Tag: russia

Tucker Carlson DEMOLISHES Mark Cuban After the Liberal Billionaire Offers a Silly Reason Why “We” Should Continue Sending Money to Ukraine

Liberal billionaire Mark Cuban suffered an epic humiliation at the hands of Tucker Carlson during a recent debate, which exposed his self-serving and hypocritical attitude regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Carlson and Cuban faced off at the “All In” summit, which was held in Los Angeles from Saturday to Monday. The two discussed a variety of topics, including AI job displacement, the Epstein files, and antisemitism.

The debate, however, took a bad turn for Cuban when one of the hosts asked him if he thought ‘we’ (Americans) should continue sending money to Ukraine. After admitting he did not have a good answer, Cuban eventually brought up his Ukrainian ancestry on his grandparents’ side as a reason why.

Carlson quickly interjected and asked Cuban how much money he had sent to Ukraine. When Cuban said ‘none,’ Carlson left him speechless by asking what the billionaire meant by “we.”

Things got even worse for Cuban when he offered his reason for refusing to send Ukraine a single dime despite his ties to the country. Carlson scolded Cuban on his hypocrisy and pointed out that what he was advocating for was the opposite of charity.

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The West’s Hypocritical Opposition to Ukraine’s Forced Territorial Concessions

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has consistently ruled out making any territorial concession as part of a peace accord to end his country’s war with Russia.  NATO’s European members (with the partial exceptions of Hungary and Turkey) continue to support Kyiv’s uncompromising stance.  Indeed, many European leaders seem even more insistent than Zelensky himself regarding the issue.  Persisting in such recalcitrance, though, guarantees that even more Ukrainians will perish in a hopeless cause.

Insisting on giving no territorial concessions to Moscow ignores current and prospective battlefield realities.  Like it or not, Russia is slowly but inexorably winning the grinding war of attrition.  Given its larger population and greater economic and military resources, those advantages will become even more significant the longer the war drags on.

Flatly rejecting territorial sacrifices also ignores the history of how most armed conflicts in Europe and elsewhere in the world have ended.  Countries that lose a war typically also have to accept the loss of territory.  One need only look at how national boundaries throughout Europe have shifted repeatedly just during the era that the United States has been independent (a mere 249 years) to confirm that point.  Countries that were once major powers (such as Austria-Hungary or the Ottoman Empire) no longer exist. The process of disintegration frequently took place in multiple stages, and the entities that are around today sometimes barely resemble their original incarnations.  Still other countries, such as Poland, have gone through cycles of obscurity and prominence, and are on the upswing today.

A crucial point is that most of those territorial shifts did not take place peacefully, but reflected the outcomes of nasty bilateral or regional power struggles.  Indeed, for all of its self-serving rhetoric about promoting a “rules-based international order,” NATO members have not only endorsed but also initiated violent territorial changes when it served the interest of the major Western powers.  The United States and its allies presided over (if not orchestrated) the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.  They decided which ambitious successor states would receive the West’s authorization, and which ones would not.

Pro-NATO components of Yugoslavia such as Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Macedonia readily received blessings from the Western powers.  The self-proclaimed Republika Srpska (RS), widely viewed as pro-Russia, did not.  Instead, NATO planes proceeded to bomb Serbian proponents of an independent RS or a merger with Serbia.  Western leaders took that step even though their preferred alternative of an independent Bosnia automatically combined three antagonistic ethnic groups into an artificial, ungovernable country.  Serbia was later allowed to become independent, but only if it relinquished any ambitions to merge with the Republika Srpska.  If NATO’s attack on the RS did not demonstrate the West’s willingness to dictate boundaries by force, the Alliance’s subsequent military intervention to secure insurgent Kosovo’s independence from Serbia made the existence of double standards indisputable.  In light of such a track record, the current wailing and expressions of outrage coming from NATO’s leaders about Moscow’s demand for Ukraine territorial concession carry more than a small stench of hypocrisy.

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Russia strikes Ukraine cabinet offices in unprecedented deadly assault with over 800 drones

Russia hit Ukraine’s capital with drone and missiles Sunday in the largest aerial attack on the country since the war began, killing at least two people and leaving smoke rising from the roof of a key government building.

Russia attacked Ukraine with 805 drones and decoys, officials said.

Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, confirmed to The Associated Press that Sunday’s attack was the largest Russian drone strike since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

Russia also launched 13 missiles of various types.

Ukraine shot down and neutralized 747 drones and 4 missiles, according to a statement from the Air Force.

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A National Asset in Troubled Times

When he was running for president in 2024, Donald Trump promised that he would shut down the Ukraine war shortly after taking office, if not before he moved into the White House. He also promised that he would not start any more wars and would markedly improve U.S. relations with Russia. Very importantly, he engineered a ceasefire in Gaza on January 19, 2025, the day before he was sworn in again as president, which provided hope that the Gaza genocide might come to an end.

But after that auspicious start, President Trump has failed to deliver on his promises. The Ukraine war and the Gaza genocide rage on. Trump, like President Biden before him, is fully complicit in a genocide. On top of that, the United States directly attacked Iran on June 22, 2025, a move Biden had the good sense to avoid. Most observers think it is only a matter of time before Trump and Israel attack Iran again. Relations between Moscow and Washington have improved a bit, but remain antagonistic at their core, while U.S.-India relations, which had improved greatly over the past twenty-five years, have recently turned poisonous. Finally, there is an ever-present possibility in East Asia that China and the United States could get into a shooting match.

All of this is to say we live in not just troubled times, but dangerous times. Remember that we live in a nuclear world. Sadly, there is no easy way to fix the many problems facing us. But we can minimize the chances of making bad situations worse, and maybe even make major inroads in solving some of the key problems we face. Additionally, we can maximize our chances of creating further disasters.

The best way to make progress of this sort is to openly debate foreign policy issues, so that critics of the conventional wisdom or government policy can have their say. Media institutions are hugely important in fostering this kind of debate, which is why freedom of the press is so important in the United States. It allows critics to make their views known to large numbers of people and it provides legitimacy. Critics of existing policy are not always right, but sometimes they speak truth to power and help us avoid or correct big mistakes.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media in the United States have become much less effective since the Cold War ended. It has become increasingly difficult for dissenters to get a platform in prominent media outlets, and mainstream media outlets often seem to speak with one voice on the big foreign policy issues of the day. This situation is not healthy, and it helps explains why America’s standing in the world has declined over the past three decades.

Thankfully, alternative media outlets have proliferated in recent years, making it possible for critics of US foreign policy to make their voices heard. Indeed, growing numbers of concerned citizens and policy analysts pay as much attention, if not more, to alternative media sites than the mainstream media.

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Trump Punishes India with 50 Percent Tariffs for Buying Russian Oil

President Donald Trump imposed a crushing 50% tariff on Indian goods to punish the country for buying Russian oil, upending a decades-long push by Washington to forge closer ties with New Delhi.

The new tariffs, the highest in Asia, took effect at 12:01 a.m. in Washington on Wednesday, doubling the existing 25% duty on Indian exports. The levies will hit more than 55% of goods shipped to the US — India’s biggest market — and hurt labor-intensive industries like textiles and jewelry the most. Key exports like electronics and pharmaceuticals are exempt, sparing Apple Inc.’s massive new factory investments in India for now.

“This is going to be a very big impact on Indian exporters because 50% tariffs are not workable for the clients,” said Israr Ahmed, managing director of Farida Shoes Pvt. Ltd., which depends on the US for 60% of its business. 

New Delhi has argued the purchases stabilize energy markets, and has said it will keep buying Russian oil “depending on the financial benefit.”

China, Russia Ties

The fraying relationship has pushed India to edge away from the US and forge deeper ties with fellow members of the BRICS bloc.

At the same time, India and Russia have pledged to increase their annual trade by 50% to $100 billion over the next five years. India has ramped up oil imports from Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, and now accounts for about 37% of Russia’s oil exports, according to Moscow-based Kasatkin Consulting.

Citigroup Inc. estimates that the combined 50% tariff poses a 0.6-0.8 percentage point downside risk to annual gross domestic product growth.

The economic impact may be cushioned by the fact that India’s economy is largely driven by domestic demand, rather than exports, so shoring up consumer and business sentiment is key to faster growth. Private consumption makes up about 60% of India’s GDP — and although the US is India’s biggest export market, with shipments of $87.4 billion in 2024, that still amounts to only 2% of India’s total GDP.

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Russia Attacks Ukraine Overnight With Record 1,000 Drones

Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with an estimated over 1,000 drones and missiles, possibly a record.

Since the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, the bombing campaign from Moscow has intensified, with Russia sensing complete victory as the Ukrainian army slowly retreat in the face of the Russian onslaught.

Kyiv has resorted to increasing long-range attacks against the Russian Federation via its growing high-tech capability to produce drones and other projectiles.

The conflict now seems to be a numbers game.

Europe is feckless, although continues to provide aid to Kyiv, militarily and financially.

Arms deals are being consummated between the U.S. and Europe, destined for Ukraine. Although, it is becoming murky as to the exact money flows being routed.

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‘Coalition of the Willing’ Ready to Deliver Long-Range Missiles to Ukraine — What Could Go Wrong?

Members of the “Coalition of the Willing” have expressed their readiness to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles, the Downing Street said on Thursday.

The meeting took place in Paris earlier on Thursday in a hybrid format, chaired by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“The Prime Minister also welcomed announcements from Coalition of the Willing partners to supply long range missiles to Ukraine to further bolster the country’s supplies,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously stated that Ukrainian forces could only carry out such operations with NATO personnel involved, signaling direct Western participation in the conflict. This could fundamentally change the nature of the confrontation, with NATO members effectively fighting against Russia.

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Trump’s Contronymal “Peace” with Russia

ith all the hullabaloo about President Donald Trump’s “peace” gestures toward Russia over Ukraine and the resetting of US-Russia bi-lateral relations, it is worth remembering the “pivot to Asia” announced by the Obama administration in 2011 and the coup d’état it carried out in Ukraine in 2014.

For those who might not remember, I would recommend two films: John Pilger’s The Coming War on China and Oliver Stone’s Ukraine on Fire.

They are two prongs of a long-term U.S. strategy to maintain American preeminence throughout the world by countering Russia and China simultaneously, if not equally at once. Such strategy is not determined by someone like President Donald Trump speaking or acting impulsively, as is his wont, but by bankers, financiers, éminences grises, and pale-faced scholarly guns-for-hire in stately buildings reserved for such deliberations.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, there is a consistent foundational foreign policy strategy from one American presidential administration to the next with necessary little detours here and there, and arguments within the ruling class about tactics.

Long-term strategy is capacious enough to include sudden seeming shifts in policies that are couched in cover stories that beguile even the smartest people. Wishes fuddle the minds of the most astute. They serve to obscure the interests of U.S. dominance of the world, a dominance that is now threatened, and one that Trump is not abandoning, even as he adjusts American tactics on the fly.

The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) and its magazine, Foreign Affairs are where the ruling elites of the United States debate and determine American foreign policies from administration to administration, regardless of political party.

The CFR is the preeminent U.S. think tank; it is over one hundred years old, financed by the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie Foundations and its members have included former CIA Director Allen Dulles, McGeorge Bundy, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and many other high government and financial figures, including David Rockefeller, who served as  chairman between 1970-1985.

“Largely unbeknownst to the general public, executives and top journalists of almost all major US media outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).” It is evidence of why the corporate mainstream media is an adjunct of the U.S. propaganda system. To become a member is to be baptized into the U.S. ruling establishment and its vast propaganda network that includes, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes it: the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex, MICIMATT.

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Ukraine Gov’t Looks to Ban Branch of Orthodox Church over Ties to Russia

The Ukrainian government has declared that a branch of the Orthodox Church has failed to sever its longstanding ties with Moscow – and could soon be banned.

The looming ban affects one of the two rival branches of Orthodoxy in the country and further underscores the turbulent role of religion as Ukraine fends off the Russian invasion. Orthodoxy is the majority religion in both Russia and Ukraine and has served as a cultural and spiritual battleground in tandem with the wider war.

The action comes a year after the Ukrainian Parliament passed a law banning the Moscow-based Russian Orthodox Church due to its strong support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The law also authorized banning any organization tied to the Russian church. A government investigation into the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, with its centuries-old ties to Moscow, soon followed.

The UOC denounced the full-blown Russian invasion from the start in 2022. It declared its independence from the Moscow church the same year and reiterated that stance in 2025.

Even so, the government says the UOC has refused to take necessary steps, such as revising its governing documents, to complete that separation.

The Aug. 27 government action, while long in the works, still requires more legal processes to take full effect.

The government has petitioned a court to ban the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church itself. The church, if it loses, would have the right to one appeal to a higher court before the case is finalized – a process that could be completed in months, its lawyer said.

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US generals involved in European plan to send 10,000 troops to Ukraine – WSJ

Top US military officials have been involved in drawing up a plan for “security guarantees” for Kiev advocated by Paris and London that includes a massive troop deployment to Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing a European diplomat.

The scheme drawn up primarily by European army chiefs includes two groups of forces that are to be sent to Ukraine, according to the report. One of them would be tasked with training and assistance to the Ukrainian military, while the second would serve as a “reassurance force” for Kiev. The troops are to be deployed once Moscow and Kiev reach a peace deal.

A total of 26 nations agreed to contribute to “security guarantees” for Ukraine in various ways, French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this week, following a meeting of the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ – a group of Kiev’s European backers.

The current commitments would allow for a deployment of over 10,000 troops to Ukraine, the WSJ source said, adding that the plan “received input from some US generals,” including the US head of the NATO Allied Command Operations.

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