Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Sunday said he's committed to helping Ukraine, but that addressing the crisis at the border is a bigger priority.

"The priority for me is America and our borders," McCarthy said when pressed during an interview on CBS's Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan about Ukraine. "Now, I support being able to make sure Ukraine has the weapons that they need, but I firmly support the border first. So we've got to find a way that we can do this together."

Ukraine was a big loser in the stopgap measure approved by Congress in a dramatic weekend vote that prevented a government shutdown.

Two more IRS officials have come forward and detailed how now-Special Counsel David Weiss was "not the deciding person" over whether to charge President Biden's son Hunter with tax crimes — contrary to sworn testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland.

IRS Director of Field Operations Michael Batdorf and DC IRS Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon detailed how Weiss' probe was thwarted in recent testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, transcripts of which have been reviewed by The Post.

Garland has repeatedly insisted to lawmakers — most recently on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee — that Weiss, the US attorney for Delaware, had "full authority" to bring cases against Hunter Biden anywhere he wished and that Garland would not personally interfere in the probe.

However, Batdorf told lawmakers during a Sept. 12 transcribed interview that the Justice Department's Tax Division would have also had to sign off on any charges that Weiss wanted to pursue.

NYT reports that despite nine months of heavy fighting, only about 500 square miles have changed hands in Ukraine this year

Russian forces have gained more territory in Ukraine this year than the Ukrainian side despite the Ukrainian counteroffensive that was launched in June, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The report noted that despite nine months of heavy fighting in Ukraine, only about 500 square miles of territory have changed hands this year. Russia has gained 331 square miles while Ukraine has gained 143, a difference of 188, which amounts to Russia's net gain in territory so far this year.

Most of the fighting in the first half of the year focused around the Donbas city of Bakhmut, which Russia fully captured in May after a brutal battle that started in August 2022. Ukraine's counteroffensive has focused on the south, but fighting has continued near Bakhmut and across the entire eastern front.

New York Times columnist and three-time Pulitzer Prize Winner Thomas Friedman once characterized his high school years as "one big celebration of Israel's victory in the Six-Day War." In his latest piece for the New York Times, the prize-winning writer foresees a similar celebration when Britain, Europe, and the United States completely rule Ukraine.

Interestingly, Friedman spent his high school summers at Kibbutz HaHotrim, in Israel. This Kibbutz, was established in 1953 on the site of the depopulated Palestinian village of al-Tira. Some scholars claim this area near Haifa was the original location of Ancient Tyre, which was once the main city of the infamous Sea Peoples. Some claim these warlike seafarers were the last of the Minoans. Others link them to the Phoenicians. The reason I mention this is, I think it's very important for us all to begin looking at the origins of our bias, hatred, and misunderstanding. Friedman, like everyone else on this planet, has an agenda based on a rationale. Israel now owns al-Tira, but wars and blood have spilled over this soil since the King of Tyre helped build Solomon's temple.

The area is now a seaside paradise respite for well-to-do Israelis. I've no space for a history lesson, but this Palestinian village was the first populated by Jewish emigrants in from Czechoslovakia and Germany in 1949. The Palestinian and Christian residents fled to Jordan. It's interesting to look back at what influences people, especially those who influence others. And Friedman's foundations are built on the framework of the Zionist Utopia. Turn the page to his brilliant ideas for mediating the crisis in Ukraine, and it's easy to visualize a de-Russified Ukraine.

Friedman's latest Russophobic fantasy equates the Russian operation to de-nazify Ukraine as a cosmic disaster. The Pulitzer winner visited Kyiv recently and commented on Zelensky's neat display of destroyed Russian equipment in the piazza of Saint Michael's Golden Monastery.

"I eventually realized that it reminded me of a meteor, like a meteor that came from outer space and landed on this country."

As an award-winning journalist, Friedman could not resist worsening a bad situation by mischaracterizing the whole mess. The NYTs writer paints Zelensky and his Gestapo as more heroic and Homeric than the death spiral they've created for their country. Meanwhile, the Russians, especially Vladimir Putin, have been dehumanized again. They are hot rocks from outer space. His solution to the Armageddon from the East is like something from a bad movie. The Friedman solution for a world-smashing asteroid does not star Bruce Willis.

With the Asian hegemons undoubtedly able to introduce gold standards, where does that leave the dollar?

This article describes just how precarious the fiat dollar's position has become.

For now, the dollar appears to be buoyed up by rising bond yields. However, as they rise further portfolio losses for foreign investors are likely to increase, leading to dollar liquidation. It is not generally realised how many dollars and dollar securities are owned by foreigners, the bulk of them being held outside the US banking system. And the quantity of foreign currency owned by Americans to absorb this selling is very small in comparison.

Higher interest rates and bond yields also threaten to destabilise the banking system, a problem equally faced by the Eurozone, the UK, and Japan. But how can the US Government protect itself from this danger?

The only answer is to admit to the end of the fiat era and put the dollar back onto a gold standard. However, the US Government does not have the mandate to take the required actions and officially at least is still in denial over the need to stabilise the currency. The legal position referring to the constitution is briefly touched upon, because laws will have to be considered to secure the dollar's future.

Unfortunately, the US Treasury's gold holdings are almost certainly compromised. Furthermore, since the Asian hegemons have accumulated substantial holdings of bullion in addition to their official reserves, there is bound to be a strong reluctance to hand economic power to Russia and China by endorsing a return to gold standards.

My conclusion is that the era of the fiat dollar based global currency system is rapidly ending, and for America and the dollar there can be no Plan B. It will almost certainly lead to the end of the fiat dollar, and the end of the US hegemony.

Climate crisis activists have dreamed up a campaign that they bombastically call a "treaty" to ban advertising of high-carbon products - in other words, anything they, or their sponsors, don't like. These groups are not working alone; they are politically funded and politically motivated.

They are making moves to ban advertisements of motor vehicles and air travel, and the latest "fossil fuel" adverts being targeted is meat. You read that right, meat is being treated the same as a "fossil fuel" according to the Council of the Dutch City of Haarlem which has included meat on their list of "banned fossil fuel endorsements."

Fossil Fuel "Treaty"

At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference ("COP26") in Glasgow, the Netherlands joined 25 countries and institutions that committed to end public financing of coal, oil and gas projects by the end of 2022. The US, Canada and the UK were among the countries committed to stop new direct support to fossil fuels by 2022, along with Denmark, Finland, Mali, Costa Rica and South Sudan. The European Investment Bank ("EIB") is also party to the deal.

Calls for a "Fossil Fuel Treaty" began in 2018 with an op-ed in the Guardian. A few years later, during the 2020 Climate Week NYC at an event called 'International Cooperation to Align Fossil Fuel Production with a 1.5°C World', the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation "Treaty" Initiative was launched.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the Military Industrial Complex to our society. It employs millions of people, and it brings in hundreds of billions of dollars each year. The Military Industrial Complex has always been one of the central pillars of our economy, and these days business is booming thanks to the war in Ukraine and the possibility of a war with China. Needless to say, those that run the Military Industrial Complex want the gravy train to continue, and so politicians that are pro-war are showered with campaign contributions. In both major parties, politicians that are pro-war greatly outnumber those that are anti-war, and that is not likely to change any time soon.

Smedley D. Butler fought in four major conflicts, and in 1935 he astutely observed that "war is a racket"...

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

The number of high-ranking "morons" in NATO states is on the rise, Dmitry Medvedev says.

The conflict in Ukraine may lead to World War III because of the "idiots" occupying leading roles in the West, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has warned.

"The number of high-ranking morons is rising in NATO member states," he wrote on Telegram on Sunday. Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, was responding to statements from London and Berlin the previous day.

The former president labeled the UK's newly appointed Defense Secretary Grant Shapps a "freshly minted cretin" over his idea of sending British military instructors to Ukraine to train local troops for the conflict with Russia.

If this happens, the UK servicemen would become a "legitimate target" for Russian forces, Medvedev warned.

A New York appeals court on Thursday refused to delay Donald Trump's scheduled Oct. 2 civil fraud trial, after the former U.S. president accused the trial judge of wrongly refusing to throw out most of the case.

In a brief order, a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division, a mid-level appeals court in Manhattan, denied Trump's motion to postpone the trial.

It also lifted a Sept. 14 order by Justice David Friedman to put the trial on hold while it considered Trump's motion. Friedman was part of Thursday's panel.

The panel ruled two days after state court Justice Arthur Engoron found that Trump and his family business persistently and fraudulently overvalued his assets and net worth in order to obtain better terms on loans and insurance.

Trump had been sued in September 2022 by state Attorney General Letitia James, who accused him, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others of "staggering fraud" in how they valued properties.

James is seeking at least $250 million in penalties, a ban against Trump and his sons Donald Jr and Eric from running businesses in New York, and a five-year commercial real estate ban against Trump and the Trump Organization.

An email released Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee shows Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf ordered investigators in August 2020 to remove any reference to "Political Figure 1" from a search warrant. A document subsequently released showed that President Joe Biden is "Political Figure 1."

Wolf wrote in an email:

"As a priority, someone needs to redraft attachment B. I am not sure what this is cut and pasted from but other than the attribution location, and identity stuff at the end, none of it is appropriate and within the scope of this warrant.

"Please focus on FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] evidence only. There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here."

A second document the committee released Wednesday showed "Political Figure 1" is "Former Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr."