Buchanan: -The time to stop is before the War Party has us in a Mideast war ~That time is now!

 

Is Trump Enlisting in the War Party?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

 

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Tuesday - April 10, 2017

By firing off five dozen Tomahawk missiles at a military airfield, our "America First" president may have plunged us into another Middle East war that his countrymen do not want to fight.

Thus far Bashar Assad seems unintimidated. Brushing off the strikes, he has defiantly gone back to bombing the rebels from the same Shayrat air base that the U.S. missiles hit.

Trump "will not stop here," warned U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Sunday. "If he needs to do more, he will."

If Trump fails to back up Haley's threat, the hawks now cheering him on will begin deriding him as "Donald Obama."

But if he throbs to the war drums of John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio and orders Syria's air force destroyed, we could be at war not only with ISIS and al-Qaida, but with Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.

A Syrian war would consume Trump's presidency.

Are we ready for that? How would we win such a war without raising a large army and sending it back into the Middle East?

Another problem: Trump's missile attack was unconstitutional. Assad had not attacked or threatened us, and Congress, which alone has the power to authorize war on Syria, has never done so.

Indeed, Congress denied President Obama that specific authority in 2013.

What was Trump thinking? Here was his strategic rational:

"When you kill innocent children, innocent babies — babies, little babies — with a chemical gas ... that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line. ... And I will tell you, that attack on children yesterday had a big impact on me ... my attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much."

Two days later, Trump was still emoting: "Beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror."

Now, that gas attack was an atrocity, a war crime, and pictures of its tiny victims are heart-rending. But 400,000 people have died in Syria's civil war, among them thousands of children and infants.

Have they been killed by Assad's forces? Surely, but also by U.S., Russian, Israeli and Turkish planes and drones — and by Kurds, Iranians, Hezbollah, al-Qaida, ISIS, U.S.-backed rebels and Shiite militia.

Assad is battling insurgents and jihadists who would slaughter his Alawite brethren and the Christians in Syria just as those Copts were massacred in Egypt on Palm Sunday. Why is Assad more responsible for all the deaths in Syria than those fighting to overthrow and kill him?
 

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Are we certain Assad personally ordered a gas attack on civilians?

For it makes no sense. Why would Assad, who is winning the war and had been told America was no longer demanding his removal, order a nerve gas attack on children, certain to ignite America's rage, for no military gain?

Like the gas attack in 2013, this has the marks of a false flag operation to stampede America into Syria's civil war.

And as in most wars, the first shots fired receive the loudest cheers. But if the president has thrown in with the neocons and War Party, and we are plunging back into the Mideast maelstrom, Trump should know that many of those who helped to nominate and elect him — to keep us out of unnecessary wars — may not be standing by him.

We have no vital national interest in Syria's civil war. It is those doing the fighting who have causes they deem worth dying for.

For ISIS, it is the dream of a caliphate. For al-Qaida, it is about driving the Crusaders out of the Dar al Islam. For the Turks, it is, as always, about the Kurds.

For Assad, this war is about his survival and that of his regime. For Putin, it is about Russia remaining a great power and not losing its last naval base in the Med. For Iran, this is about preserving a land bridge to its Shiite ally Hezbollah. For Hezbollah it is about not being cut off from the Shiite world and isolated in Lebanon.

Because all have vital interests in Syria, all have invested more blood in this conflict than have we. And they are not going to give up their gains or goals in Syria and yield to the Americans without a fight.

And if we go to war in Syria, what would we be fighting for?

A New World Order? Democracy? Separation of mosque and state? Diversity? Free speech for Muslim heretics? LGBT rights?

In 2013, a great national coalition came together to compel Congress to deny Barack Obama authority to take us to war in Syria.

We are back at that barricade. An after-Easter battle is shaping up in Congress on the same issue: Is the president authorized to take us into war against Assad and his allies inside Syria?

If, after Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, we do not want America in yet another Mideast war, the time to stop it is before the War Party has us already in it. That time is now.

 

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Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Benjamin Franklin: “The way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality. That is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 24). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Mellon, true to form, had focused on allowing businesses to work on their own, which to him meant reducing taxes.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 31). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

He did not see taxation as a moral matter. Taxes were a practical thing: a tax was a price. And one could only charge “what the traffic will bear,” as he put it, drawing on a metaphor from his own railroad freight days. When a government overtaxed, it hurt itself, for it got less revenue. Taxes that were too high, Mellon noted, simply were not paid.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 31). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

In this period, the first half of the 1920s, both Mellon and Hoover published books codifying their philosophies. The austere Mellon gave his an unexpectedly populist title: Taxation: The People’s Business. In it he laid out the theories of his fellow Scot Adam Smith to justify his program of continued tax-cutting.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 33). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The government is just a business.” The lesson of the book was simple: people responded to tax rates, and lower rates might promote growth in the 1920s and pull in higher revenues for government. The whole idea of overtaxation was to Mellon un-American. “Any man of energy and initiative in this country can get what he wants out of life. But when initiative is crippled by legislation or by a tax system which denies him the right to receive a reasonable share of his earnings, then he will no longer exert himself and the country will be deprived of the energy on which its continued greatness depends.” When failure attended business, after all, noted Mellon, “the loss is borne by the adventurer.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (pp. 33-34). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

...municipal bonds were bad because they deprived the Treasury of revenue. The better philosophy was to lower rates over all. Mellon also disliked other tax loopholes,

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 34). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Hoover gave his book a title similar to Mellon’s— American Individualism. But the text, like Hoover’s work, was distinct. Hoover rejected the old brand of absolute individualism and disdained laissez-faire economics as “theoretic and emotional.” Private property, he also said, was “not a fetich” for Americans.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 34). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Hoover: America must move toward regulation: “Our mass of regulation of public utilities and our legislation against restraint of trade is the monument to our intent to preserve an equality of opportunity,”


Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 34). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The supposedly cold Coolidge heartily approved of Mellon’s tax policy, saying that “the wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful.” Mellon, with Coolidge’s support, reduced the national debt from $ 24 billion to $ 16 billion. He did away with the excess-profits tax— it was wrong to say that profits were excessive anyhow, when they created the work. Negotiating past the progressive George Norris, he put through the Revenue Act of 1926,

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 37). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

more importantly, was the average real wage, solid evidence that a tax cut for the rich was also good for Henry Ford’s worker. The after-inflation earnings of employees grew 16 percent from 1923 to 1929. Revenues continued to flow in just as the treasury secretary had so pointedly predicted. Mellon was managing to balance the budget and to reduce the staff of tax officials at the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 38). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Matters were different when it came to Hoover. Coolidge understood the political success of the beneficent hand, but he did not believe in it. Man himself, he would write toward the end of the 1920s, was after all “but an instrument in the hands of God.” More and more Coolidge was thinking of God— in 1924, his son Calvin got a blister on his toe playing tennis on the South Lawn of the White House, and in those prepenicillin days, the blister brought on an infection that killed him. This tragedy made Coolidge brittle, impatient, and irritable, and one of the people who irritated him was the persistent Hoover, so different from Mellon. Where the president eschewed technology, Hoover was always playing with it. Coolidge also hated Hoover’s tendency to react to news with grand, intrusive plans. Could not Hoover see where some of his rescues had led? At one point later on, the minimalist president Calvin Coolidge concluded quite simply that “that man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 38). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

 Beyond grief lay Coolidge’s accurate perception that in the 1920s Mellon’s and his own policies were yielding the good that the men had predicted. Today we estimate that the highest level of unemployment under President Coolidge had been 5 percent in the year he was elected. From there it dropped to 3.2 percent in 1925 and then into the twos and ones. Citizens could afford all the new products. There was nothing bubbly about the potential for productivity gains.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (pp. 38-39). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

with Edison, now just on the brink of retirement. It contained the following exchange: NYT: “Do you think President Coolidge will be renominated and reelected?” Edison: “He ought to be.” Still, evaluating the specific worth of Mellon’s contribution or Coolidge’s reticence remained hard for most. Only a few favored Mellon over Hoover as Coolidge did. To the rest of the country Mellon was a distant figure. To the farmers, he was even the enemy; his gold standard kept grain prices low.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 44). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Coolidge was increasingly perplexed. As Hoover later recorded, the two had discovered that there was no getting around the essential difference in their philosophy: “One of his sayings was, ‘If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you and you have to battle with only one of them.’… The trouble with this philosophy was that when the tenth trouble reached him he was wholly unprepared, and it had by that time acquired such momentum that it spelled disaster.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (pp. 45-46). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Coolidge now had a problem. If he didn’t want Hoover to supplant him, he didn’t necessarily want to stay either. “It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly and for the most part sincerely assured of their greatness,” he would write shortly after leaving the presidency.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 46). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

 Coolidge made a thoughtful argument against long service in the job, noting that “the presidential office is of such a nature that it is difficult to conceive how one man can successfully serve the country for a term of more than eight years.” Too often, the man became the office. He did not want to be such a man.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 46). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

That same summer, the summer of 1927, Coolidge issued a short statement: “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.” There was coyness there— what if there were no choice, and candidacy were foisted upon him? But with each month it became clearer that he would indeed leave the presidency after his five and a half years. It was another of Coolidge’s acts of refraining, his last and greatest. And again, it opened a door for Hoover.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 46). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Coolidge on Hoover: At one point later on, the minimalist president Calvin Coolidge concluded quite simply that “that man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad.” He had a nickname for Hoover: “Wonder Boy.”
The differences between Hoover and Coolidge: The only party as alienated as they were was Calvin Coolidge, who at first bridled at Hoover’s request that a battleship be placed at his disposal so that he might cruise the coast of Latin America in the long interregnum. Take a cruiser, Coolidge said, “it would not cost so much.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 81). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 38). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
 

In 1925 Coolidge summed up his philosophy, telling the American Society of Newspaper Editors that “the chief ideal of the American people is idealism.” But he also offered a counterpart to that: “The chief business of the American people is business." It was the latter line that was remembered, and proved too moderate for some. They shortly altered it to the now better-known phrase “the business of America is business.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 20). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Coolidge heartily approved of Mellon’s tax policy, saying that “the wise and correct course to follow in taxation and all other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which every one will have a better chance to be successful.” Mellon, with Coolidge’s support, reduced the national debt from $ 24 billion to $ 16 billion. He did away with the excess-profits tax— it was wrong to say that profits were excessive anyhow, when they created the work.

Today we estimate that the highest level of unemployment under President Coolidge had been 5 percent in the year he was elected. From there it dropped to 3.2 percent in 1925 and then into the twos and ones. Citizens could afford all the new products. There was nothing bubbly about the potential for productivity gains.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 39). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Benjamin Franklin: “The way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality. That is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 24). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

This was the era of democracy; the era of the republic was passing. “In fact,” Roosevelt said, “in these last four years, we have made the exercise of all power more democratic; for we have begun to bring private autocratic powers into their proper subordination to the public’s government.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 299). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

For, as Roosevelt put it, “evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 299). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

 What the interviewers observed especially was that Muncie’s citizens were unhappy at receiving two opposing lessons from governments. The first might be labeled: “Saving— the Private Man’s Only Safeguard.” The second was “Spending— the Nation’s Hope.” The citizens had trouble squaring those two ideals, and the contradiction made them anxious.

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (p. 332). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

 Was a liberal merely a left progressive? Or was a liberal someone who believed in liberalism in the classic sense, in the primacy of the individual and his freedom? Willkie railed against Roosevelt’s “philosophy of distributed scarcity.” And he argued, speaking of both the United States and Europe, that it was “from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power… “American liberalism does not consist merely in reforming things. It consists also in making things. The ability to grow, the ability to make things.” Redistribution was a loser’s game: “I am a liberal because I believe that in our industrial age there is no limit to the productive capacity of any man.” Growth, not government action, would lift the United States out of its troubles: “I say that we must substitute for the philosophy of distributed scarcity the philosophy of unlimited productivity. I stand for the restoration of full production and reemployment by private enterprise in America.”

Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man (pp. 374-375). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Is a Trump-Putin Detente Dead? By Patrick J. Buchanan

Is a Trump-Putin Detente Dead?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

 

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Tuesday - February 21, 2017

Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that he read the nation and the world better than his rivals.

He saw the surging power of American nationalism at home, and of ethnonationalism in Europe. And he embraced Brexit.

While our bipartisan establishment worships diversity, Trump saw Middle America recoiling from the demographic change brought about by Third World invasions. And he promised to curb them.

While our corporatists burn incense at the shrine of the global economy, Trump went to visit the working-class casualties. And those forgotten Americans in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, responded.

And while Bush II and President Obama plunged us into Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Trump saw that his countrymen wanted to be rid of the endless wars, and start putting America first.

He offered a new foreign policy. Mitt Romney notwithstanding, said Trump, Putin's Russia is not "our number one geopolitical foe."

Moreover, that 67-year-old NATO alliance that commits us to go to war to defend two dozen nations, not one of whom contributes the same share of GDP as do we to national defense, is "obsolete."

Many of these folks are freeloaders, said Trump. He hopes to work with Russia against our real enemies, al-Qaida and ISIS.

This was the agenda Americans voted for. But what raises doubt about whether Trump can follow through on his commitments is the size and virulence of the anti-Trump forces in this city.

Consider his plan to pursue a rapprochement with Russia such as Ike, JFK at American University, Nixon and Reagan all pursued in a Cold War with a far more menacing Soviet Empire.

America's elites still praise FDR for partnering with one of the great mass murderers of human history, Stalin, to defeat Hitler. They still applaud Nixon for going to China to achieve a rapprochement with the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century, Mao Zedong.

Yet Trump is not to be allowed to achieve a partnership with Putin, whose great crime was a bloodless retrieval of a Crimea that had belonged to Russia since the 18th century.

The anti-Putin paranoia here is astonishing.

That he is a killer, a KGB thug, a murderer, is part of the daily rant of John McCain. At the Munich Security Conference this last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham promised, "2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress." How's that for statesmanship.

But how does a president negotiate a modus vivendi with a rival great power when the leaders of his own party are sabotaging him and his efforts?
 

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As for the mainstream media, they appear bent upon the ruin of Trump, and the stick with which they mean to beat him to death is this narrative:

Trump is the Siberian Candidate, the creature of Putin and the Kremlin. His ties to the Russians are old and deep. It was to help Trump that Russia hacked the DNC and the computer of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, and saw to it WikiLeaks got the emails out to the American people during the campaign. Trump's people secretly collaborated with Russian agents.

Believing Putin robbed Hillary Clinton of the presidency, Democrats are bent on revenge — on Putin and Trump.

And the epidemic of Russophobia makes it almost impossible to pursue normal relations. Indeed, in reaction to the constant attacks on them as poodles of Putin, the White House seems to be toughening up toward Russia.

Thus we see U.S. troops headed for Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, NATO troops being sent into the Baltic States, and new tough rhetoric from the White House about Russia having to restore Crimea to Ukraine. We read of Russian spy ships off the coast, Russian planes buzzing U.S. warships in the Black Sea, Russians deploying missiles outlawed by the arms control agreement of 1987.

An Ohio-class U.S. sub just test-fired four Trident missiles, which carry thermonuclear warheads, off the Pacific coast.

Any hope of cutting a deal for a truce in east Ukraine, a lifting of sanctions, and bringing Russia back into Europe seems to be fading.

Where Russians saw hope with Trump's election, they are now apparently yielding to disillusionment and despair.

The question arises: If not toward better relations with Russia, where are we going with this bellicosity?

Russia is not going to give up Crimea. Not only would Putin not do it, the Russian people would abandon him if he did.

What then is the end goal of this bristling Beltway hostility to Putin and Russia, and the U.S.-NATO buildup in the Baltic and Black Sea regions? Is a Cold War II with Russia now an accepted and acceptable reality?

Where are the voices among Trump's advisers who will tell him to hold firm against the Russophobic tide and work out a deal with the Russian president?

For a second cold war with Russia, its back up against a wall, may not end quite so happily as the first.
 

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Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book: The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority

 

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Putin .... wants Russia and her rights as a great power respected.

Can Trump and Putin Avert Cold War II?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Tuesday - January 3, 2017

In retaliation for the hacking of John Podesta and the DNC, Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and ordered closure of their country houses on Long Island and Maryland's Eastern shore.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that 35 U.S. diplomats would be expelled. But Vladimir Putin stepped in, declined to retaliate at all, and invited the U.S. diplomats in Moscow and their children to the Christmas and New Year's party at the Kremlin.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger," reads Proverbs 15:1. "Great move," tweeted President-elect Trump, "I always knew he was very smart!"

Among our Russophobes, one can almost hear the gnashing of teeth.

Clearly, Putin believes the Trump presidency offers Russia the prospect of a better relationship with the United States. He appears to want this, and most Americans seem to want the same. After all, Hillary Clinton, who accused Trump of being "Putin's puppet," lost.

Is then a Cold War II between Russia and the U.S. avoidable?

That question raises several others.

Who is more responsible for both great powers having reached this level of animosity and acrimony, 25 years after Ronald Reagan walked arm-in-arm with Mikhail Gorbachev through Red Square? And what are the causes of the emerging Cold War II?

Comes the retort: Putin has put nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania.

True, but who began this escalation?
 

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George W. Bush was the one who trashed Richard Nixon's ABM Treaty and Obama put anti-missile missiles in Poland. After invading Iraq, George W. Bush moved NATO into the Baltic States in violation of a commitment given to Gorbachev by his father to not move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army withdrew.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, says John McCain.

Russia did, after Georgia invaded its breakaway province of South Ossetia and killed Russian peacekeepers. Putin threw the Georgians out, occupied part of Georgia, and then withdrew.

Russia, it is said, has supported Syria's Bashar Assad, bombed U.S.-backed rebels and participated in the Aleppo slaughter.

But who started this horrific civil war in Syria?

Was it not our Gulf allies, Turkey, and ourselves by backing an insurgency against a regime that had been Russia's ally for decades and hosts Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean?

Did we not exercise the same right of assisting a beleaguered ally when we sent 500,000 troops to aid South Vietnam against a Viet Cong insurgency supported by Hanoi, Beijing and Moscow?

That's what allies do.

The unanswered question: Why did we support the overthrow of Assad when the likely successor regime would have been Islamist and murderously hostile toward Syria's Christians?

Russia, we are told, committed aggression against Ukraine by invading Crimea.

But Russia did not invade Crimea. To secure their Black Sea naval base, Russia executed a bloodless coup, but only after the U.S. backed the overthrow of the pro-Russian elected government in Kiev.

Crimea had belonged to Moscow from the time of Catherine the Great in the 18th century, and the Russia-Ukraine relationship dates back to before the Crusades. When did this become a vital interest of the USA?

As for Putin's backing of secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk, he is standing by kinfolk left behind when his country broke apart. Russians live in many of the 14 former Soviet republics that are now independent nations.

Has Putin no right to be concerned about his lost countrymen?

Unlike America's elites, Putin is an ethnonationalist in a time when tribalism is shoving aside transnationalism as the force of the future.

Russia, it is said, is supporting right-wing and anti-EU parties. But has not our National Endowment for Democracy backed regime change in the Balkans as well as in former Soviet republics?

We appear to be denouncing Putin for what we did first.

Moreover, the populist, nationalist, anti-EU and secessionist parties in Europe have arisen on their own and are advancing through free elections.

Sovereignty, independence, a restoration of national identity, all appear to be more important to these parties than what they regard as an excessively supervised existence in the soft-dictatorship of the EU.

In the Cold War between Communism and capitalism, the single-party dictatorship and the free society, we prevailed.

But in the new struggle we are in, the ethnonational state seems ascendant over the multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial, multilingual "universal nation" whose avatar is Barack Obama.

Putin does not seek to destroy or conquer us or Europe. He wants Russia, and her interests, and her rights as a great power to be respected.

He is not mucking around in our front yard; we are in his.

The worst mistake President Trump could make would be to let the Russophobes grab the wheel and steer us into another Cold War that could be as costly as the first, and might not end as peacefully.

Reagan's outstretched hand to Gorbachev worked. Trump has nothing to lose by extending his to Vladimir Putin, and much perhaps to win.

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Hack a Mere Smoke Screen by Democrats for Power Grab

This is simply another attempt by the left to expand national authority. It's up to the American people to stop it.

By KEN BLACKWELL Published on September 6, 2016 •

Ken Blackwell

The Democrats are now playing the Russia card. As Donald Trump rises in the polls against an increasingly unpopular Hillary Clinton, Democrats are raising the specter of the nefarious Vladimir Putin. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s famous Russian relations reset was a bust, but we are supposed to trust her to handle Putin in the future. More important, the Democrats are sowing grounds to challenge the election, relying on their unnatural ability to squeeze, as if by magic, extra votes from the courtroom.

There may be an even more insidious objective, Outgoing Nevada Sen. Harry Reid — never a fan of election fair play — warned of Russian tampering and called for an FBI investigation. This followed warnings by Jeh Johnson, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, of potential cyber-attacks come November. He indicated he was considering designating the election system “critical infrastructure.”

Why is that significant? This would be followed by a Washington campaign to “assist” and “protect” balloting, which inevitably would turn into control. The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky warned that Johnson’s action “may be a way for the administration to get Justice Department lawyers, the FBI and DHS staff into polling places they would otherwise have no legal right to access, which would enable them to interfere with election administration procedures around the country.” That would dramatically, and permanently, transform the constitutional balance between the national and state governments.

Despite scare-mongering by Reid and Johnson, there is no evidence of any impending cyber-attack on the American electoral system. Even Johnson apparently admitted that he could point to no indications of such a threat. A far greater danger to the integrity of U.S. democracy is voter fraud, yet the courts seem determined to block any effort to even require identification to cast a ballot. This undermines the great strength of America’s elections, state control.

As von Spakovsky pointed out, “we have the most decentralized election system of any Western democracy.” This approach protects America from having Russia (or China or anyone else) manipulate electoral outcomes. Nationalizing the process actually would make U.S. elections far more vulnerable to outside attack.

Which demonstrates the continuing wisdom of the nation’s Founders in creating a system that kept most important public policies and activities at the state level. The national government was established to deal with national problems, not to elevate to the national level controversies which belonged closer to the people.

The Founders’ idea, called “federalism,” naturally grew out of Americans’ commitment to self-government. The people, not a king or emperor, were sovereign. They were to solve their own problems and chart their own futures. That required decision-makers to be close to each other and the challenges facing them.

In this way federalism had a lot in common with the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity. Whenever possible, higher, more distant institutions should leave undisturbed authorities below. Each government had a specific role and should not encroach upon the responsibilities of others.

Early Americans well understood the meaning of federalism: creating two distinct levels (local authorities being subsumed within states) of government with separate and defined duties. Unfortunately, however, the founding generations allowed ambiguity to creep in by calling the national government the “federal” government.

The very concept of federalism requires protecting the vibrancy of state (and local) institutions. The federal system meant dual authority rather than the unitary system prevalent in Europe, including in Great Britain. Although the Civil War established the ultimate supremacy of the national government, the conflict did not wipe out state sovereignty. The so-called federal government remained small, without much day-to-day impact on most people’s lives. Even enthusiastic nationalists at the time could not have imagined the wholesale federal takeover of education, health care, and welfare.

Of course, to speak of “federal” action now means to nationalize an issue. Thus, supporting the founding principle of “federalism” risks communicating the opposite of the truth to people, suggesting that the Constitution turned most problems over to the “federal,” that is, national government. And that continuing islands of state authority, such as running elections, are anomalies which should be wiped out.

Federalism in the original sense of the word always set American democracy apart from that of other nations. Power was separated and balanced; responsibility was accorded to institutions best able to confront problems. The people retained ultimate sovereignty and remained close enough to their officials to hold the latter accountable.

Unfortunately, these principles are under sustained attack. Attempts to tie Trump to Russia are just another attempt to expand federal, as in national, authority. With so many of their leaders AWOL, only the American people are left to stand up for their country’s founding principles. Only We the People.

NEW YORKER on Trump

NEW YORKER on Trump

 

WHEN AN ULTRA ULTRA LIBERAL MAGAZINE SUCH AS THE NEW YORKER WRITES AN ARTICLE SUCH AS THIS YOU REALIZE AMERICA IS FINALLY WAKING UP TO THE CORRUPTION, INCOMPETENCE AND IGNORANCE OF Washington.

 

This is absolutely brilliant. A surprising article from the New Yorker Magazine. This magazine has always been a left wing apologizer so this article is even more amazing. Don’t pass it up.


The author is the political correspondent for Bloomberg and wrote extensively about Obama even before he was nominated.


" Who is Donald Trump?" The better question may be, "What is Donald Trump?"

The answer? A giant middle finger from average Americans to the political and media establishment.

Some Trump supporters are like the 60s white girls who dated black guys just to annoy their parents. But most Trump supporters have simply had it with the Demo-socialists and the "Republicans In Name Only." They know there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Hillary Rodham and Jeb Bush, and only a few cents worth between Rodham and the other GOP candidates.


Ben Carson is not an "establishment" candidate, but the Clinton machine would pulverize Carson ; and the somewhat rebellious Ted Cruz will (justifiably so) be tied up with natural born citizen lawsuits (as might Marco Rubio). The Trump supporters figure they may as well have some fun tossing Molotov cocktails at Wall Street and Georgetown while they watch the nation collapse. Besides - lightning might strike, Trump might get elected, and he might actually fix a few things. Stranger things have happened (the nation elected a n [islamo-]Marxist in 2008 and Bruce Jenner now wears designer dresses.)



Millions of conservatives are justifiably furious. They gave the Republicans control of the House in 2010 and control of the Senate in 2014, and have seen them govern no differently than Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Yet those same voters are supposed to trust the GOP in 2016? Why?



Trump did not come from out of nowhere. His candidacy was created by the last six years of Republican failures.



No reasonable person can believe that any of the establishment candidates [dems or reps] will slash federal spending, rein in the Federal Reserve, cut burdensome business regulations, reform the tax code, or eliminate useless federal departments (the Departments of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, etc.). Even Ronald Reagan was unable to eliminate the Department of Education. (Of course, getting shot at tends to make a person less of a risk-taker.) No reasonable person can believe that any of the nation's major problems will be solved by Rodham, Bush, and the other dishers of donkey fazoo now eagerly eating corn in Iowa and pancakes in New Hampshire .


Many Americans, and especially Trump supporters, have had it with:

· Anyone named Bush

· Anyone named Clinton

· Anyone who's held political office

· Political correctness

· Illegal immigration

· Massive unemployment

· Phony "official" unemployment and inflation figures

· Welfare waste and fraud

· People faking disabilities to go on the dole

· VA waiting lists

· TSA airport groping

· ObamaCare

· The Federal Reserve's money-printing schemes

· Wall Street crooks like Jon Corzine

· Michelle Obama's vacations

· Michelle Obama's food police

· Barack Obama's golf

· Barack Obama's arrogant and condescending lectures

· Barack Obama's criticism/hatred of America

· Valerie Jarrett

· " Holiday trees"

· Hollywood hypocrites

· Global warming nonsense

· Cop killers

· Gun confiscation threats

· Stagnant wages

· Boys in girls' bathrooms

· Whiny, spoiled college students who can't even place the Civil War in the correct century... and that's just the short list.

Trump supporters believe that no Democrat wants to address these issues, and that few Republicans have the courage to address these issues. They certainly know that none of the establishment candidates are better than barely listening to them, and Trump is their way of saying, "Screw you, Hillary Rodham Rove Bush!" The more the talking head political pundits insult the Trump supporters, the more supporters he gains. (The only pundits who seem to understand what is going on are Democrats Doug Schoen and Pat Caddell and Republican John LeBoutillier. All the others argue that the voters will eventually "come to their senses" and support an establishment candidate .)

But America does not need a tune-up at the same old garage. It needs a new engine installed by experts - and neither Rodham nor Bush are mechanics with the skills or experience to install it. Hillary Rodham is not a mechanic; she merely manages a garage her philandering husband abandoned. Jeb Bush is not a mechanic; he merely inherited a garage. Granted, Trump is also not a mechanic, but he knows where to find the best ones to work in his garage. He won't hire his brother-in-law or someone to whom he owes a favor; he will hire someone who lives and breathes cars.


"How dare they revolt!" the "elites" are bellowing. Well, the citizens are daring to revolt, and the RINOs had better get used to it. "But Trump will hand the election to Clinton !" That is what the Karl Rove-types want people to believe, just as the leftist media eagerly shoved "Maverick" McCain down GOP throats in 2008 - knowing he would lose to Obama. But even if Trump loses and Rodham wins, she would not be dramatically different than Bush or most of his fellow candidates. They would be nothing more than caretakers, not working to restore America 's greatness but merely presiding over the collapse of a massively in-debt nation. A nation can perhaps survive open borders; a nation can perhaps survive a generous welfare system. But no nation can survive both - and there is little evidence that the establishment candidates of either party understand that. The United States cannot forever continue on the path it is on. At some point it will be destroyed by its debt.


Yes, Trump speaks like a bull wander[ing] through a china shop, but the truth is that the borders do need to be sealed; we cannot afford to feed, house, and clothe 200,000 Syrian immigrants for decades (even if we get inordinately lucky and none of them are ISIS infiltrators or Syed Farook wannabes); the world is at war with radical Islamists; all the world's glaciers are not melting; and Rosie O'Donnell is a fat pig.


Is Trump the perfect candidate? Of course not. Neither was Ronald Reagan. But unless we close our borders and restrict immigration, all the other issues are irrelevant. One terrorist blowing up a bridge or a tunnel could kill thousands. One jihadist poisoning a city's water supply could kill tens of thousands. One electromagnetic pulse attack from a single Iranian nuclear device could kill tens of millions. Faced with those possibilities, most Americans probably don't care that Trump relied on eminent domain to grab up a final quarter acre of property for a hotel, or that he boils the blood of the Muslim Brotherhood thugs running the Council on American-Islamic Relations. While Attorney General Loretta Lynch's greatest fear is someone giving a Muslim a dirty look, most Americans are more worried about being gunned down at a shopping mall by a crazed [islamic] lunatic who treats his prayer mat better than his three wives and who thinks 72 virgins are waiting for him in paradise.


The establishment is frightened to death that Trump will win, but not because they believe he will harm the nation. They are afraid he will upset their taxpayer-subsidized apple carts. While Obama threatens to veto legislation that spends too little, they worry that Trump will veto legislation that spends too much.


You can be certain that if an establishment candidate wins in November 2016 … [their] cabinet positions will be filled with the same people we've seen before. The washed-up has-beens of the Clinton and Bush administrations will be back in charge. The hacks from Goldman Sachs will continue to call the shots. Whether it is Bush's Karl Rove or Clinton 's John Podesta, who makes the decisions in the White House will matter little.

Subj: The Political Efforts of Samuel Adams on Education in Boston and Massachusetts

Subj: The Political Efforts of Samuel Adams on Education in Boston and Massachusetts:

All who instructed youths were to emphasize “the principles of piety, justice, and a sacred regard to truth, love of their country, humanity and universal benevolence, sobriety, industry and frugality, charity, moderation and temperance, and those other virtues which are the ornament of human society, and the basis upon which the republican Constitution is structured." The students needed to learn that such virtues tended "to preserve and perfect a republican Constitution and to secure the blessings of liberty, as well as to promote future happiness." And students must also be made to understand that the vices that undermined such virtues had a marked tendency "to produce slavery and ruin."

Alexander, John K.; Samuel Adams: The Life of an American Revolutionary (p. 259). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.