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American presidents can easily reshape the world for the worse with destructive and mercenary foreign policy. It makes no sense to consider hopefuls for president, like Ron Desantis, who have no clear record, clear opinion, or clear theology on foreign policy.
Pilger accurately critiqued Obama early in Obama’s political adventures. Pilger remembers the Ukrainian game Obama played, which was part of an international reset, and the opening of doors to American money laundering in Europe’s most corrupt nation, Ukraine.
Writes Pilger,
“In the year NATO invaded Libya, 2011, Obama announced what became known as the ‘pivot to Asia’. Almost two-thirds of U.S. naval forces would be transferred to the Asia–Pacific to ‘confront the threat from China’, in the words of his defence secretary.
“There was no threat from China; there was a threat to China from the United States; some 400 American military bases and assorted installations formed an arc along the rim of China's industrial heartlands, which a Pentagon official described approvingly as a ‘noose’.
“At the same time, Obama placed missiles in Eastern Europe aimed at Russia. It was the beatified recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who increased spending on nuclear warheads to a level higher than that of any U.S. administration since the Cold War—having promised, in an emotional speech in the centre of Prague in 2009, to ‘help rid the world of nuclear weapons’.
“Obama and his administration knew full well that the coup his assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, was sent to oversee against the government of Ukraine in 2014 would provoke a Russian response and probably lead to war. And so it has.”
"The problem with the evangelical elite is that there isn’t one. All too few evangelical Christians hold senior positions in the culture-shaping domains of American society. Evangelicals don’t run movie studios or serve as editors in chief of major newspapers or as presidents of elite universities. There are no evangelicals on the Supreme Court. There are hardly any leading evangelical academics or artists. There are few evangelicals at commanding heights of finance. The prominent evangelicals in Silicon Valley can be counted on one hand. There are not even many evangelicals leading influential conservative think tanks and publications, despite the fact that evangelicals are one of the largest and most critical voting blocs in the Republican coalition. Two domains are exceptions that prove the rule: politics and business."
Aaron Renn
On the way to Brussels for the European Council summit, Prime Minister Orbán warned that despite a long and diverse agenda, the coming days will be defined by a single, decisive question: war or peace.
It will be a volatile summit, with long-lasting consequences. Hungarian PM Orbán draws a clear distinction between those advocating continued military and financial aid to Ukraine and those calling for restraint.
Hungary, he emphasized, belongs to the latter group. “We say that no strategic decisions should be taken now,” the prime minister said, arguing that the EU should support ongoing American peace efforts and wait for the outcome of U.S.-Russian negotiations rather than making irreversible commitments.
A particularly contentious issue is the future of frozen Russian assets. PM Orbán explained that until recently, the continuation of asset freezes required unanimous approval by member states every six months, allowing Hungary to express its opposition. He said this legal ...
Today marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of fiction author Jane Austen, who examined ordinary, day-to-day, small-town family life within an Overton window-frame which once included Biblical civilization and ethics.
The world of Jane Austen's generation was rapidly pivoting the Overton window to a secular worldview, and so were the cultures of contemporary nations.
Lord David Cecil, a biographer of Miss Austen, noted this comparison between authors:
"If I were in doubt as to the wisdom of one of my actions, I should not consult Flaubert or Dostoyevsky. The opinion of Balzac or Dickens would carry little weight with me: were Stendhal to rebuke me, it would only convince me I had done right: even in the judgment of Tolstoy I should not put complete confidence. But I should be seriously upset, I should worry for weeks and weeks, if I incurred the disapproval of Jane Austen."
