Weaponized Agencies

Trim life shadows flicker and fall
But you still can't turn away
Get up and run before you stall
Before the edges fray
--Ric Ocasek

Given that the executive branch now includes dozens of agencies with strong armed capability, it should come as no surprised that influential politicians will seek to 'weaponize' those agencies against political opponents. The FBI, CIA, and IRS are particularly attractive in this regard.

McCarthy, JFK, Tea Party, et al.

In the recent years, there has been no better example of the weaponization of federal agencies than the concerted operations to take down Donald Trump. First as a candidate, then as sitting president, and now as a former president with future candidate potential. The FBI, CIA, DOJ, and even the military has been involved.

Yesterday's actions will be difficult for even many partisans to brush off as federal agents raided Trump's home in Florida.

Actions over the past few years have escalated to the stuff of authoritarian police states. The current administration is brazenly employing federal agencies to punish political opposition.

What authoritarians never seem capable of understanding is the extent to which their aggression strengthens the resolve of the liberty-minded.

Not Adding Up

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
--Buffalo Springfield

Something doesn't add up about Nancy Pelosi's provocative trip to Taiwan. Leftists have long expressed open admiration of the Chinese communist system. They have been silent on blatant human rights violations of the CCP for years, including the use of concentration camps for dissenters.

More recently, leftists sat idly by during the pro-freedom and independence protests in Hong Kong in the summer of 2019--protests that were ultimately put down by the Chinese government.

Now we are to believe that leftists like Pelosi are suddenly on the side of people seeking self-determination? Not only does this fly in the face of their affection for the Chinese model, but any reasoning mind realizes full well that leftists believe in authoritarian rule and collectivism, not self-determination. 

As the Chinese military incircles the island to conduct live fire 'military exercises,' one has to wonder what is really going on here.

Greenwood's Good Samaritan

"People rely on the police to keep them safe. That's the problem. The police only arrive after the crime has taken place. That's like trapping the fox as he's coming out of the hen house. If a man really wants to protect what's his, he has to do it for himself."
--Ben (Death Wish)

Last weekend, a 20 yr old shooter opened fire in a Greenwood, Indiana shopping mall food court, killing three and injuring others. 

Tragic for sure. But it could have been much worse.

Within 15 seconds of the shooter's first shot, an armed civilian drew his carry pistol and put down the shooter. Mall security cam footage verifies the timeline.

Not surprisingly, the mainstream media is under-emphasizing this part of the story.

Regardless, as the local police chief recounts, "Many more people would have died if not for a responsible armed citizen that took action very quickly." 

The major added, "This young man, Greenwood's Good Samaritan, acted within seconds, stopping the shooter and saving countless lives. Our city, our community, and out state is grateful for his heroism in this situation."

It should be noted that Indiana became a constitutional carry state July 1.

Still Radical

Benjamin Martin: May I sit with you?
Charlotte Selton: It's a free country. Or at least it will be.
--The Patriot

Two hundred and forty-six years after our nation's first law, its founding principle of liberty remains radical. From his early days of social existence, man has been tempted to surrender liberty to earthly rulers. As God warned Samuel, doing so invites despotism.

In 1776, the United States startled the world when it chose to 'throw off' that despotism in pursuit of self-determination. Since then, the authoritarians have been seeking to extinguish that flame of liberty and reclaim their power.

Events of the past few years suggest to some that the tyrants have made progress.

Personally, I prefer to believe that the opposite is happening. People tend to wake up when their freedoms are being stolen. 

Nearly a quarter of a millennium ago, we learned that when enough people wake up, they--the true radicals--have the capacity to push back.

Pendleton Act

"You guys think you're above the law. Well, you ain't above mine."
--Nico Toscani (Above the Law)

In July of 1881, President James Garfield was shot and killed by an attorney who was furious that the president did not give him a job in the new administration. Operating on the theory that it had to eliminate the system of patronage in government if it was to prevent future assassinations, Congress passed the Pendleton Act.

Signed into law by Chester A. Arthur in 1883, the Pendleton Act created a permanent civil service that could not be undone each election cycle. The administrative, or 'deep,' state was born.

The Constitution does not provide for a permanent class of bureaucrats that possess authority outside of the three branches of government. The Pendleton Act created a layer of statist imposition that the democratic process cannot control.

Perhaps the original intent was to make the civil service class apolitical, but it has become anything but. Indeed, any political party worth its salt would endeavor to place operatives inside the administrative state so that agendas could be advanced regardless of who is in office.

We have seen this in the spades over the past few years as partisans installed at the highest levels of agencies such as the CDC, EPA, DOJ, Federal Reserve, FBI, and CIA render decisions that favor particular political agendas.

I don't know whether the constitutionality of the Pendleton Act has ever been challenged in court. If not, then it should be. This week's West Virginia v. EPA SCOTUS ruling moves in that direction.

Meanwhile, people must continue to wake up to the reality that there is currently a fourth branch of the federal government, one that arguably possesses more power than the other three branches, that essentially operates at its own discretion, and that is largely untouchable by the ballot box.

No Reason?

There's a gun and ammunition
Just inside the doorway
Use it only in emergency
Better you should pray to God
The Father and the Spirit
To guide you and protect you from up here
--Mike and the Mechanics

Another example of left-wing gun grabber hypocrisy.

More recently, one could substitute into the first panel the thousands of 'assault weapons' being sent to Ukraine streetfighters over the past few months.

No reason?

Confiscate the Cars

Who's gonna hold you down
When you shake?
Who's gonna tell you things
Aren't so great?
--The Cars

Nice one.

As we've noted, reason is not a prominent feature of gun grabber 'logic.'

Hysteria Again

I get hysterical
Hysteria
Oh can you feel it?
Do you believe it?
--Def Leppard

Acute situations foster System 1 thinking rather than reasoned thinking. System 1 thinking presents opportunity for politicians to engage in emotional capture.

It should therefore not be surprising that gun grabbers are once again coming out of the woodwork following recent episodes of mass shootings. They betray any semblance of sincerity by their hysterical idiocy.

These pages have previously suggested that, if they really wanted to sponsor 'serious' conversations about the positions they advocate, anti-gunners would benefit from better understanding of the firearms they target, and of their utility in self-defense situations.

That gun grabbers consistently fail to do so suggests that they believe the calm, reasoned approach to be a losing strategy.

So they continue down the path of hysteria.

"You've Got to Go"

Ellis 'Zee' Pettigrew: LT, rules of engagement?
Lt A.K. Walters: We're already engaged.
--Tears of the Sun

Last week 19 children and two teachers were killed by an 18 yr old active shooter in a Texas elementary school. Evidence is emerging that local police were on the scene early, but they did not enter the building to neutralize the shooter. 

As shots continued to be fired from inside the school building, onlookers, including parents of the students, urged law enforcement to get in there. But they stayed put. In fact, some onlookers who attempted to breach the 'safe zone' in desperation to 'do something' were forcibly restrained by police.

It was not until a Border Patrol tactical unit showed up more than an hour after the initial arrival of local law enforcement that the school building was finally entered and the shooter taken down.

A former Border Patrol agent who trained the team in active shooter scenarios was disturbed by local law enforcement's lack of urgency. "You go to the sound of gunfire," he said.

"Somebody's going to get shot in these scenarios--I mean, that's the whole point of an active shooter. And when you are a law enforcement officer and your job in the situation is to prevent any more innocent people from being wounded or killed--then you've got to go. Hopefully everything turns out OK, but you've got to go."

Active shooter situations dictate that law enforcement has to find a way in and neutralize the threat.

"If you're met with a hail of gunfire, then you've got to work your way around and figure out another way. If that means you retreat and port a window and go in, OK. The doors are locked, we can't get in, we don't have the tools to get in, then we've got to break the windows and go in. Driving a squad car through the side of the building--when you've got children being massacred inside of a building who gives a **** about a $50,000 squad car? Drive it through the wall.

"Because every shot that's fired is somebody either dying or getting wounded, you've got to go."

He suggests that officers on the scene bear a heavy burden for their failure to act.

"As far as I'm concerned, if there was any shooting going on, and there was law enforcement there failed to act for whatever reason, anybody that was there needs to turn in their badge and their gun, and they need to go away and hope they can live with the deaths of these children."

Pray for all involved, including those officers. And resolve that if you ever face one of these situations, then don't hesitate. You've got to go.

Treason Mania

"A toast...to high treason. That's what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration. Had we lost the war, they would have been hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, and--my personal favorite--had their entrails cut out and BURNED!"
--Benjamin Franklin Gates (National Treasure)

Glen Greenwald discusses the increased tendency to label people as 'traitors.' Out of concerns that treason term would be abused for political gain, the framers defined the limited scope of the crime in the Constitution itself. Per Article 3, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Treason was the only crime to be delineated in the Constitution. Why? Because the framers anticipated the grave danger of repressive governments seeking to silence criticism of, or opposition to, government policy by making it a capital crime.

Stated differently, they knew that liberal interpretations of treason would squash freedom of speech.

Given its constitutional limitations, treason has rarely been prosecuted in the United States, and less than 12 Americans have been convicted of treason in the nation's history.

Unfortunately, legal limitations have not prevented politicians and their media minions from shouting "Treason!" in the direction of those who behave in manners deemed unsupportive of consensus government policy.

Greenwald suggests that the Trump era elevated accusations of treason from a periodic transgression to a standard, reflexive way of criticizing political opposition. Indeed, the 'scandal' investigations that embroiled Trump's term can easily be seen as a protracted treason campaign. As Greenwald observes,

"The dominant narrative insisted that Trump and his allies were controlled by Moscow, subservient to the Kremlin, and were acting to promote Russian over American interests. That Trump was loyal not to the country that elected him but, instead, to an adversarial nation is something Democrats believe as an article of faith."

In reality, of course, many of those who have accused Trump of treason seem to possess little affinity for the fundamental institutions that underpin the United States and, in fact, seem hell bent on overthrowing them. As such, the Trump Treason narrative seems another ironic act of projection by this group. 

In any event, thanks to the Trump Treason years, "an entire generation has been trained to believe that 'treason' is the crime of expressing views that undermine Democratic Party leaders, diverge from the US security state, and/or dispute the consensus of the US corporate press."

Enter, now, the Ukraine conflict. Russia's invasion of Ukraine three weeks ago has taken treason mania to another level. (Although Greenwald calls it 'never-before-seen,' I suspect that we have, judging from what I've gathered about the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, as well as the Wilson and FDR years). People suggesting that NATO expansion or any other factor beyond 'Putin' helped spark this conflict, or that Ukrainian borders are not vital enough interests to the US to warrant American involvement, are reflexively labeled 'traitors.'

Our founding ancestors lived this accusation. By speaking out against the King of England they were deemed traitors for voicing legitimate political opposition to the crown. They understood that the hallmark of tyranny is intolerance of voices that questioned official government policy, and to criminalize them if possible by equating dissenting voices with treason.

That's why the framers articulated the First Amendment, and a limited criminal scope for treasonous behavior. 

If you've been labeled a 'traitor' for dissenting from the party line on Ukraine, then find comfort that you're on the right side of history and of reason. Don't take the insults personally.

Better yet, pray for them.

Great Reset

V: To whom, might I ask, am I speaking?
Eve Hammond: I'm Evey.
V: Evey? E-V. Of course you are.
Eve Hammond: What does that mean?
V: It means that I, like God, do not play with dice and do not believe in coincidence.
--V for Vendetta

Last summer we discussed the 'Great Reset' as a grand motivator behind the pandemic madness. Since then, the Build Back Better motto associated with the Great Reset concept has become mainstream terminology and a label for the current administration's spending proposals.

This piece provides a nice chronology of the Great Reset's conceptual development. The centrality of Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum (WEF) in advancing the concept is unmistakable.

The article also offers further support for the hypothesis that the WEF played a central, premeditated role in engineering Great Reset-oriented policy responses to the CV19 pandemic. In 2018 and 2019, the WEF co-sponsored two simulations of pandemic policy responses. The 2018 CLADE X exercise simulated a breakout of a novel parainfluenza virus in the US. The 2019 Event 201 exercise, conducted two months before the CV19 pandemic began, considered a worldwide outbreak of a novel coronavirus.

Supreme coincidence? Doubtful.

Both simulations anticipated nearly all policy responses and consequences that we have unfortunately become all-too-familiar with. Large-scale lockdowns. Widespread business collapse. Adoption of biometric surveillance technologies. Emphasis on social media censorship to combat 'misinformation.' Mass unemployment.

All of this works toward achievement of Great Reset goals. Reduction of fragmented markets and free enterprise and increase in concentrated, corporatist-state dyads (read fascism). Fear-based compliance with government mandates. Supply chain disruptions and shortages. Reduction of production activities in the name of climate control. Reduced localized government in favor of global rule. Et al.

Further reduces doubt that what is going has been orchestrated from the beginning.

Last Stand

Is this the value of our existence
Should we proclaim with such persistance
Our destiny relies on conscience
Red or blue, what's the difference
--The Fixx

Great snippet from a 1964 speech by Ronald Reagan. He noted that the US was the 'last stand' for those seeking freedom and liberty. It is still true today.

He also suggests that the choice is not left or right, it is up or down. Up toward the dream of liberty and self-governance, or down toward totalitarianism. The latter would amount to abandoning the idea of liberty and settling for a band of 'intellectual elites' planning and determining how all should live.

"And regardless of their sincerity and their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."

Still so very true.

Voter ID

"Define irony."

--Garland Greene (Con Air)

Liberty-minded people are naturally wary of government-mandated ID requirements. Mandatory identification cards, tags, numbers, implants, retinal scans, fingerprints, etc. invite government tracking which threatens individuals' constitutional right to privacy. When it cannot identify and monitor behavior, the state loses much of its power for meddling in the affairs of the citizenry. 

It would seem that the lower the requirement for state-sponsored ID in a society, the greater the individual liberty in that society.

However, this proposition poses a dilemma when it comes to voting. Free societies are usually grounded in republican forms of government. In republican forms of government, representatives are commonly elected by the citizenry through some form of popular vote. 

A few rules are typically imposed on the voters. They must be of a minimum age. They can cast only one ballot. They cannot vote in proxy for someone else. Finally, they must be recognized citizens of the geographic domain for which votes are to be cast. 

It follows, then, that there needs to be a process for verifying that voters have adhered to the rules. It is also difficult to see how such a process does not include a reliable form of voter identification. Information on the ID enables verification of a prospective voter's eligibility and that voters have been true to the 'one person, one vote' requirement.

Wouldn't mandatory voter ID increase risk of government mischief? Oh yeah. The classic precedent is the Social Security number. When the Social Security program was enacted in the late 1930s, the number was said to be simple mechanism for tracking accounts in the Social Security system. Since then, of course, the SSN has become a principal identifier for individuals within the US.

But perhaps the risk can be intelligently managed. After all, absent voter ID, election integrity seems impossible to verify. Corruption is encouraged. Individual voting franchises are degraded. Electors are illegitimate. (Sound familiar?)

Consequently, governments may be installed that threaten the very liberty that free people seek to protect by remaining anonymous and untrackable. 

Quite the irony.

Masks and Exposure Science

Plastic tubes and pots and pans
Bits and pieces and
Magic from the hand
--Oingo Bingo

Insightful video divided into six segments that discusses scientific issues related to universal masking. The narrator is an industrial hygienist who understands theory and associated research that apply to practical masking situations.

He puts many useful concepts to work, including the hierarchy of controls employed to mitigate health and safety risk (of which personal protective equipment such as masks constitutes the final and least effective of all levels), and the hierarchy of evidence (of which anecdotal evidence and expert opinion--those sources that public health officials have emphasized most to justify their policies, constitute the lowest quality evidential source).

After watching this series, only the ignorant or partisan would fail to question the pseudo-science that has been manipulated to support prevailing public health policy.

National Police

When I'm in the shower
I'm afraid to wash my hair
'Cause I might open my eyes
And find someone standing there
--Rockwell

Under the reign of J Edgar Hoover, the FBI developed a reputation for blacklisting and gathering 'intelligence' on so-called enemies of the state. Today, the Feds are no longer merely dirt gatherers, they are perpetrators of crime in the name of the state.

This became all too apparent during the Trump administration. Efforts to keep Trump out of office and then take down his administration involved more than a few 'rogue agents.' It snaked through the hierarchy to the director level.

Federal police actions are escalating under Biden. Door knock down raids, false flag ops, frameups. 

After all, you can't have a police state without national police.

VAERS

Always slipping from my hands
Sand's a time of its own
Take your seaside arms and write the next line
Oh, I want the truth to be known
--Spandau Ballet

The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) collects information about possible side effects of vaccines following their administration. VAERS is a passive reporting system, relying on both patients and health care providers to file reports of their experiences. Health care providers are legally required to report adverse events that fall within specified parameters. In addition, vaccine producers are required to report all adverse effects that come to their attention.

Its design exposes VAERS data to inaccuracies. Vaccine side effects might be under-reported if experiences are not submitted. On the other hand, problems could be over-reported if the system if abused. To reduce potential for error, VAERS screens submitted reports before accepting them. Moreover, knowingly filing a false report is a violation of federal law punishable by fine and imprisonment.

Despite its warts, the VAERS system has nonetheless been institutionalized as a mechanism for warning about vaccine efficacy and safety problems. Given concerns about the technological foundations of CV19 vaccines, it should come as no surprise that VAERS data have been the subject of scrutiny.

Current VAERS data indeed suggest significant side effect profiles of CV19 vaccines. Nearly 800,000 adverse effect reports have been recorded. Included in those side effects are nearly 17,000 vaccine-related deaths. Other adverse events related to the vaccines, including hospitalizations, allergic reactions, miscarriages, heart attacks, and paralysis number in the hundreds of thousands. 

While the accuracy of VAERS reports can be questioned due to the information collection limitations, what can't be disputed is that adverse event counts since the advent of CV19 vaccines are many orders of magnitude higher than those obtained from prior reports.

Just as curious has been the response, or lack of response, to recent VAERS data by the media and by medical and public health professionals. We'll discuss this more soon.

Walking Away

Here comes Johnny and he'll tell you a story
Hand me down my walkin' shoes
Here comes Johnny with the power and the glory
Backbeat the talkin' blues
--Dire Straits

In Ayn Rand's classic Atlas Shrugged, protagonist John Galt and producers like him decide to leave the system rather than continuing to operate in oppressive authoritarian environments full of regulations and other restrictions.

As authoritarianism continues to escalate under current political regimes, workers in many industries (e.g., here, here, here) are emulating Galt. They are walking away from workplaces governed by rules, mandates, and ultimatums that they find distasteful.

What happens to an economy if enough workers hit the Galtean silk? Rand crafts a fictional scenario. 

Bluff in a game of chicken? Temporary or permanent? We may soon find out, as a real life, large scale version of the Galtean walk is playing out before our very eyes.

COLA Wars

Hundred dollar car note
Two hundred rent
A get a check on Friday
But it's already spent
--Huey Lewis & the News

The Social Security Administration has announced that recipients will receive a 5.9% increase in benefits in 2022. This cost of living adjustment (COLA) amounts to the largest annual increase in almost 40 years.

One reason why government measures of price inflation are absurdly manipulated (i.e., under-reported) is to minimize payouts that are subject to COLAs. If price changes were measured accurately, then the government would be on the hook for $trillions more in COLA payments.

The large benefit increase demonstrates that this administration is having a hard time keeping the lid on the low or 'transitory' inflation narrative. It knows that if it tried to tell millions of retirees that cost of living is not as high as they think it is, then it would be one more reason to vote leftists out of office.

By increasing the COLA to retirees, Democrats hope to buy votes or, more accurately, to bribe voters.

For Your Safety

Say, we can go where we want to
To a place they will never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind
--Men Without Hats

Freedom is ours by birth. Security is a good that must be purchased. Because its core competence is force, government naturally seeks to sell its strong arms to willing buyers who want to feel safe.

It's been going on for millenia. Live inside our fortress walls in exchange for your labor. Our knights will protect you for tribute. We will confiscate your weapons to keep you safe. Variations of the classic protection racket that exploits fear.

The most heinous regimes in world history have commonly been built with protection planks.

A new one is under construction before our very eyes.

Causes of Crisis

"Gentlemen, we have a crisis situation."
--Jester (Top Gun)

Interesting discussion of how we've evolved into a Constitutional Crisis situation. Especially liked the review of the negative influence of the Progressive movement.

I thought that the author missed the mark on a couple of points, however. He correctly notes that the Three Fifths clause which legitimized slavery was not a principle of the Constitution, but a compromise. But the author implies that it was a necessary compromise to close the deal that ultimately led to the union of states. Furthermore he argues, using some cites from Frederick Douglass, that the Constitution was ultimately and anti-slavery document. Because it was grounded in the 'all men created equal' principle set forth in the Declaration, tension was created by the compromise that ultimately led to slavery being thrown off.

Very neat, but what if enough anti-slavery framers had the cojones to stand their ground at the convention? Might the union have included fewer states in the beginning? Yes. But the principle would have stood from the outset. And millions of lives would have subsequently been saved. Indeed, it can be argued that willingness to 'compromise' ranks highly in the factors that have led to the Constitutional Crisis that we face.

Before lambasting Progressives for wanting to consolidate power in the executive branch, the author claims that there are times when the president rightfully should wield such power. In the event of war and crises, he suggests, the president must be able to circumvent constitutional balances of power to, essentially, 'preserve the union.' He is undoubtedly covering for Lincoln, whom he is sympathetic to and quotes liberally in the article despite Lincoln's abuse of power during his administration.

Lincoln and other presidents have used 'emergency powers' to do precisely what the author seems to argue against--i.e., the durable confiscation of liberty by an authoritarian state. Although he quotes work by both Jefferson and Locke that appear sympathetic to concentrating authority with the executive branch in times of crisis, there is no provision for doing such in the Constitution itself.

Indeed, the inconsistencies demonstrate by the author suggest that there is plenty of blame to go around for our present crises. The actions of many so-called 'conservatives' have done as much to denigrate the Constitution as those of Progressives.