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The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there.
What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments. One estimate by analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency put the embezzled funds at $400 million last year, at least; another expert compared the level of corruption in Kiev as approaching that of the Afghan war, “although there will be no professional audit reports emerging from the Ukraine.”
SEYMOUR HERSH
"The problem with the evangelical elite is that there isn’t one. All too few evangelical Christians hold senior positions in the culture-shaping domains of American society. Evangelicals don’t run movie studios or serve as editors in chief of major newspapers or as presidents of elite universities. There are no evangelicals on the Supreme Court. There are hardly any leading evangelical academics or artists. There are few evangelicals at commanding heights of finance. The prominent evangelicals in Silicon Valley can be counted on one hand. There are not even many evangelicals leading influential conservative think tanks and publications, despite the fact that evangelicals are one of the largest and most critical voting blocs in the Republican coalition. Two domains are exceptions that prove the rule: politics and business."
Aaron Renn
On the way to Brussels for the European Council summit, Prime Minister Orbán warned that despite a long and diverse agenda, the coming days will be defined by a single, decisive question: war or peace.
It will be a volatile summit, with long-lasting consequences. Hungarian PM Orbán draws a clear distinction between those advocating continued military and financial aid to Ukraine and those calling for restraint.
Hungary, he emphasized, belongs to the latter group. “We say that no strategic decisions should be taken now,” the prime minister said, arguing that the EU should support ongoing American peace efforts and wait for the outcome of U.S.-Russian negotiations rather than making irreversible commitments.
A particularly contentious issue is the future of frozen Russian assets. PM Orbán explained that until recently, the continuation of asset freezes required unanimous approval by member states every six months, allowing Hungary to express its opposition. He said this legal ...
Today marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of fiction author Jane Austen, who examined ordinary, day-to-day, small-town family life within an Overton window-frame which once included Biblical civilization and ethics.
The world of Jane Austen's generation was rapidly pivoting the Overton window to a secular worldview, and so were the cultures of contemporary nations.
Lord David Cecil, a biographer of Miss Austen, noted this comparison between authors:
"If I were in doubt as to the wisdom of one of my actions, I should not consult Flaubert or Dostoyevsky. The opinion of Balzac or Dickens would carry little weight with me: were Stendhal to rebuke me, it would only convince me I had done right: even in the judgment of Tolstoy I should not put complete confidence. But I should be seriously upset, I should worry for weeks and weeks, if I incurred the disapproval of Jane Austen."
