Commemoration in Chicago
Washington, DC (JBANC) --- Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan 11th) travels to Chicago to address the upcoming Lithuanian Independence Day commemoration sponsored by the Lithuanian-American Council. The event will be held on Sunday, February 12 at 1:00 p.m. at Maria High School (6727 S. California Ave.), in southwest Chicago.

A stalwart supporter of Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors, Congressman McCotter is a member of the European Subcommittee of House International Relations Committee. He also serves with Chicago-area Congressman Dan Lipinski as Co-Chairman of the Central and East European Congressional Caucus.

Congressman McCotter was one of the first American leaders to sound the alarm about Vladimir Putin’s creeping authoritarian tendencies and called for Western resolve in the face of Putin’s implicit threats to neighboring countries. At last year’s Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC) conference, McCotter coined the term “Re-Stalinization” to describe internal and external features of current Russian political thought.

Along with Illinois Congressman John Shimkus, Rep. McCotter was a prime mover of H. Con. Res. 128. The legislation, which passed on July 22, 2005, called on the Russian Federation to issue a “clear and unambiguous statement of admission and condemnation of the illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1991 of the Baltic countries.”

Congressman McCotter has also been increasingly active in supporting democratic processes in Belarus.

Recently, Congressman McCotter traveled to London, where he delivered a speech and debated a leader of Russia’s Motherland (Rodina) Party before the House of Lords. McCotter called for a renewed sense of shared purpose for the West, and for a transcendent moral order to revitalize the European-American transatlantic alliance.

Congressman McCotter is a frequent participant in Lithuanian events in Detroit’s Lithuanian community, including the Lithuanian Catholic Federation camp “Dainava” in Manchester, Michigan.

Lithuanian American Council President Saulius Kuprys remarked that the “Chicago Lithuanian community is looking forward to meeting Congressman McCotter and expressing our appreciation for his continuing support of the Baltic cause and the expansion of democracy in the Baltic neighborhood.”

JBANC represents the Estonian American National Council, Inc., the American Latvian Association, Inc. and the Lithuanian American Council, Inc.

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JOINT BALTIC AMERICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE, INC.

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