Zelensky Agrees to Trump’s ‘Marshall Plan’ for Ukraine by Con Coughlin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21451/ukraine-trump-marshall-plan

Trump did not rule out considering US assistance to a European military force should that eventuality become necessary.

Trump clearly believes that it is important for him to take a tough line with Zelensky, to demonstrate to Moscow that he is acting as an “honest broker” to end the war and bring Putin to the table for a serious negotiation. If the US leader is seen to be too accommodating to Ukraine, then this will simply confirm Putin’s long-held suspicion that the US and its allies — including Ukraine — are working to undermine the Russian state.

Such a move should send a clear signal to Moscow that, despite the very public spat between Zelensky and Trump in the Oval Office, the Trump administration remains committed to Ukraine remaining a free and sovereign state that is not constantly subjected to acts of Russian aggression.

Certainly, any deal that does not send a clear message to Moscow that the US will not tolerate any further provocative acts by Moscow will simply be seen as Washington punishing the victim in the Ukraine conflict — Zelensky — while rewarding the aggressor — Putin.

After the unedifying spectacle of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s meeting at the White House with US President Donald J. Trump, the Ukrainian leader agreed to sign the vital minerals deal with the Trump administration as an important step to ending three years of bloodshed.

One of the main purposes of Zelensky’s visit to the White House — his first since Trump began his second term as president — was to sign a deal allowing the US greater access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, which the Trump administration believes is an important first step in its efforts to end the Ukraine conflict.

Trump: Redrawing the Future of the World by Drieu Godefridi

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21452/trump-redrawing-the-future

The true analogy [of Trump’s deal with Zelenskyy] is with the assistance granted by the United States to the United Kingdom during World War II: the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. Under Lend-Lease, the US provided Britain with goods and services… over the course of the war…. Adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars (as of February 2025), this amount equates to roughly $550 billion.

What, however, happens once the debt is repaid? Without a lasting strategic framework, financial leverage alone might not be enough to guarantee long-term security. The case of Hong Kong is a sobering precedent: the West was deeply invested in the city’s economy, but when communist China asserted control, international businesses largely packed up and left rather than confront Beijing.

At the moment, Trump’s unconventional proposal is probably the best offer for Ukraine — and the only realistic one. It gives the US “skin in the game,” enables Trump to have leverage when he approaches Russia, and prevents Putin, at least for a while, from retaking that part of the former Soviet Union.

Russia already has hundreds of miles of peaceful borders with NATO countries, including the Baltic states, and did not kick up a fuss when Finland joined NATO last year. The only country where joining NATO ostensibly appears to be a problem is Ukraine. Perhaps this exception should be regarded as a flashing red light, warning that Putin still might have his eye on Ukraine for its minerals, agricultural land and outlet on the Black Sea.

Trump has been a supporter of NATO but not as its guarantor. His worldview at the moment is that he rejects war, except as a last resort. To him, it seems, America’s true rival in the 21st century is not Europe, or Russia, and certainly not the amorphous, inconsistent entity known as the BRICs. It is China.

Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finally agreed to the “Golden Parachute” US President Donald J. Trump offered him as a first step to have Russian President Vladimir Putin negotiate a ceasefire to the war he began three years ago, the meeting on February 28 between Trump and Zelensky — as the world, to its shock, saw on television — collapsed.

Trump seems to have been anticipating a signing ceremony; Zelensky seems to have been anticipating receiving assurances of greater security. Trump’s ultimate message apparently was: a Trump final offer is a Trump final offer.

South Africa and Its Disastrous Battle for the Congo by Nils A. Haug

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21441/south-africa-congo

It turns out that while the South African soldiers were fighting for their lives in what might now be considered a “suicide mission”, their military leaders were busy playing golf thousands of kilometers away.

Unfortunately, the ineptitude of South Africa’s top military echelon and ministers of defense is only a symptom of abysmal political rule by the ANC, governing the country for the last 30 years. It seems that almost every decision they make is a catastrophe.

Added to this systemic incompetence is wide-spread corruption among politicians. It is so bad that many ANC ministers have periodically been accused, charged, or faced allegations of it.

White farmers are murdered at a rate four times the national average – one every five days. In 2019, for instance, more than 1,000 individual farmers were attacked. Some political parties allege that farm killings “can justifiably be viewed as genocide” and have accused the police of suppressing official figures that indicate a “drastic increase” in farm assaults and murders.

In criticizing Trump publicly, it is not exactly clear which planet Ramaphosa and the ANC believe they live on. Adopting that attitude, as the world witnessed last week during the US president’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, might be self-destructive and highly detrimental to the people of South Africa.

South Africa’s defiant attitude escalated further when the ANC indicated an intention to increase its nuclear power capacity and permit Iran and Russia to tender for the project – in blatant violation of US law.

“Nearly 3,000 people have been killed in Goma in recent days” reported Vivian van de Perre, Deputy Head of the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in central Africa. Goma is the capital and largest city of the DRC’s North Kivu Province.

Get Ready! A Civil War Is About to Break Out in the Democratic Party Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/03/03/get-ready-a-civil-war-is-about-to-break-out-in-the-democratic-party-n4937510

The Democratic Party may be imploding before our eyes, folks. What we’re seeing isn’t just your typical post-election finger-pointing—it’s a potential full-blown civil war brewing between moderates and the radical left wing that has hijacked the party and alienated mainstream Americans.

If recent developments are any indication, the moderates are finally growing a spine.

According to a report from Politico, several dozen Democratic operatives and elected officials gathered at a Potomac River resort in Loudoun County, Va., last month for what amounted to an intervention. The day-and-a-half retreat wasn’t just about licking wounds—it was about calling out the cancer destroying their electoral chances.

“In the wake of this election, where it became so evident that the things that the left was doing and saying deeply hurt [Kamala] Harris and down-ballot Democrats, a lot of people are looking to us, not just Third Way, but the moderates in the party, and saying, ‘We got to do it your way, because the other way ain’t working,’” said Third Way’s Matt Bennett, one of the retreat’s organizers. 

The retreat produced a five-page document of takeaways. Politico described the document as “perhaps one of the most comprehensive and sweeping of its kind following the election — both in its analysis of what went wrong and how to fix it.”

The diagnosis is clear: The party has lost touch with working-class Americans by embracing radical leftist ideology and aligning with deeply unpopular institutions like academia, media, and government bureaucracy.

Linda McMahon Confirmed as Secretary of Education By Haley Strack

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/linda-mcmahon-confirmed-as-secretary-of-education/

During her confirmation hearing, McMahon described the DOE as an agency ‘in decline’ and announced her intention to ‘invest in teachers not Washington bureaucrats.’

The Senate confirmed former Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration Linda McMahon to lead the Department of Education on Monday evening.

Once the World Wrestling Entertainment CEO, McMahon was confirmed 51 to 45, along party lines. President Donald Trump appointed her to the position hoping that she would “put herself out of a job,” he has said, and that McMahon “wholeheartedly” embraces his move to weaken the department’s influence.

“President Trump believes that the bureaucracy in Washington should be abolished so that we can return education to the states, where it belongs. I wholeheartedly support and agree with this mission,” the now-secretary said in a letter to Democrats on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

McMahon served on the Connecticut Board of Education for two years and was on the Board of Trustees at Sacred Heart University for more than 16 years. In a statement announcing McMahon’s nomination in November, Trump called McMahon a “fierce advocate for Parents’ Rights.”

Tim Walz Says He’s Considering a Run For President in 2028 By Debra Heine

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/03/tim-walz-says-hes-considering-a-run-for-president-in-2028/

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Sunday that he would “certainly consider” running for president in 2028, despite his disastrous White House bid alongside failed presidential nominee Kamala Harris, last November.

“If I think I could offer something … I would certainly consider that,” he told the New Yorker Radio Hour during its March 2 broadcast.

One of the reasons Kamala Harris reportedly chose Walz to be her running mate in 2024 was because he had indicated that he had no presidential ambitions.

“Look, I never had an ambition to be president or vice president. I was honored to be asked,” Walz insisted.

His addition to the 2024 Democrat ticket was meant to syphon off voters from the white male vote but failed in its mission due to multiple controversies and missteps, including the governor’s mischaracterization of his military record, his ties to Communist China, and his support for tampons in boys’ restrooms.

The Democrat has faced ridicule online since his interview with the New Yorker went public.

How the Media Killed Itself By the end of the decade, the media may no longer exist. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-the-media-killed-itself/

Over the last twenty years, the media, an institution that had defined American politics in the twentieth century, began a decline that has wiped out its influence, its finances and its future.

Ask anyone in the media what happened and they will blame the internet, social media, disinformation, echo chambers and other tired buzzwords directing the fault elsewhere.

The reality is that the media killed itself.

The media lost its influence because it believed so much in that influence that it became convinced that it was no longer subject to the gravity of public opinion, but defined public opinion, at exactly the time when its future was most at risk and its influence was most in doubt.

It wasn’t the internet, but the media’s reaction to it that put it on its current pathway to oblivion. Rather than responding to the increasing competition resulting from a low barrier to entry by maximizing its appeal, the media radicalized until it could only appeal to niche audiences.

The media complains about echo chambers and disinformation, but it chose to become a very expensive echo chamber filled with disinformation appealing to a shrinking audience. Now it’s struggling to compete with much cheaper echo chambers filled with disinformation.

When faced with this reality, the media insisted that it had an entitlement to monopolize the market and demanded that Google, Facebook and other major monopolies subsidize its content and suppress the content of its competitors because it was in the ‘public interest’. The media’s rent seeking did not save it, it only slowed the rate of decline until it became irreversible.

The Democrats’ coming civil war Voters are tired of failed ‘progressive’ dogmas, even in the Democrats’ urban heartlands. But will the party listen? Joel Kotkin

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/04/the-democrats-coming-civil-war/

At a time when the world press is obsessed with US president Donald Trump and his often imbecilic machinations, perhaps a more consequential struggle is taking place on the other side of the aisle. Trump and his minions may completely control the GOP, but the future of the Democrats is uncertain. The party’s left is locked in battle with those who embrace the party’s traditional values, like support for economic growth and enforcing the law.

Right now, on a national level, the Democratic Party seems to be continuing its movement leftwards. Kamala Harris is still its front-runner for the 2028 presidential election and representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jasmine Crockett, who are further to the left, are widely seen as rising stars. Looking at the behaviour of the Democrats and their media allies, they seem to be reprising Talleyrand’s quip that the Bourbon kings of France ‘learnt nothing and forgot nothing’ after the revolution.

At the recent Democratic National Committee election for the party’s new leadership, there was an enduring obsession with race and gender. Veteran Democrat Ruy Teixeira described it as ‘like outtakes from a humanities seminar at a small liberal-arts college’. We saw similar scenes in November, with the backlash received by Massachusetts congressman Seth Moulton when he dared to share concerns about his young daughter potentially having to compete against male athletes. As a result, he faced the resignation of key staffers, as well as threats from one university to cancel an internship programme associated with his office.

Yet even as the national party drifts off the reservation, there are hopeful signs of growing anti-woke pushback in the Democrats’ modern heartlands – namely, in America’s big cities.

Ilya Shapiro The Supreme Court Is Poised to Restore the President’s Executive Power Legal challenges to Trump’s firings open the door for a shift in the Court’s jurisprudence.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/supreme-court-trump-firings-executive-branch-power

Article II of the Constitution begins with a simple declarative sentence: “The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.” Those 15 words are at the heart of a key battle in the early days of the second Trump administration—and will likely be the basis for consolidating power in one individual over what has become the most important branch of government.

In his first month in office, President Trump has removed many officials, both high-ranking and middle-managerial, hoping to streamline government and wrest control of the permanent bureaucracy. Many of the dispatched employees have contested their removal in court. The dispute is partially about civil-service rules and, more consequentially, about the president’s ability to remove principal officers of so-called independent agencies, which themselves are a contradiction in constitutional terms.

These employees argue that their firings were unconstitutional because of a 90-year-old Supreme Court decision that protects heads of independent agencies (but not cabinet departments) from without-cause removal. That 1935 precedent, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, held that agencies wielding “quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative” power can only get fired for incompetence or malfeasance, not mere presidential agenda-setting. In 1988, the justices extended Humphrey’s Executive to nearly all federal officials in Morrison v. Olson, over a fierce solo dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia, who argued that the presidential removal power was essential to checking government abuses and ensuring political accountability. Those decisions fueled the rise of the modern administrative state.

The Resistance To Climate Alarmism Grows

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/03/03/the-resistance-to-climate-alarmism-grows/

The end is near. That’s what we’ve been told since the beginning. The doomsdayers have cited a variety of cataclysms that will do us in, from asteroids to resource exhaustion to a dying sun. But they all have one thing in common: So far, they’ve all been wrong. Same with the climate alarmists. And the public is catching on.

A study, published by the Stanford University School of Sustainability, no less, found that “resistance to climate action has become a global movement that strengthens after governments implement climate-related policies.”

“We found that counter climate change organizations tend to emerge after pro-environmental policies are institutionalized in government,” said the study’s senior author.

Of course they do. As our friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity observed, this has happened “maybe because the war on fossil fuels has deindustrialized Germany and many other European nations. Maybe it’s because green energy is so much more expensive to produce. Maybe because the biggest polluters like China have done nothing.”

Let’s add another “maybe.” The resistance is likely also based on a growing skepticism. We have been bombarded by global warming scare stories for more than three decades and yet we’re still here. No matter how much the alarmists cheat, lie, obfuscate and bully, it’s obvious that the entire narrative is based on assumptions, speculation and political ideology. Every claim they make can be easily refuted. To name a few, which we’ll call the big three:

We just lived through the hottest year/month/week/day on record. This is meaningless. Hottest compared to what? The only reliable measure we have is from satellite readings that go back to only 1979 and they show nothing to get worked up about