Progressives’ Last Stand in Afghanistan
While President Biden tries to blame Donald Trump or even Afghans themselves for the collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban, the real lesson is the failure of progressive policies there. The unmitigated disaster for America’s armchair nation-builders is reminiscent of Custer’s Last Stand in 1876, when the inept U.S. colonel’s entire force was slaughtered by enemy Indian tribes.
Missing in action for days, Biden finally emerged to pretend that the problem is Afghans supposedly not having the will to fight. This was after the Afghan president handpicked by liberals, an American-educated academic with progressive political beliefs, had fled the country in a helicopter reportedly stuffed with cash.
Just a few weeks ago, the progressive (and very well- fed) chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, had defended indoctrinating U.S. soldiers in the tenets of Critical Race Theory. He pompously declared to Congress, “I want to understand white rage and I’m white.”
Trump was blistering in his criticism of Milley back then, declaring that “General Milley ought to resign, and be replaced with someone who is actually willing to defend our Military from the Leftist Radicals who hate our Country and Flag.”
General George Patton, our finest and toughest field commander of the 20th century, believed in reincarnation. One thing we know for certain: Patton did not return as General Milley.
No doubt disliked by Afghan soldiers as much as he is here, in July Milley misled the public by declaring to reporters that “the Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country.” But defend their country for whom: Biden and his ideological twin who quickly abandoned his post and fled with a pile of cash?
Like Biden, the departed Afghan president Ashraf Ghani was installed as president by liberals after a disputed election that took months to resolve. Like Biden, President Ghani is an elderly, low-energy man who promoted progressive policies having little connection with reality or what the Afghan people want and believe in.
Like Biden, President Ghani failed to attract genuine support among ordinary Afghans as Trump does so well with many Americans. The equivalent of “woke” ideologies and policies were being pushed on that rugged country, and of course no Afghans would risk their lives to defend what they do not believe in.
Feminist policies were being imposed on Afghans who have a deep-rooted patriarchal culture that is the opposite of what liberals demand. The vast majority of adult Afghan men cannot read or write, yet liberals insisted on building schools to indoctrinate Afghan girls and young women with secular progressive beliefs.
For those old enough to remember the fall of Saigon, as the last U.S. helicopter lifted off the roof of the U.S. embassy, that horror was repeated as Afghans clung to U.S. transport planes while they taxied down the runway. Deaths by people dropping off the departing airplanes trigger painful reminders of victims falling from the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Biden seems to have timed his pullout from Afghanistan, not to minimize deaths and destruction, but to facilitate photo-ops for him on the upcoming 20-year anniversary of 9/11. Instead, Americans will need to be on high alert for a potential copycat attack, either here or in European countries that foolishly admitted too many Muslim immigrants from hostile countries.
Trump responded by properly calling for Biden’s resignation, before China and other rogue nations exploit his weakness as the Taliban just did. The same European leaders who enjoyed treating Trump with disdain probably now wish he never left the White House, as Europe prepares to be overrun by Afghan refugees.
“Do you miss me yet?” Trump asked, and with each passing day we miss him more. In four entire years of Trump’s leadership nothing like this catastrophe occurred, and barely six months into the presidency of the mentally declining Biden the wheels are already coming off.
The coming flood of refugees from Afghanistan may be what liberals really want, just as they have tolerated over a million impoverished migrants crossing our southern border. There was an additional surge this summer of illegal aliens pouring in, with record-high levels of Covid among them.
To be clear, Afghanistan is not a defeat for America’s brave soldiers and Marines, who served so courageously in Afghanistan under terrible and frightening conditions. In late 2001, merely 3,000 American troops swiftly accomplished what seemed impossible, by seizing control of the country from Al Qaeda for harboring 9/11 terrorists.
But progressives and an effete occupant of the White House have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. This failure was not on the battlefield, but in the misguided ideology of those who attempted to impose political correctness on a country that is the antithesis of it.
Vaccine Mandates Increase Unfilled Jobs
A record-breaking 10.1 million unfilled jobs were reported in August as though this were a positive measure of economic growth. Supposedly ordinary Americans are doing so well that employers cannot even fill basic jobs.
But many of those unfilled jobs are due to the growing employer mandates for the Covid vaccine, mandates that Anthony Fauci announced will sharply increase based on the FDA’s approval decision on August 23. Fauci praised the unaccountable FDA and said he hopes more employers will impose vaccine mandates.
“For those who do not want, I believe mandates at the local level need to be done,” Fauci said. This unelected bureaucrat seeks more vaccine mandates against employees, while the Biden Administration abuses its power by requiring the vaccine in the military.
More than 90 million Americans have declined the Covid vaccine. Cash offers, lottery prizes, and even threats of being fired have not moved this large sector of our country to comply with Fauci’s pipe dream of a fully vaccinated America.
The early recipients of the Covid vaccine are already being told that it is wearing off, and they may need to receive another vaccine soon. Many of them had an unexpected adverse reaction the first time, and polling shows that more workers would quit their job over a vaccination requirement than a pay cut.
Far from uniting the country, Biden is dividing it by allowing Fauci and other entrenched public health officials to run roughshod over cherished American freedoms. An enormous crowd of 3,000 people gathered at the Michigan state capitol on August 6 to protest vaccine mandates in that state.
Referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, State Rep. Matt Maddock (R-MI) told the activists, “Kamala said she didn’t trust the Trump vaccine. Are we supposed to trust theirs?”
Millions who oppose the push for mandatory vaccination are actually rank-and-file Democrats, as the New York Times admitted in dismay in its own analysis of who is declining the jab. People having PhDs, minorities and many young liberals are eschewing the Covid vaccine, not just rural white evangelicals whom liberals have tried to scapegoat for the disease resurgence.
Americans rejecting the Covid vaccine constitute a population larger than all of Germany, unlikely to switch just because socialists at the FDA mysteriously label the Covid vaccine as no longer experimental. VAERS, the vaccine injury reporting database, tells a story different from Fauci’s by listing more than 13,000 incidents of people dying after receiving the Covid vaccine, leaving behind countless loved ones.
Many of the employer mandates, such as that by Microsoft, seem senseless. Microsoft produces software with little necessary face-to-face interaction by its workers with the public, or even with each other, yet requires Covid vaccination to the glee of its founder, longtime vaccine pusher Bill Gates.
Liberals always knew that a significant percentage of Americans would decline the Covid vaccine no matter what the D.C. bureaucrats say or do. Distrust of government is healthy and particularly high among many Democrat voters, such as minorities.
Videos released and then taken down of Obama’s birthday party did not increase trust in public officials. Obama and others were filmed partying away without masks, while leading Democrat politicians insist that even schoolchildren be required to constantly wear masks.
NFL football players are not required to take the Covid vaccine and several have spoken out against attempts to ostracize them. Notable Olympic athletes declined the Covid vaccine, too.
Meanwhile, a silver lining is a government backlog in processing green card applications for foreigners to fill 100,000 jobs, typically better-paying, which should be going to Americans. Green cards not issued by the end of September will expire.
It is not merely “conspiracy theories” which result in a significant unvaccinated population. For years the vaccine police were already complaining about people who decline ordinary vaccines, and wrongly blamed them for outbreaks when the real source was untested immigrants.
Millions of illegal aliens swarming over our border untested for Covid-19 are contributing to the resurgence in the disease, especially in Texas. Yet liberals try to blame unvaccinated Trump supporters rather than close our border to the influx of the disease.
In Texas, a federal judge recently blocked enforcement of Executive Order GA-37, which would have stopped taxpayer-funded groups from transporting potentially millions of Covid-infected illegal aliens into and through Texas. Biden should return all those illegal migrants to their countries of origin.
The Biden Administration insists that the Texas Executive Order would interfere with federal jurisdiction over immigration, and impede alleviation of overcrowding in border facilities. Yet it is Biden’s open-border stance which attracts the illegal aliens into our country, while he could easily block their entry and spreading of Covid here.
Mask Mandates Meet Resistance
Thunderous applause greeted a gubernatorial candidate who stole the show during the warm-up at the Trump rally in Phoenix in late July. Kari Lake, a 51-year-old former television newscaster, addressed how she would handle the mask mandates if elected governor.
“As Governor, I will pardon every person and business owner who is charged for violating a mask mandate or refusing to shut down their business – because we know that breathing and earning a living are not a crime!” Lake exclaimed.
She represents a new breed of charismatic pro-Trump candidates, one of whom could become his running mate in 2024. This growing list includes Larry Elder in California, Allen West in Texas, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia, who shocked the Establishment by raising more from small donors earlier this year than anyone else in Congress.
Kari Lake may ride her criticism of face masks all the way to the Arizona governor’s mansion, and she leads her rival Republicans in favorability ratings. She is far from alone in opposing the tyranny of mandatory face coverings, particularly as imposed against schoolchildren.
In liberal California, a group named “Let Them Breathe” is proceeding with its lawsuit against the State after school districts there were authorized to require schoolchildren to cover their faces again. At first, California Democrats imposed face coverings on schoolchildren statewide, but the blowback was so intense that the decision is now left to local school boards.
The mere holding of the election for a recall of the Democrat Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, was an enormous embarrassment to the same party that controls both Congress and the White House nationally.
Elder mocked Newsom’s duplicity, emphasizing that it was publicity about a lavish dinner attended by Newsom at California’s most expensive restaurant which sparked his recall election. “He was sitting with the very same lobbyists and medical professionals who drafted the mandates they were violating by not wearing masks and by not socially distancing,” Elder observed.
He added that Newsom “incurred a $12,000 wine tab,” which Elder points out was “just for the wine” at one dinner party. That can hardly sit well with millions of struggling Americans who are about to be evicted or lose their unemployment benefits amid the lockdowns and mask mandates.
Congress allowed expiration of the moratorium on evictions which had forced landlords to continue to pay property taxes and other expenses without collecting revenue from their tenants. There was no moratorium on real estate taxes which fund costly government pensions, but Biden and the CDC have continued the unconstitutional moratorium anyway.
In September, unemployment benefits are scheduled to expire for an additional 20 million workers. They need private sector jobs, not more handouts, and the mask mandates interfere with a proper resumption of our economy.
There is no evidence that requiring people to cover their faces has had any overall benefit against the spread of Covid-19, which is surging again despite a year of ordering people to wear masks. Countries that eschewed mask mandates, such as Denmark, Finland, Holland, and Sweden, have done better than the United States in overcoming the coronavirus.
It appears that the mask mandates may be a faceless attempt to embarrass Donald Trump, as in March the oldest newspaper in Denmark criticized its no-mask policy for being “to the right of Trump.” Seeking compulsory masks there could be viewed as punishment of Trump for offering to buy Greenland from Denmark.
Democrat Trump-haters voted against the Trump- endorsed candidate in this summer’s special election in Texas, probably changing the outcome. Democrats failed to qualify for the runoff election, forcing them to choose between the Trump-endorsed Susan Wright and her Republican opponent Jake Ellzey.
Typically Democrats who feel compelled to vote without a candidate would cast a blank ballot, but very few of them did that. Instead, Ellzey overtook Wright’s lead due to vindictive support by Democrat Trump-haters.
The same twisted anti-Trump mindset may be driving the mask mandates. Where are the Leftist “I can’t breathe” activists when we really need them?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the Trump- hater who ripped up his 2020 State of the Union speech on live television, recently imposed mask wearing on House members. “This is INSANE,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R- KY) tweeted in response.
“Might as well come into my office and arrest my entire staff. We are not wearing masks,” he added.
Yet Nancy Pelosi herself has violated her own mask mandate, and the House physician was photographed with his mask off during a briefing at which Republicans were told they must wear masks. There is little media outrage about that, while conservatives who defy Pelosi’s mask order are fined.
Pelosi has tried to enforce unilateral fines against Republicans who transgressed her prior dictatorial orders. But there is no sign of Pelosi paying fines herself or disciplining her own allies for not wearing a mask in Congress.
Never-Trumpers’ Nightmare Coming True
By now, more than six months after President Trump left the White House, Never-Trumpers were sure that he would have faded from the political scene. No mere politician could survive such an onslaught of negative publicity, the indictment of his business associates, and the unprecedented retaliation against his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Yet here we are, with Trump as popular as ever, as proven by his two-hour appearance July 24 before an overflow crowd that stretched far outside the Arizona Federal Theater in downtown Phoenix. Trump thrilled with a high-energy performance, and the pro-Trump candidates who preceded him on the same stage were buoyed by rapturous enthusiasm.
The crowd was smart, too, in rejecting Republicans who block the Trump agenda of cleaning up our elections. State Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, an otherwise attractive Republican candidate running for Arizona Secretary of State, was loudly booed off the stage for recently defeating an election integrity bill.
Trump himself blasted the do-nothing Republican governor of Arizona, who has obstructed ferreting out the election fraud that switched that state from Trump to Biden. Trump also lambasted critical race theory as “flagrant racism” that is being crammed down “every facet of our society.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), a rising member of Congress who thought she was adapting to shifting winds when she criticized Trump in January, has apparently learned her lesson. She is back on board after being rebuked by many for not remaining loyal to Trump when it mattered most.
Meanwhile, Trump-haters have a disaster on their hands by continuing to imprison without trial many ordinary Americans who dared to enter the Capitol (a.k.a. the “people’s house”) on January 6th. Their plight is being compared to the brutal Soviet gulag, which is history’s worst example of inhumane detention of political prisoners.
The House Select Committee on January 6, whose members were selected by Nancy Pelosi, became a farce when the Speaker refused to seat on the committee two leading Republicans, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has properly tagged Liz Cheney (R- WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) as “Pelosi Republicans” for joining that show trial, which recalls another notorious feature of communist countries.
The surge in the Delta variant of Covid, coupled with demands by the unhinged Anthony Fauci to impose even more restraints, strengthens Trump’s hand further. Trump managed the Covid issue better than Biden has, as Trump respects freedom.
Biden and Fauci are creating a two-tiered America, consisting of one group that has been vaccinated and one that has not, even though Covid deaths have occurred among those vaccinated. In contrast, Trump and Republicans stand for liberty to resolve the Covid crisis.
Fauci’s approach pushes America toward suffocating controls without end. He supports compelling schoolchildren to wear masks again this fall, as the Leftist California Gov. Gavin Newsom had imposed there.
Trump continues to wield power through hundreds of judges he appointed to the federal bench, and in July two remarkable decisions were issued in favor of liberty and against the CDC. Cruise ships will embark again, and the striking down of the CDC’s eviction moratorium was affirmed.
In both decisions the CDC received its comeuppance by panels that included Trump-appointed judges. The CDC lacks authority to command cruise ships or landlords, the courts held.
In the cruise ship case, two Democrat-appointed judges on the Eleventh Circuit had blocked the splendid district court ruling that ended the CDC’s anchoring of the ships. The CDC had shut down the cruise ship industry, injuring Florida’s economy in addition to infringing on Americans’ rights to enjoy their vacations.
After a 2-1 Eleventh Circuit panel reinstated the CDC restrictions on cruise ships, Florida filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Eleventh Circuit. Within hours of the filing of that petition, the judges who sided with the CDC reversed themselves and ruled in favor of freedom to a cruise vacation.
Anthony Fauci and his ilk at the CDC have no expertise in captaining cruise ships. Indeed, it is unclear what, if anything, they have any genuine expertise at.
Yet our land of liberty and freedom has been taken over by a few petty tyrants who have exploited the Covid pandemic to infringe on our constitutional rights. Courts have allowed this power grab by the CDC, but cracks emerge in the walls of tyranny.
Also, three judges on the Sixth Circuit issued a unanimous ruling against a CDC-imposed moratorium against eviction of tenants. For months the CDC blocked landlords from exercising their constitutional rights over their own private property.
The bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., have enjoyed unlimited power for a year to address the Covid pandemic, and yet they have only made things worse. It is time to give liberty a chance to succeed, as it always has.
