This Friday’s high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska could bring real relief to Ukraine – but only if it stays laser-focused on one goal: an enforceable ceasefire. No redraw of the map. No "land for peace" concessions that reward Moscow’s aggression and punish Ukrainian sovereignty.

A United Front

Over the weekend, Vice President JD Vance convened a secure call with European and Ukrainian officials. The message from allied capitals was blunt: halt the fighting first, then negotiate the rest – without giving up an inch of Ukrainian land. European leaders have repeated it publicly: "Peace cannot be decided without Ukraine".

Why Now Matters

On the ground, the war’s toll is rising. Russia is pushing hard in Donetsk and Luhansk, pounding civilian infrastructure and displacing thousands. Ukrainian officials report hundreds of daily clashes, rising casualties, and failing power and water systems. A ceasefire won’t end the war, but it would stop the bloodshed and open humanitarian corridors.

Putin Under Pressure

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Russia’s Siberia and America’s Alaska seem almost to touch, with the tips of the Chukotka and Seward Peninsulas only 55 miles apart across the Bering Strait.

The scene of the planned Aug. 15 meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin — the U.S. state of Alaska — has played an outsized role in Russian propaganda and mythology.

The choice of Alaska for the summit has re-ignited imperialist narratives, with Kremlin propagandists emphasizing again that the peninsula used to be a Russian territory.

Some imperialist Russians have perceived the sale of Russian Alaska to the U.S. in 1867 as treason or a tragic mistake, while others have dismissed the transaction as illegal.

For years, Russian propagandists and officials have been obsessed with Alaska and called for returning it to Moscow. In their mindset, it is part of the mythology where Alaska, Finland, Poland, and Ukraine are "historical Russian lands" that were unfairly separated from the homeland.

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This is not the picture of a happy man. Born on August 12, 1930,  George Soros turned 95 ereyesterday, and for his birthday present America brought him the annihilation of his legacy.

Soros has been known for two things: making money and spending it on political influence. Over the last few years, he has handed over control of his empire to his son, Alex, and Alex Soros is proving delightfully unable to do either of those things successfully.

First, Alex ruined his reputation for making money. George was once known as “the man who broke the bank of England,” famous for making $1 billion in one day by sniffing out arbitrage opportunities in currency exchange markets.

Taking control of Soros Fund Management, Alex became the man who broke the bank of Soros. Alex is as talented at making billions vanish as George was at making them appear, but maybe he inherited some of his dad’s skill for political maneuvering and network building?

Nope. He’s a failure at that too.

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Is the US Supreme Court about to disenfranchise black Americans and other racial minority voters?

You would think so, given the hysterical hyperbole found in the progressive press. “The Supreme Court Prepares to End Voting Rights As We Know Them,” shrieks the headline in the Left-wing journal Mother Jones.

Is the Republican majority on the Supreme Court really about to strike down or eviscerate the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Will the Court legalize the outlawed methods used by Southern segregationists to deny the right to vote to black Americans, like literacy tests and poll taxes?

Of course not. The occasion of these alarms is the willingness of the Court to consider a Louisiana case – Louisiana v Callais -- involving the use of race by state legislatures in drawing congressional districts.

What is at issue is the question of whether the half-century-old practice of racial gerrymandering – drawing congressional districts in such a way as to elect representatives of a particular race to the House of Representatives – is compatible with the Voting Rights Act or the US constitution.

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Russian officials are sounding increasingly alarmed and even paranoid in their public statements about the future of their country. Most notably, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed in September of last year that Western governments have assembled a coalition of at least fifty countries in order to dismember Russia.

What may appear to be political paranoia or an attempt to mobilize citizens behind the regime is not necessarily based on imagined enemies. It reveals the official realization that numerous negative trends are converging on Russia and that the current regime, and even the state itself, may be running out of time.

Three overarching fears preoccupy Russian officialdom: losing the war, economic collapse, and state fracture. The prospect of all three simultaneously occurring soon looms on the horizon.

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