Russia

Tomorrow, The Committee will bundle up Joe Biden, titular president of the United States, and take him for a nice ride across the big, big ocean in a very shiny airplane. Weeee! No details have been released yet about what flavors of ice cream he will enjoy, but The Committee’s press arm has been full of stories with titles like 'Three things to watch on Biden's first foreign trip’. This is not a difficult assignment. The big boys and girls who arrange Joe’s play-dates have told all his favorite friends in the media exactly what to say. And just a couple of days ago they surprised Joe with an article in one of his favorite newspapers, the Washington Post. It was just so nice. A couple of the minders got together and wrote the article and then put Joe’s name on it.

President Joe Biden announced this week that he was pulling all remaining American troops out of Afghanistan by September 11 — and the media rushed to frame the decision positively. They are technically correct — it makes zero sense to continue to put American lives at risk and spend taxpayer dollars on a decades-long 'war' with no foreseeable end nor desire to 'win'. But as you can guess, when former president Donald Trump announced he would withdraw troops from Afghanistan just last year, the media hysterically warned that he was emboldening the Taliban and making America less safe. 'Trump administration to cut troop levels in Afghanistan despite Pentagon warnings,' the Washington Post reported.

I am no fan of Trump, but what Joe Biden said in a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos made me almost nostalgic for some aspects of the last presidency. When Biden was asked if he believes Putin to be a killer, he replied, 'I do.’ He also confirmed reports that in 2011, while serving as vice president, he personally told Putin that Putin does not 'have a soul’. Putin’s reply was quick and masterful: he wished Biden best health and inviting him to a public debate about big existential and ethical issues on Zoom. Biden’s strong words stand in sharp contrast to Trump who, in 2017, when the Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called Putin a 'killer’, suggested that America’s conduct was just as bad as that of the Russian president.

The world has many island nations, and sometimes the United States counts itself among them. We have water on either side of us, and though we share our big island with Canada and Mexico, neither poses any threat. America is immune to invasion, a castle surrounded by the safest of moats. This wasn’t always so, and it isn’t really true today, unless we forget about Hawaii and our Pacific and Caribbean territories, most of which would be easy prey for other states if they weren’t under our sovereignty. In the earliest days of the republic, we shared the North American continent with outposts of Europe’s leading powers: France, Russia, Spain and Britain.

Like many other Americans who had the misfortune to live under socialism, I’ve been having lots of flashbacks lately. In particular, I find that the presumptive President-elect Joe Biden gives out serious Brezhnev vibes. The general secretary of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, Leonid Brezhnev was not a healthy man. He was a chain-smoking workaholic who’d been appointed to a series of very stressful positions — you try to rise in ranks under Joseph Stalin. He served in World War Two, when he was wounded, and suffered a concussion. Brezhnev’s mind and body took a toll; his first, minor stroke happened in 1951, when he was still in his forties.

It's been a week and a half since Election Day and the results are still not certified — some votes counts, like in Georgia, are close enough to require a recount, and there are numerous legal challenges put forth by the Trump campaign. Still, because the mainstream media has 'called' the race for Joe Biden, the left has arrogantly told Trump supporters to just concede already. The allegations of voter fraud, fact checkers claim, are unsubstantiated and baseless. Some of them may very well be, but it was a pretty well accepted fact in America (until Donald Trump brought it up, that is) that people cheated in elections. In fact, Biden's newly minted chief of staff, Ron Klain, tweeted in 2014 that 68 percent of people believe elections are rigged 'because they are.

It’s been over three years since the FBI first launched its investigation into an alleged conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Russian government, and yet we’re still learning just how badly our intelligence agencies bungled Crossfire Hurricane. The president and his allies have been arguing since the probe went public that it was all a ‘witch hunt’ designed to put a stop to or delegitimize his electoral victory. Subsequently released details about the investigation seemed to track with that theory: Inspector General Michael Horowitz, for example, chided the FBI in a December report for failing to fulfill its full obligations when seeking FISA warrants against former Trump campaign official Carter Page. Sens.

American intelligence is warning of a concerted effort overseen by Russian president Vladimir Putin to swing next year’s presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Reports prepared by the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency are unequivocal, detailing a two-pronged Russian strategy: sow dissension inside America by manipulating social media and attack the voting process itself. There is also concern that a new front could be opened in this battle by the use of deepfakes, videos generated using artificial intelligence that recreate the image and voice of anyone, who can be made to say and do anything. The leading Democratic candidate, for example, could be seen to suggest pardoning Patrick Crusius, the man who killed 22 people in El Paso in August.

A healthy democracy requires free speech and free assembly, tolerance for different views, and peaceful transfers of power among contending parties. It requires honest elections, where losers do more than concede. They acknowledge the legitimacy of the outcome, as Al Gore did in a highly-contested 2000 president contest. These fundamental pillars of liberal self-government are now being challenged across Europe and the United States. It is crucial to recognize the challenge, call out the worst violations, and push back. Vitriolic, white-hot rhetoric now paints political opponents not as loyal opponents but as traitors, determined to overthrow not only specific leaders but the democratic system itself.