We're moving

 I will no longer be posting to my blog here on blogspot.com. I have started an account on substack where my posts will appear going forward. I believe substack is more suited to how I want to go forward with my blog and will give the added benefit of providing more visibility and thus traffic to my blog. 

I'll still be posting topics on political analysis but I'l be expanding my new blog on substack to include aerial drone videos and discussions concerning drone photography. This is a hobby, so far, but may become an avocation at some point. It's really fun and I think you'll enjoy the videos and photos. And, of course, the political takes will continue as usual. 

Hope to see you over there on substack. 

cclaytonlewis.substack.com

Let's beat this dead horse just a little bit more...

 In a perfect world, only the truth is spoken. Of course, we don't live in a perfect world. There never has been a perfect world and there never will be. Some untruths are without much consequence, others not so much. The 'dead horse' I mentioned, is of course the Biden scandal which has been the headline topic of late. Two liberal 'journalists' authored a book about what is undoubtedly the biggest presidential scandal in history. The scandal of hiding the physical and mental decline of a United States President from the public. And during his period of incapacity, his presidential power and execution of duties being assumed by 'others'. We will probably never know the names of the group of 'others'. The only safe assumption, in my opinion, of at least one of the names is Jill Biden. If his wife didn't know of his cognitive and physical decline, then she's either much worse off than him or the world's greatest liar. Could be both for all we know. As far as who the others were, that secret will probably go to the grave. I'm quite sure that is what 'they' intend. 

The extent of the lies, untruths and deception to pull this off is unfathomable. Abe Lincoln is turning in his grave. There is no 'of the people, by the people and for the people' here. Whomever perpetrated this was 'the people shall never know...' Their thinking, and that's using the term in an immensely liberal sense, was allowing the public to know the truth is not in the best interest of the Democratic Party. And now that it's obvious to even the most casual observer what happened, the best interest of the Democratic Party resembles the Titanic sitting at the bottom of the North Atlantic. They're still making noise, but it's akin to a a baby crying in a crowded theater. Very annoying, but inconsequential. 

The American voting public still values veracity. We still abhor lying and deceit. Proof of that lies in the current state of the Democratic Party. As the venerable Mr Lincoln once said, "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." No one knows this better than the current Democratic Party. Or at least what's left of it...

#original sin #presidential scandal #deep state 

Suasion and the Supreme Court...

 Politics are an integral part of American politics. It's 'the nature of the beast' so to speak. It's a, one could reasonably argue, a natural part of civil discourse and debate. For the legislative and executive branches of government, that is. The judicial branch was intended to interpret the constitution and to apply the rule of law equitably, so that everyone was treated equally under the law. With the doctrine of separation of powers, political ideologies and priorities were meant to be exclusive of the workings of the judicial branch. For the most part, a couple of centuries passed and things went as planned. I emphasize, for the most part...

Politics can be like a contagious disease, it tends to spread to places where it wasn't supposed to be. Like the Supreme Court. Thomas Jefferson and his Secretary of State, James Madison refused to even send a lawyer to argue Marbury vs Madison. M vs M was one of the most important and foundational cases in U.S. legal history. Chief Justice John Marshall and the court in this case established the principle of judicial review; the power of the court to declare laws unconstitutional. The is ruling gave the Supreme Court the power to the court to rule a law enacted by congress as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has done so on numerous occasions; Brown vs Board of Education, Roe vs Wade...

Of course, today we are not dealing with a law enacted by Congress. We are dealing with Executive Orders, while being legal instruments of the executive branch are subject to judicial review. Were Congress to quit sitting on its hands and do what it should be doing, this might not be happening. The monkey wrench comes in deciding does the ruling of a federal district court constitute proper and appropriate  judicial review? In effect, a federal district judge is issuing a ruling binding on the entire nation when the entire nation is not the jurisdiction of that judge. 

Difficult as it may be to believe, there was a time when the Supreme Court decided it was not necessary to decide a case dealing with federal authority to ban slavery. The greatest irony of history? Perhaps... 19th century lawyers tended to regard precedent as a series of decisions affirming a principle, as opposed to modern day lawyers viewing a single decision as a binding precedent. 

History considers our most authoritarian president to be Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt devised a 'court-packing' plan to de-legitimize the court to disable the opinions of its four conservatives at the time. They had a record of striking down his 'New Deal' programs. He denounced the court in his famous 'fireside chat' radio programs and his court-packing proposal was so baleful that his own Democratic Party rejected it resoundingly. But the suasion of his campaign was so effective the court bent its jurisprudence to allow Roosevelt to do what he wanted. 

In 2010, deja vu revisits, all over again. In his state of the union address, Obama openly derided the justices for siding with "special interests" in the Citizens United decision. In 2012, Obama upped the pressure in advance of the court's decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare, waring against the extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected congress. He claimed this was a good example of illegitimate judicial activism, a group of unelected people overturning a duly constituted and passed law. Sound familiar? Obamacare was passed unilaterally. Not one single Republican vote. Not. One. 

These were not arguments on the proper role of the court, they were efforts to intimidate the court against going against the will of the people. And it worked. Chief Justice John Roberts changed his vote to rule Obamacare as constitutional. Such had never happened in the history of Supreme Court rulings. 

The court has been unduly influenced on the topic of gun control. In March 2020, Chuck Schumer stood on the steps of the Supreme Court building to bellow, "I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have unleashed the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions." Waves of protests followed targeting the justices at their homes. The Biden admin responded by conspicuously resisting providing law enforcement protection to the justices. The 2020 presidential candidates including Buttigieg and Harris endorsed court-packing. Biden attacked the court when it struck down his unconstitutional student loan plan to spend a half trillion dollars to forgive student loans without congressional approval. On the campaign trail he bragged, "The Supreme Court blocked it, but that didn't stop me." Lest we forget...

Trump's defiance of court orders are not unprecedented, not by any means. In fact, the threats to the judiciary have typically come from the democrats throughout the past century. The democrats are simply playing on the ignorance of the voters to history. 

#supremecourt #courtshopping #politicalhipocrasy

The sins of the past...

 Radical idealism and ideology has no place in the handling of foreign affairs and foreign relations. Global politics is best left to skilled statesmen and negotiators who meticulously plan and set goals and who consistently rely on risk analysis to obtain optimal outcomes. Their methods and manners don't allow for their own idealism or ideology, or that of their superiors to direct, or even influence their work. They must visualize what success looks like from the start. 

The US has had some rock stars in matters of foreign diplomacy. A few examples: George Marshall, the Secretary of State during the Truman presidency. Marshall played a key role in shaping Truman's postwar foreign policy through the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan helped stabilize the European continent and prevent the spread of communism. Marshall won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. 

Henry Kissinger was secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations. Kissinger accomplished the impossible task of detente with the USSR, establishing relations with China, conducting the Vietnam war negotiations, and of course the 'shuttle diplomacy' in the Middle East. Kissinger's efforts reworked the dynamics of the Cold War. 

James Baker III was Secretary of State for George H.W. Bush who managed diplomacy during the fall of the Soviet Union. He was also responsible for the unification of Germany and the Gulf War unification. 

Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State for Bill Clinton, the first woman to ever hold the office. She was active in the expansion of NATO, the Balkans and provided valuable leadership in post-Cold War  efforts. 

The world is a different, and much better place thanks to the work of these masters of diplomacy. The legacy of the presidents they served benefitted from their contributions. For other presidents, their legacies will be forever stained  in history because of the lack of efficacy on the part of those they appointed to this office. During the Obama administration Hillary Clinton and John Kerry served in the role. Clinton advocated for the "Reset" with Russia, which ultimately resulted in political disaster. Obama sought to instill fear in American allies with the Russian Reset. He believed that Bush 41 was responsible for worsening relations with Moscow, completely blind to Putin's lust for his interests in Eastern Europe. Obama scrapped a plan to provide radar installations and interceptor missiles for Poland and the Czech Republic. He withdrew brigade-sized combat teams from Europe and set the stage for the first time the US had no combat tanks on the European continent. The Kremlin responded with aggression, culminating with the first invasion of Ukraine. 

Following suit, Obama thought it prudent to cut strategic ties with the Middle East. By December 2011, he had withdrawn every American soldier from Iraq, and empowered the Shiite militias backed by Iran hoping the mullahs would see to America's interests. They did not. Once again, blinded by his ideals, Obama was focused on the nuclear deal with Iran, which today has become a nuclear train wreck. The Arab Spring uprising complicated matters at the time. The Syrian regime began to implode opening the door for the rise of ISIS, stoked by the Russian regime who now felt free rein since America had 'left the building'. Obama now felt compelled to bring American troops into Iraq in 2014, as well as into eastern Syria. 

Obama's misplaced vision for America to no longer be a hegemonic world leader was actually beginning to work. If America wasn't going to be the pre-eminent power of the Pacific Rim, then who would. The answer was right in front of his eyes, yet he still played blind. This brings us to the 2016 election. Can you imagine inheriting the fubar Trump did in his first term? Obama didn't only leave a country divided, on the world stage he literally let the dogs out. We can only hope that Trump, in his second term learns from the sins of the past. Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer...

Who defines Quality of Life?

 Throughout the history of the world there have been countless wrongs inflicted upon the innocent. Many have been cases of innocents being caught 'in the middle' of a conflict. Many were subjects of totalitarian rule. Some, even citizens of modern democracies. Those responsible for inflicting pain, suffering, and the loss of life invariably are focused on a goal, or agenda of some sort. It may be retaliation, aggression, political ambition, an act of defense, or offense, or ideological disparity. 

With each new generation comes a new set of conflicts with intended and unintended damages. History tells us that stable democratic regimes are far less likely to inflict hardship and suffering on its citizens. Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes seem to be far less concerned with the plight of the plebeians. In the present day world, the majority of countries have a democratic government. Of the 167 countries with 500k or more population, 58% are democracies of some sort. Some four dozen or so have elements of both democracy and autocracy. 13% or 21 countries are autocracies. The number of countries that are democratically governed has been on an upward trend since the 70's. As the Cold War came to an end and the Soviet-led bloc crumbled, democracy began to spread globally. Of the 75 countries that were known as autocracies in 1987, only 15 were still rated that way three decades later. More than a third had become democracies. 

Amongst the countries with the most advanced democracies, it is surprising to many, including myself, that the United States is not among the top ten. Most advanced democracies tend to score high in areas like political participation, civil liberties, functioning of government, and electoral process. The country most often ranked number one is Norway. Norway has high voter participation, transparent institutions, strong civil liberties, and trust in government. Having spent time in Norway, I can personally attest that the vast majority of Norwegians are multilingual, well-educated and very nice people. Several countries in Northern Europe are amongst the top ten. New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and the Netherlands are also on the list. 

As of the 2024 Democracy Index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the United States is ranked 28th out of 167 countries and is classified as a "flawed democracy." The EIU evaluates countries based on five categories; electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. The US scores high in electoral process and pluralism, it lags in political culture and functioning of government, reflecting challenges such as political polarization and institutional gridlock. Partisan pressure on the electoral process has also become a degrading issue. 

The two categories that bemoan even the most ardent nationalists are political culture and functioning of government. Regrettably, that is an aspect of our democracy that has deteriorated over the past fifty years. Our two-party system of government has become increasingly divisive, polarized, and adversarial. Interestingly, the U.S. doesn't rank in the top ten with regard to standard of living either. While we rank very high in productivity, i.e. GDP per Capita,  at #3, the average life expectancy is lower than all of the countries in the top ten by several years. 

In spite of being a world leader in many respects, the U.S. democratic system of government lags behind in many others. While some metrics indicate we have a lower standard of living than several other nations, there is a key characteristic that must be pointed out. The countries identified as leaders in democratic government and standard of living, all of them in the top ten, practice a more socialistic, welfare state form of government. Social services such as universal healthcare, free or low-cost education, substantial unemployment benefits, strong public pensions, subsidized housing and transportation, social housing and welfare support... All of this and more provided by the government. Which of course translates to higher taxes to support it all. No government in history, anywhere on the planet has ever earned a cent in earned income. 

If other countries enjoy stronger, higher-rated democracies and higher standards of living than the U.S., why don't we emulate their social and democratic structures ourselves so that we might enjoy the same benefits? The answer is simple, because we don't want the government to play a large, dominant role in our lives. We don't want to depend on the government to feed and house us. We want opportunities to work, prosper and remain independent. We want our opportunities to be limited only by our own aspirations, not the government. In spite of many ongoing attempts to instill socialistic structure into our government and culture, the American people have resisted. We want minimal government and more personal freedom. We enjoy lower personal income taxes and generally lower costs of living that most countries. We want personal sovereignty as well as national. Americans have defined their own metrics for quality of life. And that's the way we want it.