McConnell: Military Aid ‘Is Not Charity to Ukraine,’ U.S. Jobs Are Being Created - BUT BUILDING THE WALL TO KEEP NARCOMEX OUT WOULD CREATE MORE JOBS AND SAVE AMERICANS FROM THE DRUG CARTELS
Zelensky Reveals U.S. and Ukraine ‘Working’ on Scheme for 10 Years of Military Aid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed that the United States and Ukrainian governments are “working on a bilateral security agreement” that would result in sending additional monetary aid to Ukraine over the next ten years.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Zelensky noted he had spoken to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) thanking “him and all the congressmen for their support” of Ukraine and for voting to send a $61 billion aid package out of a $95 billion foreign aid package.
Zelensky added that during his conversation with Jeffries, he had “emphasized the need for Patriot systems.”
This is not the first time Zelensky has begged for more American-made Patriot missile systems to be sent to Ukraine.
Currently, Ukraine has three Patriot systems, one from the U.S. and two reportedly from Germany, according to the Washington Post.
On Friday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin revealed that the U.S. would be sending Ukraine more Patriot systems as part of an additional $6 billion foreign aid package.
“Also, our teams, Ukraine and the United States, are currently working on a bilateral security agreement, and we are already working on a specific text. Our goal is to make this agreement the strongest of all. We are discussing the specific foundations of our security and cooperation,” Zelensky said. “We are also working on fixing specific levels of support for this year and for the next ten years, including armed support, financial, political, and joint arms production. The agreement should be truly exemplary and reflect the strength of American leadership. I am grateful to both our team and the team of the American side for the progress in drafting the agreement.”
On top of the $61 billion in foreign aid recently approved by the United States, United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed to send an additional £500 million in foreign aid to Ukraine.
This congresswoman was born and raised in Ukraine. She just voted against aid for her homeland
SHERIDAN, Ind. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, the first and only Ukrainian-born member of Congress, emerged early on as a natural advocate for supporting her native country in its war with Russia. But when $61 billion in additional support for the war effort came up for a vote in the House recently, she voted against it.
Instead she has called for better oversight of U.S. funds and opposed giving “blank checks” to the Ukrainian cause. She says U.S. border security should be a bigger priority.
That puts her more in line with conservative House Republicans and more notably with voters in her deeply conservative central Indiana congressional district. She's locked in a tough reelection fight in the May 7 GOP primary, made all the more complicated by her public announcement more than a year ago that she wouldn't seek another term, a decision she later reversed.
The aid package, part of a larger bill that also included assistance for Israel, Taiwan and other global hot spots, was approved by the House on April 20, the Senate on Tuesday and signed into law by President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
Spartz said she is “kind of appalled” at the notion that her heritage should dictate support for the Ukrainian cause if she feels the money would be wasted.
“My responsibility is the protection of American people,” she said during a recent interview.
Spartz spoke at an event hosted by the Hamilton County GOP at a community center in Sheridan, Indiana, a town of a few thousand people. The event in a hall just off of the town's main street was attended by eight of the nine GOP primary candidates, who were able to make their case to voters and county Republican officials one at a time during a meet-and-greet that also included short speeches by the candidates.
Mike Murphy, a former Indiana state representative and political commentator, said in a phone interview that funding for Ukraine isn't much of a priority for Republican voters these days. Concern about the southern border is a greater catalyst for participation, which isn't lost on candidates in the conservative district. Most of Spartz's opponents for the 5th district seat have said protecting the U.S.-Mexico border should be a bigger priority than sending money to Ukraine.
“They’re all gunning to be as Trump-like as possible,” Murphy said.
Border security has been hammered in the campaign by state Rep. Chuck Goodrich, the most well-funded of Spartz's eight challengers. He has attacked Spartz on her original support to Ukraine, saying she puts “Ukraine first.”
Goodrich, who attended the Sheridan event, acknowledged that Indiana is far from Mexico but said illegal drugs such as fentanyl enter the U.S. through the southern border and pose a threat deep in the heartland.
“Every state is a border state,” he said in an interview.
Spartz beat a crowded 2020 primary field with Donald Trump’s endorsement, winning nearly 40% of the vote. She ran unopposed in the 2022 primary.
Spartz made things harder for herself when she announced in early 2023 that she would not run again, citing fatigue with Washington politics and her desire to spend more time with her family. She also threatened to resign if the national debt was not addressed.
For an entire year, that left the runway clear for candidates to campaign in one of most conservative districts in the state, composed of a mix of rural and suburban counties north of Indianapolis. Trump easily took the district in 2020, and it was redistricted to further favor Republicans that same year.
Campaign finance reports show Spartz trailing Goodrich in campaign funds, in part because Goodrich has put up $2.6 million of his own money. Goodrich, who represents the wealthy Indianapolis suburb of Hamilton County in the state legislature, outspent Spartz by $1.9 million in the first three months of 2024 and has loaned his campaign a total of $4.6 million, according to reports.
Spartz entered the final weeks before the primary with $134,000 of cash on hand compared to Goodrich's $1.3 million.
Trump has not made an endorsement in the 5th district this year. He's been ambivalent about aid to Ukraine, saying the war would not have happened if he had been president and that any support should take the form of loans rather than grants.
Even with Spartz’s short campaign runway, she retains the advantage of incumbency. She has accused Goodrich of cozying up to China and labeled him “Republican in Name Only.”
With Trump’s Republican nomination for the presidency secured, turnout is expected to be low.
Spartz, 45, immigrated to the U.S. in 2000 after meeting her husband from Indiana on a train in Europe. She started as a bank teller, later taught as an adjunct faculty member at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and owns farm property.
After a long-time state senator retired before the end of his term, Hamilton County GOP officials selected Spartz, who was involved with the county party, to fill his term in 2017. She served three sessions in the statehouse before her election to Congress.
In an emotional news conference in 2022, Spartz called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “ genocide.” She described bombings her grandmother and friends in Ukraine had witnessed.
Later that year, she began to criticize Ukraine's leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In the Sheridan interview, Spartz said “brave people” are “dying for freedom” in Ukraine but accused the Ukrainian government of corruption.
During her speech to voters, Spartz made no mention of the war in Ukraine. Instead she framed the stakes of her reelection as a fight against party hypocrisy, saying some of her fellow Republicans act like socialists.
Drawing on her experience growing up in the Soviet Union, as she has often done throughout her political career, she warned of a socialist future in the United States.
“I’m going to fight the righteous fight," she declared.
JOE BIDEN: GLOBAL BRIBES SUCKERS IN UKRAINE
Elon Musk: 'This SECRET will put Joe Biden & Obama in JAIL!'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=438bNCaHwk4
(CUT AND PASTE YOUTUBE LINKS)
Ukraine Farm Minister Detained, Latest in Growing List of Corruption Suspects
Ukraine’s farm minister was ordered into detention Saturday as he faces organized crime charges, the latest high-profile corruption investigation among dozens now flooding the country’s court system.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days however he was released after quickly paying 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million) in bail, a statement said.
AP reports Solskyi is suspected of heading an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption and a dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has been embarrassing as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid from all around the world to help fight Russia’s army.
The European Union and NATO have both demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In 2023 nine senior government officials were purged in Ukraine as part of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s response to those widespread allegations of corruption across his administration, as Breitbart News reported.
File/Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna speaks during the public event “Fighting Corruption in Ukraine: Progress Towards EU Membership”, held in Kyiv. (Eugen Kotenko / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Four deputy ministers and five regional governors were sacked by Ukraine’s cabinet in the move that came after Ukraine was ranked 116th out of 180 countries in a 2022 corruption perceptions index by campaigning and research organisation Transparency International.
Their sacking followed a Canadian NGO warning that Western weapons shipped to Ukraine could not only end up in Russian hands but may even end up being sold on the international black market.
The continued accusations of corruption and graft at the very highest level of government in Kyiv bookend last week’s approval by U.S. President Joe Biden of billions of dollars more in funding for the embattled country.
The U.S. Senate passed the foreign aid package on Wednesday. Just minutes after the vote, Biden signed the legislation into law “so we can begin sending weapons and equipment to Ukraine this week.”
The $6 billion package of military assistance to Ukraine includes Patriot missiles and other munitions and support systems to counter Russia’s ongoing invasion.
Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com
NO MATTER WHAT THEIR SPIN, YOU CAN BET THE CLOSET REPPUBLICAN DEMS AND THE GOP BOTH WANT AMERICA FLOODED WITH 'CHEAP' LABOR ILLEGALS SO THEIR BILLIONAIRE DONORS REMAIN GENEROUS.
I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith and spirituality, demonize the police, and protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to undeclared nuclear war. REP. TULSI GABBARD
Earth Day Founder Warned Against Mass Immigration as ‘Tremendous Cost’ to Americans’ Quality of Life
The late Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-WI), a fierce environmentalist and the founder of Earth Day, championed reducing overall immigration to the United States to protect America’s wildlife sanctuaries, farmland, and quality of life.
While a Senator, Nelson founded Earth Day on April 22, 1970, to advocate for the conservation of the environment in the United States. Today, Earth Day is celebrated across the globe.
Nelson, a left-wing Democrat who also served as governor of Wisconsin before being elected to the Senate, was a champion for eliminating illegal immigration to the United States as well as reducing legal immigration levels.
Current national immigration policy — where a million legal immigrants are added to the United States population annually, as well as hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of illegal aliens — is driving about 80 percent of all population growth, according to the Census Bureau.
The latest Census Bureau estimates predict that without immigration reductions, the United States population will hit nearly 400 million by the year 2060 — an unprecedented level never seen before in American history.
“With twice the population, will there be any wilderness left? Any quiet place? Any habitat for songbirds? Waterfalls? Other wild creatures? Not much,” Nelson said at least two decades ago.
In his 2002 autobiography, Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise, Nelson warned that mass immigration to the United States would cripple quality of life for Americans and force the destruction of wildlife sanctuaries.
Nelson wrote:
In 2000 the US population topped 280 million. Not surprisingly, adding population hasn’t improved American society, the economy, or the environment. Yet we are headed at current growth rates, toward having well over 500 million people on the same land resource within the next seventy-five years and 1 billion people within the next century. Does anyone imagine we can grow like that without tremendous cost to the environment and our quality of life? [Emphasis added]
…
In order to bring a halt to exponential growth, the number of legal immigrants entering this country would have to match the number of emigrants leaving it – about 220,000 people per year. Yet, while federal actions have increased the immigration rate dramatically during the last four decades, any suggestion that the rate be decreased to some previously acceptable level is met with charges of “nativism,” “racism,” and the like. Unfortunately, such opposition has silenced much-needed discussion of the issue – recalling the smear tactics of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy. The first time around it was “soft on communism.” This time the charge is “racism,” because a significant number of immigrants are of Hispanic descent. Demagogic rhetoric of this sort has succeeded in silencing the environmental and academic communities and has tainted any discussion of population and immigration issues as “politically incorrect.” As frustrating as it is to see the president and members of Congress running for cover on such a monumental issue, it is nothing short of astonishing to see the great American free press, with its raft of syndicated columnists, frightened into silence by political correctness. [Emphasis added]
The issue is not racism, nativism, or any other “ism,” however. The real issue: numbers of people and the implications for freedom of choice and sustainability as our numbers continue to grow. Population stabilization will be a major determinant of our future, how we live and in what conditions; talk of it should not be muzzled by McCarthyism or any other demagogic contrivance. Rather, the issue must be brought forth and explored in public hearings and discussions precisely because it is a subject of great consequence.
[Emphasis added]
In a 2001 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nelson seemingly blasted left-wing politicians for claiming to care about the environment while ignoring the impact that mass immigration has on issues of sustainability.
“… in this country, it’s phony to say ‘I’m for the environment but not for limiting immigration.’ It’s just a fact that we can’t take all the people who want to come here,” Nelson said. “… the subject has been driven out of public discussion because everybody is afraid of being called racist if they say they want any limits on immigration.”
Indeed, discussion of sky-high immigration levels has been largely removed from the national environmental debate. Instead, environmentalists have embraced mass immigration.
The Sierra Club, for instance, once advocated for immigration reductions to stabilize population growth in the United States. As left-wing, high-dollar donors to the environmental group became increasingly favorable to mass immigration, so did the Sierra Club, which switched its position in the late 1990s.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
McConnell: Military Aid ‘Is Not Charity to Ukraine,’ U.S. Jobs Are Being Created
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that military aid to Ukraine was not charity, adding that it created jobs in the United States.
Host Kristen Welker said, “I want to ask you about your legacy. You said just this week that you often feel like the only Reagan Republican left. As you prepare to step down from your leadership position this year, what are your greatest concerns about the future of the Republican Party?”
McConnell said, “I tell you, I feel better about it after we had our vote. I don’t know what I said then, it may have been before the vote. I do think peace through strength which is the Reagan formula, not the Taft isolationism back in the ’40s, is recovering,. I think in this episode, more of my members really focused on facts, and it’s hard to argue against the supplemental.”
He added, “It’s in our interest. this is not charity to Ukraine. It’s in our interest. I think we’ve sort of refocused on the importance of playing the kind of role that we need to play in the world. It’s in our interest. None of this is charity and the whole democratic world is in favor of what we did this week. That should get the attention of our members, plus all of the jobs that are being created in their states with the money that we’re spending retooling our industrial base for the big challenges ahead against China and against Russia and against Iran.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
VIDEO
RFK EXPOSES the CIA... THIS IS TERRIFYING!!
Joe Biden’s Latest Billions for Ukraine Could Build Entire U.S. Border Wall
A spending package that will send billions more in American taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday, could have built an entire border wall along the United States-Mexico border.
On Wednesday, Biden signed a $95 billion foreign aid bill that a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate approved. The Senate, late on Tuesday, voted 79-18 to approve the spending package.
“You know, Putin started this war believing he could easily break the will of the people of Ukraine,” Biden said on Wednesday. “When that failed, he changed his strategy a little bit, thinking he could break the — break the will of NATO, break the will of the United States, break our will. Well, he’s failed again.”
The spending package includes more than $60 billion in taxpayer money for Ukraine — a cash grab that could build an entire border wall along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
Dusk begins to fall at a section of border wall in Brownsville, Texas, on November 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Valerie Gonzalez)
Immigrants walk along the U.S.-Mexico border wall to await processing by the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing from Mexico on December 30, 2022, in Yuma, Arizona. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)
Immigrants cross through a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall as others await processing by the U.S. Border Patrol on May 20, 2022, in Yuma, Arizona. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
On average, each mile of border wall costs the federal government anywhere from $20 million to $45 million to build. Former President Donald Trump built about 450 miles of border wall in four years, costing about $15 billion.
At that same cost, the newly signed Ukraine funding could build a border wall across the southern border, likely with funds left over for renovations to ports of entry.
“More than 11 million illegal aliens, including thousands of Chinese nationals, have been imported into every state in America — and we have absolutely no idea who these people are,” Sen. Rodger Marshall (R-KS) said in a statement. “We cannot continue selling our grandchildren down a river and sending another $60 billion that we do not have to Ukraine.”
As Breitbart News reported, as part of the Ukraine funding, some $300 million will go to “the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine 20 and National Police of Ukraine, including units supporting 21 or under the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Joe Biden’s DHS Keeps Detention Space Unfilled as Criminal Illegal Aliens End Up in American Communities
President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to keep detention space unfilled as several recent cases revealed that criminal illegal aliens were released into American communities after crossing the United States-Mexico border.
As of April 25, DHS had just a little more than 34,000 illegal aliens in its detention facilities — a fraction of the 6.2 million illegal aliens who, by the end of Fiscal Year 2023, are in deportation proceedings but are living throughout the U.S. on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) non-detained docket.
The low detention rate comes after Congress approved 41,500 ICE beds for the rest of the fiscal year, far above the 25,000 ICE beds that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas requested.
Mayorkas asked Congress to cut bed space for Fiscal Year 2025, requesting 34,000 beds and justifying the request, writing:
Corrective actions which could result in increased Average Daily Population (ADP) include allocating more resources for additional bedspace and the enhancing the hiring and retention of detention officers. It is important to note that policy priorities seeking to limit detention of noncitizens assessed to not pose a threat to national security or public safety make significant increases in ADP unlikely under current circumstances. [Emphasis added]
RJ Hauman, with the National Immigration Center for Enforcement, said Biden’s DHS has consistently complained about a lack of resources to enforce federal immigration law but consistently refuses to use such resources to their full capacity.
In this case, Hauman said, that’s detention space.
“Custodial detention and GPS monitoring are critical immigration enforcement functions that must be expanded across the board,” Hauman told Breitbart News.
“Instead, Alejandro Mayorkas is refusing to enforce laws he was sworn to uphold, often under the guise of ‘limited resources.’ But when he is given more resources, he doesn’t use them,” he continued.
The administration’s detention agenda has consequences.
Most recently, several criminal cases showed illegal aliens who were released into the U.S. interior, rather than being put into ICE detention, who went on to commit crimes. For example, Grevi Geovani Rivera Zavala of Honduras was sentenced this month to 10 years in prison after raping a teenage girl in a public bathroom in Prattville, Alabama, last year.
Zavala arrived at the southern border in November 2021 using a fake name. Despite having a criminal record in his native Honduras, DHS officials only briefly detained Zavala and then released him into the U.S. interior.
Likewise, a 20-year-old illegal alien from Brazil was released into the U.S. interior in July 2021 and later charged with raping a child in Milford, Massachusetts.
In one of the most high-profile cases recently, 18-year-old illegal alien Elmer Rueda-Linares was charged with the death of 38-year-old Kurt Englehart, a father and a state senior adviser to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).
Rueda-Linares, instead of being placed in ICE detention, was released into the U.S. interior only a few months after having crossed the southern border.
“This is a middle finger to Congress, American taxpayers, and the safety of our nation,” Hauman told Breitbart News.
Though Mayorkas has been insistent on keeping detention space at stagnant levels, Acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner has said he would like bed space to increase to 50,000 — a figure he called “more appropriate” considering the record levels of illegal immigration seen under Biden.
Since Biden took office in early 2021, more than nine million migrants have been encountered at the nation’s borders, the largest ever recorded in American history over a three-and-a-half-year period.
“… it would take 16 years to remove just the roughly two million got-aways on your watch — to say nothing of the more than 9 million encounters, many of whom have also been released,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) told Mayorkas on April 16.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Biden’s ICE Sued for Withholding Information on Hiding Identities of Criminal Illegal Aliens
The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) is suing President Joe Biden’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for withholding internal agency information regarding its policy to hide the identities of criminal illegal aliens that agents arrest.
On Thursday, IRLI’s Dale Wilcox announced that the watchdog group is suing ICE after the agency failed to reply to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
That request asked ICE to hand over internal information and emails on how the agency decides when to reveal a criminal illegal alien’s identity in press releases.
IRLI conducted an investigation last year which found that under former President Donald Trump, ICE named 97 percent of criminal illegal aliens identified in press releases while under Biden, only 67 percent of criminal illegal aliens are being named in press releases.
“ICE’s sudden decision to omit the names of alien offenders from press releases appears to be a deliberate attempt to keep the public from determining whether dangerous foreign criminals have been removed from the United States,” IRLI’s Director of Investigations Matt O’Brien said in a statement. “That’s rather hypocritical coming from an administration that claims to be the most transparent in the history of the U.S.”
Most recently, for example, ICE issued a press release that detailed the arrest of an unidentified 27-year-old illegal alien from Ecuador who has been convicted of second-degree assault and indecent assault of a child in Danbury, Connecticut.
In another, ICE detailed the case of a 32-year-old Dominican illegal alien who was convicted in Waterbury, Connecticut of trafficking cocaine. Despite the conviction, the illegal alien’s identity was not revealed.
Even in the most egregious criminal cases, ICE refuses to name illegal alien suspects. For instance, a 20-year-old Brazilian national was arrested by the agency this month after he was charged with raping a child in Milford, Massachusetts. The man’s name was not provided.
“This is yet another shameless attempt by the current administration to hide the disastrous impact of its immigration policies,” Wilcox said:
Not including the names of criminal immigration violators is effectively flushing their cases down the memory hole so that watchdog groups will have a more difficult time holding this White House accountable for their destructive actions. The American people deserve transparency on this matter. [Emphasis added]
The case is Immigration Reform Law Institute v. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, No. 24-cv-1101 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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