Pushing back against the orchestrated force of elites in the U.S. and Western Europe, President Donald Trump is preparing to meet with Vladimir Putin today at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. Their goal? To end the war in Ukraine.
Recall the deep roots of this war: An empty promise from the George H.W. Bush administration in the waning days of the Soviet Union that if Mikhael Gorbachev dissolved the Warsaw Pact, the U.S. wouldn’t push NATO westward toward Russia’s borders. We went on to break that pledge.
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used the chaos and poverty of the failing Boris Yelstin administration to fill the power vacuum in Eastern Europe, eventually pulling most of Russia’s neighbors into our nuclear hair-trigger military alliance. In 2013, our CIA helped orchestrate a coup against the duly elected pro-Russian leader of Ukraine, handpicked his replacement, and honeycombed that country’s institutions with American agents and assets.
In 2016, Vice President Joe Biden wielded $1 billion in promised U.S. aid to force Ukraine to remove a prosecutor who was looking into the corrupt energy company, Burisma, where Biden’s son Hunter sat on the board — probably as a CIA proxy, Deep State whistleblower Mike Benz asserts. Listen to Benz explain the war’s origins to Joe Rogan:
1. The Ukraine Coup
Benz explained how the 2014 Ukraine coup wasn’t just a geopolitical event, it was a testing ground.
The CIA used tools to combat media influence in the region, but…
Post-2016, these tools weren’t just used for foreign regimes… pic.twitter.com/OlOXz5WtFM
— Alessandro Palombo (@thealepalombo) December 9, 2024
That same year, Hillary Clinton’s campaign invented evidence purporting to show that Trump was a stooge of Putin’s Russia. None of that was true or even plausible, but President Barack Obama directed the FBI and CIA to pretend that it was — first to throw the presidential election to Clinton, and after that failed, to prevent Trump’s peaceful ascension to the Oval Office.
All through Trump’s term, the left used fake claims about Moscow’s influence — remember when Tulsi Gabbard was called a “Russian asset” and put on a terror watch list? — to thwart Trump, resulting in a fake impeachment attempt based on partisan Deep State leaks. The cynical usage of false claims about Russia prevented Trump from improving relations with that country or resolving its longstanding territorial disputes with Ukraine.
After the 2020 election, Putin saw in the incompetence of Biden’s team and our deep national division an opportunity to swiftly defeat Ukraine, perhaps annexing it entirely. The invasion turned into a murderous stalemate — which the Biden administration welcomed, with General Mark Milley admitting that the U.S. sought to “bleed” Russia.
Meanwhile, interventionist neoconservatives in the Republican Party insisted on imposing U.S. sanctions against Russia and sending military aid to Ukraine, claiming that Russian expansion threatens all of Europe. The same people (John Bolton, Lindsay Graham, Nikki Haley) continued to advocate the overthrow of Syria’s Russia-aligned secular regime by “moderate rebels” (John McCain’s phrase) who were in fact part of al Qaeda. Now in power, that jihadist government is persecuting Christians and ethnic minorities, as Gabbard (and we at The Stream) had warned it would.
European elites who looked to profit from energy sanctions on Russia and keep the U.S. deeply embedded in NATO have sought to block every plausible peace deal that intermediaries have tried to broker between Russia and Ukraine, while Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelenskyy has seemed more responsive to his old Deep State contacts than to Trump himself. Gateway Pundit reports:
Ever since it was confirmed that Donald J. Trump and Vladimir Putin are to meet Friday (15) in Anchorage, Alaska, the Globalist European leaders have started a relentless stream of commentary and criticism – as they always do.
But surprisingly, there is one leftist leader in the old continent that is not trying to disrupt the peace talks, and – what’s more – is calling out the other leaders doing it.
It’s been reported that British officials are urging EU leaders to stop the ‘unhelpful running commentary’ on the upcoming summit between Trump and Putin. …
British officials are convinced that discreet private influence is a better way to influence Trump than public challenges.
“One British official told The Telegraph there were concerns about the ‘unhelpful running commentary’ emerging from European leaders about the Trump-Putin talks. The source said: ‘Unlike our European colleagues, we are not publicly out there making demands of the Americans. A lot of the way the Europeans seem to be behaving, they’re going to annoy the Americans, they’re going to annoy Trump if they start making demands and if they put out red lines’.”
Pray, really pray, for a sensible compromise peace to emerge from the Trump/Putin summit that ends the bloodshed, destruction, and waste of a stalemate war that is impoverishing millions of European Christians.
Court to Force Nuns to Fund Abortifacients, Contraceptives
In a setback for religious liberty for all, a federal court has ruled in favor of blue states that impose undue burdens on the consciences of Christians. The Catholic News Agency reports:
A federal court has ruled against the Little Sisters of the Poor in their long-running legal dispute over government contraception mandates, dealing a blow to the religious order of sisters even after multiple court victories, including at the Supreme Court.
The legal advocacy group Becket said on Aug. 13 that the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of both New Jersey and Pennsylvania in finding that the federal government had not followed protocol when issuing exemptions to contraceptive requirements, including for the Little Sisters.
The district court said that a set of religious exemptions granted by the federal government during the first Trump administration were “arbitrary [and] capricious” and failed to adhere to the requirements of the federal Administrative Procedure Act.
The court has vacated those exemptions “in their entirety,” the Aug. 13 ruling said.
The thing is, the U.S. Supreme Court already ruled in favor of the Sisters in 2020. This is just another example of an activist lower court ferreting out a loophole to ignore the letter of the law and the original intent of the Constitution. The Becket fund has promised to appeal, if necessary all the way back up the feeding chain to SCOTUS.
Will Texas House Protect Texas Babies from Blue State Abortion Pills?
There’s some good news from right here in The Stream’s home state of Texas. Our state senate just voted to punish those who import dangerous chemical abortion pills from other states for use against unborn Texans. Texas Right to Life reports:
The clock is ticking to pass a bill that could crack down on the underground abortion-pill-by-mail network threatening women and their preborn children.
The Woman and Child Protection Act (Senate Bill 6 by Sen. Bryan Hughes), just passed through the Senate and is headed to the House (House Bill 30 by Rep. Jeff Leach).
This is Texas’s chance to take down lawless activists who illegally send abortion drugs to women — often without medical oversight, prescriptions, or instructions.
During the committee hearing, bold Pro-Life leaders made their case. Texas Right to Life President Dr. John Seago explained, “It’s not an issue of whether [mailing abortion pills into the state] is illegal. It is illegal … But we need better tactics. We need better tools to respond to their [underground activists’] tactics. What they’re doing to mail and sell abortion pills to women.” …
The Woman and Child Protection Act will authorize Texans, including women harmed by these drugs, to sue activists and businesses that manufacture and send the deadly drugs; help Pro-Lifers stop abortionists in other states who break the law; and let the attorney general prosecute criminals.
The big question now is whether the Texas House, long dominated by Swamp Republicans allied with Democrats, will pass the Protection Act or send it to the same elephant graveyard where so many conservative bills go to die. If you live in Texas, let your state representative know how you feel.
Bill Clinton a “Prime Suspect” in Epstein Scandal: U.S. Congressman
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) on Monday said former President Clinton’s alleged ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein should be uncovered during his testimony before members of Congress.
“Everybody in America wants to know what went on in Epstein Island, and we’ve all heard reports that Bill Clinton was a frequent visitor there, so he’s a prime suspect to be deposed by the House Oversight Committee,” Comer said Monday during an interview on Newsmax.
“So, hopefully we’ll win that court battle with that subpoena and see President Clinton in October,” he added.
Is it possible that the Trump administration has been reluctant to see all the Epstein materials made public to avoid the national embarrassment of a former U.S. president getting exposed for direct involvement in criminal sexual misconduct? If so, it’s time to release the files and face the music. Americans need to know whether our Deep State was involved with Epstein, protecting him and even using him to manipulate powerful perverts, allegedly to advance national security.
Along The Stream…
Later this morning, pastor Joseph Prince joins Life Today cohosts James and Betty Robison to share his personal story of experiencing God’s grace and how it shaped his life and preaching.
Jules Gomes explains how more and more Christians are taking part in services at more than one church — often of different denominations. What are pastors to do?
John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.
