Illegal Immigration – Page 2 – Libertate Virtute (Virtue + Liberty)

March 3, 2025March 6, 2025

The GOP Aligns with Evil

Trump and Vance 'have humiliated the United States' after shouting at Zelenskyy — Trump and Putin (r)

“I can only imagine what the political prisoners and dissidents in Russian jails are feeling today [2/21/2025]. Only a year ago Alexei Navalny was killed by Putin in one of his prisons. Before he died, Navalny wrote me a few letters in which he said that what he saw in Russia’s prisons was the same world that I once experienced as a prisoner in the Soviet Union.

. . . I think that in some ways it is worse for the political prisoners in Russia today. We had the advantage of knowing that President Reagan was on our side. But what should the hundreds sent to Russian prisons for many years for daring to call out Putin’s aggression feel today?”

—- Natan Sharanksy, eminent Soviet dissident now living in Israel, after Trump’s comment calling Zelenskyy a “dictator” and accusing Ukraine for “starting the war”, in the Free Press on 2/21/2025 (see #1)

Natan Sharansky

America is morally unmoored. There is nothing “grand” in Trump’s Grand Old Party. The party of Lincoln, the party that staked its existence on slavery’s abolition, is appeasing, if not siding with, a savage tyrant. So much for being “on the side of the angels”. Trump has signed us up for the Satanic host. On this, there can be no question.

To be clear, both political parties are unhinged. The Democrats lunged into neo-Marxism and hate Donald Trump down to his DNA. Conversely, a sizeable chunk of Republicans is enraptured by him. They treat him as their messianic north star. Trump dislikes Zelenskyy and has little use for Ukraine, and now so do they. In lockstep, they come to Trump’s defense no matter what he says and does. They clap like trained seals, or like Putin’s political ancestors during a speech by Stalin to the Communist Party Congress of the USSR.

Loyalty is one thing, obsequiousness another. It is disgraceful. But both parties are disgraceful. We are in an age of bipartisan disgrace.

Has Trump signed the country up for the Satanic host, or are we merely adjacent? Either way, it seems disgustingly so. The shameful abandonment of a beleaguered and desperate people is beginning. A headline from Washington reads “Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Cyberoperations Against Russia” (see #2). Another headline: “State Department terminates U.S. support of Ukraine energy grid restoration” (see #3). These are probably the first of many steps to cut Ukraine adrift, adrift into the maw of Putin’s regenerated Soviet Union, a nation that has inflicted multiple holocausts on millions of Ukrainians. Are we now an abettor, if not an ally, of the new Axis of Evil? Did you sign up for this when you voted for Donald Trump?

J.D. Vance is making himself particularly loathsome. He has been for quite some time. The “dictator” smear, his castigation of the closing of Putin’s Russian Orthodox Church in the country suffering from a Putin invasion, the undocumented charges of waste and corruption, the demands for surrender under the guise of “peace”, heaping blame on NATO, and opposition to aid to the besieged country has been part of his stump spiel for the last couple of years. It is as if Copperheads won the 1864 presidential election. Trump, Vance, and the rest of the trained seals in the cabinet are Putin Copperheads. The converts to the Copperhead caucus in the right-leaning media have joined the abasement.

“It is impossible to live in Russia, but dying is possible.” — Dmitry Merezhkovsky, died in exile in 1941.

So, who is Putin, this person who enjoys the indulgence of Trump and Vance? Sharansky lays it out. He should know. Putin’s regime operates as if the Soviet Union was reanimated, something very familiar to Sharansky. Opposition is killed and jailed. Mariana Katzarova, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia, estimates the number of currently jailed political dissidents at over 2,000 (see #4). It is hard to say with any precision given Putin’s death grip on news and information in the country. One of the most reliable outlets, Memorial, was shut down by Putin in 2022.

Death grip is fully applicable to Putin’s Russia. Still, some of the more indecent inhumanities have been widely reported. To make you cringe, here are some examples (see #5). Trumpkins, do not avert your eyes for this is what you are signing us up for.

Flowers laid at ceremony in Moscow for Boris Nemtsov (3 March) — Makeshift memorial to Boris Nemtsov after his murder, March 2015

Aleksei Navalny, founder of Anti-Corruption Foundation, returned from exile only to be rearrested and imprisoned where he died in an Arctic prison camp on Feb. 16, 2024.

Mikhail Lesin, former Russian press minister and Putin critic, was found dead in a Washington, D.C., hotel room on Nov. 5, 2015. His death is considered by many to be “suspicious”.

Boris Nemtsov, former deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin and Putin critic, was shot dead on a bridge outside the Kremlin on Feb. 27, 2015. Critics with possible popular traction have shortened life spans.

Boris Berezovsky, former Putin ally turned critic, was found dead in his home in Berkshire, England, on March 23, 2013. Officially listed as a suicide, strong suspicions remain.

Sergei Magnitsky, Russian lawyer and auditor who exposed corruption that was traced to Putin, was imprisoned, suffered beatings, denied medical treatment, and died in prison on Nov. 16, 2009. Our Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian abusers of human rights, was named after him.

Stanislav Markelov, human rights lawyer and journalist, was assassinated in Moscow on Jan. 19, 2009, by the same killer of Anastasia Baburova (see below).

Anastasia Baburova, a journalist and human rights activist, was killed alongside Markelov on Jan. 19, 2009.

Had enough? The sources are brim full of poisonings, murders, and disappearances in Putin’s Gulag Archipelago. Inside or outside of Russia, it does not matter. On the hit list was an elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, who was poisoned in September 2004 during the campaign. His face was scarred from it.

Putin barbarity is most resplendent on the ground and in graves throughout Ukraine. Putin starts this war, targets civilians, commits atrocities, and Trump and his sidekick level their abuse at the president of the country resisting the crime. Now, Trump is cutting them off. America, are you going to stand still and let this mauling of our sense of decency continue?

“When you see Trump with Putin, as I have on a few occasions, he’s like the 12-year old boy that goes to high school and meets the captain of the football team. ‘My hero!’ It’s really creepy.” — Malcom Turnbull, 2015-2018 Australian Prime minister, Dec. 29, 2024 (see #6)

Why the toadying to Putin and not Hamas? Try to make sense of it. It boggles the mind unless Trump has some adolescent affection for strongmen. As for Vance, he is just young and foolish. The young establish conclusions first, then root around for a rationale. The result is a logical mishmash. Vance sounds as mature as my 10th-grade students in my high school World History class.

Trump is constructing his Kyiv, as Biden did his Kabul, and the 1975 Democratic Congress did their Saigon. All of them besmirched the reputation of our country, but more than that, they soiled us. Joining the Axis of Evil makes us no better than our co-thugs. Admiration for thugs is a dangerous thing.

May be an image of 1 person, monument and text that says 'TA TAC LAS SV 16 VTE ህርይለስ ልለናይ eAS EVTEN JOTRMAT Sor THE NASHINGTONE 오025 COM PUTIN X@Ramireztoons michaelpramirez.com'

RogerG

Sources:

1. “Natan Sharansky: A President’s Words Saved Me in the Gulag”, Natan Sharansk, Free Press, 2/21/2025, at https://www.thefp.com/p/natan-sharansky-a-presidents-words
2. “Hegseth Orders Pentagon to Stop Cyberoperations Against Russia”, New York Times, at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/us/politics/hegseth-cyber-russia-trump-putin.html
3. “State Department terminates U.S. support of Ukraine energy grid restoration”, Vaughn Hillyard, NBC News, 2/28/2025, at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/state-department-terminates-us-support-ukraine-energy-grid-restoration-rcna194259
4. “UN Expert Sounds Alarm on 2,000 Political Prisoners in Russia”, The Moscow Times: Independent News from Russia, 2/17/2025, at https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/17/un-expert-sounds-alarm-on-2000-political-prisoners-in-russia-a88054
5. Reportage on Putin thuggery include:
“Putin’s Opposition: Dead, Jailed Or Exiled”, AFP in Barron’s, 3/16/2024, at https://www.barrons.com/news/putin-s-opposition-dead-jailed-or-exiled-964f341b
“Most of Russia’s opposition is either dead, in exile abroad or in prison at home. What happens now?”, Emma Burrows, AP, 2/19/2024, at https://apnews.com/article/navalny-russia-opposition-putin-8554f74e229c451f96956939b05d2a99
“The List Is Long: Russians Who Have Died After Running Afoul Of The Kremlin”, Steve Gutterman, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2/16/2024, at https://www.rferl.org/a/enemies-kremlin-deaths-prigozhin-list/32562583.html
“Full List of Putin Critics Who Have Died in Mysterious Circumstances”, Isabel van Brugen, Newsweek, 2/26/2024, at https://www.newsweek.com/putin-critics-dead-full-list-navalny-1870692
6. Malcom Turnbull’s comment can be found on X at https://x.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1873556154556838212?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1873556154556838212%7Ctwgr%5E87a08c42098cfd7dc62d00f18c68b6d36fbf2878%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2025%2F03%2Fhinge-point%2F
7. Thanks to Jay Nordlinger for his contributions to this article at “Hinge Point”, National Review, 3/3/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/03/hinge-point/

February 28, 2025March 2, 2025

Shameful Vance and Trump, Shameful

Trump Zelenskyy meet: what happened in those 10 tense minutes — Zelenskyy, Trump, Vance in a White Houe meeting, 2/28/2025

*Please read the prior post. It’s primer on this appalling scene in the White House today, written before this blowup. Don’t let Trump apologists explain away this shameful behavior on the part of our president and vice president.

Please watch the scene in the White House of today. It’s shocking behavior . . . on the part of Trump and Vance. Some will put the blame on Zelensky. It’s nonsense. Trump and Vance are not the adults in the room. The bullying of the leader of a country, that was mercilessly invaded, bombed, and raped, by two U.S. leaders who behaved more like thugs, shouting and interrupting the man, piles shame on our country. Putin is dancing a jig, as Brezhnev would have been if Reagan and Schultz had piled on Helmut Kohl, chancellor of Germany.

This is a disgrace by Trump and Vance. It needs to be called out as such. Shame on you, Trump and Vance. Americans should be appalled.

RogerG

February 28, 2025March 2, 2025

The American Grievance Party on the Right

Our president is not a grand thinker. He is, however, the head of a movement dominating the Republican Party. Its platform is grievance. Ironically, now, grievance has become the core of both the Right and the Left. For Trump and his MAGA, the rest of the world is screwing us. The outlook is mixed with some truths, a slew of exaggerations and falsehoods, and absent self-examination. The unintended aftershocks of this political rush could be an America increasingly without partners on our continent, in our hemisphere, and in Europe and Asia. Adjustments will be made by our former partners in the face of an increasingly erratic, unreliable, and at times hostile America, an America that cares a whole lot less about common interests with other nations. Do not expect this to end well.

Trump’s chief complaint is that America is not “Great” because we are patsies. Just Monday (2/24/2025), he stood before the press and announced his tariffs in a verbal cascade of victimhood (see #1),

“We’ve been mistreated badly by many countries . . . . We were taken advantage of. We were led by, in some cases, fools, because anybody that would sign documents like they signed, where they were able to take advantage of the American people, which happened over the last long period of time, except for a little four-year period that took place four years ago. But anybody that would agree to allow this to happen to our country should be ashamed of themselves.”

Per Trump, shame on you, Americans, for preferring Toyotas to Chevies.

His incoherence is glaring when he talks about the glories of tariffs. But what is foreign trade, the thing to be tariffed, taxed? It is an exchange of a foreign producer’s goods and services for a country’s currency (paper). So, a U.S. trade deficit is our possession of their valuable things, and their accumulation of our paper. Conversely, as Trump seems to prefer, a surplus is our reverse accumulation of their paper in return for our valuable things. At root, Trump’s talk is nonsense, but it is soothing syrup to a crowd addled by a sense of victimhood.

Though, his tariffs – for Trump, “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” – will torpedo his campaign promise to reduce inflation. Any tax hikes, like tariffs on business, any business, foreign and domestic, passes through to the consumer. It works like this: raise taxes (like tariffs), increase business costs, raise prices, reduce consumption and production. A bad deal all around. The price floor rises for all goods and services, both foreign and domestic. So much for “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”. So much for ending inflation.

A better understanding of trade would be helpful. The flow of goods and currencies passes through a foreign trade infrastructure. GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), currency foreign exchange agreements (FEA), and the adjudication of FEA disputes in the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention) work to ease the flow of trade so the foreign paper (currency) can be made valuable to its possessor. In other words, a trade deficit (more goods, less paper) or surplus (more paper, less goods) or “balance” (the value of the paper and goods in equal measure) is not as important as Trump thinks. But the superficial language of trade, absent clarifications, lends itself to demagoguery.

Admittedly, the trade numbers are relevant for national security, social, and political reasons. By themselves, they are more than sufficient to support more domestic production of physical goods. But why aren’t we more of a manufacturing powerhouse? Certainly, we came to face renewed competition from our formerly WWII-ravaged economic rivals.

The resulting challenge exposed our self-inflicted inefficiencies, thus the need for some self-examination; something buried in the rhetoric. Our appetite for New Deal tax and regulatory schemes, and bloated business bureaucracies, proved to be a hindrance under competitive pressures. Furthermore, we exposed our manufacturing to the vast expansion of the regulatory straitjacket in the 1970s due to manufacturing’s many impacts on the natural environment. Land use controls, the expansion of the eco-superstate, their spread and expansion at all levels of government, and a labyrinth of empowered NIMBYs, mandates, permits, and hearings wreaked carnage on the sector.

Abandoned factory. — (Image credit: Rick Gershon/Getty Images)

The air in the LA basin is cleaner due to the subsequent flight of physical production. They continue to flee. California declared war on affordable energy and the Philips/Conoco refinery in Wilmington is closing, the latest manufacturer to skedaddle the hyper eco-state. Much of the Chevron complex now resides in Houston. Adjacently, the regulatory war on housing will make the rebuild of Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena a nightmare. Cleaner air (except for the fires), combustible landscapes, Hiroshima devastation, and bankrupting energy are the new realities of the eco-Leviathan.

Manufacturing – the physical production of any kind – began a slide into the snake pit of our predatory unions, litigious culture, voracious “civil rights” lobbies, and taxes, more taxes, regulation, and more regulation. The split between the permission economy (physical production, manufacturing, construction, timber harvesting, et al) vs. permissionless economy (initially small-scale innovation that becomes capitalized into Apple, Google, Microsoft, Intel, Nividia, et al) is the main feature of this new hyper-regulated economy (see #2). Traditional manufacturing is relegated to being the red-headed stepchild.

The Industrialist | Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh pa, Steel — Jones and Laughlin Steel Pittsburgh, 1950s

Googleplex - Google Headquarters in California — The Googleplex, Mountain View, Ca.

A decade after the Richmond refinery explosion, protesters march to end fossil fuel dependence — Climate activists protest the Richmond refinery in California, 2017

Without addressing this problem, Trump’s tariffs are foolhardy. They will jack up prices, raise the cost of business inputs, threaten employment, and pull the only available ladder out of the snake pit that America has made of itself. American economic activity, and particularly manufacturing, cries out to be something other than survival in a snake pit.

DJT should address the pit before he tries to sell the narcotic of tariffs to the public. If not, trade relations will be disrupted as our friends scramble to protect themselves and their nascent industries. New trade arrangements will arise with America seen as just another economic belligerent.

To make the tariff scheme palatable to the public, the jargon of “reciprocity” is employed to hide the real purpose of tariffs. The prime directive of tariffs is to punish domestic consumers for preferring a foreign-made product. I am skeptical of their use as a bargaining chip since the tariff prime directive remains, even if reciprocity agreements are temporarily achieved. The political pressure by the snakes in our pit will make a hash of the “reciprocity”.

What Trump is doing to international trade, he promises for our foreign policy. Already, an undertow of cynicism infects our relationship with our allies (see #4). Trump sees our national security as another arena to apply the same approach as he would with a supplier of pipe. For instance, Trump has introduced a cushy deal for rare earths as a part of a survival package for Ukraine. To him, it is like demanding from the supplier the free gratis addition of brass fittings to the order. Trump has made extortion an element for a relationship with the United States.

For Trump, it is not enough to stand athwart a thug’s subjugation of another country on a continent already made jittery by two previous 20th-century world wars totaling over 100 million deaths and the USSR enslavement over half of it. Not surprisingly, eyebrows are raised in European capitals by Trump’s Belgian Congo-style treatment of Ukraine. Trump’s America comes close to being the reincarnation of the British East India Company.

It is not as if Ukraine has a realistic alternative to Trump’s USA. The situation has a key role to play in Trump’s Art of the Deal for international affairs. If you are dependent on him, you are at his mercy. It results in the odd abuse of friends with whom he can control, and odd praise of enemies with whom he does not. Trump recently declared that Putin is smart and strong and Zelensky is a dictator (I kid you not) and stands accused of starting the war (I kid you not). He gets away with it because he has leverage on Zelensky that he does not have on Putin, thus the pandering to a thug and the defamation of Zelensky. It is negotiations by shakedown in threats, insults, and extortion. For Trump, it must be like extracting concessions out of his favorite pipe supplier. The unrestrained nature of international affairs presents a playground for Trump’s baser instincts.

Trump’s Ukraine/Putin stage act reminds our friends and allies of the danger of getting too close to America. Post-WWII, South Vietnam’s existence was placed at the mercy of American domestic politics and resulted in the collapse of South Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia. Leaping forward to 2020, American domestic politics reared its ugly head over Afghanistan with the rise of Trump and his subsequent Doha Accords with the Taliban. Trump and his people repeated the Nixon/Kissinger tactic of negotiating the future of our friend and ally without them being in the room. Timetables for an American withdrawal were set only to be inflamed by more American domestic politics with calamitous effects for Afghans. Afghanistan descended into a dark age at our bidding.

40 years ago: The fall of Saigon — The fall of Saigon, 1975, and evacuations from the roof of the American embassy.

Trump officials back away from 2020 Taliban peace deal after withdrawal chaos — Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meeting with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, now the Taliban’s de facto political leader, in Doha, Qatar, in September 2020. (Photo: U.S. Department of State/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Why experts say the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan didn't have to lead to chaos | CBC News — Thousands of people are trying to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban strengthens its grip on the country. Some people chased a U.S. air force plane down the tarmac, while others tried to force their way onto planes at the Kabul airport. (photo: screen shot, Axios)

Can you blame any potential international partner for wariness in getting too close to the USA? They have alternatives. They could cut their own deals with our common enemies turning America First into America Alone. Appeasement might sound more appealing than laying yourself open to America First and an insane Democratic Party.

They could expand their defense capabilities and magnify their efforts in coalitions without a troublesome USA. Trump’s America First becomes America Problematic. Such arrangements will not have our interests at heart. America First, now known as America Alone, will be an unreliable, isolated nation with an expanded dependence on an even greater military buildup than is possible given our current domestic politics. Are you prepared to slash entitlements? Our crazy Democrats went bonkers over George W. Bush’s 2005 nibbling at Social Security’s edges (see #3). What makes you think that Democrats would not seek to ride the hysteria to more political fame and fortune this time around? Bottom line, America Alone becomes America Weaker.

This is our “master of 4-D chess” at work. We are not prepared for the consequences. The “most beautiful word in the dictionary” only disguises our deep-seated economic problems. America First will cause our friends to run for the exits. Any “peace” deal over Ukraine will come at the expense of more screw-tightening on the victim. America needs to address what we have done to ourselves before we scapegoat our friends and allies. Welcome to the world of America First.

The rabble-rousing has the advantage of feeding popular prejudices. Grievance has proven to be a political winner. The Right has discovered its inner victim in the same manner as the Left for over a century. The world should be leery of an America united in grievance.

RogerG

Sources:

1. “Trump: ‘Tariffs Are Going Forward On Time, ‘We’ve Been ‘Led By Fools”, Tim Hains, Real Clear Politics, 2/24/2025, at https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/02/24/trump_tariffs_are_going_forward_on_time_weve_been_led_by_fools.html
2. “The Future of Innovation in the United States: Permissionless or Regulated?”, Mohamed Mutii, Econlib, 10/14/2023, at https://www.econlib.org/the-future-of-innovation-in-the-united-states-permissionless-or-regulated/
3. “How George W. Bush Lost Personal Accounts For Social Security”, Peter Ferrera, Forbes, 4/7/2011, at https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/04/07/how-george-w-bush-lost-personal-accounts-for-social-security/
4. For an American public uninterested in the foreign discussion about America, tune into this podcast, “Can German centrists keep ignoring the hard right AfD?”, The Daily Telegraph, 2/24/2025, at https://youtu.be/LiLEeFlbfHk?si=eOveyaQX98wuaumb . It covers more than the results of the German election. Toward the end of the interview, a major German parliamentary leader expresses major skepticism of a Trump-led America.

February 24, 2025March 2, 2025

Trump’s Facade

No, I’m not schizophrenic in praising President Trump in one post and criticizing him in another. I compliment him when it’s possible, but can’t in good conscience when it’s impossible.

By now, we should have grown accustomed to the erection of façades around our leaders. Today, it seems more necessary than ever. A veil, an army of handlers and eager media apologists, and a well-staffed cleanup department is erected to shield the public from the reality. Sounds like Biden. I’m convinced Biden’s basement campaign of 2020 had much to do with his mental and physical frailty. After four years, it metastasized and the shield became a howler of lies, clear to anyone with functioning eyes and ears.

Come to think of it, Trump has a façade mostly created for him by his supporters. They have to make sense of his ad hoc, ad hominem, episodic, and rambling pronouncements. His boosters ignore the simple prospect that he is exactly what we see: impulsive and not particularly enlightened, nor well-disposed to deliberate and deep thought – mental qualities harmful to strategy. In attempting to make sense of the verbal bursts, apologists augur, like a shaman reading bones, a coherence that doesn’t exist.

A person’s cranium is not transparent. “The cleanup on aisle 9” brigades among Trump’s people jump into action with some form of “he’s playing 4-D chess”. The assertion is unprovable, and not open to inductive reasoning any more than an insistence on reincarnation. Upon hearing the divination, the rest of the Trump fans resound in a chorus, “That’s it!”

It’s comical. Many on the formerly sensible Right twist themselves in knots to make sense of the jumble. Case in point, Hugh Hewitt. A normally calm and reasonable person with a distinguished professional and academic pedigree, he has contorted himself into an enthusiastic Trump apologist, another diviner of the Trump brain. Hewitt regularly proclaims Trump to be a masterful, Machiavellian negotiator on the basis of nothing more than the equivalent of speculation, hopes, and prayers.

May be an image of 1 person and television — Hugh Hewitt at the mic of his radio show.

As a regular Hewitt listener, I’ve noticed his metamorphosis from conservatism to Trumpism, which is a political cult with conservative tics alongside erratic impulses, many far from conservative. Hewitt steps in to impose some artificial comprehensibility to Trump’s mess. Last week, Trump puts his foot in his mouth in blasting the leader of the side that we should want to win in Ukraine while lavishing praise on a widely recognized goon, an obvious enemy in search of his own Lebensraum. Putin is only “smart” – using Trump’s word – if he’s got the guns and the FSB. “Smart” is the wrong word. Putin is a gangster. Maybe “smart gangster” works.

Hewitt’s response is to join Trump’s smear campaign against Zelensky in a desperate reach for a rationalization. He dredges up Zelensky’s 2024 U.S. visit and talks with our then-president, and Zelensky’s heated retort after Trump’s slander of him as a “dictator”. Imagine that, a repartee to a personal insult. How dare Zelensky? It’s Zelensky’s fault. Right?

Hewitt has to find some rationalization for what any sensible person would understand to be intemperate Trump remarks against our national interests. The U.S. national interest is not served by Putin’s conquests on the continent of Europe, end of story. Hewitt can’t wrap his mind around Trump ranking our national interests below his personal grudges.

One should not expect the general public to be better informed than our leaders. It could be assumed that he must be more knowledgeable, he’s president, but behaves like he isn’t – or maybe he doesn’t care. It’s equally possible that impulse control is lacking.

History is studied for what it says about human nature. Not by Trump; he doesn’t read. For people like Hewitt, they cherry-pick their evidence to match their predispositions. Hewitt is fond of reminding us of “shuttle diplomacy” to characterize Trump’s peace mission for the Ukraine War, with a comparison to the shuttle diplomacy of Kissinger in the 1970s. True, that was shuttle diplomacy, but so was Neville Chamberlain’s in 1938 to achieve peace between Hitler and Edvard Beneš, president of Czechoslovakia. The fall of Czechoslovakia and invasion of Poland soon followed. This is more than a historical cliché.

The similarities are greater with this one than Kissinger bouncing between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Golda Meir. Putin is convinced of Russia’s fate to reconstitute the Soviet empire. Hitler was similarly convinced of his Lebensraum (German expansion for “living space”). The German Wehrmacht was just more successful than Putin’s cronies.

Thus, since we can’t rely on our leaders to be devotees of history, we must inform ourselves. After all, this is a citizen republic. It will require some time and effort on our part. Don’t expect it from Trump and his apologia chorus. The internet can be a wonderful thing, and on it one can find “The Rest is History” podcast with historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. It is available wherever you get your podcasts: YouTube, Apple, Spotify, etc. I chose Spotify. Best of all, it’s free!

You can also go to https://therestishistory.com, or setup an account at spotify.com, for instance, and tune into episodes #528 through #532, each one about an hour long, and will carry you from the 1938 Munich agreement to the fall of Poland. This is a quick and easy way to be more enlightened than either Trump or his apologists. As you watch and listen, think of all that you’ve come to know about the Ukraine War. The parallels are stunning.

The Rest is History podcast hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook on Captain Cook ...

Good luck in this era of facades.

RogerG

February 22, 2025March 2, 2025

This Is Why I Voted for Trump

Trump, Maine’s Gov. Mills spar over transgender athletes – NBC Connecticut — Pres. Trump and Maine Gov. Mills at the White House, 2/21/2025

Trump is our era’s Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who led the effort to desert Czechoslovakia in 1938. His impulsiveness and tendency to hitch national policy to personal grudges are deeply troubling.

But the Democrats are worse. They’re crazy. They are cultural revolutionaries on a mission to force us to conform to their conceptions of the “better man [or woman, or whatever] for the better world [?]”. They refuse to define “man” or “woman”, for instance, as one part of their goal to eliminate all distinctions (look up “nihilism”) so as to create new ones of their own fancy. Consequently, women are frozen out of award ceremonies to men who imagine themselves to be women. It’s kooky beyond belief.

It’s also not surprising that it doesn’t much work the other way: a XX man robbing XY men of their track and field medals. Trump, and anyone still rooted in reality, knows this, and he’s willing to say so. Yesterday, at a meeting of governors at the White House, he confronted Maine’s Governor Janet Mills (D). Watch the clip below.

Brutal, blunt, but not wholly undeserved. Gov. Mills’s feelings are of minor concern when compared to the dashed dreams of hundreds, if not thousands, of girls – real XX girls. Their ambitions are quashed by a XY girl who just yesterday was considered a boy. Go get ‘em Trump, and every blue-state satrap that has engaged in this grotesqueness.

Watch it here:

RogerG

February 21, 2025March 2, 2025

Divining the Mind of Trump: Where Did He Get That $350 billion Figure in Ukraine Aid?

Jim Acosta: President Trump is seizing on these Zelensky comments - CNN Video — Trump and Zelenskyy (r)

A service member in uniform stands next to pallets of military cargo. — An airman attached to the 436th Aerial Port Squadron loads cargo during a Ukraine security assistance mission at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Jan. 13, 2023. (photo: DOD)

During the scare over secondhand smoke, and the flurry of smoking bans in public spaces, 60,000 annual deaths from it was frequently cited. Actually, numbers varied from 20,000 to 120,000. When it came down to it, they were numbers pulled out of a hat. Once repeated, they had a life of their own. President Trump does it too.

In yesterday’s Truth Social post, Trump blithely threw out $350 billion in aid to Ukraine. Where did the number come from? Further, where’s the source for “half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING’”? Not the Inspector General for Ukraine Aid, not the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see #2), not the Kiel Institute which studies international aid to Ukraine. You might counter that he’s president and therefore he must know. That’s not proof; that’s an act of faith.

Going back to the U.S. inspector general of “Ukraine Oversight”, $183 billion was promised and $86.7 billion delivered (see #3). The denizens of the far-Right fever swamps have mentioned $100 billion “missing”, stolen, wasted. Applying the two known numbers, ones that can be sourced, the $100 billion is roughly the difference between what was promised and given. If true, possibly, $100 billion is “missing” because it was never delivered.

President Zelensky in an AP interview of early February cited $177 billion earmarked by the U.S. but only $75 billion sent (see #4). These might be the numbers used in a Kiel Institute study (see #5). The point is that these numbers can be sourced. Where did President Trump’s numbers originate? No source is available, leaving one to entertain the option of them bursting from DJT’s imagination, a frequent occurrence.

I suspect that the press gaggle comment from Tuesday – “You should have never started it” – and the Truth Social rant of Wednesday are connected. In the one, President Trump put his foot in his mouth, up to the ankle, and halfway down the throat. Then, he tried to repair the damage by bloviating with more inanities.

Trump doesn’t understand the first rule of holes. Stop digging!

RogerG May be an illustration of text

Sources:

1. Thanks to Jim Geraghty for the numbers and sources at “Get Ukraine into the European Union”, National Review, 2/21/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/get-ukraine-into-the-european-union/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=first
2. “Where Is the Missing $100 Billion in U.S. Aid for Ukraine?”, Mark F. Cancian, CSIS, 2/11/2025, at https://www.csis.org/analysis/where-missing-100-billion-us-aid-ukraine
3. “Funding”, Ukraine Oversight: Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve, Promoting Whole of Government Oversight of the U.S. Ukraine Response; at https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/#:~:text=Fiscal%20Year%20(FY)%202022%2D,obligated%20and%20%2486.7%20billion%20disbursed.
4. AP interview of President Zelensky, “Zelenskyy: Ukraine received US$76 billion out of US$177 billion approved by America”, 2/2/2025, Reddit, at https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1igjyyl/zelenskyy_ukraine_received_us76_billion_out_of/
5. “Ukraine Support Tracker Data”, Antezza, A., et al, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, 2/20/2025, at https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/ukraine-support-tracker-data-20758/

February 20, 2025March 2, 2025

Trump Is Not God’s Avatar. He’s Proving It!

May be an image of 1 person — Vladimir Putin

Donald Trump is proof that no person is deserving of worship. Sooner or later, given enough time and opportunity, we’ll step in it. Trump is no different. The guy must have slept during his high school History classes. College wasn’t any better for him. Read this screed on Truth Social about Ukraine’s Zelenksyy. It’s mind-bogglingly stupid.

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back. Why didn’t Sleepy Joe Biden demand Equalization, in that this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING.’ He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden “like a fiddle.” A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left. In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring Peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to keep the “gravy train” going. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died – And so it continues…..”

Trump is showing that Zelensky isn’t the problem. He is! For Trump enthusiasts, drop the cultic priestly vestments and get off your knees on your prayer rugs long enough to parse the words of a nincompoop. And to think that this guy is the leader of the Free World. Amazing.

Sentence #1 is incoherent, the rantings of adolescent rationalizations. Is this genius making the case that the $350 billion should never have been spent, or that the war never had to start? Yeah, it wouldn’t have started if Putin hadn’t invaded, and without American support naked aggression would have been rewarded. Strip away the crass, ego-inflating bloviation about himself being the block to all bad things in the world, and what remains is the reality after his loss in the 2020 election. It’s 2025, not January 2021. Now, what are you going to do? Sell out the victim?

Sentence #2 is more evidence of an all-too-human businessman rampaging way outside his lane. This blinkered person behind the Resolute desk reduced all thought and considerations in foreign relations to dollars and cents. It’s the only thing he understands, or thinks he understands. By his convoluted logic, we would have remained a part of the British empire; the South would be represented in the UN as the CSA; a good portion of France, Belgium, and Russia would be part of the German Empire under the Hohenzollerns; and much of Europe and Asia would be Axis satraps. Geostrategy is reduced to an accounting ledger. It’s stupid beyond belief.

Sentence #3 is more pablum. The idiocy is crowned with “Equalization” and “a beautiful Ocean as separation”. Yeah, Europe should pay more, but that’s not as if we shouldn’t pay anything. And that’s not to mean that Europe hasn’t contributed anything – $120 billion from 2022 to 2024 (see #1). Besides, are we going to lead as the USA or hide behind an ocean? Jihadi goat-herders with box cutters on 9/11 proved that an ocean is only a geographical feature to be crossed to get at the Great Satan. DJT, this is not the age of sail anymore.

Sentence #4 is proof that Ukraine is as flawed as DJT during his bankruptcies, or DOGE is discovering that we are. But we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Account for the aid, and keep it flowing. Don’t use it as an excuse to reward a thug.

Sentences #5 and #6 are evidence of Trump showing his capacity to fill the shoes of Izvestia, the newspaper organ of the old Supreme Soviet. They promiscuously applied “dictator” to Thatcher and Reagan. Trump repeats the same style of slander. Trump has lost his mind. Zelensky is more answerable to an electorate than Putin. Putin offs his opponents, both inside and outside Russia. From the streets of London to the presidential residence in Kyiv to outside the Kremlin, he has horrifically poisoned, disfigured, and assassinated opposition. The list is growing. Those surviving disappear in a reconstituted Gulag Archipelago. Trump adds his name to the long list of dictator-lovers going back to the Stalin-apologists of yesteryear. It’s as shameful today as it was then.

The rest is an embarrassment to adult reasoning. “I love Ukraine”, but only if it surrenders to Putin. You see, following the Trump thought-stream, Ukraine is ravaged by . . . Zelensky, by Ukraine itself, not Putin. In Trump’s twisted brain, Zelensky should have surrendered earlier. Thus, it’s his fault. A thug that invaded the country across three fronts without warning or provocation, in a typically mismanaged Russian blitzkrieg, is not to blame. The thinking provokes disbelief. And he is our president. Whew, what a mess.

There is a crazy Right, and Trump is their messiah. He is deified. Everything he says and writes is worshipped as holy script. I’m surprised that they aren’t printed in red. Watch as longstanding pundits of the Right eat their past words. Watch as they morph from Kremlin skeptics to Putin apologists in the span of a short decade, because their god says so.

One question for Hugh Hewitt: What happened to Mike Pompeo? He’s gone into your memory hole. At one time praised to high heaven; now, nothing. He seems to have descended into nothingness like Bill Barr, John Bolton, and anyone who will not make the appropriate sacrifices at the altar.

Please, people on the Right, get off your prayer rugs long enough to notice that your Prophet wears no clothes. Reality is uglier than your illusions.

May be an image of text

RogerG

Sources:

1. An assessment of European contributions to the defense of Ukraine can be found at “Ranking of European countries by aid provided to Ukraine between January 2022 and August 2024, by type of aid”, Statista, 10/29/2024, at https://www.statista.com/statistics/1499394/european-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/

November 21, 2024November 21, 2024

The Los Angeles Nullification Crisis of 2024

May be an image of 4 people and text — People sit at City Hall as the Los Angeles City Council meets to consider adopting a sanctuary city ordinance in Los Angeles, Calif., November 19, 2024. (photo: Daniel Cole/Reuters)

Yes, history seldom repeats, but there are recurring similarities in events mingled with the unique contemporary twists. Post November 5, a historical pattern reemerged in the gambits used by locally empowered militants to thwart federal authorities and their delegated powers. Prior to the Civil War, it was called “nullification”, as in the Nullification Crisis of 1832. Today, “sanctuary city/state” is the favorite nomenclature for thwarting the federal exercise of federal powers. Where else but in the deepest of blue California – Los Angeles specifically – can a city council mimic the 1832 South Carolina legislature?

Clearly, Los Angeles hates Trump as South Carolina came to hate Lincoln. “Hate”, indeed, is the proper word. What else can motivate a claque of local politicos to such extremes?

On November 19, a sanctuary city ordinance passed on a 13-0 vote of the Los Angeles city council. Strangely, history is rhyming with the 1832 South Carolina legislature and their Ordinance of Nullification, only LA is targeting federal immigration law instead of a tariff. Admittedly, there are differences between “nullification” and “sanctuary city”, but let’s not forget that the intent is the same: the thwarting of the enforcement of constitutionally sanctioned federal law by state or local governments. In that sense, sanctuary from immigration law has much in common with sanctuary from a tariff law.

At a time of the uncertain delineation between state and federal powers in the Constitution, South Carolina hung its hat on the idea of the country as a compact with states having the power to prevent enforcement of federal laws that they declare unconstitutional and against their interests – i.e., nullification. The notion can be traced back through the ruminations of Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, and the cultural elites of the antebellum South. California’s Democrats come by the idea honestly. This latest generation of Democrats running sanctuary cities and states is following in the footsteps of their slave-owning political ancestors.

Southerners had the approval of 19th-century states’ rights apologists. LA is hiding under the Supreme Court’s Printz v. US of 1997: states and localities can’t be compelled to expend their resources for federal initiatives (i.e., gun background checks). So, what is to be done when city employees are asked to expend work hours to honor a federal subpoena for the taking into custody of illegal immigrants in their jails? Or to prevent the mayor from announcing an ICE sweep before the onset of it – an obstruction of justice – as Oakland’s mayor Libby Schaaf did in 2018 (see #1)?

According to the radical LA city council member Hugo Soto-Martinez on his link at the city’s website back in 2023, city employees would be empowered to obstruct federal immigration authorities “unless it’s legally required” to do otherwise (see #2). I assume that means some kind of judge-approved warrant. The feds will have to have their ducks fully aligned before they will be allowed to enforce federal immigration law in Los Angeles. If a suspect turns violent, it’s a grey area as to whether the city employee is forced to remain a spectator.

These latest firebrands have to be very careful that they aren’t setting the stage for another Gettysburg. The upshot of the first go-around in upsetting the Constitution (1861-5) was that nullification and secession are losers. The 1865 mad dash by federal authorities to bring into custody Jefferson Davis could be repeated this time with Hugo Soto-Martinez’s name on the arrest warrant.

What is a Perp walk - YouTube — Not Hugo Soto-Martinez, but you get the picture.

If the State of California, proudly grasping South Carolina’s brass ring from 1832, interferes in like manner – for they have their own nullification-lite ordinance in SB 54 (see #3) – it too might be forced to choose between their political obsessions and The Constitution. They too, like LA, must tiptoe between noncooperation and obstruction. And, really, is there a practical difference?

Clearly, nullification and sanctuary city have the same purpose which is to thwart the enforcement of federal law. Under Trump, or any sensible chief executive, local caterwauling about the “safety of our residents” can’t work as an excuse for the nation’s people to be obstructed in the enforcement of their laws. This isn’t merely a conflict of jurisdictions. It’s settled: federal immigration powers are exclusively the province of the federal government, period. No state or locality can pick and choose which ones, especially if delegated by The Constitution to the federal government, will be enforced in their jurisdictions.

If certain states and localities are deluded otherwise, there might be more than a few perp walks to a federal detention facility and federal district court. Wouldn’t it be rich to see a manacled Mayor Karen Bass, or the 13 members of the city council, or Gov. Gavin Newsom, or AG Rob Bonta, or the Democrat supermajority in the state legislature in ICE vans on their way to the nearest federal detention facility? Next time, LA and California voters, show signs of a better understanding of your place in our federal system of government. South Carolina and the ten other states of the old Confederacy learned that lesson the hard way. Are you next? You might be in for another “Lost Cause”.

Welcome to the LA Nullification Crisis of 2024.

May be pop art of 3 people and text — Here’s looking at you LA city council

RogerG

Sources:

1. “Oakland’s Mayor Warned Her City Of An ICE Raid. She Doesn’t Regret It.”, Hamed Aleazaz, BuzzFeed News, 12/26/2018, at https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/oaklands-mayor-warned-her-community-about-an-ice-raid-she
2. “What does it mean to be a ‘Sanctuary City’?”, Hugo Soto-Martinez, 3/11/2023, on the City of Los Angeles website, link to Hugo Soto-Martinez, at https://cd13.lacity.gov/news/what-does-it-mean-be-sanctuary-city
3. “California Sanctuary Law Divides State In Fierce Immigration Debate”, Samantha Rafelson et al, NPR, 10/17/2018, at https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/657951176/california-sanctuary-law-divides-state-in-fierce-immigration-debate#:~:text=SB%2054%2C%20called%20the%20California%20Values%20Act%2C%20essentially,law%20and%20other%20cities%20actively%20defying%20the%20state.

October 29, 2021October 29, 2021

A Disturbing Future

What’s in store for us in the not-too-distant future? The tea leaves before us aren’t so encouraging.

Most of the threats to our well-being emanate from our imagination running wild, but the resulting anxiety seriously alters our behaviors. Among the troubling trends is the possibility of hysterics routinely finding a home in government policy. The corresponding shocks to our workaday lives promise an endemic decline in the standard of living. The disruptions in our economic lives foretells disorder in our social, cultural, and religious spheres. Psychologically, we’ll forever be scarred by a gripping fear of contagions and hypothetical health crises. Crises, mostly imaginary, won’t be limited to the next virus. An accelerant for a mindset of terror is seen in the steady drumbeat of more speculative dooms. Our progeny will be swept up in it. In addition, progressive authoritarianism is waiting in the wings which will play havoc with our settled legal and political arrangements. The list may not be long enough, but it’s sufficient to present a vision that should keep you awake at night.

And, just think, we’re doing it to ourselves. No external enemy need apply as agent.

The response to corona pointed the way. A population now inured to mandatory isolations will find it easier to fall in line in regards to more mundane contagions to follow. The flu vaccine is taking on the rhetorical trappings of the COVID vaccine in popular media and public health bureaucracies. Reality could easily follow the rhetoric. Soon, masking, social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and business and school closures could be a recurring feature of life. A society in the perpetual grip of fear is one on the cusp of disintegration . . . or conquest.

Don’t expect an economy to thrive in this condition of instability. Investing for the long term will be replaced by retrenchment – the focus on the protection of life, immediate family, and assets. Hunkering down will be the order of the day, not the rambunctious risk-taking that makes for the economic expansion that is necessary to absorb the coming generations. The uncertainty could set the stage for a revival of medievalism, its increasing isolation, and a corresponding decline in the quality of life.

Look around you. Our quality of life is under stress. Shortages abound either due to hording, a lack of labor, or government’s infatuation with environmentalism’s inbred prejudice against commerce and its energy needs. COVID is the excuse to retard business activity while at the same time bribing much of the workforce to stay home with inflated government benefits.

What happens to the social maturation of children in this atmosphere of isolation? What happens to young adults when dating customs becomes more cumbersome? What then happens to marriage and the birthrate? What happens to family and friends when the holidays are zoomed? And, indeed, for adolescents and young adults, when education is zoomed? Graduating high school seniors at the junior high educational level does not bode well for upward mobility or social peace. Feudal-sized gaps in educational attainment will appear as the richer demographic cohorts utilize their willingness and means to break free of the straitjacketed and zoomed public schools.

Of course, that education will be increasingly festooned with the hysterias-of-the-moment. “Climate change” is at the top of the list. Evidence strongly suggests that “climate change” is happening and man has a role, with the pollution-belching power plants of China and India as the chief suspects: 2.8 billion in combined population, 35% of the world’s total humanity, and developing an affection for air conditioning and upwardly-mobile jobs.

The burning of coal at a Chinese steel plant.

But how much of a role? The widely parroted eco-apocalypse is a stretch to say the least, and any benefits – longer growing season, CO2 as fertilizer – largely ignored. Off-the-shelf mitigations – sun screen, more efficient housing design, natural gas/nuclear/hydro power – are readily available. And all this riding on a projected 1.1° C increase by the end of the century. Even this prognostication is more of a WAG (wild a** guess) or SWAG (affix numbers to the wild a** guess) than anything else. The extent of man’s role, the intensity of impact of GHG (greenhouse gases), and longevity of the temp spike is more up in the air (no pun intended) than is admitted. Yet, it’s hair-on-fire time. And off we go to a mutilation of our way of life, all made more palatable by the opinionated lab coats in the CDC or the University of East Anglia.

The craziness extends beyond a politicized science. The politicized lab is an indicator of the reign of progressive authoritarianism throughout the high status, elite sectors of our society. Much has been written on this. Muscular progressivism has become a status marker and overwhelmingly dominant in top drawer institutions. Society’s upper echelons are an ideological and social monoculture maintained through intermarriage (homogamy) and discrimination. It shows up everywhere from the Ivy League to the campus of Google to the boardrooms of the multinationals to the faculty senate to the newsroom to the people around the broadcast camera and movie studio. It’s ubiquitous and exceedingly stifling.

Prejudice abounds. Surveys from 2019 and 2020 show rising ideological intolerance among the self-designated “better” people; the most perfidious bigotry comes from the much larger progressive-left cohort. Dating sites such as eHarmony show a greater prevalence for partisan affiliations as filters: the left refusing to have romantic relationships with the right in much greater percentages than the other way around.

Not only are student bodies increasingly radical-left but they’ll easily jettison “free speech” for something tyrannically defined as “safety”. The “safety” is a euphemism for the abstracted threats to fashionable and recently-minted victim groups. The threat to that “safety” is the feeling of rejection by the alleged victim from someone simply expressing disbelief for their claim of victimhood and self-description. At this point, “safety” is cover for thought control when it’s translated into speech codes, “safe spaces”, and into curriculum. And today’s twenty-somethings and younger are four-square behind it.

The thinking muddles institutional autonomy and individual autonomy. Popularly elected legislatures and governors are castigated for trying to restrict an institution’s power to trample individual rights at the insistence of a radical student clique. Ironies of all ironies: institutional academic freedom is transmuted into a prohibition of basic individual rights.

The prejudice and bigotry of the young will be carried into their adult lives. Whether it be the classroom, tenure, boardroom, government, or employment, power positions will be the province of the progressive-left. If you want an example of the Kendi’s marriage of prejudice and power, here it is, albeit without the race-obsession. Here’s systemic bigotry staring back at them in the mirror. They have met the enemy and it is them.

What does this mean for our constitutional order? It means a simultaneous mixture of “expert” authoritarianism (meaning more power for people like them) and the dismantlement of hesitant Constitutional institutions such as a conservative Court, the Senate, and Electoral College. Anything is laid waste if it stands athwart the left’s path to the holy land of self-defined “equity”.

NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 25: People march across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers on October 25, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

To make the revolution permanent, unchecked and unassimilated immigration and control of the schools is essential for guaranteeing a pliable electorate. Empowered by a socially engineered electorate, the country’s traditional principles and ideals will end up on the trash heap for this permanent governing class. No more is justice to be fair – i.e., blind and neutral. Lady Justice must peek under her blindfold to grant favorable rulings to people of the right race, genitalia, gender self-designation, or intersectionality (combination) of any of the previous. No more is there to be fealty to equal protection of the laws. Far from it. Awards and penalties are to be assigned by race, et al. Paying heed to the geographical and cultural diversity (real diversity) of the country through federalism or other governing institutions will be discarded for the imposition of a left-wing conformity from an administrative center (DC). Consensual government is transformed into the North Korean kind. Elections will be of the perfunctory type.

Others, many more than I, have raised the alarm. Our world is changing before our eyes, and not in a wholesome way. At root, many of our young people are proving that an education can make you stupid as well as wise. The breadth and depth of understanding of past generations is lacking. In the end, many college graduates manifest the traits of a cult. They have beliefs that are, in essence, unexamined assumptions, unprovable and highly questionable. And to think that this is the generation that threatens to sweep way the legacy of a thousand of years.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

And so, many of you might still say that we have nothing to fear. Really?

RogerG

September 17, 2021September 18, 2021

Should Biden Be Impeached?

The U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3:
“. . . he [President] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed . . . .”

The U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 4:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Presidential Oath of Office:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Drone photo of crowds of illegal immigrants at the International Bridge on the southern border in Texas, Sept. 16, 2021.

President Biden after signing a stack of executive orders shortly after taking office to reverse many of Trump’s actions.

Yes, but he won’t be.

How to rein in the President when occupants from both parties, but particularly the donkey party, have overstepped and shirked their legal responsibilities? Do we have to wait four years to correct the abuse?

Well, no. Impeachment stands at the ready. The Democrats tried it twice in Trump’s one term. They may have debased its utility by frivolous and failed overuse. Yet, it has become commonplace for federal officers throughout the three branches to egregiously overstep their powers while flagrantly ignoring their clear constitutional responsibilities. Most recently, President Biden refuses to enforce the immigration laws. He has, by execute order(s), simply repealed enforcement of the border. That’s a dereliction of a clear compulsory-in-law duty.

Could it qualify as a “high crime” when an elected officer grievously neglects his or her lawfully required responsibility? Biden’s executive orders are a clear violation of the oath of office to “faithfully execute” the constitutional position. You can’t “faithfully execute” if you refuse to do your job. You’re willfully derelict. Willful, persistent dereliction is a willful, persistent violation of the Constitution. “High crime” anyone?

The scenes at the southern border are gut-wrenching for all the people allured by illegal presidential promises to not enforce the law. The human tidal waves passing through without paying heed to legal strictures, while enabling passage throughout the country of said violators, is tantamount to presidential complicity in crimes. This isn’t an indictment based on a phone call or overheated rhetoric at a rally. It is a shredding of the oath and Constitution. What can be a more serious “high crime” than to blatantly violate the highest law?

The donkey party’s abettors of the behavior will try to hang their hat on “prosecutorial discretion”. Where’s the discretion? Is it “discretion” to take an entire class of law and pretend it doesn’t exist? Not only that, but to assist in the violation of the laws? Hardly. It’s the practice of euphemism to provide cover for criminal conduct. “Prosecutorial discretion” turns a bank robbery into an “unauthorized withdrawal”.

It’s time to rethink our obese federal Leviathan. The level of government headquartered in DC has been unhinged from Constitutional moorings for quite some time. Impeachment might be one useful tool to once again align the branches within the bounds of our charter – i.e., return them to legal status.

However, I’m under no illusion that anybody in either party has the stomach for such medicine. We’ll, as before, muddle along and be content with the results of an electorate equally as unhinged as the people they elect. And surveys will continue, as before, to show deep disenchantment with the people they choose.

Pogo in Walt Kelly’s comic strip famously said in 1970, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Kelly meant the statement for the plague of pollution. He’d probably be surprised to learn that Pogo’s quip has a much more robust application.

RogerG