Prominent Law Professor Sues His School Over Vaccine Policy

Imposing a constitutionally dubious vaccine policy at a public university that not only has some of the top classical liberal law professors in the country but is also intimately connected with a global network of freedom advocates is a recipe for a lawsuit. That’s exactly what George Mason University learned recently when it imposed a school-wide vaccine mandate for students, faculty, and staff. Failure to comply subjects individuals to a list of penalties from social distancing requirements to potential disciplinary action.

The plaintiff is Todd Zywicki, the George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, who has as impressive of a resume as anyone can imagine. He has held positions at numerous influential think tanks, executive positions in the federal government, and has taught at numerous respected law schools. His lawsuit is joined by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a non-profit law firm dedicated to advancing constitutional freedoms and founded by the prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger. AIER contributor Jenin Younes is also a member of their litigation team and one of the attorneys on this case.

Zywicki names the president of the school and numerous other officers as the defendants in his suit Zywicki v Washington. He alleges that as a public institution, GMU is obligated to follow the Constitution and its vaccine policy violates the 9th and 14th Amendments as well as the Supremacy Clause. Zywicki contends that his natural immunity from having recovered from a natural Covid-19 infection gives him equal if not superior protection than vaccines. His sentiments are supported by his immunologist, who informed him that receiving a vaccine would be “medically unnecessary”, as well as a joint declaration from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, prominent medical professors at Stanford and Harvard respectively. They write that,

“Multiple extensive, peer-reviewed studies comparing natural and vaccine immunity have now been published. These studies overwhelmingly conclude that natural immunity provides equivalent or greater protection against severe infection than immunity generated by mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna).”

The declaration, found in Exhibit A of the docket, also explains that the evidence to support mitigation measures such as vaccine mandates and passports is lacking.

Count 1: Violation of the Right to Refuse Unwanted and Medically Unnecessary Healthcare

The plaintiff asserts that GMU’s vaccine policy, in practice a mandate, and refusal to acknowledge the merits of natural immunity are problematic because they violate his right to refuse unnecessary healthcare. The complaint states,

“The Supreme Court has recognized that the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to privacy. A “forcible injection … into a nonconsenting person’s body represents a substantial interference with that person’s liberty[.]” Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 229 (1990).”

The 9th Amendment protects unenumerated rights, which are those that are not explicitly stated in the Constitution. The 14th Amendment protects due process and equal protection under the law. The Covid-19 vaccine is currently deployed under the Emergency Use Authorization and citizens are therefore entitled to be informed of their right to accept or refuse. This fact, combined with the plaintiff’s already robust natural immunity and unlikeliness to infect others with a relatively mild disease, renders such a mandate a violation of privacy. Furthermore, established case law enshrines the right to bodily integrity. The suit asserts,

“Coercing employees to receive an EUA vaccine for a virus that presents a near-zero risk of illness or death to them and which they are exceedingly unlikely to pass on to others, because those employees already possess natural immunity to the virus, violates the liberty and privacy interests that the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments protect.”

If the state wishes to implement a coercive measure, the burden of evidence is on itself to prove that its policy is narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest. The plaintiffs contend,

“Defendants cannot show that they have a compelling interest in coercing Professor Zywicki into taking a COVID-19 vaccine, because GMU has no compelling interest in treating employees with natural immunity any differently from employees who obtained immunity from a vaccine.”

Count 2: Violation of Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine and 14th Amendment’s Right to Due Process

The Unconstitutional Conditions Doctrine prohibits the government from imposing coercive incentives against exercising a constitutionally protected right. GMU’s penalties are therefore an impairment of Professor Zywicki’s right to refuse medical care. His complaint states,

“According to that body of law, GMU cannot impair Professor Zywicki’s right to refuse medical care through subtle forms of coercion any more than it could through an explicit mandate.”

Furthermore, the school’s policy is a violation of due process as it is incongruent, disproportional, and inappropriately flips the burden of evidence onto the plaintiff. In light of the robust immunity established by natural infection, the school cannot logically justify its penalties against those in the GMU community with naturally acquired immunity. The existence of such immunity fully serves the interest of the public health measures implemented by GMU.

The policy is also deficient of proportionality, as the school indicates no intention to assess the level of antibody level of its targets. If the school believes that the prevalence of antibodies is important in advancing its public health goals, then it ought to recognize that they are acquired by both vaccination and infection. The school not only signals any intention to test for antibodies, but makes the premature conclusion that vaccination is superior, even assuming equality of effectiveness amongst all vaccines. The suit asserts,

“​​In short, allocating burden of proof responsibility to those with natural immunity like Professor Zywicki, coupled with GMU’s stacking the process with presumptions Plaintiff will show are scientifically unwarranted, contravene the Due Process Clause.”

The burden of proof is on the school to show that Zywicki’s naturally acquired immunity is in fact inferior to the vaccines accepted by its policy, and noncompliance poses a threat to public safety. The plaintiff alleged the school has not demonstrated this requirement.

Count 3: Violation of the Supremacy Clause

The Supremacy Clause holds that federal law supersedes state law. GMU’s policy is Virginia state law and the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) is federal law. Covid-19 vaccines are authorized by the EUA, which subjects recipients to informed consent. Because GMU’s coercive policies conflict with the letter and spirit of the EUA, it is therefore unconstitutional. According to the complaint,

“That is at odds with the Policy’s forcing Professor Zywicki to sustain significant injury to his career if he does not want to take the vaccine (in light of masking, frequent testing, social distancing, and looming disciplinary action).”

For these reasons and more, Zywicki asked the court to declare the policies unconstitutional and an injunction be issued.

Key Takeaways

The fight over the official narrative regarding Covid-19 is still alive and well. This lawsuit is only illustrative of the two camps that have developed and how insulated many core decision makers have been from one over the other. Natural immunity for example, although clearly affirmed by the supporting evidence, seems to be unacknowledged writ large. The disproportionate perceptions of the risk of Covid-19 are still rampant.

The significance of this case cannot be overstated with vaccine mandates and passports being considered and implemented across the country. One does not need a background in law to understand that the pandemic has sent the country into another constitutional inflection point. From emergency powers, to lockdowns, to eviction moratoriums, and now vaccine mandates, the precedents we set today will forever affect the ark of our system of constitutional government.

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This article was published on August 7, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from AIER, American Institute for Economic Research.

NEA Sues Mom For Asking Questions About Curriculum

The National Education Association (NEA)—the nation’s largest public-sector teachers’ union with a budget of over $300 million—has sued a Rhode Island mom for asking what her daughter would be taught in kindergarten. With the help of the Goldwater Institute, Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas is fighting back.

“This brazen and unprecedented act of intimidation by the NEA will not stand,” said Jon Riches, Director of National Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, who is representing Solas. “Nicole Solas is entitled to know what her daughter’s school is teaching in the classroom. She’s entitled to ask questions. And she does not deserve to face legal action just for asking questions any concerned parent would ask.”

Like many parents, Nicole was concerned about whether her daughter would be exposed to a politically charged curriculum in the classroom. So in April, Nicole emailed the principal of her school in the South Kingstown School District asking for the kindergarten curriculum—and whether it would include teaching children politically charged materials, including those influenced by Critical Race Theory and gender theory, holding them out to be true. She immediately faced stonewalling from the school and even a threat of legal action for asking too many questions. Ultimately, Nicole received a bill for $74,000 to fulfill a public records request filed by the Goldwater Institute on her behalf in July.

If that were not enough, Nicole is now facing an unprecedented lawsuit by the NEA, a veritable goliath of a public-sector union, representing over 2.3 million people nationwide. She is under attack with the costs and expenses associated with defending herself in a lawsuit for simply acting as a conscientious parent. This is not the first time that the NEA has shown that it’s more concerned with politics and indoctrination than actually helping kids learn and succeed. At the 2019 Representative Assembly of the NEA, the union’s delegates voted down a proposed resolution that called on the organization to “rededicate itself to the pursuit of increased student learning in every public school in America by putting a renewed emphasis on quality education” and “make student learning the priority of the Association.” Nicole, though, is determined to put her daughter’s education first and refuses to be deterred by the union’s politically motivated attack.

“The NEA is so determined to push its political agenda that they are willing to expose themselves in a court of law for who they really are: an association of bullies eager to challenge a stay-at-home mom who simply wanted to know what her daughter would be taught,” Nicole said. “This lawsuit won’t deter me from asking questions, and I encourage all parents to do the same, so that they are empowered to make informed decisions regarding their children’s education.”

Rhode Island law does not permit private parties to seek to punish those who exercise their rights to public information. The NEA’s lawsuit is a brazen assault on the public’s right to know what their government is up to and parents’ right to know what their children are learning in school. The Goldwater Institute is fighting to guarantee that right and to ensure public schools are transparent about their curriculum.

Parents like Nicole shouldn’t have to fight to learn what their children will be taught in school. The Goldwater Institute is working to shine a light on public schools’ curriculum—to learn more about our Academic Transparency Act, visit goldwaterinstitute.org/academictransparency.

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This article was published on August 5, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from the Goldwater Institute.

Arizona State Democrats Push Progressive Agenda In Washington

Some Arizona Democrats have joined party members from Texas and several other states in Washington to pressure their federal counterparts to pass major pieces of their progressive agenda.

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly joined state Reps. Andrés Cano and Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, both from Tucson, in attending the effort organized by Texas state lawmakers and progressive nonprofits such as the Declaration for American Democracy.

Also in Washington were sibling representatives Daniel and Alma Hernandez, both Tucson Democrats.

The Texas delegation of Democrats fled to Washington in July, hoping to deny Republicans a quorum to pass a handful of election bills, some similar to what was signed into law in Arizona.

The trio of Arizona Democrats met with U.S. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, Monday evening. Cázares-Kelly chronicled the event on Twitter.

“We met [Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez]!” she tweeted. “[Cano], [Stahl Hamilton], AOC, and I talked about [Arizona’s] vote by mail system, the [Arizona] legislature, realities of being a working-class candidate, how society expects poor people to be ashamed for living, I told her about [Indivisble Tohono] and the border wall.”
Cázares-Kelly said the Democrats spoke about white supremacy and “how we still only cater to landowners when we talk about voting!”

Cano echoed other activists who spoke at a Tuesday rally, saying the time is right to pass H.R. 1, referred to as the For the People Act.

“We won’t sit back while extremist lawmakers across our Nation – including in [Arizona], [Texas], and [Georgia] – do everything they can to take away our freedom to vote,” he tweeted.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate don’t have the votes to pass the measure because of Arizona Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s opposition to abolishing the filibuster, a parliamentary mechanism that means nonbudgetary legislation can be stymied unless it has more than 60 votes. Sinema has defended maintaining the filibuster, saying it brings about bipartisanship and stops wild swings in policy every time the minority party takes power.

Republicans and others oppose measures such as H.R. 1 and H.R. 4 (The John Lewis Voting Rights Act), saying they will federalize elections and open avenues to voter fraud.

“State Democratic lawmakers are fleeing to Washington for a blatant political stunt, abandoning their constituents to join their Texas counterparts for a summer vacation,” said Jessica Anderson, Heritage Action for America executive director. “This ploy to reinvigorate S. 1 and H.R. 4 before the August recess is driving towards one thing: creating a false narrative that Congress should nuke the filibuster and advance the Corrupt Politicians Act.”

Anderson said federalizing state elections unconstitutionally would disregard states and their voters’ wishes for election integrity.

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This article was published on August 3, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from The Center Square.

Federal Court In Texas Goes Woke

The essential function of the Court is to “create and maintain diversity”.

Here’s a pretty astonishing public notice for the appointment of a Magistrate Judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas:

Got that?

“The essential function of the Court is to dispense justice and create and maintain diversity in the court system. A community’s belief is heightened when the Court dispenses justice that reflects the community’s racial, ethnic, and gender diversity.”

As of publication, the post is still up on the official website of the Court. You can access it here.

We’ve reached the point in the woke religion where it’s no longer enough for our civil institutions to promote diversity. Doing so is now explicitly defined as the essential function of a U.S. District Court.

The second sentence of the notice is nearly as remarkable. One would hope that a “community’s belief” [presumably in the efficacy of the justice system, although the belief’s object is conspicuously left undefined] would be heightened by justice dispensed with perfect impartiality. In other words, a Court that dispenses justice without regard to the racial, ethnic, and gender “diversity” of the community is the only Court worthy of trust. Our country’s history is littered with foreboding examples of a justice system that dispensed justice with far too much regard for the racial and ethnic make-up of defendants. Why is the woke Left seeking to return to a similar system?

One genuinely fears where this could lead. Lady Justice, a common symbol on courthouses throughout America and the broader West, has been depicted wearing a blindfold since at least the 16thcentury. Think about that: so central is the idea of impartiality to a functioning judicial system that a blindfold has become ingrained in the system’s marquee symbol. But now, not only is impartiality apparently obsolete, it’s antithetical to the very function of the court. After all, Lady Justice would be hard-pressed to “create diversity” blindfolded.

It’s worth noting, too, that this isn’t the historically progressive 9thCircuit Court in San Francisco. This is a District Court in Waco, the heart of Texas, and home of Baptist Baylor University. Indeed, McLennan County, of which Waco is the county seat, voted for Trump 60-37% in 2020. It hasn’t gone for a Democrat in a presidential election since 1976.

Notices like this from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas are a reminder that for all the many, “conservative” judges appointed in the Trump administration, our woke ruling class persists unabated. Our country’s elite institutions, the gatekeepers to power in every sector of our society, demand complete obedience to the woke agenda. And they enforce it unceasingly.

In this light, perhaps it’s not surprising that the MAGA rioters from January 2021 and the BLM rioters from June 2020 have met very different fates in our legal system. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s hierarchy. No matter which president appoints the judges, the justice system moves forward, seeking to fulfill its “essential function” of “creating and maintaining diversity.”

*****

This article was published on August 2, 2021 and is reproduced with permission by The American Conservative.

 

More Than an Amicus Brief

An amicus brief means “friend of the court.” In this case, we mean the brief spearheaded by the Attorneys General of Arizona and Missouri, and joined by 26 other states, asking the Supreme Court of the United States to set aside restrictions in New York, and other states, that will not allow citizens to fully exercise their rights under the Second Amendment of the United State Constitution.

About 6 states in the Northeast have restrictions that severely curtail both the right to own, but especially to carry, a firearm for self-protection. New York requires a permit to carry and then makes the process so difficult and expensive, that it deliberately is intended to deny Constitutional rights, based on an ideological basis.  New York City is even more restrictive and they require that the applicant prove they also have a “special need.” This provision allows bureaucrats to exercise considerable discretion to play with arbitrary and subjective rules, usually denying the permit.

The right to keep is one thing, the right to bear is another, and in New York, you virtually cannot have a handgun outside of the house.

Since the Heller decision in 2008, the Supreme Court acknowledged that the Second Amendment applied to the individuals’ rights to “keep and bear arms”, and was not restricted to “the militia.” Despite this ruling, because of some subsequent muddled court decisions, states laws remain blocking the right to carry.

This brief that we make available here. It is quite a good summary for those who advocate for the Second Amendment.  As such, it is worth a read, as it is a great source of facts and arguments. We will summarize some of the high points for you.  You will also find more briefs from many other human rights organizations.

Hopefully, this will sharpen your own verbal skills in supporting the Second Amendment, and frankly provide a better grounding if you simply don’t understand what that Amendment was intended to do.

The brief starts by suggesting that New York restrictions threaten the liberty of citizens in every state, not just New York, so we all have an interest in this case. They call on the Court, “to restore the original meaning of the right to bear arms.”

The brief argues that citizens are safer when they can carry for self-defense, that there is less crime, those that can resist a criminal act with a firearm are less likely to be injured, and that in about 95% of cases, just the presentation of a gun can stop the crime. In short, arguments that restrict the right to carry based on the idea that said restrictions enhance public safety, are spurious.

Moreover, actual evidence shows those who carry a weapon, are more law-abiding than the general public and the suggestion that the exercise of these rights leads to more mayhem, is bogus.

The brief argues that under Heller, the Second Amendment should be applied to the states and that many lower courts have misinterpreted Heller, leaving the right to bear arms in limbo. The Supreme Court needs to clear this up.

Taking arguments from Heller, the brief points out that the right to bear arms, pre-dates the Constitution and comes directly from natural law, the right of self-preservation, and the rights of Englishmen. They go on to cite numerous cases where “the people’s right to bear arms in defense of themselves cannot be questioned”.

Many states fell short of protecting Constitutional rights, as we know from our own sad history with slavery, and many states, both before and after the Civil War, went on to deny Second Amendment rights to free blacks. They point out that this was true not only in the South but also in places like the 1841 decision in Cincinnati to disarm all blacks.

In short, the right to keep and bear arms is derivative from the basic human right of self-preservation and protection, and English law, and should not be abrogated by any legislature.

Finally, the brief also touches on a sensitive point for some, given the current state of unrest in our country. That is, that the right to keep and bear arms backstops our other liberties since it is a strong check on the arbitrary power of rulers. Thus, the right is not just for personal protection, but for the protection of other liberties from abusive government.

That latter argument may not sit well with those that want to overturn our existing Constitutional order, but it is clear, that is what the Founders intended. People inherently have the right to personal self-protection, and the right to protect themselves from a government that violates their natural rights.

This is a very important Supreme Court case and Arizona’s Attorney General Mark Brnovich deserves our praise and support for his efforts. The case coming before the Court is New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Corlett. It will be a real test of the new appointees to the Court.

 

 

 

Brnovich Files Petition Against Biden’s Undoing Of Trump-era Regulation

Attorney General Mark Brnovich is leading a coalition of attorneys general in filing a petition challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s “Delay Rule,” which postponed the Trump Administration’s Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR).

“While the Biden Administration talks a lot about preserving clean air and water for future generations, they have failed to ensure clean drinking water for our children now,” Brnovich said in a news release on Friday.

The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) said that the LCCR would have strengthened protections against lead and copper in drinking water. The news release read that lead exposure can permanently damage children’s brains, leading to developmental and behavioral issues.

The AGO said that in January 2021, the EPA finalized regulations that would have enacted stricter protections against lead under the Safe Water Drinking Act. When exceeded, the LCRR would have imposed a new “trigger level” that would have “require[d] public water systems to initiate actions to decrease their lead levels and take proactive steps to remove lead from the distribution system.” However, the Biden Administration delayed the effective date from March 15 to June 17, before the LCRR took effect, and then again to December 16. In addition, the EPA has not released a replacement for the LCRR, so a third delay is expected.

The AGO referenced the Flint Water Crisis beginning in 2014 to demonstrate the danger of lead in drinking water.

Brnovich and the attorneys general of Louisiana, Ohio, Texas, and Oklahoma argue that the “Delay Rule” is unlawful because they believe that it will result in “adverse health effects that exceed the reduced costs on water system operators,” and marks an “illegal attempt to kill the LCRR through serial delays, rather than following the necessary procedures for an outright repeal.”

Supporters of the rule say that the Trump-era LCCR exposed millions to toxic lead in drinking water.

“The EPA review of the wholly ineffective Lead and Copper rule is welcome, but we have a long way to go to carry out President Biden’s promise to pull 100 percent of the nation’s lead pipes out of the ground,” Erik D. Olson, Senior Strategic Director for Health with Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said. “Lead was taken out of gas and paint in the ‘70s; it’s long past time to get this notorious poison out of our water, starting with communities of color that are disproportionately exposed to lead.”

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This article was published on August 3, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Center Square.

If You Don’t Suspect Deep State Provocation At The Jan. 6 Riot, Start Paying Attention

It’s required to ask at the outset of leftists’ 1/6 ‘Truth Commission’: How much of what led to Donald Trump supporters ‘storming the capitol’ was a setup?

It’s not only reasonable but required to ask at the outset of leftists’ 1/6 “Truth Commission”: How much of what led to Donald Trump supporters “storming the capitol” was a setup?

BuzzFeed recently revealed the alleged Gov. Gretchen Whitmer “kidnapping plot” was instigated and coordinated by FBI informants who collected a handful of malcontents as an apparent cover story for manufacturing a “domestic terrorism plot” to foil in front of the cameras. There’s plenty of evidence this kayfabe is not just an isolated incident but the way the security state really does business. As the un-FOIA-able DC Capitol Police establish cross-country beachheads in Florida and California and prepare to deploy U.S. military surveillance tech used on insurgents in Afghanistan, it’s well past time to start shutting this Hydra down.

It is well-established by now that U.S. intelligence agencies use informants, lies, and leaks to frame people, causes, and political opponents of the regime. This is so well-established that it would be surprising if the one Capitol riot Democrats are pursuing did not include FBI or other federal spy state provocateurs. And if that’s the case, then our country is in deep, deep sh-t.

This Is What These Agencies Do

For readers who have been under a rock for the last five years, let’s review just the recent highlights of spy agency, Democrat, and media collusion that would lead one to suspect the Jan. 6 events as part of this pattern.

Russiagate is the prime example. This was designed to make Americans believe that if Donald Trump won in 2016, his presidency was illicitly installed by foreign actors. It was a complete fabrication of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, in collusion with the Obama White House, and highly successful. It dragged the nation on a five-year goose chase costing billions of dollars and hamstringing the national government — not coincidentally during a rare, ill-used, and short-lived span during which Republicans controlled both Congress and the presidency.

In this wildly successful information operation, Democrats used federal surveillance and police state powers to spy on a president from the opposing political party and then prevent him from exercising the constitutional powers granted to him by voters, smearing him along the way with false and outrageous allegations (“pee-pee tapes,” “Manchurian candidate”) that also helped cost Republicans the next two elections by driving his negatives sky-high.

Top intelligence officials lied under oath to Congress and fabricated evidence for this operation, and none have been brought to justice. Many are getting quite comfortable pensions or post-Trump CNN sinecures. This election-rigging conspiracy included not only top national security and intelligence officials but also reached all the way up to President Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Russiagate Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

We have public documentation of U.S. spy agencies using their massive powers for political purposes far beyond Russiagate, without any serious retaliatory action taken by Congress. Clearly, Congress’s habit of useless showboating and taking insane Democrat allegations at face value only has encouraged graver abuses.

Since this is an article and not a book, let’s just do a non-comprehensive list to further illustrate this is a pattern of military-industrial authoritarian behavior not at all limited to Russiagate.

2011: It’s revealed in court documents that the Obama administration FBI was spying on Fox News reporter James Rosen and the Associated Press. The government accused Rosen of “espionage” for reporting critically on the administration, which was reportedly paging through Rosen’s private Gmail account and phone logs with his parents.

October 2011: “[T]he Obama administration secretly changed longstanding policy to create a ‘loophole,’ according to Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct ‘backdoor searches’ of U.S. citizens’ domestic communications. Previously, NSA spying was publicly believed to be confined to foreign terrorist threats and foreign territory.”

2012: CBS reporter Sharyl Atkisson’s work computer and personal devices were hacked and surveilled, likely by federal agents using their spy powers to sabotage her reporting on the Obama administration Fast and Furious scandal. Litigation over the abuse of power is still ongoing today, and implicates Department of Justice official Rod Rosenstein.

2015: Obama administration caught using the NSA to spy on members of Congress with the goal of neutering opposition to its Iran deal.

September 2017: Obama national security advisor Susan Rice, now Biden’s Domestic Policy Council director, admitted she used NSA surveillance powers to spy on Trump and incoming Trump administration officials up to a year before he took office.

2016: A large proportion of the alleged insurrectionist occupiers in the Bundy standoff in Oregon are revealed as federal informants authorized to commit crimes to entice non-agents into criminal conduct, leading to court acquittals of many involved. The FBI also used additional informants in the case outside the standoff location.

August 2019: Excerpts of leaked classified information from a phone call with Ukraine’s president are used to spark another impeachment attempt against Trump that later turned out to be yet another Potemkin plot constructed from sewn-together leaks and lies that went completely unpunished.

November 2020: Top military and other deep state officials successfully stymie, with lies and leaks, Trump’s four-year quest to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

January 2021: Former CIA chief of staff calls for federal intelligence agencies to place spies within and electronically surveil conservative grassroots groups.

May 2021: Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Miller testifies to Congress that pressure from previous defense secretaries — all top-level intelligence officials — caused him to refuse requests to provide better security at the U.S. Capitol in advance of what federal intelligence agencies knew would be a volatile crowd coming in on January 6.

July 2021: “a National Security Agency (NSA) investigation quietly confirmed Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s allegation that it had collected his electronic communications” — then leaked them to sabotage his reporting.

In addition to info ops that we know included U.S. intelligence agencies, we’ve seen propaganda operations that we don’t know included intelligence agencies but used their deceptive leaking, media-planted misinformation, and crisis construction techniques. These include the attempt at preventing Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation using wholly unsubstantiated sexual smears; the Big Tech collusion to prevent the Hunter Biden corruption scandal from reaching voters in October 2020, which statistically could have cost Biden the presidency; and the attempt to end election security from 2020 on using COVID as a pretext.

Using Spying to Frame Political Opponents Is Totalitarian

All these tactics, of course, are hallmarks of totalitarian dictatorships. Yes, all that fear-mongering pounded into our national psyche about Donald Trump as an “authoritarian” “fascist”? It’s clearly projection by people deploying actually authoritarian and fascist methods of governance, like spying on political opponents, surveilling journalists, fabricating smears, and using leaks and “confidential human sources” to frame people as nefarious actors.

‘Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.’

All this certainly makes one think twice about many facts related to January 6, such as these noted by Glenn Greenwald: “Numerous requests prior to the event for an additional police force and national guard activation were rejected by the civilian command structure. Social media companies were actively feeding information to law enforcement about what was being planned by conspirators. We also know that the FBI extensively monitors social media through a variety of agents and tools.”

As Greenwald also notes, the U.S. surveillance state has been perfecting and deploying its authoritarian methods for decades, unchecked by the elected officials who claim to conduct “oversight” but haven’t ever taken a single scalp, or even nicked blood, over this critical issue. One wonders what kind of dirt on members of “oversight” committees the National Security Agency and FBI have tipped their hands to having obtained to keep them so amazingly docile.

After all, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer did tell Rachel Maddow on TV in 2017: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

Republicans, Get Your Big Boy Pants On, We Need You

So, are Republicans just going to accept a role as the impotent cardboard opposition in what is truly a one-party government (another hallmark of a dictatorial state), or are they going to dispense with the dangerous pretense that being “pro-law enforcement” and “pro-military” means letting unelected spy agencies continue to expand their utterly terrifying powers? When are they going to register what has happened in the last 20 years and turn that into an immediate instinct to deeply distrust anything Democrats say, even and especially when it includes quotes, leaks, and made-for-TV videos of people pounding on doors, burning down cities, or driving vans down to a Democrat governor’s lake house?

Republicans believe they are going to retake Congress in 2022. Maybe they will. But for what? For another two or four years of posturing on TV while taxpayer-funded spies and traitors continue to decide which of them are allowed to be in office?

If they want to stop earning contempt, Republicans must right now make strategic plans to use Congress’s budget authority to slash and burn the entire deep state so vigorously that whoever is left to actually fight terrorists instead of manufacturing them will remember it 100 years from now. Thinking of this situation in less than existential terms requiring resolute, intelligent, and decisive action would be a fatal and historic mistake.

For want of such courage, the republic is fully lost.

*****

This article was published on August 2, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Federalist.

Was It Always This Way?

How well can anyone remember past Federal Reserve Chairs? There was Volcker, who allegedly solved the inflation crisis by raising rates and bringing about a recession. After Volker there was Greenspan who is still referred to as “the Maestro.” Followed by “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke… a name he probably doesn’t appreciate much. After Ben came Yellen and now Powell. With each new Chair came a bigger and bigger balance sheet and expansion of central bank powers. We now live in an era where the Fed garners a significant amount of attention; but was it always this way?

Roughly every 6 weeks the world waits to see what the Fed will say, closely listening for clues as to what they might do next. A significant amount of our time and decision making is heavily wrapped around this elusive club of central planners who create money at will and determine the benchmark interest rate for an entire nation.

As per usual, leading up to the main event, the economic news headlines are abuzz with mounting speculation as to the decisions to come out of this Wednesday’s Fed meeting. CNBC notes that:

While no action is expected, there could be some mention of the central bank’s possible wind down of its bond program. That could move the markets since the tapering of the central bank’s bond purchases is seen as the first step on the way to interest rate hikes.

As per usual, leading up to the main event, the economic news headlines are abuzz with mounting speculation as to the decisions to come out of this.

While no action is expected, there could be some mention of the central bank’s possible wind-down of its bond program. That could move the markets since the tapering of the central bank’s bond purchases is seen as the first step on the way to interest rate hikes.

The article goes on to say that the Fed may take a year to eventually scale back its $120 billion a month bond purchase to zero, which should then open the door to rate hikes.

Reuters notes a new dilemma on the horizon: a Fed that is now facing higher than expected price increases, accompanied by “slow annual economic growth” (which it blames on supply chain problems) and the rise of the delta variant. No definitive answer was given, but it’s believed that:

Things could play out in a way they didn’t expect.

The Fed could always shrink its balance sheet quicker than expected, but the opposite can easily come true and it could find reasons to increase its asset purchases. If an expansion of the balance sheet were to happen this year, it would definitely be something “they didn’t expect,” but still a move that cannot be put past the Fed given how nimble they are to act when circumstances change(according to them).

As the world waits, various stock market indices flirt around all-time highs, house prices continue to increase and inflation calculations continue to read red hot, while it was announced just last week that the recession officially ended in April 2020… over a year ago.

But was it always like this?

Did the world always wait to see what the Fed would say or do, speculating the effects on asset and general prices? Given the monumental growth of the balance sheet, the percentage of debt to national debt held, and its robust set of assets like mortgages debt and corporate bonds, it’s safe to say the role the Fed has played in our lives has increased with each passing Fed Chair. Combining its power with the digital age, it’s no wonder not a day passes on any business news channel where “the Fed” is not mentioned in some capacity.

It’s difficult to say how sentiment towards the Fed was several generations ago. But if the former Fed Chairs and their escalating level of intervention under each tenure is used as a measure, then our future becomes certain. Any talk of tapering the balance sheet, raising rates, or getting back to some sense of normal will be nothing more than a “transient” phase at best.

*****

This article was published on July 29, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Zuckerbucks Aren’t Just Tampering With Elections, They’re Tampering With Your Kids’ Education

House Republicans introduced the “End Zuckerbucks Act” on July 1 with the goal of stopping donations from certain tax-exempt “nonprofit” organizations to election organizations. The act has 12 Republican co-sponsors including Rep Dan. Bishop of North Carolina and Rep. Chip Roy of Texas.

It targets organizations like the mammoth “philanthropy” group built by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, known as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). If the legislation passes, the IRS would have the power to strip 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from groups that donate directly to state and local election officials. The motivation for such drastic action stems from a very real problem that became glaringly apparent in the last election.

Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York, one of the lead sponsors of the bill, explained to The Daily Caller, “Mark Zuckerberg channeled $350 million to government agencies during the 2020 election with zero transparency or accountability, and he used the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) to do it, a left-leaning non-profit.”

Republican lawmakers realized they were looking at corruption wrapped up in a neat, non-profit, multi-billion-dollar package. They are willing to alter the tax code to accommodate safeguards to keep Facebook in check, preventing it from further corrupting and tampering with the election process. If the American government is to continue to be “of, by, and for the people,” such a measure is an absolute necessity.

Although Facebook’s efforts to interfere with open and honest elections have now been widely covered, many Americans don’t fully grasp that CZI has also devoted significant funding toward tampering with public education.

CZI is a major funder of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), a Chicago-based education organization. It coined the “social and emotional learning” concept more than 20 years ago and is now the nation’s largest source of SEL programming, with programs operating in 20 states. It claims to reach as many as 1.7 million students with its left-wing ideology.

CASEL was founded by Daniel Goleman, author of “Emotional Intelligence,” and philanthropist Eileen Rockefeller Growald. The program’s expressed goal was to help “children acquire the skills to recognize and manage emotions, develop caring and concern for others, make responsible decisions, establish positive relationships, and handle challenging situations effectively.”

However, CASEL isn’t just offering social-emotional learning, they’re now pushing a variant known as “transformative SEL” which is heavily steeped in concepts that encourage students to obsess about their race and supposed gender identities. Schools using prying surveys to promote concepts like these have been accused of violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which requires parental access to students’ survey answers.

CASEL’s program literature describes concepts of critical race theory such as “White racial entitlement and dominance.” It promotes leftist ideology under the guise of student and parental “critical social awareness,” and raises concern with “most” teachers being “middle-class White women.”

Besides promoting anti-white bigotry, CASEL’s SEL helps Zuckerberg achieve his stated desire to “strengthen democracy by … ambitious efforts to lift voter participation.” Soon after the 2020 election, CASEL published a guide that instructed educators to “speak out, demonstrate, and hold elected officials accountable.”

CASEL’s social studies program “Facing History and Ourselves (FHAO)” teaches students to value the practice of mail-in-voting and insists voter fraud is “almost non-existent.” Another FHAO resource, “From Reflection to Action: A Choosing to Participate Toolkit,” gives educators detailed lessons to facilitate student-led voter registration drives in schools, as well as activism projects that combine social justice and technology.

Given the ongoing difficulties for students seeking worthwhile career paths upon graduation, the last thing they need is to be force-fed a litany of leftist propaganda under the guise of “education.” And if wealthy and powerful organizations like Facebook seek to worm their way into the classroom — with an obvious leftist agenda of no academic value — it is only right to curtail that effort through every available means.

*****

This article was published on August 2 2021 and is reproduced with permission from The Federalist.

Betraying the Cuban People, Again

“Elections? What for?”
— Fidel Castro, January 1960

“The United States stands with the brave Cubans who have taken to the streets to oppose 62 years of repression under a communist regime.”
— President Biden, July 22, 2021

Take a look at the opening quotes to this essay, pause, and think about them. There is a long litany of American miscalculations, cowardice, gamesmanship, indifference, condescension, and exploitation centered on Cuba, the Cuban people, and Cuban-Americans. It has been a bipartisan problem for decades, with a lot of American political rhetoric; one double-crossed, failed invasion attempt; and brutal communist intransigence.

Everyone knows that President Biden’s hollow platitudes are utterly meaningless. “The United States stands with…” what, exactly, does that mean? What does “stands with” look like? Has Biden dispatched operational detachments from 7th Special Forces Group to parachute into Cuba, raise and train a partisan army to overthrow the Communist government, and establish a democratic republic? No? Why not? For that matter, why did President Trump fail to do that in Venezuela to Maduro? So much for the modern application of the Monroe Doctrine and the “American” Hemisphere.

Back to Biden: Here is the ugly truth: Biden does not care a damn about the Cuban people throwing off 60+ years of communism. Cubans are holding the largest anti-government rallies in decades. American media coverage has been near zero. Half of Biden’s White House staff probably does not understand what the president means by “repression,” admires Fidel and Raul Castro, and can be found wearing Che Guevara T-shirts on the weekends. Vice President Harris is virtually a Marxist, so it must be disturbing to the White House when the Communist pet project, 90 miles off the U.S. coast, fails to supply basic services to its citizens and limps along as a failed state barely above Haiti.

Here is the real tragedy: JFK went through the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis. No American president since then has done anything more than issue empty promises or threats about overthrowing the brutality of the Castro brothers and their successors.

Eugenio de Sosa Chabau was publisher of the oldest Spanish language newspaper in the Western Hemisphere, Diario de la Marina, in his native Cuba, when he was imprisoned and tortured for two decades simply for opposing Castro’s communist regime.

De Sosa Chabau’s wealthy, prominent family and his upbringing included his friendship with classmate John Fitzgerald Kennedy, another member of the Class of 1935 at the exclusive Choate School in Connecticut.

De Sosa Chabau’s friendship with Kennedy, and his success smuggling an early warning out of prison to the U.S. government concerning the deployment of Russian missiles in Cuba, would earn him prolonged physical and psychological torture. Throughout his 20-year sentence, de Sosa Chabau was tortured in various prisons throughout the island, including the notorious Isle of Pines and later at the Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital outside of Havana.

His punishment included frequent beatings by prison guards, electric shocks to his head and genitals, as well as being force-fed and injected with hallucinogenic drugs. He often went days without food or water and was kept in a tiny, dark dirt cell during periods of solitary confinement. On one occasion, the prison administrators orchestrated an elaborate ruse, trying to convince him that his daughter and grandchildren had been killed in a plane crash — all in an effort to break de Sosa Chabau psychologically.

De Sosa Chabau was released from prison in 1980. Years later, he relived some of his nightmarish experiences in prison when he recognized a man in South Florida who had tortured him with electric shocks. That man, Eriberto Mederos, a head nurse at Mazorra Psychiatric Hospital, was convicted on August 1, 2002, of fraudulently obtaining American citizenship. Mederos specifically told de Sosa Chabau that the purpose of his punishment in the hospital was because of his “counter-revolutionary” opposition to the communist dictatorship in Cuba. On August 23, 2002, Eriberto Mederos died before a sentence was imposed.

The de Sosa Chabau experience contextualizes the phony revolutionary romanticism of the Che Guevara T-shirt crowd. When we consider the anemic response of the Biden administration to the current, unprecedented anti-government rallies, the dire jeopardy facing the Cuban people is revealed in stark relief.

Cuban President and First Secretary of the Communist Party Miguel Díaz-Canel could order the machine-gunning of every protestor on the streets of Havana and the Biden administration would do nothing. Well, perhaps they might take the “strong action” of two weeks ago and sanction ONE Cuban government official, followed by the “stunning” sanctioning of TWO additional Cuban police officials. Díaz-Canel actually condemned protestors looking for food, calling them “counter-revolutionary mercenaries.”

Meanwhile, over on Capitol Hill, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad are advocating for programs and policies right out of the Cuban Communist Party’s playbook. They actually want the power outages, rationed medical care and food shortages ordinary Cubans are protesting against. Their militant ideology and policy proposals fit right into the anti-American, Marxist “Critical FILL-IN-THE-BLANK Theory” concepts taught from the Frankfurt School.

Under the Biden administration, the Cuban people will be ignored by the United States, again, as they have been for 60+ years. It is a horror for America — with brutal, bloody consequences for the innocent people that continue to hold out hope that America will finally help.

*****

This article was published on August 2, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from the Gatestone Institute.

 

NPR Allows Its Reporters To Engage In Direct Activism

The thin veil over National Public Radio’s commitment to objective journalism has been lifted.

NPR has announced a new ethics policy that allows its journalists to “participate in activities that advocate for ‘the freedom and dignity of human beings’ on both social media and in real life.”

National Public Radio, an organization partially funded by taxpayers, will allow its supposedly straight-news reporters to engage in outright political activism.

“The new policy eliminates the blanket prohibition from participating in ‘marches, rallies and public events,’ as well as vague language that directed NPR journalists to avoid personally advocating for ‘controversial’ or ‘polarizing’ issues,” NPR announced Wednesday.

As more than a few have noted on social media, despite NPR’s allowance for activism on behalf of the “freedom and dignity of human beings,” don’t expect too many of its reporters to join a pro-life protest any time soon.

The NPR article announcing the policy change mentioned Black Lives Matter protests and Pride parades, of course.

If anything, this change will simply affirm what people with common sense already knew: NPR is not just committed to reporting the news, but engages in activism. Now it will just be more obvious.

In many ways it’s simply following the trend of the media industry as traditional outlets—many of which already leaned to the left—now have become much more aggressive and open about their activism.

In the case of some major outlets, it seems social justice warriors have taken over newsrooms. They now create an environment where even mildly dissenting voices are swiftly stamped out and fellow employees have to be careful so as not be the target of an internal woke crusade.

National Public Radio is simply following the transformation already taking place.

What’s almost humorous about the timing of NPR’s announcement is that it comes just a week after the outlet ran a long hit piece attacking Ben Shapiro’s website, The Daily Wire, essentially for spreading disinformation just because it is conservative. Here’s the biggest laugh line in the NPR piece:

By only covering specific stories that bolster the conservative agenda (such as negative reports about socialist countries and polarizing ones about race and sexuality issues) and only including certain facts, readers still come away from The Daily Wire’s content with the impression that Republican politicians can do little wrong and cancel culture is among the nation’s greatest threats.

NPR’s takedown of The Daily Wire appears to be that it’s a self-described conservative website that doesn’t reinforce left-wing narratives like other news outlets do. How dare they! Actually, NPR’s line does fit another website almost perfectly with just a few adjustments:

By only covering specific stories that bolster the progressive agenda (such as polarizing ones about race and sexuality issues) readers still come away from NPR’s content with the impression that Democrat politicians can do little wrong and former President Donald Trump is among the nation’s greatest threats.

NPR long has had a left-leaning bent, but anyone who has paid attention to its coverage in the past few years would recognize that the nonstop left-wing political narratives that focus on gender and race have been put into overdrive.

Substack writer and incisive media critic Matt Taibbi wrote a fantastic takedown of NPR’s ridiculous piece. For an NPR reporter to complain about another website’s talking about race and sexuality issues or using “buzzwords” demonstrates a remarkable lack of self-awareness.

NPR has not run a piece critical of Democrats since Christ was a boy. Moreover, much like The New York Times editorial page (but somehow worse), the public news leader’s monomaniacal focus on ‘race and sexuality issues’ has become an industry in-joke. For at least a year especially, listening to NPR has been like being pinned in wrestling beyond the three-count. Everything is about race or gender, and you can’t make it stop.

Absolutely.

Last year, NPR gave a softball interview to an author who wrote in defense of looting. It ran an article about how to “decolonize” your bookshelf. Its countless articles about race are often just absurd.

The biggest takeaway from the NPR announcement is this: Is it appropriate for a taxpayer-funded website to be both highly partisan and activist?

NPR’s bias has been obvious for a long time. It’s now barely more than a state-funded Pravda, churning out pro-progressive stories and allowing its reporters to openly embrace various political causes.

If NPR was an independent website, this wouldn’t be as big of an issue. It would be just one of countless other left-wing media outlets contributing to the noise.

But Americans of all political backgrounds pay for National Public Radio through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees both NPR and PBS. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting budget approved by Congress in 2020 was $515 million.

A sizable amount of money.

NPR gets only a small portion of its total budget from the federal government, but at this point one wonders why it receives this endless gravy train? It’s more than a little ridiculous, given NPR’s obvious political slant.

Its green light on activism for employees just confirms what most should already have known.

And perhaps this is a positive. At the very least, NPR’s policy change will do a good job of exposing what its newsrooms really stand for. NPR no longer will be able to hide behind a kind of faux objectivity.

*****

This article was published on August 1, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from The Daily Signal.

Going There

In common conversation, one often hears the expression “don’t go there.”

It means the conversation has reached a point whereby going any further with the topic is going to create stress, disagreement, controversy, and discomfort.

Well, someone has to go there, and so we will.

We are talking about the obvious cognitive decline of the President of the United States.

Anyone who does not have blinders on can see that he has some days better than others and that those bad days now seem to be coming now with greater frequency.

He is in less than one year into his four-year term, so at this speed of deterioration, the course of his decline is going to interrupt the leadership of the free world. It is just a question of when and how this problem gets solved.

It would be hard to exaggerate how dangerous this situation could become. The country is already badly divided politically, faces unprecedented debt, social instability because of the Wuhan virus and racial agitation, and some formidable enemies who will rejoice and take advantage of our difficulties.

Americans are rapidly losing faith in our government. The Department of Justice, the FBI, our intelligence agencies, and even our military are declining. The last thing we need is a laughing stock of a President, where people regard the leader of the free world as a confused grandpa. That is especially so if China decides to take advantage of a President already compromised by the investments his family has made in their nefarious enterprises.

Rather than getting a brilliant and inspirational leader, we basically have a half-witted party hack, followed by an inexperienced and highly ideological backup, who was extremely unpopular even within her own party when running for President.

Both the President and the Vice President are now falling rapidly in the polls. Further signs of dementia will only accelerate the lack of confidence.

A word must be said at this point about the Democrat Party and its leadership. Biden’s mental condition was surely known among party insiders, yet they pushed ahead with his nomination. His wife knew, and she pushed him forward for reasons we can only surmise. Likely they are pride, greed, fame, and power.

Whether fraud was present in the electoral process is under investigation, but that fraud was perpetrated by hiding his condition, is undeniable.

To put this great nation in such a pickle is shocking. The Democrat’s lust for political power apparently overwhelms whatever sliver of civic duty remains within the party. When you think of it, to put the entire nation in such peril, when other candidates were available, is astonishing.

In so doing, they have changed our form of government in a sense. We normally elect a chief executive, with broad powers and grave responsibilities.

Now we basically have a befuddled teleprompter reader with an unseen committee behind him making the decisions.

Who chairs this committee?  There likely are disagreements among committee members. How are those disputes handled? Who makes the final decisions? In a democratic government, we should know and be able to hold to account the appropriate people. Democracy does not coexist with secrecy and unaccountability, does it?

If you think of it in those terms, we were all lied to and mislead. And now the nation is being guided by an unseen, unaccountable committee? My God, even the old Soviet Union was more transparent.

Things can break either of two ways:  they continue to hide the problem and rule by a secret committee, or the 25th Amendment is invoked and Kamala Harris becomes President.

Which is better?

One could argue, that for the sake of stability, it is best to leave the secret committee in charge. But that is quite undemocratic as we are ruled by those we did not elect. Practical experience teaches committees are often the worst method of reaching a decision. It is dangerous, as we may face circumstances where superior political and strategic leadership is necessary. In addition, the risk is his condition will reach a point where he makes a series of terrible blunders, verbal and otherwise, tearing the veil off this strange situation.

The risk of infighting among his aides is high, and under some circumstances, only Biden has the legal authority to act. In short, in a crisis, we must rely on a man going in and out of senility. Can we be assured that the important decisions will be made when he is having a good day?

The Constitution should always be our guide, and despite the radical nature of Kamala Harris’s background, and the tawdry history of her political ascent, it is better to have an elected official in charge that must be accountable to the public in another election. It may be better to face the change in leadership when the effects can be controlled, rather than having a change after the nation is plunged into chaos, and then having to do it.

True, she has a reputation for being more radical than “get along Joe Biden.” But the Biden today is acting far more radical than his previous record would indicate, suggesting that we are already being ruled by a political extremist. Is it better to be ruled by an extremist who is in control of her faculties, or extremists acting through the veil of a puppet President?

Transparency would suggest it is better to be ruled by an extremist that can be held accountable rather than have laws enacted and then have the responsible individual resign. Do we get to reverse all the stupid policies if he is forced to step down?

What exactly does the 25th Amendment say?

Passed by Congress July 6, 1965. Ratified February 10, 1967. The 25th Amendment changed a portion of Article II, Section 1

Section 1

In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2

Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3

Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

The irony is the Democrats opened the can of worms called the 25th Amendment for purely partisan political reasons, and now it must be used for real and valid reasons.

Under what process will Biden indicate he is unable to function? The people around Biden like controlling him, are they are unlikely to yield their power to the Vice President? Out of duty to the country? If they had such a sense of duty, we would not be in this situation in the first place.

So, who in the administration will step forward and get the cabinet involved?  To do so, would bring down the wrath of the party. Notice the amendment says either principal officers of the Executive Department (the cabinet) or such body as Congress shall provide. What does this mean? Could Congress initiate this?

Congress is so evenly divided that that hardly seems like an option, although it could happen if Democrats were to step forward. But if they were willing to step forward, then the Cabinet could make the determination of Biden’s inability to serve. Current House leadership is getting what they want out of this Administration. Thus, the people profiting from the current circumstance have little incentive to change anything.

You can bet that those behind the scenes and the press, will put up terrific resistance to either the Cabinet or Congress removing the President. Hence, we are likely stuck with a secret committee pulling the strings of a puppet President for the next three years or so.

Will anyone in the press start to discuss the problem and insist on a cognitive test? Likely no, the press is largely the public relations arm of the Democratic Party. But some elements of the press will raise the issue. We are!

Will Republicans begin to step forward to force the issue? If so, how? Do they have the numbers to do so? Can they stay united long enough to do anything? Perhaps, but their efforts will be regarded as purely partisan.

Speaking personally, I would rather see a leadership change based on Constitutional provisions, rather than be adrift on a turbulent sea for several years with a secret committee behind a puppet President in decline.

Following the rules of our system, and adhering to the Constitution, is better than having a secret government.

Whether he stays in office his full term as a puppet or is forced to resign, the nation faces perilous times ahead.

What is quite irritating is all this turmoil could have been avoided if the Democrats were not so power-hungry.  Remember that when this crisis breaks into the open.

 

 

General Milley’s Imaginary Coup

The soldier’s irrational fear of President Trump inspired him to defy his duly elected commander-in-chief.

We need to clear some things up before they get any further out of hand, as the Dems insist on making this stuff every day’s front page. For starters, stop saying “Reichstag moment.” And when Grandpa Simpson and Kamala “Silent Shadow” Harris tottered into the White House, they became president. Between the two of them, they’ll get their four years. Done.

Some 500 protesters taking selfies inside the Capitol building is a tantrum, not a coup. Among other things, a coup must have some path towards success, in this case, preventing Joe Biden from becoming president. The rioters at best might have delayed the largely ceremonial counting of the Electoral College votes until the next day. Done.

Not done. The latest addition to Coup Canon comes from then—and somehow still—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley. Milley was so shaken Trump might attempt a coup or take other illegal measures after the election that he and other top officials planned to stop Trump. Neither Milley nor any of the others actually spell out what Trump might have realistically done in some Calvinball-like way to make said coup happen. Milley’s Strangelovian performance art is based on nothing but the spittle running down his chin. American soldiers have been required to refuse illegal orders at least since Biden wore diapers, so Milley’s histrionics are just that.

Milley nonetheless felt “growing concern” after Trump placed “loyalists” in positions of power after the November 2020 election, replacing Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General William Barr. He feared, based on his own sizable gut, these moves “were the sign of something sinister to come” (Update: Nothing sinister came.) Milley failed to recognize that all presidential appointees are “loyalists” and that somehow Trump did not replace Milley himself, who clearly had not read his oath recently, especially the part about taking orders from the civilian head of government.

In fact, if anyone is a threat to democracy it is nutjobs like Milley, who feel free to weave in and out of answering to the commander in chief based on their personal “concerns.” The general’s tough love for the Constitution apparently did not include the right to assemble, as he referred to a pro-Trump march protesting election results as “the modern American equivalent of brownshirts in the streets.”

While Milley was rewriting 230 years of military prudence in late 2020, Paul Krugman from the New York Times bunker wrote there were “substantial odds America as we know it will be damaged or even destroyed” by the election (Update: it was not.) He told us to “expect violence from Trump supporters, maybe lots of it, both to disrupt voting on Election Day and in the days that follow” until Trump “stops counting of absentee ballots, claims massive fraud, and probably tries to get the Supreme Court to overturn the result.” (Update: none of that happened.)

Over at the Nation, they simply assumed Trump would illegally remain in power. The writer’s real concern was that at least “we have the moral high ground. But we don’t have, frankly, the military leadership in place to direct a guerrilla campaign against an illegitimate regime. We don’t have a government-in-exile waiting to take power. We don’t have international allies. We don’t have an underground network of spies and saboteurs. . . but we can lay our bodies down in front of the tanks.” Any hope for the rule of law? Nope. “The Supreme Court too is, fundamentally, an anti-democratic institution run by people who are not subject to the popular will of our diverse society.”

The Nation should not have worried about having to go Red Dawn unarmed. General Milley said, “They may try [a coup] but they’re not going to f**king succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.” An interesting take on where power lies in a nation whose founding document begins with “We the People.”

Milley’s real plan was to prevent Trump from using the military in a coup by using the military in a coup against civilian leadership to gun down American citizens. CNN reports that after January 6 Milley feared an attack on the presidential inauguration, telling senior military leaders: “Here’s the deal, guys: These guys are Nazis, they’re Boogaloo Boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II. We’re going to put a ring of steel around this city and the Nazis aren’t getting in.”

But Milley is also a liar, claiming publicly at the same time, “I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this election process. We will not turn our backs on the Constitution of the United States,” while planning his Ring of Steel (it sounds better in the original German, Ring aus Stahl.)

And so on to the Reichstag. With as little knowledge of history as they have of coups, the mainstream media have turned the Reichstag fire into shorthand for everything they fear Trump would do but somehow never did. The 1933 Reichstag fire was a false-flag arson attack on the home of the German parliament in Berlin. The Nazi Party used this as a pretext to claim communists were ready to overthrow the elected government.

Left out of the current misuse of the incident is the fact Hitler had already become chancellor before the fire. More importantly, missing when trying to connect 1933 to modern America, is any amount of context. Hitler had already achieved power on promises to conquer the world, implement the Final Solution, and all sorts of other Mein Kampf stuff. He had announced plans to abolish democracy via the Enabling Act, which gave him power to pass laws by decree without the involvement of parliament. That next step needed an excuse, a trigger, to crack down on his opposition—not a prime mover to seize power.

Unlike modern America, the Germany around Hitler had had only a few years’ taste of a wimpy democracy, and a long history of autocracy. No matter how dramatically someone wants to portray Trump’s non-actions, none of what never happened came within miles of what the real Nazis did.

So if there was no coup on January 6, and no possible road to a coup, why are we still talking about all this? We should be mocking, not raising up, those who have no basic understanding of current events, never mind history.

But we are still talking about all this (with Nancy Pelosi’s stacked-deck “investigation” grinding along) because the Biden agenda is stalled. He has decreed a few things to un-decree a few things Trump decreed, but is unlikely to make much progress on all those promises of infrastructure, immigration reform, or student loans. Inflation is at a 13 year high even as gas prices eat away at what’s left of our middle class. There is no vision to end the Covid-19 panic. The social justice and culture war issues that dominate the Democrats’ minds seem ever more flaccid. So what do Democrats have left to run on?

Trump. The Democratic message for the midterms and beyond is Trump, coups, January 6, white supremacy, racism-a-go-go, militias, domestic terrorism, a veritable Nazi renaissance. As one progressive journalist put it “The Capitol riot Committee… is a potent political weapon. Democrats have a massive opportunity: Shove it down the GOP’s throat.” A New York Times reporter called Trump and his 74 million supporters “enemies of the state.”

Why not? Dems have little else but fear of things that never happened to work with, and so they hope to milk the “we’re not Trump” cow one more time. They amplify voices that have been wrong in the past and make heroes of those who would replace the Constitution with their own judgment.

As for a real threat to democracy: It is General Milley preparing to disobey the Constitution and take a patriot-sized dump on his chain of command; it is progressive rag the Nation telling their readers they will fight a guerrilla war against other Americans, and that the Supreme Court, the third branch of our republican government, is an illegitimate, anti-democratic institution. Who again is the threat? Trump is out of office, but Milley still holds command of the entire U.S. military.

*****

This article was published on August 2, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The American Conservative.

President Biden’s New Strategy To Address The Roots Causes Of Immigration From Central America: A First Look

On July 21, the White House released its new U.S Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America (Root-Causes-Strategy.pdf (whitehouse.gov). As Vice President Harris emphasized in her cover message, “the root causes of migration run deep—and migration from the region has a direct impact on the United States. For that reason, our nation must consistently engage with the region to address the hardships that cause people to leave Central America and come to our border ( Vice President’s Cover Letter: U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America | The White House.)” The strategy’s desired end state is defined as a “democratic, prosperous, and safe Central America, where people advance economically, live, work, and learn in safety and dignity, contribute to and benefit from the democratic process, have confidence in public institutions, and enjoy opportunities to create futures for themselves and their families at home.”

These are laudable goals, which the strategy seeks to achieve through five “pillars:” (1) Addressing economic insecurity and inequality; (2) Combating corruption, strengthening democratic governance, and advancing the rule of law ; (3) Promoting respect for human rights, labor rights, and a free press; (4) Countering and preventing violence, extortion, and other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, trafficking networks, and other organized criminal organizations; and (5) Combating sexual, gender-based, and domestic violence. Each of these pillars is supported by various lines of effort, many of which advance progress in multiple pillars.

In the purely technical sense, the strategy appears to be a sound document and is comparable to what one would expect to see from the National Security Council planning staff. There are several issues, however, that might give one pause in considering the Biden Administration’s intentions concerning its implementation.

First, there is no mention of strengthening U.S. border security during a period in which the Border Patrol has reported a staggering number of undocumented migrants at the southern border.

On its face, the strategy appears to offer a great many incentives to Central American leaders whose governments and societies are mired in corruption, without proposing an immediate deterrent. A clue for this might be found in Vice President Harris’s cover letter, in which she ties the new strategy to “our Administration’s vision to reform our immigration system by creating a pathway to citizenship for the nearly 11 million undocumented migrants in our country.” While the administration wishes to address the root causes of migration from Central America, it does not make clear – but certainly suggests – how it plans to deal with 11 million people who are already in the country illegally: simply by letting them stay.

Second, the strategy is devoid of metrics. How does one measure success in implementing the five pillars and their accompanying lines of effort? Without measures of effectiveness, it is difficult – actually, impossible – to assess strategic performance and assign accountability for results. This is where the administration appears to be giving itself an out. As Vice President Harris commented, “We will build on what works, and we will pivot away from what does not work…It will not be easy, and progress will not be instantaneous, but we are committed to getting it right.” But how do we know if they have gotten it right if the strategy’s authors do not define what “right” looks like?

For the Biden Administration, there is also a key political consideration at play. The strategy is largely associated with Vice President Harris in her role as the administration’s immigration “czar” (more technically “czarina”). Any lack of success is likely to accrue to her, not to the Oval Office. On the other hand, success, no matter how defined, is likely to be claimed by an administration of which she is only one part. Is the strategy intended for the long haul? It certainly appears to be intended for the next four years.

Maybe it’s too early to be so critical. After all, the strategy just hit the street and government agencies are undoubtedly still working on their implementation plans. A first look at this document, however, suggests a long-term, open-ended, and expensive commitment working with some questionable partners and lacking meaningful, measurable goals and standards for effectiveness and accountability with no clear end in sight.

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The author is a retired U.S. Army officer and a retired senior civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is a regular contributor to The Prickly Pear on national security issues.

$5 Trillion Gun-Rights Assault

COUNTERACTING A UTOPIAN DISARMAMENT PLAN

School Trust Funds — They Bear Astounding Wealth

Two years ago, just before we saw how totally anti-rights two of the three American political parties had openly become (democrats and communists, both vying for control of the White House and Congress), a third power bloc introduced five principles for what they called “a responsible firearms industry.” This bloc represents $5 trillion in assets and the influence that implies—more than any state in the Union.

According to the Calif. State Teachers’ Retirement System, signatories to this include Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds; Florida State Board of Administration; Maine Public Employees Retirement System; Maryland State Retirement and Pension System; Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund; Rockefeller Asset Management; San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System; State Street Global Advisors and more.

These groups are not friends of the Constitution and not your friends. According to CalSTRS Chief Investment Officer Christopher J. Ailman, “This is not a political statement about constitutional rights; it is a joint assertion by all of the involved signatories that investors have a stake in advancing public safety.” That is total propaganda hogwash. It is 100% about your individual rights. And squashing them.

The five stated principles of this mostly white male privileged power mob have zero to do with criminals, murder, assault, malfeasance, or reducing criminal activity. The entire plan is aimed at you, your guns and your law-abiding neighbors. Consider the principles, and with them, alternate plans that would actually address real crime in America, entirely missing from this Harvard-assisted plan. Solutions that have a chance of working will be avoided and evaded by these folks, probably with charges of racism or other useful name-calling redirects.

Any semblance of real answers to mob violence, street crime, arson, cold-blooded murder, destruction of the symbols and statues of our free society, will be dismissed while patting themselves on the back and running publicity campaigns to convince useful idiots that their plan is good. Useful idiots include tens of millions of your fellow Americans who voted to install communists, Antifa anarchists, and black-lives-matter racists into power in the recent elections. Here’s their plan, and some illumination.

First: “Manufacturers should support, advance, and integrate the development of technology designed to make civilian firearms safer, more secure, and easier to trace.”

Any requirement that makes it harder for citizens to immediately bring guns to bear in emergencies is wrong headed. Police will and should object, as should the public. Giving authorities increased ability to track you or your guns is a terrible idea. Increasing crime-control efforts (not so-called “gun control”) to identify and apprehend 7,000 perpetrators who murder 7,000 black victims every year is desperately needed, ignored here and unaffected by this misdirection of resources.

Second: “Manufacturers should adopt and follow responsible business practices that establish and enforce responsible dealer standards and promote training and education programs for owners designed around firearms safety.”

This is not the job of manufacturers. The school system must stop vilifying guns, leaving students in abject firearms ignorance, their history, their role in preserving peace and freedom, and how to safely handle and discharge firearms for sport and protection. When this was standard America was safer with healthier attitudes all around.

Third: “Civilian firearms distributors, dealers, and retailers should establish, promote, and follow best practices to ensure that no firearm is sold without a completed background check in order to prevent sales to persons prohibited from buying firearms or those too dangerous to possess firearms.”

Law enforcement is a government duty, not a civilian one. The attempt to displace that here is a sign of sickness. Repeated studies show almost all retail sales denials are false positives, and the few criminals foolish or brash enough to attempt retail purchases face virtually no meaningful police response. This is where attention is needed, not castigating or even focusing on innocent business people.

Fourth: “Civilian firearms distributors, dealers, and retailers should educate and train their employees to better recognize and effectively monitor irregularities at the point of sale, to record all firearm sales, to audit firearms inventory on a regular basis, and to proactively assist law enforcement.”

Again, the misguided rich elites focus on the innocents and retail. To reduce crime, focus on criminals: keep repeat offenders behind bars, using firearms in crime must receive real punishment, judges who allow such criminals to skate should be publicly identified, censured, and removed from the bench. The countless criminals already armed need to be identified and dealt with under existing law. Focusing on gunless bad guys buying their first gun at retail is an idiot’s plan for crime control.

Fifth: “Participants in the civilian firearms industry should work collaboratively, communicate, and engage with the signatories of these Principles to design, adopt, and disclose measures and metrics demonstrating both best practices and their commitment to promoting these Principles.”

Officials, not civilians, should routinely post their progress in identifying armed felons, inner-city murderers, catching them and bringing them to justice. Everyone must expose elitist anti-rights bigots posing as experts and proposing attacks on civilians as an obstacle to reducing crime. It misdirects attention, wastes resources, and denigrates fundamental human rights, by people pretending to be authorities which they are decidedly not. You should question their sources of wealth, and whether it should be redistributed, considering their obvious misuse of the astounding funds and influence they have controversially amassed.

*****

This article originally appeared in American Handgunner and is reproduced here with the permission of the author.

Award-winning author Alan Korwin has written 14 books, ten of them on gun law, and has advocated for gun rights for nearly three decades. See his work or reach him at GunLaws.com.

More Government Debt As Far As The Fiscal Eye Can See

For the last two years, the federal government has been legally at liberty to borrow any amount of money necessary to cover its deficit spending under the Bipartisan Budget Act of August 2019. Unless Congress extends this Act or raises the official debt limit, starting on August 1, 2021 Uncle Sam will only be able to spend what he takes in, in taxes. The thought of living within a balanced budget sends a frightening shiver down almost every politician’s spine.

In its July 2021 report on the “Federal Debt and the Statutory Limit,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) explains that at the time the Bipartisan Budget Act was passed in the summer of 2019, the Congressionally approved debt limit stood at $22 trillion. The Act specified that that debt level would come back into effect as of July 31, 2021, plus any and all additional debt accumulated between those two dates. As of June 30, 2021, the federal government had added an extra $6.5 trillion of debt over the previous two years, bringing the outstanding national debt to over $28.5 trillion.

Through various budgetary gimmicks similar to those used by the U.S. Treasury in the past when the debt ceiling has been reached and before Congress has lifted that limit to a higher level, the CBO estimates that the Treasury has enough cash on hand and the potential for internal account juggling to keep spending more than will be taken in as taxes until October or November, or about halfway through the first quarter of the 2022 federal budget year that begins on October 1, 2021. After that, the president and the Congress would have to operate within the collected tax revenues.

Clearly, this is a fate worse than death to those in the halls of political power who win and hold government office by promising to various constituent groups that they will happily spend other people’s money on them if only they will contribute dollars for election campaigns and cast their ballot for them on Election Day.

Trillions of Deficit Dollars and Even More to Come

In the 2020 federal government fiscal year that ended last September 30, 2020, total government spending came to $6.55 trillion, with total tax revenues of $3.42 trillion. The budget deficit for the last fiscal year, therefore, came to $3.13 trillion, equaling almost 15 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Of course, it could be said that 2020 was an exceptional year due to the Coronavirus crisis and the devastating effect that the government shutdowns and lockdowns had on the economy, and the extra government spending that attempted to counteract the economic recession caused by the draconian restrictions that the federal and state governments had willfully imposed on the lives of everyone in the country. (See my article, “Government Policies Have Worsened the Coronavirus Crisis”.)

For the current 2021 fiscal year that ends on September 30th, the federal government outlays will come to even more, totaling $6.85 trillion, with projected total tax revenues of $3.84 trillion, and another budget deficit of over $3 trillion. For the upcoming 2022 fiscal year, the CBO projection is for $5.54 trillion of federal spending and estimated tax revenues of nearly $4.4 trillion, still leaving a budget deficit of $1.15 trillion.

Looking over the next ten-year period of 2022-2031, the Congressional Budget Office, in its July 2021 Updated Budget and Economic Outlook report, anticipates $1 trillion-a-year deficits for almost each fiscal period. Over the next decade, the government in Washington, D.C. will spend over a total of $63.4 trillion, and collect in taxes a sum totaling more than $51.3 trillion. Due to the deficits incurred each year to cover the gaps between annual expenditures and taxes collected, the total addition to the national debt will come to nearly $12.1 trillion. So, by the end of the government’s 2031 fiscal year, the national debt will stand well over $35 trillion.

Debt Interest Costs and the Fiscal Burden of Entitlements

The CBO also highlights the fact that 45 percent of all that additional accumulated debt between fiscal year 2022 and 2031 will be monies that the federal government will have had to borrow to pay the interest on the national debt. That is, the federal government will be adding about $5.4 trillion to the government’s total debt just to finance the interest charges on all the existing national debt accumulated over the earlier years and decades.

Out of that total of $63.4 trillion of federal expenditures over the coming decade, the CBO calculates that more than $45 trillion of it will be outlays on “mandatory” or “entitlement” spending, or 71 percent of all spending. Around 35 percent of these “mandatory” outlays will be on Social Security and 45 percent on health care expenditures (Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), alone.

“Discretionary” defense spending for the coming ten years will make up 18 percent of government expenditures. Before fears are expressed about American national defense being “starved,” in 2019 U.S. defense expenditures came to $778 billion. The combined defense spending by the eleven closest defense-spending countries around the world came to $761 billion. That is the U.S. spent three percent more on defense spending than all of those other governments put together (China, India, Russia, the UK, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and Australia).

Fiscal Churning is Really Mostly About the Redistributive State

Current projections suggest that U.S. GDP may total $21.5 trillion at the end of 2021. That means that between 2022 and 2031, based on the CBO estimates, the federal government will spend the equivalent of three of this year’s GDP. And over 70 percent of all that government spending will be on the redistributive “churn;” that is, taxing large numbers of “Peters” to transfer all that money to a sizable and growing number of “Pauls.” All those “Pauls,” therefore, who have that degree of direct dependency on government spending for significant portions of their standards and qualities of life.

But it should be kept in mind that the CBO, in its past forecasts, has frequently underestimated the actual growth in government spending and borrowing. Thus, given current and expected mandatory “entitlement” spending under existing legislation, plus, the present pushes for increases in that spending in the years ahead, these numbers are only likely to get even larger, given contemporary political and ideological trends among both Democrats and Republics, among “progressives” and “conservatives.”

Total Spending as a Measure of Governmental Burden

Nobel economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006) often emphasized that what mattered when looking at government fiscal policy is not whether that government covers its expenditures through taxes or by borrowing, but, instead, by the total amount of the country’s income and resources that are taken and used by that government. Suppose that there was a government that spent $2 trillion and maintained a balanced budget by taxing the citizenry an equivalent amount versus a government that, instead, spent $3 trillion, but only taxed its citizens $2.5 trillion by making up the rest through deficit spending by borrowing a half trillion dollars. Which government would be the more fiscally burdensome on the citizens of that country?

If the government taxes the citizenry, the dollars collected, and the real resources those dollars have buying power over in the marketplace, are transferred from private sector hands to the hands of Uncle Sam, who then decides what they will be used for.

But this is no less the case when the government borrows dollars in financial markets to cover part of its expenses in excess of collected taxes. Instead of a private borrower borrowing those dollars and using the real resources those dollars can buy in the marketplace for investment, capital formation or other purposes, the government borrows them and uses the real resources that can be bought with them for its own politically-oriented goals and ends.

Either way, the total amount of the income and resources of the society transferred out of private hands and into the hands of the government is represented by the total spending by that government, even if only part has been taxed and the rest has been borrowed.

America’s Earlier Unwritten Fiscal Constitution

However, while it may be true that whether the government taxes or borrows the taxpayer-citizens are poorer by that total amount, it is nonetheless the case that government following a balanced budget rule versus a budget deficit expedient has a huge political difference on the institutional ease or difficulty of government growing over time.

Nearly 45 years go, James M. Buchanan (1919-2013), and his colleague, Richard Wagner, wrote a book on Democracy in Deficit (1977). They pointed out that during the first 150 years of the United States, the federal government followed what they referred to as an “unwritten fiscal constitution.”

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires the government to annually balance its budget. Such a balanced budget “rule” for managing the government’s spending and taxing was considered a way to assure transparency and greater responsibility in the financial affairs of government.

It was argued that a balanced budget made it easier and clearer for the citizen and the taxpayer to compare the “costs” and “benefits” from government spending activities. Since each dollar spent by the government required a dollar collected in taxes to pay for whatever the government was doing, the citizen and taxpayer could make a more reasonable judgment whether they considered any government spending proposal to be “worth it” in terms of what had to be given up to gain the supposed “benefit” from it.

The trade-off was explicit and clear: any additional dollar of government spending on some program or activity required an additional dollar of taxes, and therefore, the “cost” of one dollar less in the taxpayer’s pocket to spend on some desired private-sector use, instead.

Yearly Balanced Budgets and Budget Surpluses After Emergencies

Or if taxes were not to be increased to pay for a new or expanded government program, the supporter of this increased spending had to explain what other existing government program or activity would have to be reduced or eliminated to transfer the funds to pay for the new proposed spending.

There was an exception to this balanced budget rule, and that was a “national emergency” such as a war, when government might need large amounts of extra funds more quickly than they could be raised through higher taxes.

But it was also argued that once the national emergency had passed, the government was expected to manage its finances to run budget surpluses, taking in more than it spent each year. The surplus was to be used to pay off the accumulated debt as quickly as possible to relieve current and future taxpayers from an unnecessary and undesirable burden.

Amazingly, in retrospect, this actually was the fiscal rule and pattern followed by the United States government throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century until the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The Keynesian Call for Budget Deficits to “Stimulate” the Economy

However, starting with the 1930s, this unwritten fiscal constitution was permanently overturned as part of the Keynesian Revolution that originated with the publication of John Maynard Keynes’s, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). It was argued that the government should not balance its budget on a yearly basis. Instead, the government should balance its budget “over the business cycle.” Government should run budget deficits in “bad” years (recession or depression) and run budget surpluses in “good” years (periods of “full employment” and rising Gross Domestic Product).

This new “rule” of a balanced budget over the business cycle became a generally accepted idea for fiscal policy among many economists and government policy makers. However, there has been one major problem with this alternative conception of the role and method of managing government spending and taxing: During the 76 years since the end of the Second World War in 1945, the U.S. government has run budget deficits in 64 of those years and had budget surpluses in only 12 years.

Hence, as Buchanan and Wagner referred to it, “democracy in deficit.” With the elimination of the balanced budget “rule” as the guide for fiscal policy, it has been possible for politicians to create the economic illusion that it is possible to give voters “something for nothing” – a “free lunch.”

The Fiscal Illusion of Giving Voters Partly “Something for Nothing”

Politicians have been able to offer more and more government spending to special interest groups to obtain campaign contributions and votes in the attempt to be elected and reelected to political office.

They can offer benefits in the present in the form of new or additional government spending, but they no longer have to explain where all the money will come from to pay for it. The “costs” of that deficit spending is to be paid for by some unknown future taxpayers in some amount that can be put off discussing until that “some time” in the future.

Thus, politicians can supply benefits in the present – “now” – to targeted groups whose votes are wanted on Election Day, and avoid answering how the money will be paid back (with interest) because that can be delayed until the future – a period later in time, years ahead, when someone else may hold political office and will have to deal with the problem.

The Moral Dimension of Government Debt Financing

There is an additional moral dimension to the issue of government deficit spending and its resulting accumulation of debt. This was a theme especially addressed by James Buchanan.

Normally, when a private individual or enterprise undertakes debt financing of some portion of his current expenditures, the legal obligation to pay back the contracted principle and interest falls upon the borrower. If he defaults or passes away before repayment of all that had been borrowed, creditors have a lien on the borrower’s positively valued assets.

The “benefits” of having the use of a greater sum of money in the present than his own income would enable him to spend, and imposes on the borrower a “cost” of an obligation to pay back the loan out of his future income and assets. The cost and the benefit are linked together within the same person.

It is not the same, Buchanan argued, in “The Deficit and Our Obligation to Future Generations” (1987), with government deficit spending and repayment of accumulated debt:

“If I borrow $1,000 personally, I create a future obligation against myself or my estate in the present value of $1,000. Regardless of my usage of the funds, I cannot, by the act of borrowing, impose an external cost on others. Unless I leave positively valued assets against which my debts can be satisfied, my creditors cannot oblige my heirs to pay off their claims.

“By contrast, suppose I ‘vote for’ an issue of public debt in the amount of $1,000 per person. I may recognize that this debt embodies a future tax liability on some persons, but I need not reckon on the full $1,000 liability being assigned to me. If I leave no positively valued assets, the government’s creditors can still enforce claims on my progeny as members of the future-period taxpaying group.

“Further, the membership in the taxpaying group itself shifts over time. New entrants, and not only those who descend directly from those of us who make a borrowing-spending decision, are obligated to meet debt, interest and amortization charges.

“In sum, the institution of public debt introduces a unique problem that is usually absent with private debt; persons who are decision makers in one period are allowed to impose possible financial losses on persons in future generations. It follows that the institution [of government] is liable to abuse this and overextend its borrowing practices. There are moral and ethical problems with government deficit financing that simply are not present with the private counterpart.”

Government debt is a way to impose part of the cost of what special interest group voters and politicians want “today” on those who “tomorrow” will have to be taxed to pay back the borrowed money.

Even if a current recipient of such governmental deficit spending largess is, himself, one of the future taxpayers, he is usually likely to have received a greater benefit than his personal portion of the future tax burden. Suppose that he is a farmer, for instance, who receives “today” $100,000 from the government for not growing a crop. When “tomorrow” comes and taxes have to be raised to pay back that $100,000 to the creditors who lent that sum to the government, that particular farmer’s additional tax burden will be a small fraction of that total amount.

To continue with the same example, many farmers who may have benefited from agricultural price-support programs decades ago have passed away. The burden of paying back whatever portion of that farm price-support spending originally financed by deficit spending now falls upon others who may not have even been born at the time the recipient received this special privilege from the government.

What is the ethics, James Buchanan asked, of a fiscal system under which incentives exist and come into play that enable the current generation of taxpayers and recipients of government programs to shift part of the burden to pay for them to future generations? Is that a culturally and economically healthy legacy to leave to our children and grandchildren?

The Importance of Balanced Budgets and Debt Limits

This is why it would be desirable to incorporate a balanced budget amendment into the U.S. Constitution. It would not guarantee that government did not tax and spend more. But it would impose a greater clarity and transparency to the fiscal dimension of government decision-making that would make it far more difficult for those offering other people’s money in exchange for votes to do so without having to also explain who would be paying for the favors and privilege given to some, and how much they would have to pay.

Imagine if members of Congress and the President had to tell their constituents that this year’s $3 trillion of deficit spending was going to have to be covered, instead, by an increase in taxes by that amount. Or, another way of putting this, there was to be a per capita increase in taxes of almost $9,100, given the slightly more than 330 million people in the United States. Or, since only about half that number in terms of households pay taxes, each household’s per capita tax burden would be increasing by around $18,000 this year to balance the budget. And that, similarly, the $12.5 trillion of CBO projected additional debt over the next 10 years would be avoided by sufficient increases in taxes to make the national debt no worse than it stands right now in 2021 at about $28.5 trillion.

No talk about “taxing the rich” would be able to hide the fact that even if such a tax increase were to fall disproportionately more on the “one percent” income bracket, that a very wide band of the American middle class would still see their tax obligations rise significantly. It would be very clear, very soon, that the government-provided “free lunches” are, in fact, very costly.

In lieu of adding such an amendment to the Constitution, the next best thing would be for the Congress not to raise the federal debt limit. I have no illusions that the members of either major political party in Congress have the courage or the self-interest to do so. But the fact is that if Congress were to ever have sufficient pressure from voting constituents to just say, “NO,” that very act would impose a balanced budget on the federal government. Once Uncle Sam had reached the hard debt limit after all his internal accounting finagling, he would then only be able to spend what he had taken in, in taxes, given any “rollover” in refinancing existing debt that came due.

For this to be ever possible, there will have to be a strong educational and political campaign to reawaken an understanding among the public that deficit spending is merely a sleight-of-hand that siphons off wealth and resources from private uses in the present no less than if taxes had been increased in the here and now, and shifts the cost of doing so to the same or different voters in the future who will be obligated to make good on what was borrowed and spent in the past that is currently our present.

Such an effort should be considered an essential element in the intellectual battle for an eventual repeal and retrenchment drive that can begin to reverse the size and scope of Big Government, to start the process of restoring and improving upon a society of freedom grounded in individual rights and economic liberty.

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This article was published on July 28, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from AIER, American Institute for Economic Research.

 

Cleveland Indians’ Name Change Isn’t About Protecting Native Americans

Since 1915, my adopted home city has been home to the Cleveland Indians, a name selected through a newspaper poll—a very democratic method indeed. They were previously the Cleveland Naps and really, what greater cause is there to cheer for? (Sadly, “Nap” was just a popular player’s nickname.)

But the woke came for Indians—and last week, they triumphed. Backlash against the Indians’ name started as early as the 1970s, with Native American groups arguing that Native nicknames and imagery make it difficult to teach people about their history and plight. Indeed, Ohio has a rich history of tribes, dating as far back as 12,500 B.C., that’s more than worthy of the public’s knowledge. The name “Ohio” itself is from the Seneca word for “beautiful river.” This history is, of course, not an entirely happy one. Moses Cleaveland, for whom the city is named, was responsible for “negotiating” with the local tribes to purchase land for a new city; he gave them about $1,200 of goods in return for that land.

And it’s true: Chief Wahoo, the Indians’ former mascot, was a caricature of a Native American—smiling ear-to-ear with a single feather on his head. One learns nothing about Ohio’s deep Native American history from looking at him.

After discarding Chief Wahoo in 2019, the Indians finally agreed to change their team’s name in December 2020. The search for a new name ended on Friday, when the Indians officially announced the winner: the Guardians. Guardians of what? The Guardians of Traffic—a reference to a group of statues carved into Cleveland’s Hope Memorial Bridge. Racism solved.

But has it been? Mascots and team names are always caricatures; it’s their nature. A realistic rendition of a tiger would look more like an Ed Hardy shirt than a baseball uniform. The name of Cleveland’s team was no ruder than the Chiefs, the Seminoles or the Braves. Sports teams’ role is not education but entertainment. Given that mascots and nicknames don’t capture the depth of whatever they represent, the “Guardians standard” appears to allow only mascots representing people and things that have no meaningful history or depth. Any reference to real people are only approved if their behavior conformed to 2021 norms, as Amherst and Yale well know.

All Americans, and all Cleveland baseball fans, should get to learn the history—happy and sad—of our nation, including its original inhabitants. And if that were the real goal, the MLB would maybe do something to promote it. It could starting by paying its commissioner a little less than $11 million, perhaps, to publish some books and documentaries. But we know it won’t do that, because education is not the real goal behind Cleveland’s name change.

The goal is moral superiority. People who want to change names are good, and people who just want to drink a beer, eat a hot dog and cheer for the Indians are bad. When you concede moral high ground to the woke, the demands do not stop. The moral victors in society can make vast changes in the name of curing evil: they can change your school curricula, they can criminalize your behavior, they can spend your money, they can elect politicians.

This search and destroy mission is, yes, unsustainable, but more importantly, it is dangerous. The average Indians fan has been told she must change her ways: Guardians is right, Indians is wrong, and desires to the contrary are offensive. I’m as happy as the next person to root for guarding against traffic, but let’s not pretend this has anything to do with preserving the history and legacy of Native Americans.

*****

This article was published on July 29, 2021  and is reproduced with permission from the Independent Women’s Forum

CNN’s Death Toll

CNN and other alarmist mass media outlets have been implicated in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans but nobody seems to care, including those outlets themselves. Throughout the pandemic, CNN and certain other cable news networks deliberately induced panic in order to boost their ratings and the CDC recently revealed that anxiety is the second most important contributing factor to death from/with Covid. Mass media pundits may have been as deadly as Masses or mass meetings.

Anxiety, you see, suppresses the immune system, making panicked people more likely to contract and spread Covid and other infectious diseases and less able to fend off those nasties once infected. It stands to reason, then, that outlets that remain laser-focused on facts, like AIER, and that stressed moderate policies, like the Great Barrington Declaration, saved lives to the extent that, despite suffering sundry forms of censorship, they were able to calm anxieties.

First, CNN et al. It is by now notorious that its producers were caught on tape admitting that its infamous death ticker was a cynical ploy to boost ratings. Producer Charlies Chester told his fake Tinder date that “fear really drives numbers … which is why we constantly have the death toll on the side.” (The video is such a smoking gun that it is technically illegal in Massachusetts and other states that have effectively outlawed the Second Amendment.)

Chester admitted that constantly displaying the seemingly quickly increasing number was not to inform audiences but to get them to keep tuning in. Network president Jeff Zucker, Chester said, used a “red phone” to tell producers to ratchet up the number for ratings effect.

While it remains unclear why anyone would watch cable news for any reason, people did tune in, in large numbers, and many found themselves made more anxious by the spectacle they saw to the point that some semi-responsible mass media outlets, like the BBC, questioned whether remaining informed was worth the emotional costs of the nonstop Covid death cult coverage.

If people had known about the close link between anxiety and death, they most certainly would have turned off the boob tube and maybe the few news executives who still have souls would have toned down the death and despair angle too. Then-president Edward Stringham knew nothing good could come of the constant hype and ordered TV coverage turned off in AIER offices during working hours.

Second, the CDC, the putative “science,” has established that anxiety was linked to Covid-19 infection and death. In a study released on 1 July and titled “Underlying Medical Conditions and Severe Illness Among 540,667 Adults Hospitalized with COVID-19, March 2020-March 2021,” a score of Ph.D. and M.D. researchers show that “the strongest risk factors for death were [1] obesity … [and 2] anxiety and fear-related disorders.”

Specifically, obese people were 30 percent more likely to die if they contracted Covid, while people suffering anxiety were 28 percent more likely to pass away. In other words, being anxious was almost as deadly as being fat.

The authors point out, however, that the exact causal connections between anxiety and death by/with Covid-19 remains unclear and “may include a reduced ability to prevent infection among patients with anxiety disorders, the immunomodulatory and/or cardiovascular effects of medications used to treat these disorders, or severe COVID-19 illness exacerbating anxiety disorders.”

In any event, sitting around watching CNN while stress eating was hardly a recipe for immune system health. And that points to one of the many bizarre aspects of the public health policies promulgated during the pandemic, the almost complete lack of calls for improving immune health, which can be greatly augmented through proper diet, exercise, and attitude. Instead, many lockdown policies served to limit exercise and many who tried to discuss vitamins found themselves attacked and censored.

In fact, as clinically nearly useless and environmentally harmful mask mandates begin to creep back into policy discourse, it is important to point out that individual measures, including losing weight and boosting natural immunities, is a much more effective way of “staying safe,” from all sorts of maladies, than top-down policies. Listen to your personal doctor, not Dr. Fow Chi, and for goodness sake read rational sources of news, or better yet listen to them while getting some exercise. And eat a lemon instead of watching one.

*****

This article was published on July 30, 2021 and is reproduced with permission from AIER, American Institute for Economic Research

The Great Academic/Sports Double Standard

And why Pawan Dhingra has it wrong about extracurricular learning.

Starting in elementary school and continuing through high school, aspiring athletes are encouraged by parents, coaches, and society at large to spend considerable hours training and practicing outside of the school day and off-campus, oftentimes at the additional cost of private leagues and coaches. And those who make it to the big time are praised, honored, and even treated as heroes for their hard work.

Now, Pawan Dhingra has published a book, “Hyper Education,” that questions the fairness of parents not only encouraging their kids to spend extra time on academics but also paying for extracurricular study programs and tutors. His focus is on East Indians, but this Italian took his questioning personally.

One reason for taking it personally is that Dhingra uses Kumon as an example of an extracurricular academic program that is employed by parents to give their kids an advantage. My wife and I had enrolled our son in Kumon math from kindergarten to eighth grade.

We credit Kumon for our son earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering and going on to work as an engineer for a Fortune 50 company—in spite of him having parents of average intelligence with no natural talent for math.

Kumon math is offered by Kumon Learning Centers in the U.S. and around the world. It’s a self-paced Japanese instructional method based on practice, practice, practice. In that sense, it’s like a Little Leaguer going to the batting cage after school and on weekends to become a better hitter, or a basketball player shooting hoops at the neighborhood park for hours on end.

Every day, 365 days a year, our son completed a Kuman math worksheet, which we would score and then require him to correct any mistakes. That totaled 2,920 worksheets over the eight years—and a lot of whining from him and a lot of threats from me.

Once a week, I accompanied him to a Kumon “class,” where he completed a lesson at the class, turned in his worksheets for the week, and was given a packet of new worksheets by the instructor for the coming week. If he was ready to advance to more challenging math, the instructor would give him a quick lesson.

His instructor was a stern, no-nonsense Japanese American. True to form, our extroverted son would start talking to the other kids sitting next to him. From my seat in the back of the room, I’d hear the instructor bellow, “CANTONI, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” It brought back memories of the nuns yelling at me in parochial school.

Dhingra makes the unfounded claim in his book that if public school teachers didn’t have to teach to the test, such extracurricular programs would be unnecessary. He also claims that public schools “provide deeper, more thoughtful, well-researched means of teaching math, writing, and other subjects than are offered in learning centers.”

He either doesn’t recognize or refuses to admit, that such rote exercises as Kumon math have been pooh-poohed for a long time by so-called pedagogical experts. Nor does he seem to appreciate the benefits of parents working closely with their children and reinforcing the value of extra effort, or the benefits to children of immediate feedback, or the satisfaction that kids feel when they master a lesson and move to the next level.

Do such extracurricular programs give the children of wealthy parents and two-parent families an edge over the children of non-wealthy parents and one-parent families? Probably. But unless children are taken from parents at an early age, there is no way of stopping parents from giving their children every advantage possible, irrespective of their station in life.

To that point, my working-class mom, a high school graduate, and daughter of poor immigrants would use flashcards to drill me in vocabulary and grammar. And no doubt, Jewish kids with religious parents benefit in intellectual growth from preparing for their Bar Mitzah or Bat Mitzah. Should such advantages be banned?

In any event, worksheets similar to Kumon can be purchased inexpensively or printed for free from the internet. Moreover, there is nothing stopping public schools from offering Kumon-like courses.

It’s become de rigueur today for authors, especially so-called minorities, to go off on tangents about race and class. Dhingra is no exception.

He says that non-Asian parents and teachers resent Asian parents for pressuring their children to succeed. That could be true, and it’s certainly true that selective high schools and colleges are now discriminating against Asians in admissions because they have better grades and test scores than other “minorities.” But in my circle, Asians are admired, not resented, for their academic prowess.

Dhingra loses my admiration, however, when he puts a racial chip on his shoulder. He claims that some Asian parents engage in hyper-learning because their children don’t have as much social or cultural capital as white kids. He even quotes an East Indian motel owner: “I’m never going to make the secret handshake.”

Give me a break! Does Dhingra believe that the scores of ethnic whites who immigrated to America without a pot to pee in—such as my grandparents—knew the secret handshake among the Anglo-Saxon Protestants in the Skull and Bones society at Yale?

Is he actually so unlearned or indoctrinated that he believes that there are not large numbers of poor and disadvantaged whites?

Is he not aware that the Patel clan of East Indians has a lock on independent motels across the nation, that East Indians are at the top in income in America, and that East Indians are disproportionately represented in the executive ranks of tech companies? Or maybe he has the U.S. confused with the caste system in India.

To go back to my opening paragraph, it doesn’t seem to have crossed Dhingra’s mind that maybe East Indians are more successful because they don’t buy into the American double standard of praising athletes for their extracurricular training but not students for their extracurricular learning.

Book Review: Stalin’s War by Sean McMeekin

The history of World War II is a well-worn path. Historians and journalists have been writing about it for about 75 years. You would not think much could be added to “the story”. If that is what you think, then you would be wrong.

This new book is a required addition to your bookshelf. Be assured, you will never look at the war the same way.

Professor  Sean McMeekin teaches at Bard College in New York and is the author of several other important books on Russian history. Published by Basic Books, it currently is  Editor’s Pick, Best Book of 2021 on Amazon.

This particular book breaks new ground based on newly found material from Soviet archives.  In particular, you will learn about Stalin’s intentions before the war, his arms buildup before the war, the abuse of lend-lease, and the incredible Communist penetration of the US and British governments, and who really won the war.

What is the standard story? In a nutshell, evil people came to power in Germany because of depression and their feeling of being maltreated by the Treaty of Versailles. A charismatic figure rises in the form of Adolf Hitler pushing German nationalism and Nordic mythology. Looking to punish those who “knifed Germany in the back”, he climbs to power, hating Jews, Communists, and yearns for Lebensraum or living space for Germany.

He builds up his forces, intimidates the West, and the West appeases the aggression. Hitler starts the war by invading Poland thinking the West will not act. France and England surprise and go to war to protect the territorial integrity of Poland. France is lost and England hangs by a thread.

Germany’s blitzkrieg conquers all of Western Europe. England stands alone for several years, surviving with modest help from the US, which remains neutral. Roosevelt feels the US must soon enter the war and wisely skirts the law of the neutrality acts.

Then, because of his hatred of Communism and Slavic people, Hitler suddenly strikes the Soviet Union. The Soviets are completely surprised and lose terribly. Stalin goes into hiding for more than a month as he tortures himself because he was blindsided by Hitler. Stalin later redeems himself with the great victories at Stalingrad.

Russia does the bulk of the fighting and the dying, and also kills most of the Germans. The U.S. becomes the arsenal of democracy and is brought into the war when attacked by Germany’s ally Japan, and then Hitler inexplicably declares war on the U.S. making it easy to go after him.

Hitler loses the war because of the mistake of creating a two-front war. England loses her power and empire through economic exhaustion. America is triumphant lead by the indomitable FDR and Truman and goes about creating new international institutions to keep the peace and wisely helps old enemies recover.

That’s the “story” I learned, and that is pretty much how I taught it when I was a teaching assistant. It is what you get mostly in TV documentaries on the subject and Hollywood productions.

It is largely true as far as it goes but it is not complete. It largely leaves out the role of Russia and its dictator, Josef Stalin.

In telling this new story, many myths and previous assumptions start to fall. There are many examples, but here are just a few:

Hitler did not want a two-front war at all and was aware of its perils. In fact, relying heavily on Soviet oil, grain, and metals, he increasingly was becoming dependent on Stalin. Germany needed Romanian oil and Stalin wanted to take Romania. Stalin in fact started squeezing Hitler.

The attack on Russia thus was not a surprise. One thing Stalin had throughout the war, was superior intelligence.

The situation was more like two gangsters fighting over turf. Gang members killing each other is not a surprise. But, turning one of the gang members into some kind of historic hero is.

Stalin never went into hiding over the shock of the German invasion. He knew they were coming.

By the end of the war, Soviet power is now so great, that the U.S. and the West must seemingly concede all of Eastern Europe and China, and a 70-year Cold War begins.

While scholars had access to U.S., French, and British archives, little was known about the role of the Russians before the war started, her aims and motives, and the extent to which she was helped by the Western allies once Germany had attacked Russia.

With the collapse of Soviet Communism, Russian archives were opened for a while, and a more nuanced story of the war has emerged.

Both Russian and Western historians got new input, and in some cases, were allowed to connect dots that heretofore were left incomplete. This is particularly so with the so-called Venona decrypts. This refers to the U.S. intelligence monitoring of Soviet messages, which could only be fully understood once both sides of the conversation could be pieced together.

In the best tradition of the von Ranke historical method, Shaun McMeekin goes back to original documents in Russian rather than just rehashing the opinions of other historians. In this process, he connects many dots that previously were either misunderstood or not known at all.

The result is a bit unnerving. The “story” we are so used to is not just incomplete, it is, in fact, wrong in some important aspects.

So, why should you read an 800-page book on the subject?

Well, first it is best to get the story right as best you can, simply because the truth is important. We are supposed to learn from history, right? If you have the wrong history, you learn the wrong lessons.

Secondly, one has a greater understanding of the massive and complex conflict called the Cold War and its origins, which occupied so much of our energy, wealth, and at times, the lives of Americans. What would life have been like without a huge permanent U.S. military establishment, without the Korean and Vietnam wars? How much wealthier would we have been as a nation and how much pain, misery, and death could have been avoided if Russia had left the war in the weak condition of England instead of a superpower?

What if Communism had not risen in China, our new great and difficult threat? What if Communist apparatchiks had not taken Russia over after the fall of the wall?  Would we have had a Putin?

And largely forgotten, is the miserable life millions lived under Communism. For them, the war did not end with sailors kissing nurses in New York City in 1945. In fact, for them, the war did not end at all.

For the hapless Russian soldier, they would either be shot in the front by Germans, shot in the back by Communist commissars, or die in a prisoner of war camp. If they were fortunate to survive the war in German captivity, being tainted by the West, they would wind up in Siberia.

How did Communist Russia gain such power and strategic advantage?  Could our leaders have done a better job of handling the end of the war and then setting up the post-war peace?

These are reasonable questions to ask and they can’t be answered by only examining our side of the story. One has to understand Stalin and how he went about the business of statecraft.

The title of the book itself is suggestive. It was Stalin’s war as much as it was Hitler’s. In many ways, it was Stalin who started it and benefited the most from it. Gee, that is not normally part of the “story”, is it?

McMeekin uncovers numerous speeches to Party Congresses, to military academies, and diplomatic instructions, that clearly indicate Stalin wanted the “capitalist powers” to go to war with each other years before the war started. He would exploit the weakness surely to come from their mutual destruction. He starting building up his military aggressively well before the war. And, as McMeekin shows, he did a lot to provoke the war.

Usually, the “story” concentrates on Hitler without pointing out that large-scale German maneuvers were taking place in the Soviet Union, in the run-up to the war. It was in Russia under Stalin that Germany developed Blitzkrieg, that is the close coordination of armor and tactical airpower, all coordinated by radio. Forgotten is that Russia supplied much material to Hitler as well as acting like his training base. They were political, commercial, and military ties between Russia and Germany going back before even Hitler came to power. 

In return, Russia got technology and training. Much of the Russian officer corps, was trained in Germany.

McMeekin suggests it is not an exaggeration to say that Hitler conquered France and the low countries on Russian gasoline. Blitzkrieg on Russian supplies? Who knew?

As Hitler invaded Poland, so did Stalin. While Hitler attacked France, Stalin gobbled up six other countries. Many of the hapless citizens in those countries were badly mistreated, many were executed, while many others were sent to the Gulag. Yes, “Uncle Joe” as FDR called him, became our ally, but he was Hitler’s ally first.

Stalin also signed a peace treaty with Japan, which allowed him to free up resources in the East. He wanted Japan to attack the U.S. and knew all about the coming attack on the U.S. military and British assets. He also wanted to keep Japan from attacking Mao and his communist forces in China.

So scrupulous did Stalin honor his treaty with Japan, he never helped the U.S. in its desperate struggle in the Pacific and even imprisoned U.S. flyers, including three of the Doolittle raiders, that crashed in his territory.  He broke his treaty with Japan only in the last few days of the war, allowing him to cynically grab much of Asia.

Among the most disturbing parts of the book is the scandal called “lend-lease”, and the extent to which Stalin’s agents had penetrated both American and British political leadership.

Harry Hopkins was a special assistant to FDR and lived full time in the Lincoln bedroom.  FDR tasked him with lend-lease and allowed to manage much of our relationship with Stalin.  Hopkins we now know was a Soviet asset. 

The Soviets were basically given the store. U.S. requisitioning policy allowed them to have superior claims to vital war material to our own military! They were allowed to tour defense plants and invited to commit wholesale industrial espionage. They were allowed to see the Norden bombsight, allowed to take whole U.S. factories home, and even provided three shipments of enriched uranium!

Hopkins saw to it that only pliable pro-Soviet diplomats were selected and even changed the U.S. military attaché in Moscow, to a man we now know was also a Soviet agent.

Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department is largely responsible for the economic ultimatums and diplomatic pressure put on Japan, which gave them little choice but war. But White too was a Soviet agent, and provoking the Japanese to attack America relieved pressure on Stalin’s Eastern flank. White goes on with six other key Soviet agents in the Treasury Department to change the course of the war through the Morgenthau Plan (basically the complete destruction of Germany), and the undermining of pro-American forces in China.

That is another sidebar story that was quite new.  That is the extent to which the Treasury Department was influencing foreign policy and even writing up manuals for the War Department.

To add a final insult to grievous injury, White goes on to influence the post-war economic structure through the founding of the International Monetary Fund, while other Soviet agents like Alger Hiss go on to shape the United Nations.

FDR comes off as basically groveling in front of Stalin. If the British needed old destroyers, we asked for military bases. Multiple times he threatened cuts in “lend-lease” aid to bully allies like Britain and China, but remarkably he asked nothing…nothing from Stalin in return. Stalin was awash in US trucks, tanks, munitions, airplanes, food, fuel, uniforms, and specialty metals and machine tools.  For all that we got paid, McMeekin estimates, about 2 cents on the dollar.

Even as Soviet intentions became much clearer, their behavior demonstrably barbaric, and their political goals visibly undemocratic, more and more aid was provided to them. Huge amounts of aid were shipped to Stalin even after Germany had surrendered.

The result was the loss of Eastern Europe, much of Asia, and 70 years of Cold War tensions and high defense budgets, which included some real shooting wars in Korea and Vietnam.  Millions of people in Eastern Europe were lost to the Gulag and Soviet oppression. Millions would go on to die in Asia and live under a brutal government.

FDR is not a great war leader at all, but a serious failure. His tragic mistakes carry all the way through to today, as we now face remnants of Communist leadership in Russia and an emboldened Communist government in China. Essentially troublesome North Korea was FDR’s creation as well.

Historians have known of FDR’s weakness for Stalin, his arrogance that he could “handle” Stalin, and his pressure on Winston Churchill, who surprisingly does not come out as well as frequently portrayed. He too seemed to grovel before Stalin. Just not as bad as FDR, and in his defense, Churchill had to please FDR.

But historians did not appreciate FDR’s strategic misunderstandings and the incredible abuse of aid that paraded under the innocuous title of lend-lease. Much of the operations of this program were kept secret from both the public and Congress and its full extent was not known until rather recently.

The Roosevelt Administration was not just staffed just by romantic professors and journalists (which it was) that had traveled to Russia and came back “having seen the future”, it was riddled with active Soviet agents.

Quite the contrary, we previously were told that post-war reactions were “a Red Scare”, unjustified and provoked by Republican demagogues. Many New Left historians contend even today that the U.S. started the Cold War by mistreating Russia.

Why after Russia reversed the course of the war after Stalingrad, did the U.S. not scale back the help and make it conditional? And then, as the German military began to float the idea of a truce, FDR announced the policy of “unconditional surrender.” This and the idea of the Morgenthau Plan actually kept the war going when it might well have ended earlier.  It made the Germans fight even harder, costing American and other lives.

The monster Soviet military the U.S. faced after the defeat of Germany, which was able to conquer all of Eastern Europe, was largely built up by the US. In describing this outcome, irony does not seem to be a strong enough concept.

Recall that the war started with Britain attempting to defend Poland. For the U.S., our ultimatums to Japan were because of their war in China that had been raging since 1931.

So, who won the war? Who got the most treasure and territory? Stalin got Poland and all of Eastern Europe, and shortly thereafter, China. From the standpoint of achieving geopolitical aims, Stalin is the clear winner. 

The West went to war to save Poland and China from foreign invasions by dictators and in the end, due to Roosevelt’s bungling, gave the two away to simply a different dictator, one arguably even more dangerous. After all the blood and treasure spent during WWII, and the Cold War subsequent to that, this was a catastrophe of the highest order.

Why historians and journalists have been so eager to forgive and forget the results of Roosevelt’s and Democrat Party leadership on this matter is a separate issue. But that FDR’s Administration is largely culpable for such a tragic outcome, is undeniable. Its origins were a complete lack of understanding of Communism and Stalin himself.

Without Stalin, it is likely Germany would not have been able to start the war when they did. It is lost to the historical memory, that Russia attacked Poland as well, and the two lions split the buffalo. As Germany ravaged Western Europe, Stalin ravaged six additional countries in Eastern Europe.

If Stalin had helped us with Japan, the war could have ended sooner.

Historians love to play the game of “what if”, and this book provides plenty of new toys with which to play the game.

But in the end, it was not a game. Clearly, what if FDR had not been so naïve about Stalin?

Many historians give Roosevelt a pass for his handling of Stalin. After all, Russians were dying in the millions and that helped save American lives, or so it is alleged. Besides, FDR’s health was failing.

However, FDR was the man in charge. If his administration was shot through with Communist agents, that is his fault. He was the boss.

If he misread Stalin’s motives, or put in positions of authority aids that misread Stalin’s motives, or were actually working for Stalin, it all still falls on the shoulders of FDR.

His mishandling of lend-lease and various diplomatic meetings set up Eastern Europe and much of Asia for years of blood-soaked tyranny. For the West, it meant a costly and bloody Cold War that would dominate our lives even today.

One leaves the book with an uncomfortable thought. Progressive Democrats have had a real issue understanding the nature and intentions of Communism for a long time, and it has done immense damage to the U.S. and to the world.

It continues today.

 

 

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