say They Are Actively 'Struggling' in Biden's Economy

A majority of likely general election voters disapprove of President Joe Biden's job performance, and half are actively "struggling" in Biden's economy, the March survey from McLaughlin & Associates found.

The post Poll: Half Say They Are Actively ‘Struggling’ in Biden’s Economy appeared first on Breitbart.

RFK Jr. Has Assembled His Anti-Vax Conspiracy Squad

Nicole Shanahan, RFK Jr.'s VP pick, seems to have already embraced her running mate's conspiratorial thinking.

Larry David Launches Tirade on Trump: ‘He’s So Sick’

Actor Larry David, Seinfeld co-creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star, has unleashed a stream of invective against Donald Trump in an interview where he derides the presumed Republican 2024 presidential candidate as a “little baby” who’s “thrown 250 years of democracy out the window.”

The post Larry David Launches Tirade on Trump: ‘He’s So Sick’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Obama Failure Hits Americans with More Bad News

The Wellness Company and their doctors are medical professionals that you can trust, and their new medical emergency kits are the gold standard when it comes to keeping you safe and healthy.

The post Obama Failure Hits Americans with More Bad News appeared first on Breitbart.

Trump to Join Wake Honoring Slain NYPD Officer as Biden Attends Fundraiser

Former President Donald Trump will join Thursday’s wake of a New York City police officer gunned down in the line of duty as the presumed Republican 2024 candidate makes crime in Democrat cities a focus of his third tilt at the White House.

The post Trump to Join Wake Honoring Slain NYPD Officer as Biden Attends Fundraiser appeared first on Breitbart.

Ukraine Boosts Funding for Homemade Ammunition and Weapons

Once the preserve of Ukrainian state-owned industry, private companies producing weapon systems and munitions are now surging.

The post Ukraine Boosts Funding for Homemade Ammunition and Weapons appeared first on Breitbart.

Yellen: Pushing Green Energy to Lower Energy Costs 'Over Time' Is Key Part of Fighting Inflation

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that a key plank of President Joe Biden’s agenda to lower costs is by “creating incentives to dramatically improve the use of clean energy in the United

The post Yellen: Pushing Green Energy to Lower Energy Costs ‘Over Time’ Is Key Part of Fighting Inflation appeared first on Breitbart.

US human rights official resigns and tears into Biden’s Gaza policy ‘betrayal’

Annelle Sheline wrote that America’s credibility as an ‘advocate for human rights has almost entirely vanished since the war began’

Start Walking: Democrat-run NYC Approves $15 Toll on Cars Entering Manhattan

Democrat-run New York is poised to become the first U.S. city to hit drivers with punitive tolls after transit officials on Wednesday approved a $15 fee for most motorists headed to the busiest part of Manhattan.

The post Start Walking: Democrat-run NYC Approves $15 Toll on Cars Entering Manhattan appeared first on Breitbart.

What to Know About South Korea’s 2024 Parliament Election

Results for the Assembly-controlling opposition party are likely to be a referendum on President Yoon Suk Yeol’s two years in office.

Joe Lieberman, senator and first Jewish VP nominee, dies at 82

Lieberman almost won election in 2000 as first Jewish candidate on national ticket of major party

Convicting Julian Assange Would Mean the End of Free Speech

Politics

Convicting Julian Assange Would Mean the End of Free Speech

Why the jailed publisher’s extradition case should be everyone’s concern. 

Brussels,,Belgium.,15th,April,2019.supporters,Of,Wikileaks,Founder,Julian,Assange

How much is a non-binding “assurance” worth from people who probably want to see you dead? This is the linchpin question as a British court deliberates on the Biden administration’s latest conniving to bring Julian Assange to America for his legal destruction.

Since Julian Assange was indicted in 2019 for 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act, the U.S. Justice Department has sought his extradition from Belmarsh, the supermax prison in Britain where he has spent almost five years. The fight against extradition is probably the last best chance for even a facade of due process for Assange.

On Tuesday, the British High Court announced that it had effectively accepted assurances from U.S. politicians to British politicians that the Assange case is non-political, but the British judges did recognize three potential grounds for appeal. That court gave the U.S. government three weeks to provide “satisfactory assurances” that “Assange is permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution… that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen and that the death penalty is not imposed,” and that the U.S. court would not be prejudiced against him because he is a foreigner.   

None of the British or American officials recognized the supreme irony of the court decision. Assange and Wikileaks exposed deceptions and depredations by many governments around the world. Yet his legal fate depends on whether the British government chooses to trust the U.S. government—regardless of the endless lies that Assange exposed.

Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, scoffed that the decision was “astounding”: “What the courts have done is to invite a political intervention from the United States, to send a letter saying, ‘It’s all okay.’” Amnesty International stated, “While the U.S. has allegedly assured the UK that it will not violate Assange’s rights, we know from past cases that such ‘guarantees’ are deeply flawed—and the diplomatic assurances so far in the Assange case are riddled with loopholes.” 

If Assange is brought to the U.S., his fate will be settled in an Alexandria, Virginia federal courtroom notorious for stacking the deck against anyone who exposed government crimes or wrongful killings. Ask John Kiriakou—the former CIA agent and torture whistleblower who was convicted there and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Ask Daniel Hale—the whistleblower who exposed the coverup of mass killings of innocent people by Obama’s drones, convicted and sentenced to prison for 45 months. Edward Snowden was charged in the same court but prudently omitted showing up for a kangaroo trial. 

Assange’s fate threatens to be a bellwether for the destruction of journalists who vex officialdom. David Davis, a Conservative member of Parliament, warned, “The successful extradition of Julian Assange would effectively criminalize investigative journalism as espionage. It would set a legal precedent allowing the prosecution of anyone who breaks the duty of silence on classified American information and state sponsored crime.” Jodie Ginsberg, chief of the Committee to Protect Journalists, warned that Assange’s prosecution “would have disastrous implications for press freedom. It is time that the U.S. Justice Department put an end to all these court proceedings and dropped its dogged pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder.”

The U.S. government has been vilifying Assange ever since he and Wikileaks commenced revealing that thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis were killed by the U.S. military. Vice President Joe Biden denounced Assange in 2010 as a “high-tech terrorist.” But even Biden admitted at that time: “I don’t think there’s any substantive damage” from the Wikileaks revelations. “Look, some of the cables that are coming out here and around the world are embarrassing,” he said.  

Federal agencies also never proved that any of the information that Assange and Wikileaks released was false. At the court martial of former Army Corporal Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, who leaked the documents, prosecutors failed to show that any information Wikileaks disclosed had led to the death of a single person in Afghanistan or Iraq. That conclusion was re-confirmed by a 2017 investigation by PolitiFact. But Assange was guilty of violating the U.S. government’s divine right to blindfold the American people. 

The fact that Assange disclosed classified documents is sufficient to seal his legal doom—at least according to how the game is played in federal courts. After Britain arrested Assange on behalf of the U.S. government in 2019, Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, whooped that Assange “is our property and we can get the facts and the truth from him.” But Manchin had no recommendations on how Americans can “get the facts and the truth” from the federal government. Federal agencies are creating trillions of pages of new “classified” secrets each year.  

Ironically, while howling for Assange’s scalp, the Biden White House purportedly launched a “new war on secrecy” and is especially concerned about “potentially illegal [government] activities that have been shielded from the public for decades,” POLITICO reported in late 2022. A Biden administration official, speaking anonymously, declared that it is in the “nation’s best interest to be as transparent as possible with the American public.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, groused, “We spend $18 billion protecting the classification system and only about $102 million … on declassification efforts… That ratio feels off in a democracy.” But inside the Beltway, rigging the game 176-to-1 is “close enough for government work” for transparency. Thus far, Biden’s “war on secrecy” has apparently not gone beyond self-serving White House statements. 

Perhaps the most important testimony for Assange dribbled out during a sometimes scatter-brained interview last October conducted by Special Counsel Robert Hur. As Hur was pressing President Biden about the stashes of confidential documents discovered illicitly stored in his garage, his den, his think tank, his office, etc., Biden declared, “We over-classify everything…. And 99.9 percent of it has nothing to do with anything I couldn’t pick up and read out loud to the public.” Special Counsel Hur deigned not to file charges against Biden—even though his violations of federal law had plenty of similarities to the conduct that spurred 40 felony charges against former President Donald Trump. The bizarre dichotomy in the Biden and Trump cases is showcasing the arbitrariness and absurdities of federal classification policy. 

Another key to the Assange case is whether he is “permitted to rely on the First Amendment,” as the British judges wrote. Assange can’t rely on the First Amendment when telling the truth is the only war crime now recognized by the U.S. government. Defendants on espionage act cases routinely face so many piled-on court charges that they plea bargain, muzzling themselves as the price for not being locked up forever. 

There are lessons from an early American landmark court case that could help resolve the Assange case. In 1735, John Peter Zenger was charged with seditious libel for an article he published on the Royal Governor of New York. Zenger’s criticism was accurate but that was irrelevant. In Britain and its colonies, truth was no defense against seditious libel; thus, any criticism of the government risked personal destruction. But a jury of New Yorkers heroically refused to convict Zenger, thereby revolutionizing both freedom of speech and the relation of citizens to government. 

 Could a similar legal standard be used to end persecution of anyone who publicly reveals official documents that never should have been classified? Instead of rubberstamp convictions, the government should be obliged to prove that a disclosure harmed the public interest or endangered the nation. That would also undermine the perverse incentive that perpetually propels overclassification. Unfortunately, it would not be possible to get the same positive impact simply by relying on jury trials. Since that federal court is inside the Beltway, the jury pool would be overstocked with people who work for the feds and/or believe everything they hear on National Public Radio. Washington jurors are prone to behave like Soviet mobs in the 1930s who howled for death sentences for anyone the Communist Party accused of being a “wrecker.” 

Almost all the media coverage of the Assange case is failing to credit him for revealing how blindfolding citizens defines down democracy. Self-government is a sham if citizens are prohibited from knowing what elected officials are doing in their name. Politicians and Washington’s “best and brightest” have long been accustomed to covertly and recklessly intervening around the world with none of the usual checks and balances of democracy. But there is never a penalty for officialdom deceiving the public they claim to serve. 

Biden’s Justice Department and Assange’s lawyers have reportedly discussed a possible plea deal that would drop the most serious charges against him. Fair play would be satisfied if Assange pleads guilty to lese majeste—embarrassing the government by exposing its follies, frauds, and crimes. I still believe that Assange deserves a presidential Medal of Freedom, as I recommended in USA Today in 2018. 

But that would never satisfy people like Hillary Clinton, who joked about seeing Assange dead, or former CIA chief Mike Pompeo, who plotted on kidnapping and killing Assange. Hell-raisers like Assange are necessary to prevent America from becoming an Impunity Democracy in which government officials pay no price for their abuses.

The next hearing in the Assange case will be May 20 in London, a few weeks after the annual World Press Freedom Day. Biden marked that day last year by proclaiming, “Courageous journalists around the world have shown time and again that they will not be silenced or intimidated. The United States sees them and stands with them.” Except, of course, for any courageous journalist that Biden seeks to destroy. 

The post Convicting Julian Assange Would Mean the End of Free Speech appeared first on The American Conservative.

U.S. Officials Believe That ‘We’ Are at War With Russia

Politics

U.S. Officials Believe That ‘We’ Are at War With Russia

American officials should unashamedly act for the American people.

UKRAINE-RUSSIA-CONFLICT-WAR-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY
(Photo by YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP via Getty Images)

Could someone please tell Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate’s premier warmongers, that “we” are not at war with Russia? Ukraine is. 

The grandstanding warrior wannabe recently visited Kiev. The Zelensky government is under pressure to expand conscription to bulk up its army. Graham enthusiastically backed the effort. Reported the Washington Post: “‘I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,’ he told reporters Monday. ‘You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving—not at 25 or 27’.” He insisted: “We need more people in the line.”

We? When did Graham accept Ukrainian citizenship and enter the Ukrainian Rada?

Graham is one of many witless American officials who seem to believe that they are to represent foreign countries dealing with the U.S. rather than the U.S. in dealing with foreign countries. This isn’t a new phenomenon. People often have been devoted to other nations reflecting their ethnic or religious background, supporting everything up to military intervention by Washington, often to America’s great disadvantage. A commitment to ancestral homelands accounted for significant backing for NATO’s ill-fated expansion up to Russia’s borders. (So did the desire of the merchants of death to open new markets for weapons sales.)

Graham appears to have a bizarre enthusiasm for sending others off to war, here, there, and almost everywhere. Send is the key verb, at least until now. If we really “need more people in the line,” he could join Ukraine’s forces. After all, Kiev is calling on foreigners to bolster its defense. Several already have died fighting for Ukraine. Graham could finally put his life, rather than the rest of our lives, where his mouth is.

Ukrainians would welcome the move. Many Americans would as well. Graham could demonstrate that he isn’t just a showboating blowhard pretending to be tough, finally fighting in one of the wars into which he desperately sought to plunge the U.S.

The overriding duty of American officeholders is to serve the American people. Indeed, that is why the national government exists. Washington’s foreign policy should focus on U.S. national interests, particularly protecting America’s people, territory, prosperity, and constitutional system.

Of course, the means adopted should reflect the rights and interests of others. Washington has often fallen short of that ideal. Support for a murderous medley of repressive regimes during the Cold War was terrible but at least understandable. Underwriting mass killers and oppressors in such nations as Egypt and Saudi Arabiaparticular favorites of dictator fanboy Graham—today is less forgivable.

At least Ukraine deserves our sympathy, in contrast to such ruthless autocracies. Nevertheless, even Kiev’s fight is more complicated than commonly presented. Ukraine is hardly a Western-style liberal democracy. Freedom House rates Kiev only “partly free,” hardly a ringing endorsement. The latter’s leaders indulge in demagoguery and demonization against foreigners who don’t kowtow and back their demands. (Russia, of course, is more oppressive and its brutal invasion, which has wreaked such carnage for both countries, was not justified, despite the West’s reckless and belligerent behavior. Primary blame for the war remains with Moscow.)

Nevertheless, for Washington, Americans’ interests should remain central. It is one thing to wish Kiev well. It is quite another to launch a global nuclear war on its behalf, as proposed by Mississippi’s reckless, even unhinged, Sen. Roger Wicker. Those pressing to arm Ukraine irrespective of consequences and undertake the most aggressive ends—retake Crimea, overthrow the Putin government, and break up the Russian Federation—are only slightly less foolish. The U.S. already is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers. With a nuclear arsenal that matches America’s, Moscow can respond forcefully, and with a military doctrine that relies on nuclear weapons to cover its relative conventional weakness is likely to do so if it fears defeat. 

Nothing about the Russo–Ukrainian conflict warrants risking war with Russia.

Of course, the Ukraine lobby puts forth several reasons why Washington policymakers should put Kiev’s desires first. None are persuasive. One is that if victorious, Putin’s legions aren’t likely to stop, but would surge westward. A new evil empire would be born. 

It is difficult to articulate what Moscow would hope to gain from assaulting the rest of the continent. Indeed, Putin, noting such hysterical claims, responded, “The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia has no reason, no interest—neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military—to fight with NATO countries.” Of course, nothing he says should be taken on faith, just as it would be foolish to trust U.S. and allied officials who have violated their commitments and lied about their plans. 

Nevertheless, while Putin is not a gentle liberal, he also isn’t a militaristic lunatic. Indeed, he originally hoped for a positive relationship with the West, telling the German Bundestag in 2001: “No one calls in question the great value of Europe’s relations with the United States. I am just of the opinion that Europe will reinforce its reputation of a strong and truly independent center of world politics soundly and for a long time if it succeeds in bringing together its own potential and that of Russia, including its human, territorial and natural resources and its economic, cultural and defense potential.”

Nothing Putin has said or done since suggests he is interested in European conquest. His military assaults, while lawless, have been limited to Georgia and Ukraine, and do not make him Hitler reincarnated. Even now President George W. Bush is responsible for far more civilian deaths. Moscow always viewed Tbilisi and Kiev differently and made clear NATO expansion could trigger a violent response. In 2008, CIA Director William Burns, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, expressed what today would be dismissed as Putin talking points: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players…. I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Equally important, who imagines that the Russian army, which in more than two years of war in Ukraine has suffered severe losses while making only modest territorial gains, would go on to conquer the Baltics and Poland, march down the Unter den Linden in Berlin, sweep past the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and reach the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean? Even over the long-term Moscow’s military potential remains limited. Europe possesses a much larger economy and population than Russia; the European governments already spend far more on the military. The key to Europe’s defense is Europe, not Ukraine.

Much is made about the supposed malign precedent set by a potential Russian victory. Then authoritarians everywhere—meaning China, North Korea, and Iran, after which the list of expected evildoers and aggressors runs out—would take note and launch their own bids for world domination. Yet this claim also makes little sense. 

Aggression almost always reflects local conditions. Iran’s conventional military is weak; Tehran’s main ability is to strike out unconventionally, which it already is doing. Ukraine is meaningless as a precedent for the Korean peninsula, where the U.S. previously defended the South, and with which America retains a defense treaty and troop tripwire 

Beijing knows that the U.S. would provide weapons and training to Taiwan since Washington is already doing so. In Ukraine Europe has already demonstrated its willingness to impose restrictions on commerce and finance. Privately, Chinese officials indicate that their government already expects an American military response to any attack, especially since President Joe Biden has several times said that he would intervene. From Beijing’s standpoint, Ukraine is a welcome distraction for Washington. The conflict also drives Russia closer to China.

Finally, advocates of perpetual war argue that failure in Ukraine would hurt America’s credibility. Washington has survived multiple mistakes, disasters, and crimes over the years. Despite Hungary, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Iran, Poland, Somalia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Hong Kong, Venezuela, and Afghanistan, foreign governments, including Ukraine and Taiwan, continue to flock to Washington begging for money, arms, treaties, and promises. After nearly 80 years punctuated by frustration and disappointment, the Europeans still put their defense in Washington’s hands, whining and wailing at the slightest suggestion that the U.S. might leave them responsible for their own defense. America would survive failure in Ukraine.

In short, the conflict, though a humanitarian horror, is not a vital security interest for the U.S. It does not warrant fighting an endless proxy war. There is no “we” when it comes to the Russo–Ukrainian war. America’s interests stand apart.

The U.S. retains a stake in a stable and peaceful Europe. Washington also prefers Kiev’s survival as an independent and sovereign government, with its people free to make their own political and economic choices. The best way to achieve both these ends would be to engage Russia over a revised security order. Reaching a workable compromise wouldn’t be easy. Nevertheless, with Ukraine as the battlefield, it is in Kiev’s as well as America’s interest to end the conflict sooner rather than later. 

Foreign governments long have sought to influence the U.S. government, distorting American foreign policy for their benefit. Graham and other members of the Washington War Party have been only too willing to do the bidding of favored foreign interests, confusing “them” with “we.” American officials should unashamedly act for the American people.

The post U.S. Officials Believe That ‘We’ Are at War With Russia appeared first on The American Conservative.

Scott: Those Calling Me 'DEI Mayor' Don’t Have Courage to Say the 'N-Word'

Par : Pam Key · Pam Key

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said Wednesday on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" that critics calling him a "DEI mayor" do not "have the courage to say the N-word."

The post Scott: Those Calling Me ‘DEI Mayor’ Don’t Have Courage to Say the ‘N-Word’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Marlow: McDaniel Debacle Exposes 'Fascists' at MSNBC, NBC News

Par : Pam Key · Pam Key

Breitbart Editor-in-Chief and New York Times bestselling Breaking Biden author Alex Marlow said Wednesday on Fox Business Network's "Kudlow" that NBC News had exposed itself as "fascists" by parting ways with former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel after MSNBC hosts complained publicly about her becoming a paid contributor.

The post Marlow: McDaniel Debacle Exposes ‘Fascists’ at MSNBC, NBC News appeared first on Breitbart.

MSNBC Reid: GOP Is Anti-DEI Because They 'Can't Stand Black People'

Par : Pam Key · Pam Key

MSNBC host Joy Reid said Wednesday on her show "The ReidOut" that Republicans are against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs because they "can't stand black people."

The post MSNBC Reid: GOP Is Anti-DEI Because They ‘Can’t Stand Black People’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Bernie Sanders says Israel is ‘becoming a religious fundamentalist country’

The Independent Senator from Vermont has previously criticised the country, calling for an end to US aid to Israel

DeSantis and Disney finally bring an end to feud caused by criticism of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law

The two-year-long feud between the Florida governor and entertainment giant began when the company criticised anti-LGBT+ state legislation

Kari Lake won’t fight defamation lawsuit brought by election official

Conspiracy-embracing GOP candidate had previously indicated she would wage court battle to defend herself

Hugh Hewitt: Ronna McDaniel Will 'Sue Everyone Who Defamed Her' After NBC Reversal

Par : Pam Key · Pam Key

Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt said Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Special Report" that former Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel will sue NBC News for "intentional infliction of mental distress" after the network parted ways with her.

The post Hugh Hewitt: Ronna McDaniel Will ‘Sue Everyone Who Defamed Her’ After NBC Reversal appeared first on Breitbart.

Migration Advocates Use Bridge Deaths to Push for More Migration

Advocates for more migration are exploiting the deaths of six migrant workers in the Baltimore bridge disaster to argue that more migrants are essential for America.

The post Migration Advocates Use Bridge Deaths to Push for More Migration appeared first on Breitbart.

❌