Airing the dirty laundry...

 During a recent cabinet meeting Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed that the Biden's administration's Department of State kept dossiers on American citizens accused of serving as "vectors of disinformation". One of the dossiers was for someone actually sitting in that very Cabinet meeting. For any red-blooded American that is no less than 8.0 on the Richter scale earth-moving shocking. 

This 'department' in the office in the Department of State was established to monitor the social media posts and commentary of American citizens, to identify them as 'vectors of disinformation'. This 'office' was previously known as the Global Engagement Center. Rubio officially closed this office earlier this month. The Global Engagement Center tagged accounts as "Russian personas and proxies" based on criteria like "describing the coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon', blaming 'research conducted at the Wuhan Laboratory' and 'attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.'

When reorganizing the  State Department Rubio said the GEC engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with. According to journalist Matt Taibbi, the center funded a secret list of subcontractors and helped initiate a form of 'blacklisting' during the pandemic. 

Musk previously described the GEC as "the worst offender in US government censorship and media manipulation." Musk made this statement more than a year before he endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential race and assumed a role in DOGE. I think it safe to say that Musk was onto what the GEC was doing so the GEC put together a dossier on him. Stay tuned for Rubio to disclose for whom the dossiers were for...

The office of GEC was established by none other than former president Obama in 2016 through an executive order aimed at coordinating counterterrorism messaging to foreign nations. Its scope was later expanded to include countering foreign propaganda and disinformation. And here we are today with two dossiers for high level Trump admin officials lying on the table. 

This office of the GEC under the previous administration costs taxpayers more than $50 million per year. Purposed with actively censoring and silencing American citizens. There have been numerous adjectives used to describe the actions of the two previous democratic administrations, but let's add depraved to the list. And unforgivable...

#constitutionalcrisis #ruleoflaw #dossiers #globalengagementcenter #

The problem with US...

 When you saw the title of this post, you likely thought does he mean us, as in we, or does he mean the United States? The answer is yes. I meant us, as in we and I meant the United States. One in the same. Granted, I have readers all over the world (thank you for reading my blog), but they're very smart people and they know who I am talking about. What I am going to talk about today is some fundamental  problems we are having in America  and exactly what or who is causing them. 

Let me start off with answering the question, up front. We are. Us. And us alone. We are causing many of our own problems. Example, the Russians weren't behind the Russian Hoax. We were. All told, the Russians didn't have anything to do with it. Don't you know they were having a good laugh at our expense? Embarrassing. 

Inflation over the past few years. Can't blame that on anybody outside of 'us'. Was it Covid's fault? Did the coronavirus create trillions in government handouts? It made a lot of people sick but I don't think it had anything to do with writing stimulus checks. Did Mexico or Canada decide to open our borders and let millions of illegal immigrants flood our country, creating housing shortages and drug addictions? Including hardcore criminals and tons of fentanyl? Hardly. We did. It's almost embarrassing to use the pronoun we, but pronouns have been so abused lately, I don't feel that bad. Let's just say I'm being inclusive, I'm including Joe Biden and his cadre of idiots. I'm using 'we' as a very inclusive term. We caused inflation, we opened the borders. Herein lies the root causes of the self-inflicted mayhem. 

Let me break them down: at the top of the list; we don't listen to each other. The framework of our system of government and society is based on civil discourse and debate. Partisan politics is causing our iron framework to rust. It has gone too far into the realm of 'us against them'. 'We' has become more singular than plural. There's more than one 'we'. "We the people" has become we the democrats, or we the republicans. Whatever the other party may say or do, it's wrong. Never mind the merits or the benefits, it's wrong because it was 'their' idea, not ours. Which brought us the current phenomenon known as TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome. It's real. Ridiculous, but real. 

Next up is accountability. When's the last time you heard a high level government official say "I take full responsibility. It was my fault." That's about as rare as rocking horse poop. I'm sure it's happened but history hasn't done well in recording it. It's as though we're all narcissists now. "Not my fault. It's you. You're the problem." 

I'm going to keep this simple, because it really is. There's one more item on the list of root causes. Honesty. Telling the truth. As the prescient and perhaps genius Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) once said, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." If George were alive today, witnessing the current state of affairs, if not completely stunned and speechless, he might say, "I tried to tell you...". In present day politics, sadly to say, telling the truth is an option. One not often chosen. If the truth doesn't facilitate the end game, then it'll have to wait. (Or be omitted...) Orwell was right, the day has come when the truth is revolutionary. It's not the norm anymore. 

So how do we get out of this self-imposed pandemic of social corruption? I'm not one of civilization's great minds, and this is a question that even the brightest might struggle with. Back in the late eighteenth century, there was a group of men who had a vision, and a profound sense of purpose. They convened and fostered what has become a system of government that became a nonpareil. No other country in the history of the world has yet to devise a system of governance that is genuinely of the people, by the people, and for the people. They are the reason we became known as the United States of America. Let's find a way to keep it that way.

#america #trumpderangementsyndrome #civildiscourse #georgeorwell

We have a Constitution and we're almost 250 years old. Why is this happening?...

President Trump was elected and entered office with some specific mandates from the electorate. There were issues the American people were fed up with, as evidenced by the electoral margins, including, immigration and it's associated criminal fallout and societal decay, not to mention out and out lawlessness, the excesses and fraud and waste in the federal government, the blatant abuse of 'lawfare' to punish one's political adversaries, corruption at the federal level (Hunter Biden's laptop, and presidential pardons...), and the bad policies that led to a bad economy, i.e. inflation. There were more, plenty more. 

Trump takes office and within hours, literally, he begins to take action. Of course, the president lacks the power to 'make' laws, only Congress has the power to do that. The closest he can come is executive orders. As the southerners' phrase goes, "Katy bar the door, here they come." 125 so far, in about 90 days. 

Trump campaigned on restoring common sense to government. This resonated with voters, with good reason. He brought Elon Musk in as director of government efficiency, tasked with rooting out programs, agencies, directives, systems, and practices that involved outright corruption, fraud, waste and lacked true productive purpose in government. Theoretically, and practically sensible on all levels. Obviously, the fallout was programs would end and agencies would cease to exist, meaning benefits would cease and jobs would be lost. Illegal aliens, especially those engaged in criminal activity would be prosecuted and/or deported. 

All this is happening and not at the lackadaisical, lethargic, beaureacratic  rate that we are used to seeing. Progressive ideologies have been offended and with the Democratic Party currently operating in a leaderless vacuum, democrats were faced with the question they haven't faced in four years, 'how do we stop Trump?' Republicans now control the executive and legislative branches of government, so what's left? The courts, of course. 

In spite of attempting to destroy and discredit Trump through nefarious lawfare before he was elected, unsuccessfully, and lacking other viable options, they decided to try again. Democrats and progressives are a persistent, if ignorant lot. It didn't take them long to figure out our sometimes fallible court systems and its Swiss-cheese-like procedures. In short order, we have federal district judges issuing injunctions delaying and even halting executive actions. Almost exclusively, these injunctions were being ordered by liberal, activist judges issuing orders and injunctions as if their jurisdictions included the entire nation. Which they don't. Courts are for parties that have suffered identifiable, non-speculative injuries and damages directly caused by a defendant and are addressable by a judge. Such is not the circumstances of these cases being brought before the federal district courts attempting to stop Trump's executive actions. These judges are in effect making policy by nullifying the policy choices of the elected administration. They are not settling the rights of the parties to a lawsuit, they are enacting law on the nation, far beyond their jurisdiction for as long as the injunction lasts. 

The judicial branch, all of it, is tasked with saying and interpreting what the law is. They cannot write it or enforce it. They do not have the authority to make policy, that prerogative is given to the political branches accountable to the people whose lives are affected. The courts role is to settle the rights of the parties involved and nothing more. 

The constitutional authority in this ignorance/blindness to separation of power is Congress. For unknown reasons, Congress has been unassertive, even silent so far. Illegal criminal aliens are being deported, allegedly without due process, taxes are being imposed (tariffs) that have and continue to demonstrably damage the American economy and so far the Big Cahuna (Congress) is yet to utter a word. The solution to these issues we face doesn't lie with the person we elected to the office of the President. He has rules he must follow. When he fails to do that there is one government body he must answer to. But they must insist that he do so. Mr. Speaker, what say you?...

#tariffs #constitutionalcrisis #federaldistrictcourts #lawfare #DOGE

Sucks to be Xi...

 At present, Trump's tariff situation is unpredictable, even chaotic. We are all well aware of the vacuum effect it has had on the equities markets and America's savings accounts. Trump is doing a lot of good things regarding national security, immigration, and advocating for American industry. But his tariff program is wreaking havoc and destruction. It was not well planned and is being terribly executed. I think Trump has shot himself in the foot and refuses to admit it hurts. However, he is taking steps to ameliorate the situation, however token some of them may be. He has initiated a 90 day pause for effecting most of the tariffs with but one exception; China. This month he raised the general tariff rate for Chinese goods to 145%. Essentially, this closes most of the American market off to China. Any way you look at it, that is major. The US accounts for more than a third of global consumer spending. 

For many and various reasons the world has been deglobalizing for years. The Trump Liberation Day tariffs are significantly speeding up the process, further threatening the stability and well-being of the People's Republic of China and other export-driven economies. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has essentially put a nail in the coffin of globalization. The Covid pandemic dealt a massive blow to connectivity between nations, companies and people as well. 

Practically every country involved in trade has tariffs. With the American consumer market off limits to China, other countries are not going to allow China to flood their markets with goods that otherwise would be sold to the US. Most of them are not large enough to absorb China's massive export volume, and they won't allow China to butcher their national industries. A major problem, for China, is Trump's tariffs come at the worst possible time. China's economy is in dire straits. Export factories in southern China are closing as orders dwindle. Workers are returning to hometowns subsisting on farms. China is experiencing its version of '2008'. Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao attempted to avoid a downturn by launching the biggest stimulus program in history, causing China to take on enormous debt. (Sound familiar?) Today, China's total debt to GDP ratio is approaching 400%. No typo, 400%. That is not sustainable. For years there have been a series of high profile debt defaults especially in the property sector. 70% of wealth in China is in property. 

And here came the tariffs cutting off China's biggest customer. Makes sense that Xi's best course of action would be to call Trump and work something out. Make a deal as Trump says. The chances of that happening though are about as good as raising a bumper crop of corn on the north slope of Alaska. Xi cannot back down or make concessions without appearing to be weak as a leader. Such would lead to challenges to his position. There are already signs of discontent with his rule, especially in the military. "China does not flinch from any suppression," he claims. If he doesn't compromise, China's economy will fail. If their economy fails, he will fail. Yes, it sucks to be Xi...

Confused? Just ask our combat veterans...

 Yesterday an immigration court ruled that Mahmoud Khalil can be deported. This week, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State stated that Khalil's ties and support to Hamas were sufficient and credible grounds for revoking his green card status. In spite of the ruling that he can be legally deported he is eligible for 'due process', which means he has the right to appeal. Legal experts have claimed that such formality likely will not change the lower court's ruling that he can be deported. As a green card holder, Khalil had legal status as a resident alien. To be clear, he was not a US citizen, nor did he have the same rights of free speech that citizens have. His actions and speech were clearly indicative of subversion and espousing support for a terrorist organization. Pretty solid ground for declaring that he should be deported. Marco Rubio declared that Khalil was a risk to national security. Once again, legal experts have supported this to be a true statement. We should all rejoice in the fact that a government official and an immigration court took decisive action before any bodily harm or loss of life occurred. Not everyone agrees with the outcome, but due process has taken place. 

For those who may be unsure or support the perspective that Khalil was denied his right of free speech, let me offer this. American citizens are guaranteed the right of free speech. That sentence must be read and interpreted literally. Khalil is not and has never been an American citizen. As such, he is not entitled to the same right of free speech that an American citizen would be in similar circumstances. 

Is Khalil actually a threat to national security? I mean, he's just a Columbia University grad student participating in campus protests, right? Yes, that is right. Except for the word 'just'. As Paul Harvey would famously say, "And now for the rest of the story..." Khalil was born to Palestinian parents in Syria and is a citizen of Algeria. He worked for a time at the British Embassy in Lebanon. He also worked as a public affairs officer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. UNRWA has functioned as a de facto arm of Hamas. A number of UNRWA officials have been implicated in the October 7 attack on Israel. Khalil improperly omitted his UNRWA work history from his green card application. That alone is sufficient basis for revoking his green card status and deporting him. 

Khalil had become prominent in the campus uprisings that followed the October 7 atrocities, featuring the illegal occupation of university buildings that had to be ended by NYC police. Illegal encampments on university grounds that had to be dismantled by NYC police, and illegal harassment of Jewish students that violated university standards and federal civil rights. Khalil claimed to be a 'senior associate' of Columbia University Apartheid Divest. CUAD expressly backs armed resistance by Hamas and recently rescinded an apology it had offered after one of its members said Columbia should be "grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists." Khalil positioned himself as the pro-Hamas intermediary with university administration from which they were seeking to coerce concessions, including divestment from Israel. Even the most casual observer could reasonably conclude that such is not constitutionally protected speech, it's extortionary. 

So, Khalil is getting due process. He'll also be getting a one way ticket to a resort in El Salvador, courtesy of the United States. Are these proceedings legally and constitutionally sound? Most experts and immigration lawyers are saying yes. Is it right and just? Look at it this way: he is advocating and promoting the views (possibly more than mere views...) of a known terrorist organization. This particular terrorist organization executed a surprise and barbaric attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Hundreds of Jews in Israel, including dozens of American citizens were killed, maimed, raped and taken hostage. Many of those hostages died in captivity and their bodies yet to be surrendered. A truce was agreed with Hamas to surrender hostages and bodies, which, after releasing a few, Hamas ignored the truce. 

The ilk of terrorist organizations include, Hamas, al Qaeda, Taliban, Hezbollah, ISIS, the Islamic State, Al-Shabaab... All of the organizations have demonstrated to the world their tunnel-vision idealism, their proclivity towards extreme violence to both military and civilians, and their willingness to die for the cause. Many US soldiers have died at their hands. So if you're not sure if deporting Mahmoud Khalil is justice, just ask any combat veteran. 

Beautiful tariffs? Actually, they're starting to look ugly.

Yesterday, April 2, Trump had his little Rose Garden party where he announced the “Day of Liberation”, whatever the hell that means. He believes and has many others believing that tariffs are the end-all be-all. To me, it sort of feels like let’s fill the boat half full of water just to prove it won’t sink. It’s a great boat and by proving it won’t sink we’ll make it even greater. His genius idea, so far, has turned the stock market on its head. Ourselves as well as millions of others that are retired have seen our accounts shrink. Pretty big losses. For us, we have seen a decline of 10%. Fortunately, our broker has pulled us out of the market, so the bleeding has stopped. Once the storm has passed we will watch it grow back to where it was. Hopefully.  

Ever since he took office he has been talking about and touting his tariff plans. ‘Beautiful’ he calls them. So far all I have observed is that they have stirred up muddy water in a clear lake and pissed off many countries of the world that we trade with. Are they going to solve all the problems he says they will? Pardon me if I don’t pat him on the back. Too much of his plans seem counterintuitive to sound economic principles. His explanations are ‘this is how I say it’s all going to transpire’, and it doesn’t line up with what a lot of economists who have studied economics a lot more than he has have to say. To be honest, I think I have studied economics a lot more than he has. Prices are going to rise in America but not because of inflation this time. They’re going to rise because of supply chain disruptions causing imbalances in supply and demand. Other countries who are being impacted by the nonsense are equally, if not more dependent on foreign trade as we are. Many are countering with their own tariffs. Which means, of course they will be taxing their own citizens making many goods no longer affordable for them. So we will be exporting less just as we will be importing less. The global marketplace is going to shrink, for everybody. 

Presumably, this will stimulate more foreign investment in America. For some countries with large scale economies, maybe so. For many smaller countries. No. Will this stimulate economic growth in America? It will, but not to the scale that Trump thinks it will. The reason is Americans will be selling more to Americans but they’ll be selling a lot less to foreign markets. And many US businesses are powerhouses because they sell to foreign markets. The global marketplace is a lot bigger than the US market. By paring down their global market, you pare those companies down. Which will translate to fewer jobs in America. 

This tariff mania was not well planned and thought out. Trump did not listen to some of the very smart people (much smarter than he is...) before he pulled the trigger on this. History has taught some very tough lessons regarding tariffs. Obviously, Trump isn’t a history buff. All we can really do at this point is fasten our seatbelts and prepare for some turbulence. 

#tariffs #foreigntrade #globalmarkets #trumptariffs

The Federal Courts have overstepped.

 Last week the federal appeals courts in Washington agreed to halt the Trump admin's deportation of members of Tren de Aragua. In spite of it being a temporary order, it still ventured into the executive domain of government concerning war and national security. A federal court has never overruled the decision of a president or Congress that the United States has suffered an attack of invasion. Ever. The Department of Justice has petitioned the Supreme Court to review, which it is expected to do. The Court should intervene with action that prevents trial judges from interfering with the elected branches authority over war and national security. 

On March 15, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to send members of TdA to a prison in El Salvador. TdA has been designated a foreign terrorist organization and Trump claimed they were conducting an invasion or predatory incursion through "irregular warfare" such as drug trafficking and mass illegal immigration into the US. The Act requires that the enemy be a "hostile nation or government". Trump claimed this standard was met as TdA is "closely aligned with and integral to the Venezuelan government."

While it may be difficult to prove that a gang integral to a hostile foreign government is conducting an invasion or incursion in the US, at this point it remains a judgment call. Are the federal courts the right governing body to make that judgment? Judicial review does not extend to every constitutional question. The Constitution itself has committed the final decision to the president or Congress on matters of national security for which there are no legal standards the courts can apply. Chief Justice John Marshall admitted that  "the president is invested with certain important political powers, in the exercise of which he is to use his own discretion. For his decisions, he is accountable only to his country and to his own conscience. His choices cannot be questioned in court because the subjects are political. These issues respect the nation, not individual rights, and being entrusted to the executive, the decision of the executive is conclusive". 

In the past, federal judges has refused to rule on the legality of not only the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but every war in American history, including the Guantanamo Bay cases. The courts deferred to the decision of George W. Bush that the 9/11 attacks had started a war. In the Prize Cases of 1862, the Supreme Court refused to judge whether President Abraham Lincoln had properly invoked the nations's war power in response to secession. The Court declared they could not question the merits of his decision and left the decision to "the political department of the government to which this power was entrusted". In the War of 1812, the Supreme Court also recognized that courts could not review decisions of other branches regarding war. Justice Joseph Story concluded "the authority to decide whether the exigency has arisen belongs exclusively to the president, and that his decision is conclusive upon all other persons." The court stressed that delay and confusion could arise in the ranks if questions arose over the presidents authority. The court also observed that "the evidence upon which the president might decide that there is imminent danger of invasion, might be of a nature not constituting strict technical proof, or the disclosure of the evidence might reveal important secrets of state, which the public interest and safety might require they be kept in concealment." 

In the Appeals Court stay, the court ignored the judiciary's traditional deference on questions of war and invasion. Judge Karen Henderson's opinion concluded "there must be hostilities." Judge Henderson, check with the families of the numerous Americans killed by TdA. They'll clue you in on the hostilities. 

Federal judges do not have the capability, knowledge and understanding, or access to the information to make sensitive decisions on whether a foreign actor represents a national security threat, not can they judge the harm that may come from action or inaction. Courts at any level are not designed or tasked with making policy decisions involving probabilities and risks, which are characteristic of war and national security. Analysts and investigators have asserted that the Maduro regime in Venezuela has purposely sent TdA to the US to destabilize our political system. They have trained several hundred members for that work and assumed operational control of them. 

Such is not the domain of our judicial system. The constitution is quite clear in assigning this responsibility and accountability to the executive and legislative branches. Venezuela is capable of and positioned to damage US interests in the Caribbean. China has been a longtime ally of Venezuela, dating back to the Hugo Chavez regime. To repeat, there are risks involved that the judicial branch are not qualified for nor do they have the constitutional delegation to consider matters of national security. There is basis and precedence and the Supreme Court needs to instruct them to stand down. 

#trendearagua # appealscourt #federalappealscourt #federalcourtoverreach #nationalsecurity #supremecourt