Hoping Putin stops is apparently the strategy that the Biden administration is pursuing.

Though there have been some encouraging points of clarity—like the commitment from President Biden to defend “every inch” of NATO land — the administration has not been consistent in sending the sort of strong message required to get the attention of a leader whose rising instability is a danger to the world.

Putin might be concluding that the lack of comprehensive sanctions for his attack on Ukraine might mean the United States and its allies are not willing to pay the sort of price that would back up their words with action.

Putin sees a West that avoids doing difficult things if they result in inconvenience. Would a paranoid sociopath conclude that NATO’s Article 5 is real, or suspect that, if tested, it might evaporate?

Starting with President, our nation’s resolve needs to match that of Reagan during the Cold War: “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War,” the Gipper said, “We win, they lose.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What an opportunity squandered. 

With his first State of the Union address, President Biden could have shown he gets it. Americans are besieged by inflation, rising fuel prices, skyrocketing crime, an open border. They are uneasy about Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war on Ukraine. He could have acknowledged some of his policies must change—and that they will. 

He could have pivoted.

Instead, Biden offered a pablum of big promises, leavened with large doses of gaslighting. He vowed to “end cancer as we know it” but said nothing about curbing inflation or securing energy independence. He pledged to cap insulin prices—reinstating a policy he reversed upon entering office. He denounced open borders and defunding the police, unaware or undisturbed that he and his party have enthusiastically embraced both.

All countries have challenges. But our leaders must face them and fix them. Biden concluded by insisting America was stronger today than it was a year ago. Please, Mr. President. We can handle the truth, and we need to know you see it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joe Biden has approached the crisis in Ukraine just as he has every acute issue his administration has faced: Reactively, leading—as they say—from behind. From the supply chain crisis to record inflation, the collapse in Afghanistan and Biden’s abandonment of thousands of Americans, right up to Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine and energy policy, Biden has barely acted tactically, let alone strategically.

Even as the U.S. ramps up the sanctions, Biden trails other Western leaders. Biden only agreed to limited SWIFT sanctions when Germany and eastern Europe got out ahead of him. Switzerland, of all places, threatened asset seizures before the U.S. finally targeted Russia’s central bank and sovereign funds. 

Biden had an opportunity to keep Putin at bay by aggressively producing oil and natural gas—through efforts like the Keystone pipeline—to keep prices low and Russian profits minimal. Even in this crisis, Biden wants to avoid sanctions on Russian energy sales to keep even higher gas prices from further undermining his domestic support. 

Leading from behind is not leading at all. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Putin offered a very clear manifesto. He gave it in a speech that could only accurately be called “The World According to Vladimir Putin.” 

He began by speaking of Ukraine as not even being a real country. He said, “I would like to emphasize once again that Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us, it is an integral part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

He went on for a full hour, claiming that Ukraine was simply invented by Russia itself. He made clear that he is willing to forego Leninist communism to regain Soviet glory, the glory of what had been the Russian empire.

Vladimir Putin is entirely responsible for his actions—and like so many autocrats seeking to gain conquest, he simply lies. And he also has invented a history tailor-made to justify what we’re seeing unfold in Ukraine right now.  

But it actually cannot be justified and somewhere in that head, Vladimir Putin really does know it.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Putin has very quickly precipitated a crisis in Europe with Russia’s military attack on Ukraine. We are witnessing the largest military invasion in Europe since the Second World War.

Vladimir Putin has finally begun to play out his hand.

So: How are we to understand where things are going to go from here?

Thomas Friedman, writing for the New York Times, argues that the “only place to be for understanding this war is inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s head.” That's right. 

This is a war that ultimately is not traced to Russia or to Ukraine, but to the head of Vladimir Putin. This is his war. This is his doing.

Friedman summarizes, “Putin is the most powerful unchecked Russian leader since Stalin. And the timing of this war is a product of his ambitions, strategies, and grievances.”

What we see here is what happens when you mix a powerful military and a dictator with political and military opportunity.

Putin really is the singular leader of virtually every dimension of Russia. 

That is an extremely dangerous and inherently deadly proposition.

Watch carefully … and watch prayerfully.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is Carol Platt Liebau for Townhall.com.

No institution has hemorrhaged public confidence during the Covid pandemic like the CDC. Once trusted by nearly all Americans, now it’s ignored by almost everyone. Even Democratic governors have begun to ignore its advice—lifting mask mandates in schools contrary to CDC guidance.

Transparency is needed to restore the public confidence so it’s so strange the CDC has decided to withhold important data about the Covid vaccine.

In its infinite wisdom, the CDC refuses to publish vaccine information for those aged 18 to 49. What’s more, it’s failed to provide information on child hospitalizations. The rationale is the data might be misinterpreted to demonstrate that the vaccines were ineffective.

That’s not the way a government treats a free citizenry.

We’re government’s masters, not its servants. Remember Lincoln’s formula: ours is a government, “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Our bureaucrats today need a strong dose of accountability.

I’m Carol Platt Liebau.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

San Francisco voters recently recalled three members of their seven-member school board in a vote that came very close to a margin of 80 percent.

It’s an absolutely massive story. 

Remember: This comes from San Francisco—one of the most liberal communities in the United States. It is the bluest of the blue.

An editorial on The Wall Street Journal said, “The woke get a wake-up call as voters recall three school board members.”

The woke get a wake-up call. Here’s the question? Do they hear it? Are they going to heed it? The evidence says they won’t. They won’t because the Democratic party is now largely in the hands of the ascendant left, and the left is angry that it isn’t getting more.

What took place in San Francisco was the voters pulling the rug out from under progressives who simply went too far. 

By all indications, they’ll do so again.

Progressives across the nation ought to be watching closely. I doubt they will.

 

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who in the Lord’s name,” Joe Biden asked at his presser on the Ukraine crisis, “does Putin think gives him the right to declare so-called countries on territory that belonged to his neighbors?” In one sense, it is Biden himself—who just a few weeks ago seemed to excuse any “minor incursions” into Ukraine by Russia. In a larger sense, however, the West has ignored Vladimir Putin’s clear ambitions to rebuild a Russian empire and to divide the West while returning Russia to superpower status.

In fact, Putin ran the exact same playbook in 2014 during the Obama/Biden administration—using Russian proxies to foment insurrection in Ukraine and to seize and annex Crimea outright. Before that, it was Georgia in 2008—setting up the Hillary Clinton infamous “reset button” moment. 

Biden announced some new sanctions in his presser, trying to parse the word “invasion” as an excuse to avoid confrontation. The vacillation from Biden presents a dangerous incentive to the ruthless geopolitical threat Putin represents. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Throughout human history, one of the elite’s greatest temptations has been to consider themselves above the law. Their flouting of Covid mask mandates has been a prime example.

Sometimes it’s politicians. Mask advocate Stacy Abrams was photographed grinning without a mask, surrounded by masked children. And pro-mask Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti were likewise caught maskless, while forcing their constituents to remain masked.

Celebrities also flout the rules. At the Super Bowl in LA, pro-maskers from Charlize Theron to Katy Perry to virtually every celebrity in attendance enjoyed the game mask-free. All this while lower-risk children remain forcibly masked in California to attend school.

Normal people want a word with the self-proclaimed elites. 

We’re on to them. From Canadian truckers occupying Ottawa to moms attending school board meetings, we’re done with covid theater and the coercive control of arrogant elites who’ve done nothing to earn their glorified status.

Bad news for them: It’s over. You’re done.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Visa, Intel … these are some of the major American companies which have been sponsoring this year’s Beijing Olympics. We really have to wonder if they’re getting their money’s worth. In fact, I wonder if they might even be getting negative value for associating their brands with the tainted brand of the CCP. 

China has persecuted of whistleblowers and manipulated the WHO into playing along with the party line, thus robbing the world of precious time to prepare for the pandemic. 

Add to that the systematic religious persecution and broken pledge to leave Hong Kong free, and we see a China which is bereft of credibility. Does it really make sense to co-brand with that? 

Several of the companies have lectured Americans about systemic racism and voter rights—all while remaining mute in the face of a regime which suppresses entire ethnicities and allows no one to vote. 

These companies owe the American people, their customers and investors an explanation. 

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.