The first lady of Ukraine was in Washington last week to be feted by the Biden administration, Congress, and the corporate press. Olena Zelenska, the attractive and patriotically dressed wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was given the Jackie Kennedy/Michelle Obama treatment by fashion columnists while also helping to reinforce the message that Ukraine’s effort to defend itself against Russian aggression is a battle for democracy and the survival of the West. This is an easy story to tell a receptive American audience. Since the war began in February, American sympathy combined with the stiffer-than-expected struggle put up by Ukrainian forces and Zelensky’s deft public relations campaign has reinforced the message that the Kyiv government is a democracy whose defense is essential to Western security.
Yet the question to be posed about this is not whether Russia and Putin are bad but whether Ukraine is the paragon of democracy Biden says it is.
Congress recently passed a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine in May with bipartisan support. Grassroots Republicans and even portions of the Democratic base have been critical of the way Ukraine’s security has come to dictate national priorities. That $40 billion is likely to be only the first installment of a steady flow of aid to pay for the $10 billion per month that the war is costing Kyiv.
That’s what made the appearance of a story about Ukraine in The New York Times this past week, which showed a different side of Zelensky’s government, so significant. The story, titled “Zelenskyy Fires Two Top Law Enforcement Officials,” buried the lead. The Times emphasized the fact that this was the first government shakeup in Kyiv since the war started as well as the fact that one of the two people fired was a boyhood friend of Zelensky. But while that is true, the substance of the story was that the sympathy and support for the Russians among a not insignificant portion of the Ukrainian population and members of the security services has damaged the war effort.
An earlier story in the Times discussed how paranoia about potential Russian spies had spread throughout Ukrainian society. The latest dispatch made clear just how much of an issue this had become. It’s one thing to report about 200,000 spy allegations being submitted to Ukrainian authorities every month. Zelensky’s sacking of security measures made clear how “treason” cases have become something of an obsession for the Ukrainian government.
Even more alarming is the fact that several hundred of these treason investigations involved security personnel. Many Ukrainian officials, including those who were employed by the prosecutor’s office, remained behind in Russian-occupied territory and are now working for Moscow.
Still, that partly explains the large number of Ukrainian personnel helping the Russians. But the way this vast security state has been empowered by the war to turn its malevolent gaze on Ukrainian citizens — whether guilty of sympathy for Moscow or not — is chilling.
Previously, Ukraine was widely acknowledged to be as corrupt as the rest of the former Soviet Union, with a fledgling democratic system that was far from entirely free. Even after Zelensky became president, newspapers that were critical of his government were shut down. Since the war started, journalists have struggled to retain their ability to report freely and fairly.
That the majority of Ukrainians want their country to remain independent is obvious. So is their willingness to fight to prevent their nation from falling under Putin’s thumb. But the ability of the Russians to get so many Ukrainians to sympathize with or aid their assault on Ukraine illustrates that what is going on is, in part, a civil war as well as a foreign invasion.
Yet equally true is the fact that the Ukrainian state that is being defended so bravely is still deeply flawed and possessed of attributes antithetical to democracy. Though some of its problems would be present in any country at war and under direct attack, the more we learn about Ukraine, the less it resembles the Jeffersonian democracy that Biden tries to conjure up in his speeches on the subject.
While sympathy for Ukraine and hostility to Russia is understandable, these are factors that ought to be taken into consideration if the United States is to undertake the kind of financial commitment in this war that is starting to remind us of the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or, at least, it should if Americans are to be permitted to have a debate about making such a dubious commitment.
Jonathan S. Tobin is a senior contributor to The Federalist, editor in chief of JNS.org, and a columnist for the New York Post. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illuminating an ugly truth: the anti-fracking war on America’s energy security is being waged by well-funded, radical U.S. environmental groups, as well as interests tied directly to Vladimir Putin. For years, the U.S. government has investigated Russian financial ties to environmental groups that push for ending U.S. fossil fuel production and have successfully shut down fracking sites and pipelines, to the detriment of U.S. workers and consumers. Who benefits? Putin, because the desolation of U.S. energy security has bolstered state-owned Gazprom and his dangerous geopolitical aims.
Before the war on Ukraine, the U.S. Congress began exposing connections between Russia and little-known foundations that donate to major environmental groups such as Sierra Club and National Resource Defense Council (NRDC). The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a 2014 report noting a small group of rich Americans was controlling environmental groups and collaborating with questionable offshore funders to maximize support. In 2017, two congressmen called for further investigation of the connection between these funders and Russia. These suspicious donations to radical environmental groups could be part of the larger geopolitical strategy Putin used to execute greater control over Europe before his invasion of Ukraine. For instance, if the United States had ramped up natural gas production, Putin could not today be blackmailing Poland and Bulgaria by cutting off their energy supply. Had America allowed more investment in fracking and other energy production, Putin would not have strategic leverage over Europe.
Most Americans know Putin does not want to see the United States succeed. What they may not know is these anti-energy groups acting under the guise of “environmental justice” are funded by a handful of wealthy Americans who are either blindingly naïve to the role they have played in supporting Putin’s agenda or willfully complicit.
There is no more notorious example than the Heinz Endowment, led by Teresa Heinz, wife of U.S. climate envoy John Kerry. Under her watch, the endowment has deployed at least $13 million toward anti-shale activism since 2008, killing jobs and prosperity in their own Pennsylvania backyard and unnecessarily forcing America to give up market share to tyrants like Putin. The Heinz fortune funds dozens of Pennsylvania groups engaged in killing pipelines and natural gas production. One of their beneficiaries, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, is successfully fighting to keep a ban on natural gas production in the Delaware River Basin that is preventing access to vast new reserves. In fact, Pennsylvania, where the Heinz family made their fortune and is still based, is bearing the brunt of this campaign. The latest example is the Keystone State’s addition to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Sierra Club and NRDC lobbied in favor of expanding the interstate compact to tax carbon emissions to include Pennsylvania, even though scientists at Penn State found 86 percent of carbon emissions will simply move to nearby states.
As Putin now leverages his energy dominance as a tool of coercion and his geopolitical strategy is brutally playing out for all the world to see, Heinz and other radical environmental groups can no longer claim they are innocent arbiters of environmental justice when their actions have, intentionally or not, aided and abetted him.
Isn’t it time for these Americans to focus on policies that protect the earth, advance American energy security, and counter America’s enemies?
Victoria Coates, a distinguished fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, served as senior policy adviser to the secretary of energy in the Trump administration. Jennifer Stefano is executive vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation and an Independent Women’s Forum visiting fellow.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Recent polling shows that very few Americans are buying the excuses the Biden administration are making for high inflation and instead blame the President Joe Biden and his policies. The NBC News poll asked Americans who they thought was to blame for the high inflation that they are suffering under and offered some of the culprits blamed by the president and his supporters as possible answers. Among the options listed, Biden and his policies were blamed by a plurality of Americans polled, at 38%. Only 28% blamed the coronavirus pandemic, another 23% blamed corporations raising prices, and barely 6% blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.
Over recent months, the Biden administration has attempted to blame the invasion of Ukraine, the greed of meat conglomerates, and the pandemic for the high inflation eating away at Americans’ savings and wages. The same poll found the president’s approval rating to drop to 40% while an astounding 55% disapprove of the job Biden is doing. When asked about the economy, only 33% said they approved of the job he’s doing, while 63% said they don’t approve of the job Biden is doing.
The astonishing poll is just the latest in a long series showing devastating results for Democrats ahead of the midterms, where they would have faced an uphill battle even without horrible polling. The terrible polling has lead to greater division in the Democratic party among the centrist establishment wing, which blames progressive extremism, and the far-left progressive wing that blames Biden for not going far enough to the left.
Socialist Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on Thursday said that the low polling came from progressives and young voters who were disappointed that Biden had done enough to satisfy their left-wing demands.
Here’s more about the terrible poll numbers for Biden:
Steve Kornacki: Biden’s Handling Of The Economy Numbers ‘Getting Worse And Worse’ www.youtube.com
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
American institutions are taking anti-Russian sanctions into their own hands, further normalizing a financial social credit system that can ostracize users for holding unacceptable beliefs — a move purported to punish Russia but that actually evokes the authoritarian country’s own system of tracking its citizens’ political views.
Visa and Mastercard have suspended operations in Russia over the country’s invasion of Ukraine, blocking “cards issued by Russian banks from working in other countries and block[ing] people with cards issued elsewhere from purchasing goods and services from companies in Russia.” American Express has also dropped its Russian operations. Meanwhile, tech companies like Apple and Microsoft have ceased sales of their products in the country.
It could be tempting to cheer the move for targeting Russia’s authoritarian regime and condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked attacks on the people of Ukraine. But the actions by private companies against Russians are part of a larger swing by U.S. corporations to deny services to those whose opinions they deem unacceptable — and that’s exactly the kind of social credit system Russia is building to impose on its own people.
(12) You think this western (WEF/NATO) compliance and financial gateway system they are establishing for all of us would not be fully supported by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping?
Ha. Of course, they would. It mirrors their same system. And we are doing it to ourselves. 😲 pic.twitter.com/r1W9eFf8vs
Moscow will use “digital profiles” to track citizens’ “loyalty,” according to a Moscow Times 2020 report. “Moscow City Hall has since 2017 been collecting the gender, age, income level and relationship to other people signed up to its mos.ru website as part of the internet activity monitoring system,” the report notes. “The digital profiles will now include information about Muscovites’ violations, fines, debts and participation in various events, according to the cited documentation.”
Lest you think the system is limited to the capital city, Russian officials have said that 80 percent of Russians will have such a digital profile by 2025 through the government’s $53 billion Digital Economy Program.
And now, with Visa and Mastercard cutting ties, Russian banks are turning to China — a country with an even more invasive social credit system. The Chinese Communist Party tracks its people’s economic decisions and even things like being a good or bad driver to reward or punish behavior. Punishment might include anything from slower internet speeds to being barred from flying or staying in certain hotels. There have also been reports of people being denied higher education and having their pets confiscated.
If you think comparisons between Russia and China’s authoritarian credit systems and the increasing dragnet in the United States are outlandish, just think about how Mastercard and American Express blocked donations to Americans whose beliefs about the 2020 election were found unacceptable, while Visa’s political action committee used the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 to “temporarily suspend[] all political donations.” Paypal, Venmo, and Shopify all went after people who were supposedly involved in the riot.
Just last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cracked down on truckers who were protesting Covid mandates, freezing hundreds of bank accounts purported to be associated with the peaceful protest. Crowdsourcing fundraising platform GoFundMe confiscated millions of dollars from protest organizers.
Previously, GoFundMe suspended a fundraising campaign for Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of all charges after he shot three men in self-defense. The platform also used the Jan. 6 riot to nix fundraisers for “travel to a political event where there’s risk of violence by the attendees,” and those that “spread misinformation about the election, promote conspiracy theories and contribute to or participate in attacks on U.S. democracy.”
Meanwhile, Big Tech companies use their powers of censorship to shut down users whose speech is deemed unacceptable, and to nuke alternative platforms from app stores. We shouldn’t cheer U.S. firms for appointing themselves the arbiters of who deserves to participate in our economy (and by extension, our society). If they can do it to Russia, they can do it to you.
But we also shouldn’t cheer such actions because they move us one step closer to blurring the line between ourselves and the authoritarian tyrants we purport to denounce. If we defeat Russia or China by making our differences unrecognizable, we’ve already lost.
Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
For all the talk about Putin’s authoritarian grip over former Soviet states, we have our own authoritarian Putins now governing Western democracies and crushing all political dissent. Holding someone without bail for organizing a peaceful protest against the government sounds like something Putin would do, yet it is now happening in Canada and has already been happening here against those who did not engage in violence on Jan. 6. Meanwhile, these same Western leaders support de-incarceration for the most violent criminals, demonstrating that it’s not even about authoritarianism, but a two-tiered society built upon the ideals of fascism.
Last Thursday, Tamara Lich, one of the organizers of the trucker convoy who set up the original GoFundMe account, was arrested in Ottawa for simply opposing the Trudeau regime and organizing a peaceful protest. Not a single person from the hundreds of thousands of truckers acted violently, a few blocked roads, and Lich herself did nothing. She is being charged with “counselling to commit mischief,” which reeks of Iranian-style prosecution.
On Tuesday morning, Ontario judge Justice Julie Bourgeois denied Lich the opportunity to post any bail, even though she promised not to engage in more lawful protests and instead return to her home in Alberta. “I cannot be reassured that if I release you into the community that you will not reoffend,” Bourgeois said. “Your detention is necessary for the protection and safety of the public.”
Those who follow my running column on robbers and gun felons who get released without bail, and even some murderers who get released on low bail despite massive criminal records, can appreciate the rich irony. Lich might reoffend by committing an action that is not only legal but serves as the cornerstone value of dissent in a free and democratic society. If this standard were applied to BLM, there would literally be millions in jail today, and they often engaged in violence, not to mention more widespread blocking of roads.
Justice Bourgeois is a former liberal candidate for parliament and was endorsed by Trudeau in 2009. Thus, we are now at a point in Western (former) democracies when political prisoners cannot get a fair trial because the courts are completely co-opted by regime-supporting judges. Worse, Bourgeois once excused rising violent crime as “desperate people going through desperate times and using desperate measures.”
Hence, the very same judges and politicians who believe that political dissent is a dangerous crime also believe that career violent criminals need to be let out of jail. The same people who want to deny peaceful citizens the right to carry a gun seek to release every gun felon who has committed violence with a gun.
To that end, what is happening in Western countries is even worse than China or a return to pre-enlightenment Western governing values. In China, they wouldn’t tolerate murderers and carjackers. They will at least apply their harshness with equality – to an extent. What we are seeing in Canada and the U.S. is a form of postmodern Western-style fascism that elevates criminal behavior to the highest ideals of society while punishing the expression or utilization of basic human rights if they violate those ideals.
This is the plain definition of fascism. It doesn’t have to always be rooted in race. Merriam-Webster defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.” This is what we are seeing in Western countries today. It’s not a matter of targeting any one race but creating a standard of national interests and announcing that anyone who doesn’t subscribe to those interests – even if they affect one’s body in the most intimate way – is a threat to the nation and needs to be segregated, discriminated against, persecuted, and suppressed.
It’s not about equal-opportunity authoritarianism, because it is directed solely at those who don’t fit the national standards. Thus, we are witnessing the worst influx of illegal immigration and domestic crime precisely during the time of the most heavy-handed authoritarianism against “some” citizens. At the same time that we have the most autocratic stay-at-home order of all time, we experienced the greatest ubiquitous mass gatherings in history through BLM protests and riots.
It’s easy to rest on our laurels and thank God we are living south of the 50th parallel, but we have already seen political dissidents held without bail for a year with no criminal record for very nebulous charges that are clearly directed at chilling political dissent, not deterring violent or even disruptive behavior. For example, Couy Griffin, a county commissioner in New Mexico and founder of Cowboys for Trump who certainly had no prior criminal record, was initially held without bail for several weeks, despite never having stepped foot in the Capitol or committed assault or vandalism. The unappointed magistrate judge kept him solely because of his political views and used that as pretext to show he is a flight risk.
“I don’t think that the defendant will follow my conditions if he believes I am part of this machine of the democratic process,”proclaimed magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui at a hearing on Feb. 1, 2021. She went on to note that his political views, because she disagrees with them, makes him eligible to be held without bail – something not done for many murderers with massive rap sheets. She said that believing the election was stolen was “no different than people not believing facts or science.” No wonder they now want to criminalize dissent from their illogical and unscientific “public health” ScIeNcE.
It is therefore clear that we already have Canada’s problem of the judicial system criminalizing political opposition and thought crimes. Yet this is occurring at a time when our judicial system has largely done away with pretrial holding even for violent repeat offenders. Here are just a few recent stories to consider when trying to process the breathtaking speed at which we have devolved into an authoritarian state … except for what actually needs deterrent from strong authority!
James Tubbs, 26, who plead guilty to molesting a child at a Los Angeles Denny’s restaurant restroom, will serve no time in prison and will not have to register as a sex offender, thanks to the new rules put in place by prosecutor George Gascon. Tubbs, who now believes he is really a woman, is instead being held in a female juvenile facility, even though he is an adult male, because he was just shy of his 18th birthday when he committed the crime. Fox News recently released a tape of Tubbs bragging about beating the system. “I’m gonna plead out to it, plead guilty,” Tubbs says in one recording. “They’re gonna stick me on probation, and it’s gonna be dropped, it’s gonna be done, I won’t have to register, won’t have to do nothing.”
There is a carjacking epidemic in almost every major city. Recently, Chicago police superintendent David Brown revealed that 60% of all incidents were perpetrated by juveniles and that the system offers no real consequences for them.
Speaking of political crimes, how about attempting to assassinate a mayoral candidate? Well, in our fascist social “equity” system, it depends on the race and motive of the perpetrator. Earlier this month, BLM activist Quintez Brown was charged with attempted murder for stepping into the campaign headquarters of Louisville mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg and opening fire. Luckily, the bullets only grazed the candidate’s clothing and the shooter was stopped and apprehended. He came with extended magazines and clearly was coming as an assassin, but a judge let him out on $100,000 bail, which was posted by national BLM umbrella groups. “There is simply no defense for a would-be assassin to be released on bail, 60 hours after firing on his intended target,” Adam Edelen, the former chief of staff for former Democrat Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, tweeted. Can you imagine if someone from the trucker movement had done this to a prominent pro-mandate politician?
Bronx Supreme Court Justice Naita Semaj-Williams just allowed two teenagers charged with murder, manslaughter, robbery, gang assault, and other crimes to be released without posting bail. In a previous case earlier this month, Semaj-Williams walked back a $60,000 bond for a criminal charged with attempted murder and released him on his own recognizance.
These situations are occurring even in Texas. In 2019, Treveon Tatum, 20, was charged with murder but released by a Houston judge on just $50,000 bond. Despite being arrested again the following April for felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Tatum still did not have his bail revoked. Despite violating the terms of his bail multiple times, he was never re-incarcerated. Then, on Feb. 8, he was charged again with a new murder.
While COVID is being used an excuse to jail business owners and political dissidents, the same virus is being used as pretext to release true public safety threats. Earlier this month, Garrett W. Caspino was cited twice by police for criminal trespassing while acting erratically in a residential neighborhood of Corvallis, Oregon. However, he wasn’t arrested “because of COVID-19 protocols.” But just an hour later, he allegedly broke into a home in broad daylight, pulled down his pants, and choked the female homeowner against the wall while showering. He was later chased out of the house by the victim’s boyfriend. Despite the seriousness of the charges and the clear likelihood he will “reoffend,” Caspino will still have an opportunity to post bail, albeit a high amount.
The raison d’etre of the existence of Western governments is plainly spelled out in the preamble of our Constitution – to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Yet we now have a government that ensures tyranny and promotes the curse of violent anarchy while perverting justice based on politics and identity. One could not possibly abrogate the underpinnings of our social contract in a more grotesque manner than what today’s global elites governing Western countries are doing. This is unsustainable and must change. It is our right – our duty – to demand a new government “to provide new Guards for their future security.” The same failed political strategies of the past do not speak to the magnitude of corruption in our government.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
A.F. Branco coffee table book “Keep America Laughing (at the left)” ORDER HERE
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated– $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.
A Vladimir Putin critic has been found with his throat slit in what police are calling a “politically motivated” assassination in a French hotel. Imran Aliev, 44, was found lying on the ground with “multiple wounds” in his chest and his throat slit with a bloodied knife next to it.
Aliev has been a strong critic of Vladimir Putin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on his popular blog and youtube accounts for years, working under the pseudonyms of Mansur Stariy or Old Mansur.His is the latest death to spark concerns of a Russian political hit squad running amok in Europe to hunt down any anti-establishment voices in hiding.
Aliev’s 35-year-old Chechen traveling companion disappeared shortly after the shocking murder that was discovered by the hotel manager on January 30 after they failed to check out. The pair had traveled from Aliev’s home in Belgium where he was under police protection, to Lille, France, via train on January 29 where they booked into the Coq Hardi Hotel. The day before his death, he told his wife and four children that he was leaving for a day in France “on business” after an unknown man showed up from Chechnya on the eve of the incident.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, Israel, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020. The event marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz under the title ‘Remembering the Holocaust: Fighting Antisemitism’ is held to preserve the memory of the Holocaust atrocities by Nazi Germany during World War II. (Abir Sultan, Pool via AP)
Officers are now hoping to track down Aliev’s mysterious companion who is still missing over a week after the killing according to Business Insider. A senior French police official said: “[Aliev] left Belgium Wednesday (Jan 29) where he was under police protection because of threats out of Russia and Chechnya over his opposition blogging.
“He was accompanied by another Chechen, who we have tentatively identified based on his travel documents.
“Obviously, considering Aliev’s history and previous threats, we need to strongly examine the possibility of a state intelligence service in this murder.
“We are collecting and analyzing evidence from travel patterns, electronic intercepts, and other investigative tools at our disposal.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, the great Rush Limbaugh.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, the great El Rushbo, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.
The Media and the Democrats continue with the narrative that Trump is “Putin’s puppet” although he’s been tougher on Putin than any previous President.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
The very people who gave us eight years of a weak and corrupt President Obama are now criticizing President Trump for his Helsinki Summit performance with Putin.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.
Seems like every liberal and their dog are calling for the impeachment of Donald Trump. Maxine Waters is ahead of the game by tweeting this every day at least 3 times.
Rep. Al Green went on the House floor and even made it official.
Much to the liberal’s dismay, the very man who is at the center of this controversy has popped their impeachment bubble…and he probably enjoyed doing it too.
The Hill reports this morning that “Russian leader Vladimir Putin said early Wednesday that President Trump did not share secrets with Russian officials last week and is willing to give Congress transcripts to prove it.
The Associated Press and Reuters reported that Putin is willing to hand over the records of the president’s conversation with Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador, if the White House approves. Two days ago, The Washington Post reported that the president reveled highly classified intelligence information during that Oval Office meeting.
The Post cited current and former US officials who said Trump divulged information from a foreign source, now known to be Israel, involving a terror threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Putin on Wednesday joked that his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov “hasn’t shared those secrets with us.”
“I’ll be forced to issue him with a reprimand because he did not share these secrets with us,” Putin joked. “Not with me, nor with representatives of Russia’s intelligence services. It was very bad of him.”
Of course this is coming from the Washington Post, so good luck trusting everything that is being said by them. Especially since last week the WaPo called for the censoring of free speech that it doesn’t like.
To further add insult to injury to ALL of Washington and US press core Putin added:
“During a joint press conference with visiting prime minister of Italy, Putin also accused U.S. lawmakers of “stupid” and “dangerous” “anti-Russian sentiment” with accusations of sharing intelligence, the AP reported.
Putin said he had “no other explanation” for the allegations other than “political schizophrenia.”
“Either they don’t understand the damage they’re doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt,” he added.
The Russian leader also suggested that Trump was being hindered from doing his job properly. He said the American people will be able to judge Trump’s performance as president “only when he’s allowed to work at full capacity.”
BOOM and BOOM!
Politicians and reporters, do your REAL job. Stop trying to impeach a president that you have no legal basis against. The investigation is still going on and has never stopped. Comey deserved to get fired. Move on! Didn’t liberals create a whole website about that?
Two Russian warships have docked in northern Iran for a series of naval training exercises with the Islamic Republic, according to Persian-language reports translated by the CIA’s Open Source Center. The two Russian ships docked in Iran’s Anzali port on Sunday and will hold “joint naval exercises during the three-day stay of the warships in Iran,”according to a Persian-language report in Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency. “The [Russian] warships, Volgodonsk and Makhachkala docked in Anzali Port [near the Caspian Sea], in the fourth naval zone, on the afternoon of 9 August,” the report says.
The war exercises come just weeks after Iran and global powers inked a nuclear accord that will provide Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief in return for slight restrictions on the country’s nuclear program. Russian and Iran have grown close in recent years, with delegations from each country regularly visiting one another to ink arms deals and other agreements aimed at strengthening Iran’s nuclear program. Russia and Iran agreed earlier this year to begin construction on several new nuclear power plants. Russia has also agreed to sell Iran a controversial advanced missile defense system that can prevent attacks by Western powers.
The Russian fleet docked in Iran’s port “carrying a message of ‘peace and friendship,’” according to Iranian officials quoted by Fars. The fleet was “welcomed by Iranian naval commanders and staff.” The Russian commander of the fleet is scheduled to hold meetings with “local political and military officials” in Iran’s northern provinces, according to Fars.
Levan Jagarian, Russia’s ambassador to Tehran, reportedly attended the docking ceremony and called for “for boosting mutual ties between the two countries in various fields,” according to the report. The two nations went on to say that “expanding bilateraleconomic, political, and military cooperation is among the priorities of the visit.”
A Russian fleet also docked in northern Iran in October.
Last week, a senior Iranian naval commander warnedthe United States against ever taking military action on Iranian interests, claiming that the response would be “unpredictably strong.” “The western media are mocking at the U.S. for speaking of ‘on the table options (against Iran)’ because the U.S. always utters some words without the ability to materialize them,” Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Naval Commander Ali Fadavi was quoted as saying by the country’s state-run press. Iran is “ready to give such a powerful response to the slightest move of the U.S. that it won’t be able to make any other moves,”Fadavi was quoted as saying. The military leader went on to claim that “Iranian Armed Forces are now at the highest level of preparedness” and that “only the dead body of the American troops realizes the power of the Islamic Revolution.”
Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, said the Obama administration is fundamentally misreading Iran’s intentions in light of the recently inked nuclear accord. “We’re witnessing a new great game, and Obama is so self-centered he keeps playing solitaire,”Rubin said. “Obama simply doesn’t understand that the world is full of dictators who seek to checkmate America. What he sees as compromise; they see as weakness to exploit.”
Referring to a visit last week to Russia by IRGC leader Qassem Soleimani, who is responsible for the deaths of Americans, Rubin said it is clear that Moscow and Tehran aim to build a tight military alliance. “Visiting Russia to talk arms purchases and now this naval visit, it’s clear that Putin and Khamenei will waste no time to really develop their military cooperation,”he said.
An axis between Russia, Iran, and North Korea is beginning to emerge Rubin said, citing official releases that a North Korean delegation is currently visiting Russia to tour war games sites. “The Russian warship visit combined with North Korea scoping out war game sites in Russia suggest a new Axis of Evil is taking shape with Russia the lynchpin between Iran and North Korea,” Rubin said. “As for the United States, rather than the leader of the free world, Obama and Kerry have transformed us in much of the world’s eyes as the pinnacle of surrender.”
Meanwhile, Obama admitted Monday that Iran’s nuclear breakout time will shrink to “a matter of months” once the nuclear accord expires in around 15 years.
SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin says gays should feel welcome at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, but they must “leave the children in peace.”
Putin told volunteers Friday that gays visiting Sochi “can feel calm and at ease,” and vowed that there would be no discrimination at the games. But he emphasized that, according to a law banning homosexual “propaganda” among minors, gays cannot express their views on gay rights issues to anyone underage.
Putin and other politicians have defended the June propaganda law as a protection of child rights, but critics believe that the law discriminates against sexual minorities.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) released a Web video on Thursday seeking to contrast the White House’s willingness to work with the Russians to find a diplomatic solution in Syria against President Obama’s declaration that he won’t negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit.
“The Obama administration on working with Congress to address the debt and deficit,” the ad says, before cutting to a montage of Obama and senior members of his staff saying they will not negotiate over the country’s debt ceiling.“The Obama administration on working with Putin on Syria,” the ad continues, before cutting to pictures of Obama looking chummy with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Why is the Obama administration willing to negotiate with Putin on Syria … But not with Congress to address Washington’s spending problem?” text from the ad asks.
Last week, the U.S. and Russia brokered a deal in which Syria would give up its chemical weapons. The diplomatic solution temporarily lifted the threat of a U.S. military strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
House Republican leaders said Wednesday they were working on legislation to raise the debt ceiling but that it would include a one-year delay in the implementation of the president’s healthcare law.
The White House says it will not negotiate over the country’s borrowing limit and will not consider a debt limit package that seeks to delay or defund ObamaCare.
The last debt limit showdown in 2011 dragged Congress and the president’s approval ratings to new lows, and resulted in the automatic spending cuts known as the sequester.
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