Townhall Review | Commentaries

Our nation is going to have to own our complicity in Afghanistan.

Our precipitous exit and the mess we’ve left behind will haunt our conscience as a nation for a generation. Every horror story—and they will keep coming—is partly the result of our decision to bug out. 

President Biden’s arbitrary deadline and his false proclamations of a heroic airlift effort?—well they ought to garner the most shame. But our greatest sin is to have left without first overseeing an exodus to those who were desperate to run from a barbaric theocracy. 

We are a nation of some 330 million. We are large enough, our allies numerous enough, that we could have saved tens of thousands more. We simply chose not to do so. 

That shame is on us.

We cannot come to grips with what we have wrought by erasing those who were left behind. We cannot simply “move on” from our complicity.

We promised so much more. Afghans relied on so much more. Then we got tired and left. It is that simple.

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The New York Fed just announced that consumer fear of inflation is up yet again. For ten consecutive months now, consumers have expressed their growing concern and expectation of rising consumer prices. Inflation expectations are now at an all-time high of 5.2 percent. That’s about twice the rate that we’ve gotten used to. 

We all know who inflation hurts: the poor who spend a higher proportion of their income on necessities of life; retirees on a fixed income; savers who are getting almost zero on their savings accounts while price hikes cannibalize their purchasing power. But we seldom ask: “Who does inflation help?” 

Answer: the ruling class, the elites—both the government branch and the financial branch. Monetary expansion allows the government to continue spending and those who get the money first are the biggest winners. 

Inflation is bad for the country in general, but like other crony economics, somebody benefits, otherwise no one would be pushing for it. 

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The Biden administration—in its handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal—has made a mockery of any claim to be “pro-woman.” They embarrassed themselves by their unserious critique of the new Taliban-led government for its failure to include women.
 
No doubt Afghan women wish their biggest worry was being denied the chance to serve in government. The Taliban has already set one woman on fire for bad cooking; they beat another to death for refusing to cook for them.
 
And the last time the Taliban held power, women were denied basic rights—including leaving home without a male chaperone, education, and work. Women were beaten for attempting to study, whipped for showing even an inch of skin under their full-body burqas, and stoned to death for adultery.
 
The Biden administration’s virtue signaling about female representation in a Taliban government fools no one. They’ve abandoned the women of Afghanistan as completely as they did the Americans who remain trapped there.
 
Shame on them.

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President Biden has announced a sweeping COVID-19 vaccination mandate that will cover something close to 100 million Americans.

The announcement came late in the day on Thursday of last week, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of 9/11—and thus missing most of the week’s news cycle. That was intentional.

Now, let me be candid: I’ve received the Covid-19 vaccine. I’m generally pro-vaccine. But the question about the vaccine has to be separated from a vaccine mandate. 

A legal mandate—by definition—is a coercive act. 

You can count on the fact that the courts are going to be dealing with this and dealing with it very quickly. 

If this kind of mandate can be handed down on this kind of authority by a president under these conditions, under what other conditions could a president hand down mandates entering into the private lives of American citizens and the private organizations of American business and institutions? 

If the president can do this, what can the president not do?

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Vaccines mandates are driving vaccine hesitancy. I’ve noticed a sharp shift upwards in the intensity of rhetoric in opposition to the anti-covid vaccines from the grassroots since the Biden administration has started advocating various forms of government mandates.

People don’t like being pushed around, and some people respond to federal government mandates by doubling down on their vaccine hesitancy.

The case against mandates is different from any possible case against voluntary vaccine usage. Conservatism has always made a very strong distinction between the state and the society. The state is top-down coercive power; society is built upon many millions of individual and family decisions.

I decided to get vaccinated—not because the government told me to. My research led me to this decision. But no one should be forcing conservatives into groupthink for—or against—voluntary vaccinations.

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There is a lot we still do not know about Americans stranded in Afghanistan.

President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and press secretary Jen Psaki now all suffer from a credibility gap born of obfuscation over this Afghan catastrophe.

Two Sundays back, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told CNN there were "around 100" Americans left in Afghanistan. On Thursday, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said "hundreds"-plural-are still there.

Then, on Monday, we learned that there are thousands of green card holders there. 

What we are looking at is what I have labeled "America Held Hostage 2.0." On Wednesday last week, Jen Psaki said there were a "handful" of Americans still in Afghanistan.

A "handful."

That's astonishing indifference to the worries of families and friends across the country. Americans do not come in "handfuls." They come in ones-and each one matters. One American abandoned is a crisis.

We celebrate every American who escapes, but we cannot forget and dare not accept the minimization of Americans left behind.

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Two weeks after the Biden administration abandoned thousands of Americans in Afghanistan, both citizens and legal permanent residents, President Biden and his team have tried mightily to change the subject. Two days after this disgraceful collapse, the White House tried to reset focus on its domestic policies even while refusing to account for all those left behind. 

Now Joe Biden has resorted to an unconstitutional imposition of vaccine mandates on employers as a distraction from his appalling conduct on Afghanistan. Even while offering strangely accommodating language to the Taliban, Biden used his pulpit to bully Americans who still do not feel comfortable with vaccines. 

This exercise in phony leadership has succeeded in its diversion when it comes to the national media. News organizations have all but forgotten the Americans left behind while chasing the White House’s latest shiny object in the mandate. The media have shamefully become willing partners in Biden’s disgrace rather than an instrument of accountability, and Americans will not soon forget it.

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It’s not surprising that Joe Biden wants to “turn the page” on his incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan and the abandonment of US citizens and our allies there. Almost as unsurprising is the media’s craven effort to help him.

Even as Americans remain hostage in Afghanistan and the Taliban flaunts the military equipment we left behind, the news has shifted to other domestic stories. It’s inexplicable—unless the media has seen the disastrous erosion in Joe Biden’s poll numbers and realizes the damage won’t stop until the story goes away.

Their silence is a scandal. 

But sadly, we’ve grown used to seeing the media try to influence public opinion in a way that benefits their chosen candidates. Let’s hope that this time, Americans see through the manipulation. So long as America is being humiliated by a group of Taliban savages and our fellow citizens are captives, we deserve the full story. We should demand that the media give it to us.

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Golden State voters are now on the cusp deciding the fate of the embattled and scandal-ridden Governor Newsom.
 
It would be hard to overstate how important this special election is for California—and, indeed, for the nation.
 
In the face of the Governor's mismanagement and flagrant hypocrisy—remember the French laundry? Will California voters give him a vote of confidence—and choose to stick with him for the remainder of his term?
 
The crisis of homelessness is nowhere worse than here in California—and Newsom does nothing.
 
The state consistently makes the top of the list as the worst state in the nation to do business—and Newsom does nothing.
 
California is in the grip of a long-unfolding triumph of special interests and wealthy elites—and Newsom does nothing.
 
This recall vote has given Golden State voters a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a dramatic shift.
 
I hope you’ve voted “yes” already on the recall. If you haven’t voted, please find your vote and do so. Don’t miss this opportunity. 

Encourage your friends. Encourage your family.
 
Get out there and vote … vote “Yes” on the recall.

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Almost fifty years after Roe v. Wade, abortion remains the moral issue in American public discourse and politics.

There are very few profiles in courage in American politics—but a particularly important profile in moral collapse now resides in the White House, that would be President Joe Biden.

Over the years, he has made clear—time and again—that he personally believes life begins at conception.

That is, until Friday, September 3, when, in condemning the Texas law prohibiting abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, Biden said: “I respect those who believe that life begins at conception—I respect that. Don’t agree, but I respect that.”

Those of us who have been watching closely knew this moment had to come. It was President Biden’s final act of surrender to the absolute politics of radical abortion.

So much for courage and conviction.

It’s a sad story. 

But the story of Joe Biden raises important questions we all must answer: How will we define when human life begins? And: Will we stand upon that conviction, no matter the cost?

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