The three C’s of life: choices, chances and changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.”
— Zig Zigler.
If you don’t mix this into the equation, the result will be depression and no matter how much $$$ you spend, the psychiatric industry will not fix it.
The problem: People fail to make choices and take chances. Over time, the status quo of their lives becomes less and less satisfying.
This leads to a kind of listlessness or low motivation we call “depression.”
Once sad people get into this state (to any degree), they reach out and say, “Help me!”
But the only solution will be the one they had all along: Make choices, take chances. Don’t like the results of your previous or recent choices? That’s OK. Make new ones. Not sure which ones to make? Try new ones. Experiment.
Of course, once you’re depressed you’re less willing to take chances than ever before.
It’s tough, but the point here isn’t to shame or scold. It’s simply to state the truth.
You don’t help people by shielding them from the truth.
The truth: Your life is in your hands — and your hands alone.
It doesn’t mean you have to be alone. It doesn’t mean you can’t hire or find a person to coach you, give you some guidance or cheer you on.
But at the end of the day, you are the only one with yourself 24/7. You’re the only one who can possibly make new or different choices in your life.
Challenging the faulty thinking that got you here is how a useful confidante can help.
An unhappy life isn’t a disease to be cured by a pill or an external party, as the psychiatric industry tells us. An unhappy life is yours to fix.
Here’s one of the most beautiful quotes ever, by Randy Komisar: “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”
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As a conservative political backlash sweeps across US media, some are reaching for the ultimate prize: Hollywood.
Shifting the liberal tilt of the studios and creative culture that shapes America’s image of itself has long been a goal for the right: The late media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart popularized the notion that politics is “downstream” from culture, and acolytes from Steve Bannon to Ben Shapiro have sought to inject their politics into the movie business, with limited success.
But conservatives have celebrated a few mainstream hits, like the patriotic Top Gun: Maverick and Taylor Sheridan’s nostalgic, libertarian-inflected Yellowstone. And a longstanding Christian culture industry has backed projects like the 2023 film Sound of Freedom, a dramatization of child trafficking that grossed more than $242 million for Provo’s Angel Studios. The Christian drama The Forge earned $30 million on a $6 million budget last year.
Now a set of prominent figures close to the software firm Palantir are pitching a new project to shake up streaming TV and film with a portfolio ranging from feature films about daring Israeli and American military operations to a three-part treatment of an Ayn Rand tome.
In a pitch deck circulated to investors in recent months, Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar, early Palantir employee Ryan Podolsky, and investor Christian Garrett are raising money for Founders Films, a new production company based in Dallas that aims to push for films with a nationalistic bent and unsubtle political overtones. The company said its projects would adhere to a set of rules: “Say yes to projects about American exceptionalism, name America’s enemies, back artists unconditionally, take risk on novel IP.
“The American Brand is broken. Hollywood is AWOL. Movies have become more ideological, more cautious, and less entertaining. Large segments of American and international viewers are underserved. Production costs have soared and sales are flagging,” the deck, which is labeled confidential, says. Founders aims to be a production studio that would also co-finance projects, distribute films, and engage in brand partnerships.
Podolsky did not respond to requests for comment. A representative for Palantir also did not respond to requests for comment.
The project’s name echoes that of Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and both Palantir and Garrett have close ties to the investor, a key figure on the new right. A spokesman for Thiel didn’t respond to a request for comment on the project.
But in a post late last year on his Substack, Sankar outlined his view for a return to blockbusters of the 80s and 90s, like Red Dawn, Top Gun, Rocky IV, and The Hunt for Red October. He said the entertainment needed to be unafraid of offending Chinese audiences, and use American cultural power to spread skeptical views of the Chinese government: “Breaking out of our cultural malaise will require the studios to wake up and choose America,” he wrote, invoking the renaissance in American film in the 1970s, when directors including Steven Spielberg “brought back heroes, villains, and romance” and “rekindled the flame of the American Cinematic Universe.”
While Founders’ deck largely avoids political language, the company’s proposed projects celebrate American military action, push for confrontation with China, and elevate heroes of the right from Rand to Elon Musk.
Screenshot from Founders Films deck
The slate includes 102 Minutes, a feature film about the evacuation of the World Trade Center on 9/11 (“courage is contagious,” the tagline reads). The company also hopes to create a three-part adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, and a film about killing Qasem Soleimani.
Not to be confused with the 2000’s stoner comedy Pineapple Express, the deck pitches Operation: Pineapple Express, a movie about the “botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Then there’s The Greatest Game, a “multi-season, global spy thriller that lays bare China’s plans to replace the United States as the dominant global power by showing their operations and sometimes devastating impact from Kenya to the Atacama desert in northern Chile.”
The company brands itself as explicitly pro-American, but many of the projects also celebrate Israel. Founders’ proposed film slate also includes Roaring Lion, a movie about the recent attack against Iran, which depicts Israel as “striving for nuclear non-proliferation and exercising its right of self-defense against a crazed regime intent on destroying it.” The proposed projects also include When the Towers Fall, a film about Israel’s 2024 booby-trapped pager operation against Hezbollah.
While much of the content has a military bent, the company also said it hoped to produce unscripted documentaries about influential figures like Musk, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and Admiral Hyman Rickover, who led the development of nuclear-powered submarines.
Founders Films, if it succeeds in its fundraising efforts, would immediately be a major player among conservative media companies like the Daily Wire, which have also gotten into the scripted and theatrical movie and TV business, and have sought to tap into right-leaning audiences while also challenging the cultural dominance of Hollywood.
“It’s great that new players are coming into the space, and I’m almost positive that we will work with them,” said Dallas Sonnier, a former manager for Hollywood talent including Greta Gerwig and whose production company produces for the Daily Wire. His output includes TV shows and films like Am I Racist?, a mockumentary that played in 1,500 theaters and grossed $12 million.
The esteemed Thomas Sowell, easily the most important economist of the last 50 years, turned 95 a couple of weeks ago. He has an extraordinary ability to take complex ideas about economics and culture and distill them down in prose that speaks to everyone from PhDs to those with a GED.
His ability and willingness to address issues from race to economics to history in compellingly readable books are unmatched. Indeed, his Cultures trilogy is one of the most robust weapons one might equip themselves with in any battle against the nonsensical wokeness that plagues America in the early 21st century.
As one would expect from a career spanning over six decades, Dr. Sowell has more than a few quotes that are perfect for our time. My favorite is easily:
“Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as racists.”
Another is:
“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.”
As accurate as those quotes are, the following is perhaps the most insightful I’ve ever read:
The esteemed Thomas Sowell, easily the most important economist of the last 50 years, turned 95 a couple of weeks ago. He has an extraordinary ability to take complex ideas about economics and culture and distill them down in prose that speaks to everyone from PhDs to those with a GED.
His ability and willingness to address issues from race to economics to history in compellingly readable books are unmatched. Indeed, his Cultures trilogy is one of the most robust weapons one might equip themselves with in any battle against the nonsensical wokeness that plagues America in the early 21st century.
As one would expect from a career spanning over six decades, Dr. Sowell has more than a few quotes that are perfect for our time. My favorite is easily:
“Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as racists.”
Another is:
“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.”
As accurate as those quotes are, the following is perhaps the most insightful I’ve ever read:
I’m talking, of course, about the Russiagate hoax that Barack Obama and his national security team foisted on the American people. CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper essentially manipulated the Intelligence Community Assessment [ICA] such that the impact of a Trump Russia collusion charge was devastating. And they had a bit of help from the beginning.
Essentially, they undermined the credibility of the incoming administration and saddled the country with two years of intrigue, corruption, and uncertainty in the form of an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. What’s more, Paul Ryan, the then-Speaker of the House who basically would have been just as happy with a President Hillary Clinton, would use the distraction to undermine Trump’s No. 1 issue: the border wall. He delayed the fight until after the 2018 midterms, which of course ended up being a bloodbath for the GOP.
Needless to say, Trump’s No. 1 issue was DOA when Congress reconvened.
By the time Mueller reluctantly admitted that there was nothing to the Russiagate hoax — six months after the midterms — the damage had already been done. Some coups take the form of military takeovers, others involve assassinations; this one involved a conspiracy at the highest levels of the Obama administration.
Things are not supposed to work like that. We have elections so the people can decide how they would like the nation to be governed. While there are always many people who are unhappy with the outcome, most Americans accept it because they believe in the system established by our Constitution.
John Adams said of that Constitution: “[It] was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” That is demonstrably true. It’s a piece of paper. Americans accept the outcomes of elections not because there are stormtroopers stationed on every corner ensuring acquiescence, but rather because they believe that, while flawed, our constitutional elections are a relatively honest and fair way to decide our paths forward.
Which brings us back to Sowell’s quote: “One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.” What the Obama cabal did to Donald Trump and the country was anything but moral. It was insidious, it was treacherous, and most of all, it was treasonous.
And now that the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has released documents and suggested they show that Barack Obama was behind it all, we’ll get an opportunity to see what the Trump administration is really made of. It’s one thing to tell the American people about the treason of a previous administration, but it’s something else altogether to do something about it. Will it be like the Jeffrey Epstein debacle, where Americans were told the hammer is coming, only to be later told there’s nothing there? Or will this be a ruthless, methodical, and intentional prosecution of the traitors who put the nation through so much?
I would suggest that at a moment in time when public trust in government is near all-time lows, if the Trump administration has any hope of being considered successful, it will take the latter course. For far too long, Americans have watched as elites like Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Barack Obama have not only gotten away with what many see as abject treason, but then they have the temerity to lecture us that “No one is above the law.”
Most Americans agree with that and believe criminals should pay for their deeds. The question is, does Donald Trump? Will he demonstrate to the American people that we are indeed a nation of laws and not men, or will he tell us once again that there’s no there there and that in modern America, the only people who face consequences for their actions are those who stand up to the swamp and the ruling elites?
The Democrat indicated to former Fox News host Megyn Kelly that he does not agree with his party on whether biological males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, and that biological males cannot actually become women.
Potential Democratic presidential contender Rahm Emanuel on Monday admitted in a news interview that a biological male cannot actually become a woman, marking a significant break from what has become the mainstream view in his party.
Emanuel, who previously stated he was “in training” to run for the Oval Office, is a powerful figure in Democratic politics, having served as the ambassador to Japan under the Biden administration, and as White House chief of staff during the Obama administration. He also represented Illinois in the House and was the mayor of Chicago from 2011-2019.
The Democrat indicated to former Fox News host Megyn Kelly that he does not agree with his party on whether biological males should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, and that biological males cannot actually become women.
“Can a man become a woman,” he repeated back to Kelly on her SiriusXM show. “Not– no.”
Kelly praised Emanuel for “telling the truth” and asked why other Democrats are hesitant to do the same.
“Because I’m now going to go into a witness protection plan,” he joked.
The Illinois Democrat also stated that he does not believe minors should be on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, stating people under 18 are too young to make such a decision.
“I think parents have to make that decision themselves,” he said. “I think that is too – a child is too young at 18 to make that decision. It has to be made with a family and that choice. I think before somebody makes a life decision, they have to think twice about that … You have to have some moral development, and character, and judgment and foundation for that.”
Emanuel additionally agreed that biological men should not be in female prisons.
Speakers warned that without decisive action, Poland’s internal security will continue to deteriorate.
Marches under the slogan ‘Stop Immigration’ took place across Poland on Saturday, July 19th, including in Bialystok, Krakow, Poznan, Warsaw, and Wroclaw.
More and more Poles are demanding the closure of the borders with Belarus, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. This relates to both the alleged actions of Minsk weaponising releases of migrants into Polish borders as a form of hybrid warfare, and the wider sense that migration has led to a deteriorating crime and security situation within Poland itself.
One of Saturday’s anti-immigration gatherings heard Confederation (Konfederacja) party leadership figure Krzysztof Bosak declare
Without closing Poland to illegal immigration, without launching a deportation operation, without renouncing political correctness, without equipping the Border Guard and the forces responsible for controlling the legality of residence, and without controlling the labour market, security will gradually deteriorate.
After years of raging against the sovereigntist Law and Justice party (PiS) and its lack of ‘European values’ from within Brussels, Polish PM Donald Tusk now attempts to reassure voters that he is protecting borders, with a representative stating
The government is pursuing a responsible and well-considered migration policy, taking care of the stability and security of citizens.
From a stumbling economy to soaring crime, France has plenty of problems. But, judging by recent events, the government seems to have another threat in mind: social media. Earlier this month, prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Elon Musk’s X, alleging foreign interference through algorithm manipulation, while also condemning the platform for spreading “hateful” content. This followed a police raid on the headquarters of the National Rally, France’s leading opposition party, after the launch of yet another dubious investigation into campaign financing.
The Fifth Republic is far from alone here. For Western democracy is under threat — not from “foreign adversaries”, or “far-Right populists”, but from its own elites. Whether in Britain, Germany or Ireland, censorship has become routine across Europe and beyond, even as dissent is increasingly criminalised and legal systems are weaponised to suppress opposition. In recent months, these trends have escalated into direct assaults on the basic institutions of democratic governance. In Romania, to give one example, an entire election was annulled because it delivered the wrong outcome, while other countries contemplate similar measures too.
In theory, all this is being carried out in the name of defending democracy. In truth, the purpose is clear: to help ruling elites maintain their grip on power in the face of a historic collapse of legitimacy. Whether they will succeed in doing so remains to be seen. What is clear, though, is that the stakes are enormous. If elites manage to entrench their control through increasingly authoritarian means, the West will enter a new era of managed democracy — or democracy in name only. If they fail, and in the absence of a coherent alternative, the resulting vacuum may give way to deepening instability, social unrest and systemic crisis.
DeGeneres, 67, moved to the Cotswolds with her wife, Portia de Rossi, 52, and has no intention of returning.
The “comedian” explained the reason for the move while speaking to Richard Bacon at the Everyman theatre in Cheltenham over the weekend.
“We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in’.’ ‘And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here,’” DeGeneres confessed.
DeGeneres claimed that back in the US, “The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage.”
They’re trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it. Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we’re going to get married here,” she said. “I wish we were at a place where it was not scary for people to be who they are. I wish that we lived in a society where everybody could accept other people and their differences.”She continued, “So until we’re there, I think there’s a d place to say we have huge progress.”
The Daily Mail reports:
Back in 2020, Ellen was embroiled in controversy after being accused of creating a toxic work environment – and later issued an apology.
After nearly two decades of being on the air, The Ellen Degeneres Show also came to an end just two years later in 2022.
She previously told The Hollywood Reporter, ‘I have to just trust that whatever happened during that time, which was obviously very, very difficult, happened for a reason.
‘I think that I learned a lot, and there were some things that came up that I was shocked and surprised by. It was eye-opening, but I just trust that that had to happen.’
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard set off fireworks on Friday when she accused former president Barack Obama of organizing a coup d’état against his successor. Summarizing the damning evidence in her possession, Gabbard concluded, “These documents detail a treasonous conspiracy by officials at the highest levels of the Obama White House to subvert the will of the American people.”
Treason is a capital offense with no statute of limitations. So consider how explosive Gabbard’s allegations are. The senior official in charge of all American Intelligence is stating unequivocally that Obama and his loyal subordinates sabotaged the peaceful transfer of presidential power in 2016, betrayed the American people, and made war against the legitimate government of the United States. Gabbard just dropped the “Mother of All Bombs” on Obama’s White House syndicate, the Intelligence Community, and the globalist Deep State.
General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s short-lived National Security Advisor, assessed the situation succinctly: “This is surreal.” As a target of the Deep State’s treacherous lawfare operations, General Flynn views the workings in Washington, D.C., with supreme clarity: “This is why [Gabbard] was attacked so relentlessly over the past few weeks and months. They knew if there were anyone with the guts to investigate the attempted coup, it would be her.” Obama loyalists in the Intelligence Community and Obama’s propaganda allies in the corporate news media succeeded in removing General Flynn from his NSA position at the beginning of Trump’s first term. Perhaps learning from Flynn’s experience, Gabbard has worked quickly to expose the conspirators before they could take her out, too.
Who exactly formed this conspiracy to overturn the 2016 election and topple President Trump’s administration? DNI Gabbard says that “intelligence was politicized and weaponized by the most powerful people in the Obama Administration to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President [Trump].” Furthermore, “Obama officials immediately leaned on their allies in the media to advance their falsehoods. Anonymous IC sources leaked classified information to the Washington Post and others that Russia had intervened to hack the election in Trump’s favor.”
Ezra Cohen, an Intelligence official who has served President Trump in various positions, highlighted the list of principals who conspired to blame Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election loss on the Russians. In a pivotal National Security Council meeting chaired by Susan Rice, attendees included John Brennan, James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, John Kerry, Loretta Lynch, Victoria Nuland, Mary McCord, Avril Haines, Lisa Monaco, Ben Rhodes, and Maher Bitar (an Obama official who immediately went to work for liar Adam Schiff). That’s a “Who’s Who” list of Russia Hoax plotters.
Truth-tellers at American Thinker and elsewhere have been trying to tell this story for nearly ten years. No matter how compelling the evidence or persuasive the arguments, the corporate news media have called us “conspiracy theorists” and buried anything that might tarnish Obama’s legacy. No doubt the national propagandists that disseminate approved “narratives” for the globalist Deep State will continue to do so. Still, it is satisfying to see this headline at Breitbart: “Declassified: Obama Admin Manufactured Intelligence to Push Fake Trump-Russia Collusion Narrative.”
In other words, Obama and high-ranking members of his administration — including the Intelligence chiefs responsible for safeguarding the nation from foreign and domestic threats — fabricated evidence meant to convince the American people that Russia stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, this cabal of conspirators fabricated evidence meant to incriminate President Trump, convince Congress to remove him from office, and perhaps even convince a future jury to convict him for espionage and treason.
Obama and his people damaged America’s reputation in the world by pretending that Russia “hacked” the 2016 election. Along with Hillary Clinton and her campaign (the original plotters who paid for the Steele Dossier and its public dissemination), the Obama administration defrauded the American people by squandering time and resources on a figment of their seditious imaginations.
Consider how many thousands of government agents from the Department of Justice, Department of State, and broader Intelligence Community were ordered to waste years on the job chasing ghosts conjured by Clinton, Obama, Rice, Brennan, Lynch, Comey, Clapper, and their many co-conspirators.
Consider all the real foreign and domestic threats that were entirely ignored because the U.S. government was dedicating substantial resources to an Intelligence operation meant to frame President Trump as a Russian spy.
Consider how much harm Obama, Clinton, and their allies in government offices and corporate newsrooms caused to America by fomenting social division and political strife based on abject lies.
The Obama administration and Clinton campaign essentially conducted a “color revolution” against the United States. It was their intention to instigate a mass public uprising that would force President Trump from office. They conspired to overthrow the U.S. government and install a new one more amenable to their interests. What these “untouchable” elites did was textbook treason and sedition.
We will never have a full accounting of the toll Obama and Clinton’s lies had on America. It seems reasonable to assume that their lies cost lives. How many terrorist attacks could have been prevented if Intelligence agents had been working on things that mattered? Who really murdered Seth Rich? How many Republicans have been bankrupted in courtrooms while defending themselves against malicious prosecutions arising from the Russia Collusion Hoax? All of the treasonous criminals who perpetrated this fraud upon the American people made the United States weaker, more divided, and more vulnerable. That’s Obama’s real legacy.
No-one should minimize the seriousness of these crimes. Unfortunately, even in conservative circles, it is common to hear someone describe the Russia Collusion Hoax as a Democrat Party “dirty trick.” This was not a “dirty trick.” This was treason!
A “dirty trick” might aptly describe social media satirist Douglass Mackey’s trolling humor when he posted a joke encouraging Hillary Clinton’s supporters to vote by text in 2016. Even though Mackey’s absurd suggestion has been used as a funny meme by both Democrats and Republicans for many election cycles, Hillary actually blamed Mackey for her loss, and Biden’s (in)Justice Department successfully convicted Mackey for engaging in a conspiracy to spread false information. Thankfully, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously voided his preposterous conviction and ordered the district court to enter a judgment of acquittal.
While Obama-Biden prosecutors were happy to go after meme-makers for engaging in fake conspiracies to spread “misinformation,” they completely ignored the Obama-Clinton conspiracy to manufacture the Russia Collusion Hoax. Unlike Mackey’s harmless “dirty trick,” the repercussions of the Obama-Clinton “color revolution” were very real.
Setting aside the fact that President Trump’s first term was undermined by a two-year special counsel investigation run by Democrats, when the departing Obama administration decided to blame Russia for Hillary’s 2016 loss, the conspirators compounded tensions between the world’s two dominant nuclear powers for purely political reasons.
As the meeting records from Gabbard’s declassification show, Obama’s National Security Council principals “agreed to recommend sanctioning of certain members of the Russian military intelligence and foreign intelligence chains of command responsible for cyber operations as a response to cyber activity that attempted to influence or interfere with U.S. elections.” Before Obama left office, he expelled Russian diplomats and left incoming President Trump with a diplomatic hornet’s nest.
As Internet sleuth MAZE points out, shortly after Obama’s scapegoating of Russia, Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Amy Klobuchar traveled to Ukraine and later held a press conference during which they claimed that “Russia attacked the USA by hacking the 2016 election.” Obama and his co-conspirators advanced an Intelligence operation that could have instigated a direct U.S.-Russia war. That’s no “dirty trick.” That’s deadly treason against the United States and the American people.
Now more than ever, the ability to speak our minds is crucial to the republic we cherish. If what you see on American Thinker resonates with you, please consider supporting our work with a donation of as much or as little as you can give. Every dollar contributed helps us pay our staff and keep our ideas heard and our voices strong.
Watching leftists endlessly promote the same catastrophic policies is tiresome. Some quotations come to mind:
““It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.” — Ronald Reagan
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” — Soren Kierkegaard
Since so many of the worst cities in America are run by Democrats, one would think that their voters would eventually catch on. Those who do and are able, move away. Some take their failed ideas with them and, like cancer cells, infect their new environs with the same diseased ideas that caused them to flee. The phrase, “Once bitten, twice shy eludes them, as does the old definition of insanity.
At one time, our schools taught actual history. Since Howard Zinn’s books have hit the market, we’re now seeing entire generations of Americans who can’t find China on a map, don’t know who America fought in World War II, and can’t name the three branches of our government.
Throughout history, people have gained great power by making promises to the poorly-educated and instead brought only misery and oppression. The same policies promoted by today’s Left have resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths worldwide. Some died from famine and disease, others were slaughtered by their own government.
The Soviet Union’s economy was characterized by central planning, where state-controlled production, distribution, and prices, leading to inefficiencies and shortages. Agriculture was collectivized, resulting in significant declines in agricultural productivity, contributing to famines. The Bolsheviks murdered Russian citizens on a scale never before seen.
In China, Mao initiated the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which were aimed at rapid industrialization and ideological purity, producing instead economic disaster and widespread famine. The atrocities committed by the Red Guard are the stuff of nightmares. China’s one-child policy (1979-2015) produced an aging population and pronounced gender imbalances.
North Korea also emphasizes state control over all aspects of life. As in Russia and China, collectivized agriculture and state-run farms led to inefficiencies and food shortages. Their military is prioritized over civilian needs, diverting resources from essential services and economic development. The country’s isolation from the global economy has produced chronic scarcities and lack of technological advancement.Fidel Castro’s government likewise nationalized major industries and implemented extensive social programs, including universal healthcare and education, which strained the economy. In the 1960s, the U.S. imposed a trade embargo that limited Cuba’s access to goods and markets and also contributed to economic hardship and shortages. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba introduced limited market reforms which has allowed some private enterprise and foreign investment. Cuba’s “free” health care has been praised by some U.S. celebrities, but the everyday reality tells a different story.
Loose monetary policies, including excessive money printing contributed to the economic collapse of Argentina. Annual inflation sometimes exceeded 211% and over half the population lived in poverty despite subsidies and social programs. Large fiscal deficits accompanied by borrowing or printing money led to unsustainable debt and lack of investor confidence. Crippling regulations and interventionist policies discouraged foreign investment and stifled growth. Many citizens rely on government assistance, creating generational dependency and limited incentives for economic participation. Javier Milei’s administration is seeing some success in addressing these issues through radical economic reforms.
What have the leftists learned from these events? Nothing, apparently. The Democrat Party has been taken over by the extreme far left, which is promoting the same disastrous policies that destroyed every country in which they’ve been tried. Zaohran Mamdani, the New York City Democrat mayoral nominee, has proposed an additional 2% tax on individuals making over $1 million annually, raising concerns of potential wealth flight. He’s also suggested freezing rents, thereby discouraging new housing construction. While he hasn’t yet proposed defunding the NYPD, he is prioritizing community-based solutions (social workers?) to control crime. He wants “free” public transit, “free” childcare for children aged six weeks to five years, and state-run grocery stores.
We’ve heard the same sorts of proposals from the likes of AOC, Liz Warren, and Bernie Sanders for years. Socialist and communist policies, centralized planning and interventions into the free market have not, cannot, and will not produce robust economies. They are simply excuses for control of the population and wealth redistribution.
However, what Donald Trump and Javier Milei are doing works and the evidence is incandescently obvious. In the first month, Milei slashed spending by 30%, balanced the budget, cut half of the federal ministries, and ended fake currency controls. Result? Inflation, poverty and housing prices are dropping, the economy is growing, and investment is returning. Similarly, Donald Trump’s first six months in office are said to be the most significant since FDR.
“This is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields.” — Ecclesiastes 5:9
A proper government doesn’t try to micromanage society. It simply promotes the conditions necessary for the citizens to work and flourish.
Now more than ever, the ability to speak our minds is crucial to the republic we cherish. If what you see on American Thinker resonates with you, please consider supporting our work with a donation of as much or as little as you can give. Every dollar contributed helps us pay our staff and keep our ideas heard and our voices strong.
Fidel Castro’s government likewise nationalized major industries and implemented extensive social programs, including universal healthcare and education, which strained the economy. In the 1960s, the U.S. imposed a trade embargo that limited Cuba’s access to goods and markets and also contributed to economic hardship and shortages. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba introduced limited market reforms which has allowed some private enterprise and foreign investment. Cuba’s “free” health care has been praised by some U.S. celebrities, but the everyday reality tells a different story.
Loose monetary policies, including excessive money printing contributed to the economic collapse of Argentina. Annual inflation sometimes exceeded 211% and over half the population lived in poverty despite subsidies and social programs. Large fiscal deficits accompanied by borrowing or printing money led to unsustainable debt and lack of investor confidence. Crippling regulations and interventionist policies discouraged foreign investment and stifled growth. Many citizens rely on government assistance, creating generational dependency and limited incentives for economic participation. Javier Milei’s administration is seeing some success in addressing these issues through radical economic reforms.
What have the leftists learned from these events? Nothing, apparently. The Democrat Party has been taken over by the extreme far left, which is promoting the same disastrous policies that destroyed every country in which they’ve been tried. Zaohran Mamdani, the New York City Democrat mayoral nominee, has proposed an additional 2% tax on individuals making over $1 million annually, raising concerns of potential wealth flight. He’s also suggested freezing rents, thereby discouraging new housing construction. While he hasn’t yet proposed defunding the NYPD, he is prioritizing community-based solutions (social workers?) to control crime. He wants “free” public transit, “free” childcare for children aged six weeks to five years, and state-run grocery stores.
We’ve heard the same sorts of proposals from the likes of AOC, Liz Warren, and Bernie Sanders for years. Socialist and communist policies, centralized planning and interventions into the free market have not, cannot, and will not produce robust economies. They are simply excuses for control of the population and wealth redistribution.
However, what Donald Trump and Javier Milei are doing works and the evidence is incandescently obvious. In the first month, Milei slashed spending by 30%, balanced the budget, cut half of the federal ministries, and ended fake currency controls. Result? Inflation, poverty and housing prices are dropping, the economy is growing, and investment is returning. Similarly, Donald Trump’s first six months in office are said to be the most significant since FDR.
“This is gain for a land in every way: a king committed to cultivated fields.” — Ecclesiastes 5:9
A proper government doesn’t try to micromanage society. It simply promotes the conditions necessary for the citizens to work and acquire wealth.
On Friday, director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard released “overwhelming evidence” that former president Barack Obama and other top Cabinet and Intelligence Community (I.C.) members conspired to “subvert the will of the American people” after President Trump won the 2016 election. The newly declassified Russiagate documents show that Obama and other high-level officials allegedly did everything they could to “delegitimize President Trump’s victory” with false claims and “countless smears.”
According to Gabbard, the newly released documents further prove a conspiracy that would perpetrate a “years-long coup” against President Trump. She also stated that those involved reportedly hoped to destroy the mandate and legacy “bestowed upon him by the American people.” It may well be one of the biggest political crimes in U.S. history.
Gabbard’s release decisively obliterates the longstanding claim that Moscow swung the 2016 election for Donald Trump. It also marks the first time a senior Trump administration official has directly implicated former president Barack Obama as an active participant in the alleged conspiracy.
Together, they make three things unmistakably clear:
The Intelligence Community (I.C.) repeatedly concluded — before and after Election Day — that Russia lacked both the intent and capability to alter U.S. vote totals. A September 12, 2016, I.C. assessment found that “foreign adversaries do not have and will probably not obtain the capabilities to successfully execute widespread and undetected cyber‑attacks” on election infrastructure.
Those conclusions were suppressed or overwritten at the direction of senior Obama officials and probably Obama himself after Trump won. Talking points drafted for DNI James Clapper on December 7, 2016, stated flatly, “Foreign adversaries did not use cyberattacks on election infrastructure to alter the U.S. Presidential election outcome,” yet the president’s daily brief containing those conclusions was killed hours later.
Below is an example of one of the emails provided, suggesting that the I.C. knew that Russia “was not and will not try to influence the election via cyber means.”
A hastily ordered Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), released January 6, 2017, relied in part on the since‑discredited Steele dossier and became the cornerstone of years‑long investigations and impeachment efforts — despite internal dissent warning it was “politicized intelligence.”
31 Aug 2016 — DHS tells then‑DNI Clapper there is “no indication” of a Russian plan to manipulate vote counts.
2 Sept 2016 — FBI asks that a forthcoming pre‑election assessment be “softened” because bureau analysts are “uncomfortable” implying Russia intends to disrupt the election.
12 Sept 2016 — I.C. publishes the cyber‑threat ICA concluding adversaries cannot covertly overturn the vote.
7 Oct 2016 — ODNI/DHS press release blames Russia for DNC hacks but omits that FBI and NSA had “low confidence” in that attribution.
7 Dec 2016 — Draft PDB reiterates that Russia did not tamper with election infrastructure; FBI abruptly withdraws, and a senior official quashes the product.
8 Dec 2016 — I.C. officials plan to publish the PDB the next day due to “high administration interest,” knowing Russian actors “did not impact recent U.S. election results.” Hours later, the FBI withdraws, announces it will draft a dissent, and a senior PDB editor cancels the brief “based on new guidance.”
9 Dec 2016 — Obama convenes National Security Council principals — including John Brennan, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, and Andrew McCabe — and orders a new ICA. That same day, two “blatantly false leaks” reach The Washington Post, alleging that Russia hacked the vote and that the CIA concluded that Moscow had intervened to elect Trump.
14 Dec 2016 through late Dec 2016 — Leaks continue claiming Vladimir Putin was “personally involved.” Obama continued to push the narrative that Russia could be involved. Asks Putin to “knock it off.” An ODNI whistle‑blower who challenges the narrative is sidelined and pressured to accept the finding that Russia preferred Trump, a position he writes he “could not concur with in good conscience.”
6 Jan 2017 — The unclassified ICA is released, asserting that Putin ordered an influence campaign to help Trump — contradicting months of I.C. reporting and relying in part on the Steele dossier.
Two years later, in September 2019, while assisting with a FOIA request on the Obama‑era ICA, the same ODNI whistleblower was asked to locate records tied to the Steele dossier because, the whistleblower was told, the dossier “played a role” in that assessment. The request stunned the whistleblower, who had long been told that DNI Clapper considered the dossier unreliable, and no one on the National Intelligence Council had ever suggested that it was a credible document.
Gabbard’s press release shows that Obama administration officials knowingly “manufactured” the Steele Dossier and allegedly misrepresented Russia’s role in influencing the election. She added that the newly released assessment exposes the fact that “this was politicized intelligence that was used as a basis for countless smears seeking to delegitimize President Trump’s victory.”
Because of the Russia Hoax, she notes that Trump suffered two ill-conceived congressional impeachments, and tensions were heightened with Russia. Former national security adviser to President Trump, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had to resign and then endured years of costly litigation and reputational harm. Many others connected with the Trump administration suffered mightily because of the conspiracy.
Notably, in both her press release and her July 18 X post, Gabbard alludes to her commitment to fully investigate, prosecute, and deliver accountability “to the fullest extent of the law” to the American people and to President Trump and his family.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry for being a one-note orchestra, but I’m consumed with Obama’s involvement in the Russia hoax case.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 