Thursday, November 16, 2023

National Climate (Alarmism) Assessment

 

The Patriot Post® · National Climate (Alarmism) Assessment

By Thomas Gallatin · November 16, 2023
https://patriotpost.us/articles/102189-national-climate-alarmism-assessment-2023-11-16

The sky is falling, but there’s still time to hand over more control of the U.S. economy to a bunch of federal bureaucrats to slow its falling. That in a nutshell summarizes the recently released National Climate Assessment1.

The report, compiled by 14 federal agencies with the input of some 700 scientists, is little other than a climate alarmist’s gospel. Yet the compilers of the twice-a-decade report appear keenly aware that Americans have become less impacted or alarmed by the apocalyptic predictions that never quite materialize.

In an effort to scare Americans into buying the Left’s climate alarmism2, which dubiously and tellingly can only be addressed through ever more government control of the economy, the report warns of the astronomical cost of climate change without massively expensive government intervention.

According to the report, climate change is costing the U.S. economy $150 billion annually. How, exactly? Well, climate change supposedly makes for more severe weather events (except when it doesn’t because they tell us climate change has little to do with the weather), therefore costing Americans even more of their hard-earned cash.

Then again, $150 billion annually is a bargain compared to the Democrats’ desired Green New Deal. That had an original price tag of $93 trillion3 over 10 years.

The climate report also claims4 that “while some economic impacts of climate change are already being felt across the country, the impacts of future changes are projected to be more significant and apparent across the U.S. economy.” Be afraid, folks, because it’s only going to get worse! Droughts, hurricanes, floods, and fires will be rising in frequency — that’s the dire prediction of the climate alarmists.

Never mind the historical data that simply doesn’t back up those alarmist claims. The fact of the matter is that coping with events has always been a reality for humanity. Furthermore, as the climate warms, it actually has benefited humanity in key ways, such as food production.

Another is reducing death. A related study claims that heat-related deaths could quadruple5 without certain “action” on climate change. What they don’t tell you is that cold kills nine times more people6 than heat.

Demonstrating just how woke the National Climate Assessment is, there are entire sections focused on promoting the Left’s favorite issues of diversity and equity. It even has a section ridiculously asserting that indigenous people had developed a holistic earth-friendly culture that can be harnessed to better react to climate change. It’s that old trope that everything was perfect, peaceful, and harmonious in North America before those foolish and reckless white Europeans arrived.

This is not science; it’s a cult.

The report focuses on the inequitable impact of climate change on lower-income people and minorities. When in the history of the world has the climate not had an inequitable impact on people with lower incomes? This is not due to climate change but is purely the economic reality of the haves and the have-nots.

Solomon Hsiang, a lead assessment author and climate economist at the University of California, Berkeley, states the obvious: “The research indicates that people who are lower income have more trouble adapting [to climate change], because adaptation comes at a cost.” He then adds, “If people can’t pay for it, then [they] can’t protect themselves.”

The great irony is that Joe Biden’s administration is making everything cost more via product regulations on everything from stoves to air-conditioners to lightbulbs to vehicles. If it wasn’t for the regulatory commissars making the cost of goods rise, then it would be easier for lower-income Americans to afford to adapt to a changing climate.

The report attempts to connect all of Americans’ lives to climate change, claiming that everything from their emotional well-being to their physical health to their bank accounts are under dire threat thanks to climate change. One of the report’s authors insists that climate affects “every sector of human and natural society.” If that isn’t cultish thinking, then what is?

In the end, the biggest bogeyman is the fossil fuel industry7, which is essentially blamed for everything to the point that the language of social justice is applied as if it’s a battle of good verses evil.

The truth is, without fossil fuels, life on planet earth would be much more difficult. Lives would be shorter and death would be much more common, and all the wonderful technologies that we take for granted, like readily available clean water, would not be possible. Indeed, the actual injustice is the concerted effort by climate cultists to demonize fossil fuels, which still provide the only cost-efficient means for humanity to adapt to a changing climate.

As the climate changes — which it has throughout earth’s history — humans are far better suited to adapt through the free market than under the tyranny of government.

Links

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Imperialism: Lessons From History

 

Imperialism: Lessons From History

By Victor Davis Hanson

Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History, Hillsdale College

 

The following is adapted from a talk delivered on the Regent Seven Seas Mariner on June 30, 2023, during a Hillsdale College educational cruise from Istanbul to Athens.

 

The word “imperialism” comes from the Latin word imperium. It refers to a nation or a state implanting its rule on other states, treating them as subordinates and in an inferior fashion. Some suggest today that America is behaving imperialistically—we do, after all, have some 600 military bases around the world. So it is worth recalling some historical examples of imperialism to understand what the idea entails.

Looking at empires through history, we can identify several things that most of them have in common. One is that their leaders often say or seem to believe that their imperialist policies have little to do with self-interest.

We can see an example of such denial in Pericles’ famous funeral oration as recorded in the second book of Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War. The speech was delivered in 431 B.C., at the height of the Athenian Empire. Athens was expropriating tribute from its subject states and had built the Parthenon, the Propylaea, and soon the Erechtheion on the Acropolis. In other words, the Athenians were diverting a good portion of their allies’ tribute paid to them—which was supposed to be devoted to mutual defense—to enhancing their city. And what does the imperialist leader Pericles have to say of his grand visions? He calls Athens “the school of Hellas” and proclaims that it will enjoy “the admiration of the present and succeeding ages.”

Athens won’t need a poet like Homer to memorialize it, Pericles continues. Why? Because, he says, “we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us.” In other words, Athens is proud of its mission to uplift the other Greek city-states—by force.

Likewise with the Roman Republic and Empire. Caesar went into Gaul in 58 B.C. and in a nine-year period killed perhaps one million Gauls and enslaved another million. And yet in Caesar’s Gallic Wars, and in later Roman literature, we read that Rome brought civilization to Gaul. The elite of Gaul were to wear purple togas, enjoy habeas corpus, and have aqueducts, so it was all for the good.

 Similarly with sixteenth century imperialist Spain, which variously sent a force of 1,500 soldiers into Mexico in 1519 under Hernán Cortés. In two years they destroyed Tenochtitlán, ancient Mexico City, wiping out probably 200,000 people. And was the purpose to gain land, gold, and riches to help in the fight against Protestantism and Islam in Europe? Not exactly, according to Bernal Díaz, who was on the expedition. Rather it was more to convert souls to Christianity and to stamp out sodomy, cannibalism, and human sacrifice. To be sure, the conquest had these effects. But were the death and destruction really all for the sake of the conquered?

“The White Man’s Burden,” a long controversial poem by Rudyard Kipling, published in 1899, was addressed by a citizen of imperial England to the United States, which was currently fighting what many saw as an imperialist war in the Philippines. One of the poem’s stanzas reads, “Take up the White Man’s burden / In patience to abide / To veil the threat of terror / And check the show of pride / By open speech and simple / An hundred times made plain / To seek another’s profit / And work another’s gain.” This sense of duty sums up the common imperialist mindset: imperialism is a burden, undertaken reluctantly and for the good of the uncivilized. There is little self-serving about it.

Another trait empires have in common is obviously their dependence for enforcement on some type of superior military power—most often a navy. True, the Spartans controlled a land empire, as did the Soviet Union; but those empires were confined with self-imposed limitations. If a state becomes a naval power, as Alfred Thayer Mahan pointed out in his classic works on the influence of sea power on history, then it can move troops around to the rear of an enemy, impose boycotts, or modulate trade and supplies to help allies or hurt recalcitrant colonies.

The greatest empires have always been maritime. The Mediterranean, which the Romans referred to as mare nostrum or “our sea,” has been the seat of empires throughout history because of its geography—it is a convenient sea for imperialists in the middle of three land masses. The British Empire, of course, was entirely a result of British naval superiority.

A third characteristic empires share in common—perhaps the most interesting and thoughtworthy—is that for all the supposed advantages to be had through imperial rule, a historical case can be made that it has never quite penciled out. The costs of control seem to outweigh the benefits, even though—human nature being what it is—the imperialists tend to be oblivious to the expenses, perhaps because of the power and grandeur that come with empire.

One reason imperial policy seems superficially advantageous in terms of costs and benefits is the seduction of absolute power, as implied by the Caledonian (Scottish) nationalist Calgacus in 85 A.D. As recounted in Tacitus’s history, Calgacus complains of the Romans in addressing his troops: “To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace.” In other words, if imperial powers can’t conquer a country and bring it into the fold peacefully, they wipe it out as a signal to others. So much for benefits to either the imperialist power or its subjects.

One corollary to the unprofitability of empire is that it tends to corrupt the character of the imperial power.

The Athenian Empire was based on the idealism of 180 subject city-states being offered the advantages of democracy. City-states conquered by Athens were required to become democracies—and what can be wrong with that?

But in 415 B.C., a large Athenian naval force went to the island of Melos and demanded that the Melians submit and begin paying tribute. Thucydides recounts what ensued, the famous Melian Dialogue, in the fifth book of his history: You’re either with us or against us, the Athenians threatened, and if you are against us we will destroy you. The Melians countered that they should be able to remain free and to maintain neutrality in Athens’ war with Sparta. The Athenians rejected the idea of neutrality. The Melians further argued that destroying Melos would result in anti-Athenian sentiment in Greece. The Athenians replied that it would instead result in fear and awe at Athens’ power. In the end, the Melians refused to submit. Following a siege, the Athenians massacred the adult men of Melos and enslaved the women and children.

As an aside, when I was 18 and just beginning my study of the classics, I was astonished when I read in Thucydides that when the Peloponnesian War broke out, most of the Greeks wanted Sparta to win. Was not Athens a democracy and Sparta an oligarchy? Athens was the home of Socrates, Pericles, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, and Sophocles. Sparta was rural and backward with no navy or beautiful temples or walls. It represented Doric severity as opposed to the Ionic cosmopolitanism of Athens. Why would the Greeks prefer that Sparta win? I didn’t understand the anomaly when I was 18, but the simple answer soon became clear: Sparta was not then imperial—or at least not as imperial as Athens. Empires like to think of themselves as having a lot of friends, but they are often naive in forgetting the depth of the ill-will they incur.

As if the destruction of Melos wasn’t enough to show the hubristic corruption of imperial Athens, the following summer, Athens sent a force of 40,000 troops to Syracuse to conquer or destroy the largest democracy in the Greek world. The Sicilian Expedition, as it came to be known, was a complete disaster. Thucydides says at the end of his seventh book, “they were destroyed, as the saying is, with a total destruction, their fleet, their army—everything was destroyed, and few out of many returned home.” For all practical purposes—although the Peloponnesian War would go on for another nine years—the Sicilian debacle marked the end of the Athenian Empire and illustrated the follies of unchecked imperialism.

It can be argued that the Roman Republic underwent a similar kind of imperial corruption. In historian Arnold Toynbee’s two-volume work, Hannibal’s Legacy, he argued that the period in which Rome fought the three Punic Wars—an era during which Rome achieved mastery of almost the entire Western Mediterranean—was ultimately calamitous for Rome because it undermined Rome’s republican habits, virtues, and character.

The Roman people, Toynbee argued, especially the independent yeoman farmers, were sent off for long periods to fight as legionaries in places like Spain and Numidia (present day Libya). Their places were taken by some two million slaves from conquered provinces who were shipped back to Italy. Huge amounts of money extracted from conquered lands poured into Italy and enriched an elite class, whose members consolidated the farms of the soldiers who were fighting abroad and forged them into large estates worked by slaves.

In time the troops overseas—whose successes had been due to the Italian virtues of hard work, independence, autonomy, and agrarianism that one sees emphasized in Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics—became accustomed to plunder. When Carthage finally fell in 146 B.C., its population of 50,000 (down from 500,000) was enslaved, and the city was razed to its foundations. That same year the Romans looted and destroyed Corinth, the cultural capital of Greece.

The Rome of Virgil, Catullus, the younger Cato, and Cicero was now busy obliterating defeated cities that posed little threat to Rome’s security. The success that made Rome an empire, Toynbee argued, destroyed Rome by degrading the elements that made it great. Toynbee may not have been right in every respect, but there are certainly parts of his argument that ring true about corrupting the center through incorporating the periphery or diluting a republic by imperial ambitions.

This might remind us also of Britain, whose empire probably reached its peak sometime between 1850 and 1860. But if we read Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, published in 1852, we see that at the heart of the empire in London, there were vast numbers of people who were in poor-houses at the same time the country was spending its resources far and wide on its great imperial civilizing mission.

This in turn might make us think of present day San Francisco, where people are injecting themselves with drugs, fornicating, urinating, and defecating on the streets, and downtown businesses are closing in large numbers; or Chicago, where the murder and crime rates are making life there unbearable for so many. Our major cities are going to rot at the same time we are pledged to giving $120 billion to Ukraine, already making its military budget the third largest in the world.

And the decay goes beyond the large cities. Think of those gruesome scenes in East Palestine, Ohio, after the train crash that enveloped the town in a toxic chemical cloud. East Palestine is full of working-class people whom few of our establishment political leaders were willing to go visit. The people of East Palestine form the demographic that died at twice the numbers of the general population in our overseas wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet few in our leadership class—many of whom had made one or more recent trips around the world to Ukraine to visit the Ukrainian people and pose for photos with Mr. Zelensky—went to East Palestine. I don’t know if one can properly call the United States an imperialist power, but this phenomenon of neglected and hollowed-out cores coupled with widespread overseas investments and commitments tends to be characteristic of empires.

Looking outward, we can see two clear manifestations of imperialism today. One is the Chinese brand of imperialism. China de facto now controls 15 of the major ports in the world—ports that the Chinese have leased, rebuilt, and refashioned. The Chinese are very farsighted, so these ports are not just random acquisitions. They control the Panama Canal. They monitor the entry into the Mediterranean at Tangiers and the exit at Port Said. The two largest ports in Europe, Antwerp and Rotterdam, are in the hands of the Chinese, as are the artificial islands in the South China Sea, a gateway for 50 percent of global oceanic traffic.

In other words, the Chinese control 15 points at which, in a global crisis, they will be able to shut off trade and access to commercial goods, oil, and food, not to mention the influence they have gained over local governments. China has also invested in concessions of rare earth mining, oil, and other natural resources in Africa. And due to the naive policies of the current U.S. administration, the Chinese are developing very close ties not only with Iran, but also with Saudi Arabia.

China today is creating something very much like the British Empire, although the Chinese are more like the imperialists of the Ottoman Empire than those of the British, in that they are neither apologetic nor shy about what they are doing. If the Chinese have an imperial enclave in Africa, they rope it off and don’t allow Africans nearby. Nor do they allow colonial peoples, for the most part, to go to Beijing and be educated or integrated. Like the Ottomans who conquered Constantinople in 1453, China has a monolithic culture and makes no apologies for its ambition to be a global imperial power.

The other imperial power we see on the rise today is more insidious. George Orwell’s nightmare dystopia in 1984 was a world in which there were no nation-states, but rather three powers wielding absolute control over three land masses into which everyone had been aggregated. Something like this is the dream of Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum and his fellow globalists (many of them American) who meet annually in Davos. Their vision is of a transnational ruling class, consisting of elites drawn mostly from the business, political, media, and academic worlds, with the power to issue edicts on climate change, public health, diversity, human rights, and even taxes, that override the will of national majorities.

If Chinese imperialism follows the tradition of the Ottoman Empire, the globalist vision of Davos imperialism is in the tradition of utopian empires gone astray. I think of Alexander the Great, who fought his first great battle with the Persians in 334 B.C. at Granicus on the coast of Asia Minor. When he died a decade later, he had probably killed over two million people in creating what he envisioned as an everlasting Hellenistic age based on an idea of the brotherhood of man. Alexander never thought of himself as a mere killer. He was an idealistic conqueror. And to this day, if you were to go to Greece and criticize Alexander, you would earn a hostile reaction. Alexander was an effective propagandist, as is the Davos crowd with their argument that the totalitarian rule they want to impose is for our benefit and the larger brotherhood of man.

Let me close by saying that in 1897, Rudyard Kipling was asked to present a poem at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, marking her 60th year as queen. The British Empire, admittedly the most civilizing and humane of any empire in history, was in full bloom—it had 420 million people under its sway and covered 12 million square miles of territory, seven times the area of the Roman Empire. Kipling originally planned to present “The White Man’s Burden” at the event, but he decided instead to present “Recessional,” a bleak poem that includes this stanza: “Far-called, our navies melt away / On dune and headland sinks the fire / Lo, all our pomp of yesterday / Is one with Nineveh and Tyre / Judge of the Nations, spare us yet / Lest we forget—lest we forget!”

“Recessional” is a poem of lamentation in which Kipling, known to be a great supporter of the British Empire, seems to be warning that it is destined to fail. Maybe he had been studying history.

Sunday, March 12, 2023

A Perfect Economic Storm

 

A Perfect Economic Storm

The Great Depression, a worldwide economic collapse that began in 1929 and lasted roughly a decade.

 

Vulnerabilities in the Global Economy

In the 1920s, nations bounced back from the disruption and destruction caused by World War I, with factories and farms producing again, Richardson notes. But the nature of the economy in the United States and elsewhere shifted, as ordinary consumers buying durable goods such as appliances and cars—often on credit—became more and more important.

 Financial Speculation

Investors increasingly bought stocks on margin, in which they put down as little as 10 percent of the price of a stock, and borrowed the rest of the money, with their stock itself as collateral. Corporate stocks soared, and brokers made huge commissions.

But the bubble eventually had to burst. It did that on Black Monday, October 28, 1929, when the Dow Jones average declined nearly 13 percent in one day. That started a period of catastrophic declines that destroyed almost half of the Dow’s value in a single month. By 1932, at the nadir of the financial crisis, the nation’s public companies had lost 89 percent of their value.

Blunders by the Fed

The Federal Reserve System, created in 1913, was supposed to ensure the nation’s economic stability by controlling the money supply. But the still-new institution’s policies in the 1920s not only failed to stop the Great Depression, but to cause it. There was a drastic 67 percent increase in the money supply between 1921 and 1929.

But eventually, in 1929, the Fed’s board worried that speculation was out of control, and abruptly slammed on the breaks by contracting the money supply and raising interest rates. The Fed’s move to cool the stock market worked a little too well. “They got the stock market to come down, but then it came down a lot, and it came down very quickly.

After the Wall Street crash, nervous investors began to trade their dollars for gold.

The Fed then moved to jack up interest rates higher to protect the dollar’s value. But those high interest rates made it difficult for businesses to borrow money that they needed to survive, and many ended up closing their doors instead.

The Smoot-Hawley Act

Trade protectionists in Congress enacted the Smoot-Hawley Act, which was written in early 1929, while the economy still seemed to be going strong. But after the Wall Street Crash weakened the economy, President Hoover still signed it into law in 1930. The law raised U.S. tariffs by an average of 16 percent, to shield American factories from competition with foreign countries’ lower-priced goods. But the move backfired when other countries put tariffs on U.S. exports.

In The End

The unlucky thing was that all those factors combined in a sort of perfect economic storm, whose devastating effects had long-lasting repercussions. As Richardson notes, the U.S. economy didn’t again reach full employment until 1940—just in time for World War II

The Great Depression Legacy – The New Deal

The New Deal did more than attempt to stabilize the economy, provide relief to jobless Americans, and create previously unheard-of safety net programs, as well as regulate the private sector. It also reshaped the role of government, with programs that are now part of the fabric of American society.

Enter The Administrative State (aka Communism)

We often think about our government in many ways. However, with the emergence of the Administrative State, the government is involved in every part of citizen’s lives:

  1. U.S. Department of Agriculture
  2. U.S. Department of Commerce
  3. U.S. Department of Defense
  4. U.S. Department of Education
  5. U.S. Department of Energy
  6. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
  7. U.S. Department of Homeland Security
  8. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
  9. U.S. Department of Justice
  10. U.S. Department of Labor
  11. U.S. Department of State
  12. U.S. Department of the Interior
  13. U.S. Department of the Treasury
  14. U.S. Department of Transportation
  15. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Sunday, January 8, 2023

The Coup We Never Knew

 

The Coup We Never Knew

Victor Davis Hanson Jan 05, 2023

 


Did someone or something seize control of the United States?

What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did President Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased?

Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent of dirty coal? How did prized natural gas that had granted America's wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, and which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas - furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices' homes, with placards declaring "Off with their d--s"?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?

When did we assume the FBI had the right to subvert the campaign of a candidate it disliked? Was it legal suddenly for one presidential candidate to hire a foreign ex-spy to subvert the campaign of her rival?

Was some state or federal law passed that allowed biological males to compete in female sports? Did Congress enact such a law? Did the Supreme Court guarantee that biological male students could shower in gym locker rooms with biological women? Were women ever asked to redefine the very sports they had championed?

When did the government pass a law depriving Americans of their freedom during a pandemic? In America can health officials simply cancel rental contracts or declare loan payments in suspension? How could it become illegal for mom-and-pop stores to sell flowers or shoes during quarantine but not so for Walmart or Target?

Since when did the people decide that 70 percent of voters would not cast their ballots on Election Day? Was this revolutionary change the subject of a national debate, a heated congressional session, or the votes of dozens of state legislatures?

What happened to Election Night returns? Did the fact that Americans created more electronic ballots and computerized tallies make it take so much longer to tabulate the votes?

When did the nation abruptly decide that theft is not a crime, and assault is not a felony? How can thieves walk out with bags of stolen goods, without the wrath of angry shoppers, much less fear of the law?

Was there ever a national debate about the terrifying flight from Afghanistan? Who planned it and why?

What happened to the once-trusted FBI? Why almost overnight did its directors decide to mislead Congress, to deceive judges with concocted tales from fake dossiers and with doctored writs? Did Congress pass a law that our federal leaders in the FBI or CIA could lie with impunity under oath?

Who redefined our military and with whose consent? Who proclaimed that our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could call his Chinese Communist counterpart to warn him that America's president was supposedly unstable? Was it always true that retired generals routinely labeled their commander-in-chief as a near Nazi, a Mussolini, an adherent of the tools of Auschwitz?

Were Americans ever asked whether their universities could discriminate against their sons and daughters based on their race? How did it become physically dangerous to speak the truth on campus? Whose idea was it to reboot racial segregation and bias as "theme houses," "safe spaces," and "diversity"? How did that happen in America?

How did a virus cancel the Constitution? Did the lockdowns rob us of our sanity? Or was it the woke hysteria that ignited our collective madness?

We are beginning to wake up from a nightmare of a country we no longer recognize, and from a coup, we never knew.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of "The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won," from Basic Books. You can reach him by emailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

 

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

545 vs. 300,000,000 People- by Charlie Reese

 545 vs. 300,000,000 People- by Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

·       You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations.

·       The House of Representatives does.

·       You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

·       You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

·       You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million who are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.  They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses, provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! What you do with this article now that you have read it... is up to you.

1. Accounts Receivable Tax

2. Building Permit Tax

3. CDL license Tax

4. Cigarette Tax

5. Corporate Income Tax

6. Dog License Tax

7. Excise Taxes

8. Federal Income Tax

9. Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)

10. Fishing License Tax

11. Food License Tax

12. Fuel Permit Tax

13. Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)

14. Gross Receipts Tax

15. Hunting License Tax

16. Inheritance Tax

17.Inventory Tax

18. IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)

19. Liquor Tax

20. Luxury Taxes

21. Marriage License Tax

22. Medicare Tax

23. Personal Property Tax

24. Property Tax

25. Real Estate Tax

26. Service Charge Tax

27. Social Security Tax

28. Road Usage Tax

29. Recreational Vehicle Tax

30. Sales Tax

31. School Tax

32. State Income Tax

33. State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)

34. Telephone Federal Excise Tax

35. Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax

36. Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes

37. Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax

38. Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax

39. Telephone State and Local Tax

40. Telephone Usage Charge Tax

41. Utility Taxes

42. Vehicle License Registration Tax

43. Vehicle Sales Tax

44. Watercraft Registration Tax

45. Well Permit Tax

46. Workers Compensation Tax

 

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, when our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

Monday, November 14, 2022

A Winning GOP Strategy

 

A Winning GOP Strategy

 Let me say at the outset that Trump is our man and clearly did phenomenal things while in office! Should he be the next president? I would like that as much as many others. What follows, is a perspective that it may be best for our country that Trump we love should not run. Hold on! Before you stop reading, let’s at least examine why this may be the best possible choice for our country.

 The fizzle of the hoped-for red wave likely has a rational that you, I, and others will not like, but is likely true. Let’s look at what that might be?

 The thesis is there are huge numbers of people that:

  •   Fear Trump
  •  and an equally large group that Hate Trump.
  • If that were not bad enough, the media taps into both and hammers Trump relentlessly. This along with the Hollywood elite!

 That is what we call “the harsh reality!” Why? Because we don’t want it to be true! Is it fair to our hero Donald Trump? No! Is it fair to us? No! Regardless, we (Patriots) must accept it to deal with it. If we do not, we will see a disaster in 2024 like 2022 midterms.

 Consider if Trump runs again, it is highly likely the same strategy of “fear and hate” will be used!

  •  Be fearful of Trump; he will take away your Socialist benefits!
  •  Hate Trump; he will end your Globalist ideals!
  •   All of that, while the media and the Hollywood Elite pile on!
    •  Filling the airwaves with what the average American consumes.

 Can a powerful Conservative strategy overcome the above? I say yes!

 Possible Considerations:

  •          Trump leads the MAGA movement and leads the party. Trump can mobilize the base like no one else!
  •          Run a strong MAGA candidate for President. No appeasement to moderates!
  •          Use MAGA accomplishments and policies against the Socialist Democrat failures! Be bold and be clear: “Make America Great Again!”

 Accepting the “Harsh Reality” is never easy. Refusal to do so always produces disastrous consequences. So, we must start a new winning strategy for winning in 2024 now!

Friday, November 11, 2022

Warnock Corruption Exposed!

Corruption! Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) has managed to double his salary since joining Congress.

Not only has he done that, but he is playing games with how he classifies his income to keep the money train rolling.

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