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Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday that he expects to move a package including aid for Ukraine with “some important innovations” when the House returns from recess. In an interview on “Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy,” Johnson stressed the difficult position he’s in, with a historically narrow House majority, but said he was working throughout the current work period to come up with a package and plans to put it on the floor when the House gavels back into session.

@RepThomasMassie Unfortunately, this is not April fools. Johnson, Schumer & the deep state are writing the Ukraine bill. Then Johnson will suspend rules to pass it. “We’re putting that product together & we’ll be moving it right after the district work period,” -Johnson.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continued to clean house Saturday even as Russia bombarded the nation, carrying out 75 airstrikes in just 24 hours. Zelensky ousted two key staffers — his top aide, Serhiy Shefir, along with the nation’s Commissioner for Soldiers’ Rights, Alyona Verbytska, along with four other government workers. No reasons were offered for their expulsions, The Kyiv Independent reported. Pic of Z Pic of war action Pic of art students clearing rubble The latest personnel changes come just a day after Zelensky dismissed Andrii Smirnov and Oleksii Dniprov as the deputy heads of his office and are the...

On March 29, 2024, Ukrainian forces relayed via their social media platforms a notable military achievement: the Signum strike drone unit of the 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade detected and neutralized the very first next-generation Phlox 2S40 self-propelled mortar using a night-operating FPV drone. This self-propelled mortar, representing a major technological advancement for the Russian army, had been deployed on the Ukrainian front as early as October 2023. The action took place near Bakhmut, marking a significant success for the Ukrainian forces in defensive operations....

Warsaw says soldier died of ‘unexplained natural causes’ while Moscow claims to hit Chasiv Yar command center secretively hosting senior NATO officials Before the Ukrainian counteroffensive commenced, the important city of Bakhmut fell to the Russians. I wrote at the time that it seemed the Russians would also aim to take the town of Chasiv Yar but that didn’t happen because the war shifted to the south and the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Meanwhile, a month later, the so-called hero of Bakhmut, Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his Wagner forces, invaded Russia in what looked like an attempted coup d’etat but also...

(Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Friday that if Ukraine does not get promised U.S. military aid blocked by disputes in Congress, its forces will have to retreat "in small steps"."If there is no U.S. support, it means that we have no air defence, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-milimetre artillery rounds," Zelenskiy told the Washington Post."It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps," he said. "We are trying to find some way not to retreat."Shortages of munitions, he said, meant "you have to do with...

President Joe Biden is currently considering granting amnesty to illegal migrants in a bid to act on the worsening immigration crisis, according to Politico. Biden and his administration are weighing several ideas to take a tougher stance on the southern border crisis and illegal immigration amid criticisms he has thus far failed to act on either. The administration could start dolling out green cards to illegal immigrants who have long stayed inside the United States, thereby giving them amnesty to stay in the country, three people familiar with the planning told Politico. The plan would grant migrants who have been...

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is committed to putting a vote for Ukraine funding on the House floor some time after Easter. “His commitment is to put it on the floor after Easter and we are working on this bill,” McCaul told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” When pressed further on whether this means they will vote on the bill as soon as April 9 — when the House returns from recess — McCaul just emphasized he would like it done “as soon as possible.” McCaul is the chair of the House Foreign Affairs...

Lots to cover with respect to Friday’s mercenary terrorist attack in Moscow. Why do I call it “mercenary”? Because it appears that the perps had no ideological axe to grind and were hired for a relatively paltry sum and carried out indiscriminate killing at a public gathering of civilians. Based on the video evidence released so far in the public domain the planning for this op was not the work of skilled professionals — e.g., they used the same vehicle to travel to and from the attack site, their movements inside the building demonstrated unsophisticated Close Quarter Battle skills and...

RINO Representative Mike Gallagher (WI) will exit the House as early as next month. Gallagher, who is currently serving as the chairman of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, last month announced that he will not seek reelection. Instead of serving out the rest of his term, Gallagher will retire early leaving the GOP with a one-vote majority! But it’s worse than that. Gallagher announced he will leave in mid-April. If Gallagher would have left before April 9th he would have triggered a special election in his district. Because he is leaving after April 9th but still in...

The fiscal 2024 funding package unveiled early Thursday would funnel $200 million toward the project to build a new FBI headquarters, a plan some House Republicans criticized and previously said should not get more funding. The General Services Administration last year picked Maryland as the home of the new FBI headquarters over Virginia, after a lengthy and high-profile competition over where the new facility would be built. Conservatives raised questions about that selection process and in general have expressed hostility toward the FBI this session, citing in part how the agency has handled politically sensitive investigations. The more than $1.2...

President Biden on Saturday signed a $1.2 trillion government funding bill to stave off a government shutdown, capping a frenetic sprint by lawmakers to pass the final batch of appropriations measures. Biden praised the measure as a compromise, and “good news for the American people.” “This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” Biden continued, emphasizing that it rejected “extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border that my Administration...

Russia said on Saturday it had arrested all four gunmen suspected of carrying out a shooting massacre in a concert hall near Moscow, and President Vladimir Putin pledged to track down and punish those behind the attack. Militant Islamist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for Friday's rampage but there were indications that Russia was pursuing a Ukrainian link, despite emphatic denials from Ukrainian officials that Kyiv had anything to do with it. Russia's state Investigative Committee said 133 people had been killed. State TV editor Margarita Simonyan, without citing a source, had earlier given a toll of 143.

Voting in the Russian presidential election began this morning and will end Sunday. At that point, Putin's victory will be announced and he will start his 5th term as president. The vote tally doesn't really matter. It will be whatever the Kremlin decides it should be. Having killed off his only two real opponents in the past year, Navalny and Prigozhin, he probably feels like he earned it. The presidential vote in Russia, which began Friday and lasts through Sunday, features the trappings of a horse race but is more of a predetermined, Soviet-style referendum. President Vladimir V. Putin, 71,...

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a speech on "a pathway to peace and achieving a two-state solution" today (Thursday). In his remarks Schumer called for the holding of new elections in Israel, saying that "Netanyahu has lost his way". He further called the Israeli Prime Minister an "obstacle to peace." According to Schumer, Netanyahu is one of four obstacles to peace, among others being Hamas, "radical Israelis", and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Schumer's criticism of Netanyahu centered on the prime minister's "outright" rejection of the idea of creation of a Palestinian state in the aftermath of October...

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Thursday again pressed Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to take up the Senate-passed national security spending package, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, despite Johnson’s message to GOP senators this week that he’s moving in a different direction. McConnell didn’t express much interest in waiting weeks or maybe months for the House to come up with an alternative proposal to help Ukraine. “The chilling reality here is abundantly clear. Withholding critical weapons has not helped manage [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s escalation. It has only emboldened him,” McConnell warned on the Senate floor. That alternative...

As I walk around Borovsk, two things strike me about this town 60 miles (100km) from Moscow. First, there is almost no sign of the presidential election coming up this weekend. I see few election banners or billboards and no political flyers being handed out. Not surprising, really. The absence of election preparations mirrors the absence of drama surrounding a stage-managed event that will hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term in the Kremlin. The other thing you can't help noticing in Borovsk is the street art. It's everywhere. Much of it has been created by street artist Vladimir Ovchinnikov. All...

Groups of pro-Kyiv volunteer fighters, made up of Russians who oppose the Kremlin, said that they had broken into the Kursk and Belgorod regions, while Moscow said it had foiled multiple Ukrainian attempts to infiltrate the border. "We crossed the border," the Freedom of Russia legion, a militia that claims to be made up of Russian citizens fighting on behalf of Ukraine, said it a post on Telegram. It published a video from a drone that claimed to show the vehicle being blown up and fighters on the streets of the village of Tyotkino, on the border between Russia and...

Former President Donald Trump intends to end the war in Ukraine by ending the military assistance that Ukrainian forces require to fight Russia’s invasion, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. “He has a very clear vision that is hard to disagree with. He says the following: first, he will not give a single penny for the Russo-Ukrainian war,” Orban told Hungarian state media. “That’s why the war will end, because it’s obvious that Ukraine cannot stand on its own two feet.” Orban offered that prognostication after returning to Budapest from the United States, where he met with American conservatives...

Shocking footage has shown dozens of conscription age men being detained by Ukranian border guards after attempting to flee the country. The footage, first posted by the X account Global Thinker citing Ukrainian journalist Vitaliy Glagola, showed 34 men being forced out of a truck on the Ukrainian-Romanian border as they tried to escape possible conscription. Glagola reported: A can of draft dodgers: a Mercedes carrying 34 draft dodgers was detained near the Ukrainian-Romanian border. Today, March 8, a green Mercedes Sprinter was moving 3 kilometers from the border near the Porubne checkpoint in the Chernivtsi region. In the middle...