US Politics

After Afghanistan, America needs real investment to stave off Russia

Freedomist Editor August 31, 2021

By Brian Darling- Vladimir Putin must be laughing his way to the bank. As his nation makes inroads across Europe, America is in full, embarrassing retreat from Afghanistan.

I’ve supported leaving Afghanistan for years, yet President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan departure been shameful in its execution. Chaos and danger dominate the nation, even though Biden was presented with a number of less bad options to prevent American soldiers from spending another 20 years in Afghanistan. Our mission creep into a goal of training the Afghan military on defending freedom and the political class on how to run a country turned out to be a failed nation-building experiment…but Biden still chose the worst option. It is sad to see that country taking a big step backwards.

Part of our problem in Afghanistan was that we and our allies provided all of the infrastructure. But just as you can’t put lipstick on a pig, and no Shark Tank investor can make a company with bad financials succeed, America couldn’t force success on Afghanistan. And, so, we must learn the real lesson of our retreat: any foreign engagements must become investments which benefit all parties – America and the nations in which we are engaged.

I mentioned Putin earlier for a reason. America has spent billions supporting Ukraine’s military against Russia since 2014. But that’s the same military approach we took in Afghanistan. What America must help Ukraine do is actually stand on its own two feet, or once again we’ll have wasted billions to end up back at zero.

Ukraine, long been known as the ‘Breadbasket of Europe’ because of vast farmlands, should be a successful post-Soviet nation. Yet its GDP ranks at the bottom of Europe and, according to the World Bank, “Ukrainians continue to feel that more needs to be done to improve governance. Lack of trust in public institutions remains a fundamental concern for most people.” Corruption is a huge part of this problem – as The Heritage Foundation’s 2021 Index of Economic Freedom found, Ukraine’s government “will need to boost investor confidence by continuing to upgrade the investment code and by undertaking deep and comprehensive reforms to strengthen rule-of-law institutions and improve the protection of property rights, judicial effectiveness, and government integrity.” The economy of Ukraine should not be last in all of Europe with the natural resources it has available, yet corruptive interference in the economy and no respect for the rule of law has made Ukraine vulnerable to Russian interference.

Trade is an important element to put a wedge between Ukraine and Russia, and to build the kind of infrastructure that was never in place in Afghanistan, but why would anyone invest in such a corrupt nation? One case study shows what happened to one private-sector investor, TIU Canada. Michael Yurkovich, CEO of TIU Canada, was recently on Bloomberg where he pointed out that a Russian backed oligarch effectively shut down a solar plant because it competed against the oligarch’s business. Yurkovich alleged that the competitor, “directed one of his companies to violate the laws of Ukraine and he physically disconnected us” from the national power grid. The goal of TIU Canada was a diversification strategy that helped Ukraine to produce renewable energy that would forward the goal of energy independence from Russia. Instead, Yurkovich and other potential and actual investors in Ukraine are watching to see if the case will be resolved fairly – or if Ukraine is simply unable and unwilling to help its people by seeking positive foreign investment.

TIU Canada’s case has less to do with the specifics of this company and more to do with the way Ukraine will be viewed by free nations and foreign investors. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has pledged to restore the rule of law and crackdown on corruption, yet situations like the TIU controversy persist. As Afghanistan falls apart thanks to the Taliban and our lack of proper investment, the Ukraine court system is being tested by the solar plant’s closure as the rest of the country is being tested Russia’s economic warfare via Nord Stream II and other actions. Government statements might be a good sign, but it’s useless without real action – action that must be prompted by the U.S. in a way which we never did in Afghanistan.

America can’t afford to lose to Russia as we lost to the Taliban. We must have a better, more comprehensive strategy for success that precludes nation-building and involves real, long-term strategic thinking. The neocons would say we should support Ukraine as we did Afghanistan; but our investment is only worthwhile if we learn the lessons of Afghanistan to create a stronger Ukraine to create a better America.

Brian Darling is former Sr. Communications Director for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

Even Mother Jones Admits it, No One is Buying Their Faux Voter Rights Narrative

Ivo Fysic August 30, 2021

Voting Rights Marches Draw Crowds, But They’re Losing the War – Mother Jones

From www.motherjones.com
2021-08-28 20:27:22
Tim Murphy
Excerpt:

On Saturday, the 58th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, thousands of supporters of voting rights held major marches on Saturday in Atlanta, DC, Phoenix, and dozens of other locations across the country. On the National Mall, King’s son, Martin Luther King III, was among the marchers advocating for the Senate to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which advanced through the House on Tuesday:

John Lewis’s work is still unfinished and my father’s dream is still unrealized, and so today we march for the John Lewis #VRAA and the #ForThePeopleAct. #VotingRightsMarch pic.twitter.com/cHcEpCfZDn

— Martin Luther King III (@OfficialMLK3) August 28, 2021

It was an impressive showing, and a demonstration of…

Read Full Article

Biden Sinking For Reasons Far Beyond Afghanistan

Paul Collier August 29, 2021

DNC-leaning FiveThirtyEight is noting in a series of polls how Joe Biden’s approval numbers seem to be dropping, and the trend seems to be consistent starting a month ago where he started with a 52 percent approval rating, and it now stands at 47. His dispparival is 46,9 percent, meaning statistically he is just about even after having enjoyed a 10 point advantage in approval to disapproval a month ago.

Biden’s Declining Approval Rating Is Not Just About Afghanistan

From fivethirtyeight.com
2021-08-27 10:00:00
Geoffrey Skelley
Excerpt:

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

In the past few weeks, President Biden’s job approval rating has dropped precipitously while his disapproval rating has risen sharply amid concerns surrounding the delta variant of the coronavirus, the associated economic fallout from the pandemic and the ongoing withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

Just how much have things changed for Biden? A month ago, his approval rating stood at 52.7 percent and his disapproval rating sat at 42.7 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, for a net approval rating of +10.0 percentage points. But as of Thursday, his approval rating stood at 47.1 percent and his disapproval rating at 47.0 percent, for a net approval rating of +0.1 points.

In an era of deep political polarization where we rarely see big shifts in public opinion of presidents, this counts as a pretty big swing.

Read Full Article

Defining Freedom and Building Freedom

Bill Collier August 29, 2021

Defining and building freedom in our lives, relationships, associations, and communities is a vital necessity in this unforgiving time of troubles. Freedom is being hunted by a complex junta of corporate and political rulers and America is devolving into a land of serfs where everyone who isn’t a ruler is a slave.

We must not allow the controversies and blaring breaking news headlines distract us from the fundamentals or keep our eyes off our true course, we must resort, again and again, to the sacred and just standards of freedom as intended by our Creator. If you do not have this focus and intentionality you will become too easily distracted by the bogeyman fears and utopian promises and by your own partisan identity to notice yet another war crime against the cause of freedom.

Leaving behind the sophistry and nuance of wordsmiths who may debate the meaning of freedom in some sort of bloodless, academic, and detached tone, we should define freedom in a more practical, everyday manner.

For Freedomists, freedom is the domain of the free, people created in the image of God and who own an inherent spiritual sovereignty from which all other individual and shared forms of sovereignty are derived. In practical terms, freedom is a condition in which most all decisions and common norms or standards that govern your life emanate mostly from you, then those you freely associate with, then your very local community of all your fellow citizens, and, finally, and in a minor capacity, the states, the corporate world, and the federal government.

From the perspective of how one obtains and maintains freedom, and all these things must be voluntary, not imposed, it is necessary to exercise and achieve civic and moral virtue, liberty as defined by the original spirit and intent of the US Bill of Rights, and independence through material autonomy and self-reliance at the individual to local scale. In short, one needs virtue, liberty, and independence to obtain and maintain freedom, but the pursuit of these things must be strictly voluntary.

Whatever bogeyman you fear or whatever utopian promises you crave, if the policies and actions devised materially hinder one’s ability as an individual in free association with others to obtain the conditions of and exercise the practices of virtue, liberty, and independence, then one is committing a crime against humanity. Everything must be judged through this litmus test: does it IMPEDE any individual in free association with others from exercising or obtaining virtue, liberty, or independence?

The condition of freedom, obtained and maintained through virtue, liberty, and independence, is a condition every person and every community of people own all sovereign authority as unto God to seek and obtain and then maintain without hindrance. Every hindrance thereto is in fact a crime against God Himself, whose own sovereignty is conveyed to and through each individual human being.

We define freedom in these terms. We understand the world of sophists and philosophers, the world of pundits and politicians, will continue to debate freedom, often in stark partisan rhetorical terms with all participants missing the point and only using freedom as a cover for their hidden agenda.

One might argue, and many do, that the left wants “freedoms” that obliterate independence, the right want freedoms that obliterate virtue. Whether or not you see it this way, neither the left nor the right in American politics has advanced the cause of freedom or consistently lived up to the freedom standard as defined by virtue, liberty, and independence. For example, the right gave us “the Patriot Act”, the left gave us the IRS!

Building freedom is not easy or simple. To build freedom one must also engage in civic and political activism, at least to try and mitigate the overstep of corporations and the state, both of which wield an unhealthy amount of power and tend to make the three standards of freedom difficult to obtain.

The above being said, it is urgent that you understand that the foundation of freedom building is that which you do as an individual and in free association with others. If your civic and moral virtue is lacking, why do you think a more civically and morally virtuous person will rise to power in the corporate and political worlds which essentially run your life? Without your own respect for the liberty of all, sans favoritism or prejudice, how then can you expect such respect for yourself from more power corporate and governmental authorities? Without the intentional and deliberate pursuit of your own material independency how can you expect independence from the influence and control of the corporations and government?

If we want to build freedom we cannot eschew civic or political activism, but neither must we allow ourselves to be or feel limited to these venues of action. Understanding and using virtue, liberty, and independence first as an individual and then in freewill participation with others is the foundation of building freedom in your own life, relationships, and associations.

Perhaps you should more diligently study what freedom is in its standards and what practices one must engage in to actualize those standards in a meaningful way in your own life. Building freedom is a deliberate act that will be an inconvenience and sacrifice, especially because this present sociocultural and socioeconomic structures, governed by corporate and political rulers from the top down, is designed to keep people down as serfs. For those who refuse to be serfs, just using what is convenient and handy and trying to fit in isn’t a viable option: only rulers are served and serfs are managed by these structures and arrangements. If you neither seek to be ruler nor accept your role as a serf, then everything from how you spend your time and money to who you do this with just radically change.

Everyone who doesn’t have a way of defining freedom that is similar to this way we are defining it and who doesn’t actively seek to build it, even when it is not convenient, is a serf or a ruler, and is most likely a serf. Don’t be a serf. Define your freedom and build your freedom in your own life and relationships, be deliberate and intentional, and make respect for freedom the litmus test for who your inner circle are.

Politics Is NOT Downstream of Culture In A Dysfunctional Society

Bill Collier August 28, 2021

Politics should reflect culture and not the other way around, but in a dysfunctional society, politics dictates culture from a top-down position and often through some combination of manipulative, coerciolve, or outright authoritarian measures. To fix this in the long term requires a building of alternative sociocultural and socioeconomic structures that somehow become independent in a material way from the politicized structures, but in the short to mid term, merely abdicating the political arena is not a solution.

Today politics, that is ideological agendas, are guiding most American institutions, from monopoly corporate cartels like Silicon Valley to the so-called press and academia, and even much of the church establishment. Political policies, laws and regulations, are driving a societal devolution to libertine anarchy, the atomization of individuals, the breakdown of faith and family, and the increasingly monopoly power of one party and a few corporations.

The Supreme Court ruling on “gay marriage” did not in any sense flow from culture, but most people embraced it rather than defy it and the culture bowed to politics in a really gross manner that further erodes faith and family. Everyone who thought they could prop up marriage and family by purely cultural activities and that this would somehow prevent the state from using “gay marriage” to assault religious freedom and further atomize the individual within a hedonistic culture, was wrong.

The issue as to whether two adults can form any bond they wish and the issue as to whether other adults must recognize that bond are separate, but the Supreme Court enshrined a new definition of marriage, which has always been a sociocultural construct, which it is now “illegal” to even speak against. Politics intruded into the family and transformed marriage into a purely political institution dictated and regulated by the state. The goal was never for people to choose who they loved, it was to eliminate the sanctuary of the home and the sanctity of marriage which offer a ready-made bulwark against totalitarianism.

Our stance on marriage has always been that different sociocultural groups should be free to define marriage and family on their terms without state intervention, beyond enforcing any contracts made. On the other hand, no group or person should be forced or coerced in any way to accept or validate any form of marriage they feel morally opposed to. The goal of the Supreme Court was not to enshrine a right to self-determination in such matters, it was to shift the definition of marriage on ideological grounds and to positively force that definition on everyone. In short, the goal was to end marriage as a sociocultural construct outside political control.

So now we have culture literally being created through ideological litmus tests as to that which is allowed. Your sociocultural and socioeconomic reality and norms are coming through a combination of politically engaged monopoly corporations, who control the economy and discourse in a monopolistic manner, and by politicians and government bureaucrats, whose edicts replace the normal and organic process of consensus and freewill participation in sociocultural and socioeconomic structures outside the control of corporations or the state.

To simply say, as the late Andrew Brietbart once said, that “politics is downstream of culture” is wishful thinking. His emphasis on getting into various structures, like the media, entertainment, and academia, was generally sound, but the channels by which one might re-take these hijacked structures are limited and controlled by authoritarian ideologues.

Political and especially local civic engagement coupled with the intentional creation of alternative parallel sociocultural and socioeconomic structures that reflect our Judeo-Christian worldview and way of life are equally necessary to begin carving out new gaps for freedom where political control over culture is largely absent.

Former California DNC Top Dog Backs Elder in Recall

Freedomist Curator August 27, 2021

Top California Dem Endorses Elder Because He Wants To Reopen Schools

From thefederalist.com
2021-08-26 18:01:48
Jordan Davidson
Excerpt:

Former Democratic leader on the California State Senate Gloria Romero endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder this week because of his position on education.

“I chose Larry Elder I think largely because of his understanding of education, the experience that he’s lived, being an African American youth, man, and I went with him,” Romero told The Federalist in an interview on Thursday. “He has spoken eloquently on the failure of the education system and why school choice is so important, especially for communities of color.”

Romero’s endorsement is just one of the newest developments in the Golden State’s close upcoming recall election that will determine the fate of Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom. There are a lot of reasons why Newsom could be recalled, including his tyrannical COVID-19 rules, his failure to address the state’s energy crisis, and his hierarchical hypocrisy through it all, but Romero said his flippant attitude towards schools is the…

Read Full Article

Judge Orders Lawyers for Trump Election Suits Get Legal Re-Education

Freedomist Curator August 27, 2021

Judge Sanctions Trump Allies And Orders Legal Education For Failed Election Lawsuit

From www.capradio.org
2021-08-26 00:19:24

Excerpt:

Updated August 25, 2021 at 8:35 PM ET

Nine attorneys aligned with former President Donald Trump who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging Michigan’s 2020 presidential election results will have to pay financial penalties and face other punitive actions for their legal effort, a district court judge ruled on Wednesday.

“This lawsuit represents a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process,” U.S. District Judge Linda Parker wrote in her scathing decision on the case.

“It is one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an
allegedly fraudulent election,” she wrote. “It is another to take on the charge of deceiving a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed, without regard to whether any laws or rights were in fact violated. This is what happened here.”

The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by the attorneys — including Trump backers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood — which sought to decertify…

Read Full Article

Despite GOP Challenge, Abbot Appears Safe in Texas

Parker Davis August 27, 2021

Texas Governor Greg Abbott Among Seemingly Safe GOP Incumbents Under Attack From Right-Wing – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

From dfw.cbslocal.com
2021-07-21 07:00:00

Excerpt:

OKLAHOMA CITY (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. James Lankford would seem to have all the conservative credentials he’d need to coast to re-election in deep-red Oklahoma.

A devout Baptist, Lankford was the director of the nation’s largest Christian youth camp for more than a decade. He speaks out regularly against abortion and what he describes as excessive government spending. And his voting record in the Senate aligned with former President Donald Trump’s position nearly 90% of the time.

READ MORE: Texas Gas Prices Keep Falling As Crude Oil Prices Fluctuate

But like several other seemingly safe GOP incumbents, Lankford, who didn’t even draw a primary opponent in 2016, finds himself under fierce attack by a challenger in his own party. The antagonist is a 29-year-old evangelical minister and political newcomer who managed to draw more than 2,000 people to a “Freedom Rally” headlined by Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, at which…

Read Full Article

America Abandons All Hope in Afghanistan for Those Left Behind

Paul Collier August 26, 2021

The DNC-led American military has declared its intentions to switch the bulk of its efforts in Afghanistan to troop withdrawal rather than rescue of allies and American citizens in the last few days before the Taliban-imposed August 31st deadline occurs. The move is being met with cries of indignation from the many Americans who have ties to American citizens and allies still trapped in Taliban hell.

The move makes it clear to those still trapped in Afghanistan that if they want to get out, American soldiers might no longer be there to help them.

Whatever the DNC-led American military says, it is doubtful that many more Americans or allies will be evacuated over the last few days barring a massive overrun of the airport by desperate humans hoping to avoid being murdered, raped, or enslaved by the Taliban, the poster children for Islamo-fascism.

US to prioritise troop evacuation in last two days of Kabul operation

From www.news24.com
2021-08-25 21:46:47

Excerpt:

The US troops will be prioritised in the evacuation from Kabul while evacuations will continue for people from the area.
The roughly 5 400 troops at the airport will be brought to zero by 31 August.
More than 10 000 people were at Kabul airport waiting to be evacuated.

The US military will continue evacuating people from Kabul airport until a 31 August deadline if needed, but will prioritise the removal of US troops and military equipment on the last couple of days, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

There are about 5 400 troops at the airport, a number that President Joe Biden says is set to go down to zero by the end of the month, depending on cooperation from the Taliban.

Army Major General William Taylor, with the US…

Read Full Article

Biden Approval Down to 41 Percent Now

Paul Collier August 25, 2021

All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put humpty Biden back together again, and the polls are bearing that out. With all the herculean support by the DNC machine, its media, its cultural gatekeepers, its agit prop news war rooms, the DNC cannot save this man from his own embarrasing ineptness as more and more Americans are discovering in real time what it’s like to have a zombie President.

As Afghanistan reveals his cowardice and indifference to American and allied life, his polls have now hit 41 percent appproval, the lowest since office, and lower even than what Trump experienced while in office even though the DNC machine did eveything it could to drive the approval down lower. Humpty dumpty had a great fall and is still falling, even as we speak.

Biden’s approval rating sinks thanks to Afghanistan withdrawal, immigration, economy

From theweek.com
2021-08-24 17:19:54

Excerpt:

President Biden’s approval rating sunk to a new low of 41 percent in the latest poll from USA Today/Suffolk University.

The United States’ Afghanistan withdrawal seems to be one of the the main drivers — only 26 percent of responsdents approve of the execution of the plan (though a majority still support exiting the country) — and he has poor marks on immigration issues and his handling of the economy, as well. The latter came in at a “surprisingly bad” 39 percent. “The only issue keeping him remotely in the game is his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, where he is barely at 50 percent” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, told USA Today.

It’s just one poll, of course, and Biden’s approval numbers were significantly better, if still lower than they had been, in a pair of surveys from CBS News and NBC News over the weekend. Still, though, the USA Today/Suffolk poll puts his Real Clear Politics average at just 46 percent, two points under…