Fraudulent, Illegal, Unconstitutional, Unconscionable, And False: A Short Tour Of Government In Action Thomas Buckley

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/23/fraudulent-illegal-unconstitutional-unconscionable-and-false-a-short-tour-of-government-in-action/

All governments are bad – always necessary, often useful, occasionally better than most, rarely genuinely helpful to all, but still bad.

From Athens to Zaire, from commune to kingdom, from democracy to dictatorship, when people come together to form a society there will always be those who take advantage, who prey, who scheme, who profit from their position.

Every government ever has violated its own laws, flouted its own rules, changed long-standing practices for immediate gain, side-stepped its foundational concepts and strictures, dismissed societal codes of conduct, and ignored the basic ethical standards of humanity.

Here in the United States – which actually has one of the best governmental systems and surely the best foundational governmental theory – we are not immune to these issues.

A necessarily brief – the internet is just not big enough to hold every damning detail – review of even our government practices shows this to be true.

The litany of the unconstitutional manipulation and/or imprisonment of the citizenry runs depressingly long, from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the abuses of the Patriot Act, from the Palmer Raids post World War I to the actions of HUAC in the 1950s.

Voters Show Deep Political Split Over How Gov’t Handled COVID: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/23/voters-show-deep-political-split-over-how-govt-handled-covid-ii-tipp-poll/

America these days has many powerful political disagreements, even for things that, at least superficially, don’t seem to be overtly political. One of them is the government response to the COVID-19 virus outbreak. It has divided the country politically as few other issues in recent years, new I&I/TIPP data show.

Those responding to the latest poll were asked whether the economic lockdowns, public school closures, masking requirements and social restrictions were “necessary or unnecessary to address the COVID virus.”

The majority believe the government’s actions were needed. By 57% to 30%, Americans answered that the COVID restrictions, however draconian and painful, were “necessary” rather than “unnecessary.” Another 13% said they were not sure.

These results emerged from a national online I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,359 adults, taken from Nov. 2-4. The poll’s margin of error is +/-2.8 percentage points.

When you look at the breakdown by political affiliation, the COVID schism clearly comes into view.

Among Democrats, an overwhelming 79% said the COVID lockdown restrictions were necessary, versus just 35% of Republicans. Among independents, 50% said they were needed.

But just 12% of Democrats said they were “unnecessary,” compared to 52% of Republicans and 32% of independents. Only 9% of Democrats were unsure; 13% of Republicans and a sizeable 18% of independents weren’t certain.

So approval of the COVID restrictions appears to have been mostly a Democratic phenomenon.

Why are Arab communities in Judea and Samaria called villages, while Jewish ones are called “settlements”? Victor Sharpe

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/

When did it become accepted that a delusional peace between Israel and the predominately Muslim Arabs, those who call themselves Palestinians, requires Israel to give away it’s very own Biblical birthright in the Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria (the so-called ‘West Bank’)?

When did the Oslo Accords, the Wye Agreement, the Roadmap, ad nauseum, supersede the eternal possession of the Jewish people to their God given heartland? To even ask the question is a monstrous tragedy, so enormous as to spit in the face of G-d.

Who are they who dare to try to divide the land that the Almighty bequeathed to Abraham and to his descendants through Isaac and Jacob?

Who are they who would give any part of tiny Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) to the Arabs, they who already possess vast lands throughout the Middle East and North Africa?

Unlike the deeply appreciated previous incumbent of the White House, President Donald J. Trump, too many U.S. presidents have displayed pro-Muslim Arab policies, which created a clear and present danger to the very existence and survival of the reconstituted Jewish state. And so it is with President Joe Biden.

Latin America: ‘China’s Backyard’ China in Latin America – Part 2 by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19130/latin-america-china-backyard

In the next two years, between 2022 and 2024, China, according to its joint plan with Latin American and Caribbean states, and as part of its quest to become the world’s global tech leader, envisages providing states in the region with 5,000 government scholarships and 3,000 training places in education and research in the Chinese homeland.

This cooperation also extends to space, as well as nuclear energy and nuclear technology. The plan also aims to strengthen cooperation in 5G telecommunications equipment and artificial intelligence.

Significantly, the action plan also mentions building networks of sister cities and sister provinces between Latin American/Caribbean countries and China.

“Under the administration of Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, the association [for sister-cities] has been revitalized as China seeks to groom local business, political, and media leaders in countries around the world…” — “China’s Influence & American Interests,” a 2018 report by the Working Group on Chinese Influence Activities in the United States, Hoover Institution Press, November 29, 2018.

China’s trade with Latin America reached $450 billion last year, up from $180 billion in 2010. The World Economic Forum has estimated that trade with the region will exceed $700 billion by 2035, more than double what it was in 2000.

Crucially, 21 out of the 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have joined the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI seeks dramatically to enhance China’s global influence… by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.

Latin America, as one headline noted recently, is fast “becoming China’s backyard.”

China is deepening its involvement in Latin America and the Caribbean, as Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu made clear last year at a summit between China and Latin American and Caribbean states.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete the Totalitarian State By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/ctrlaltdelete_the_totalitarian_state.html

There are three government narratives pushed today that are not real: (1) fraud-free elections, (2) a looming climate apocalypse, and (3) a COVID health emergency requiring total government control.  If you see through only one, then you’re not looking hard enough.  Or as Bill Engvall might say, “If you now believe COVID is mostly a hoax but are still terrified of global warming, here’s your sign.”  Conversely, if you do see through them, you’re likely being censored for expressing those points of view.  

Here’s our impasse: when governments claim to have a monopoly on truth, then citizens are expected to accept preposterous fantasies, no matter how much opposing evidence they might see.  The narrative is absolute.  Dissent is forbidden.  Total obedience is the objective.  Last century, free Westerners understood these features as telltale signs of totalitarianism.  Today, much less free Westerners have been taught to embrace — without scrutiny or wisdom — the government’s fairy tales as part of our required, if not sacred, deference to the bureaucratic State’s cult of expertise.  Whether citizens grasp this shift in individual freedom or not, the general rule handed down from governments is stark yet succinct: ask us no questions, and we will tell you no lies!

Westerners desperately need to reboot their systems of government before those systems of government delete the public’s power to make changes ever again.  It is not possible for political leaders to claim that their countries support personal freedom when they snatch that freedom away at the first sneeze, cow fart, or unapproved tweet.  It is not logical for governments to claim that they protect “democracy” when armies of unelected permanent bureaucrats run the modern State.  It is not reasonable for Western nations to claim that they cherish “free thinking” and “free expression” when their technocratic surveillance arms actively censor speech and promote State-approved points of view over all others.

The gods of diversity are killing the ‘golden age’ of medicine By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/the_gods_of_diversity_are_killing_the_golden_age_of_medicine.html

Those who came of age in the second half of the 20th century or later, have been blessed to witness a time of extraordinary medical progress. Now, though, thanks to academia’s mindless push for diversity, we are almost certainly on the precipice of a steep decline in the quality of medical care in America.

Beginning in the late 19th century, modern medicine brought us anesthetics and sophisticated germ theory that allowed safe surgeries, antibiotics, the understanding and treatment of chronic diseases, organ transplants, dramatically decreased maternal and child mortality, unimaginably successful treatments for cancer, vision-correcting surgery, and so much more. In the first world, the human life span roughly doubled compared to the lifespan people could expect just 150 years ago. It truly was a time of wonders and miracles.

As medicine grew more sophisticated, doctors’ standing in society increased. Medicine ceased to be an apprentice-type trade and became a high-cachet profession, with gratifying financial awards. By the middle of the 20th century and for several decades thereafter, medical schools were able to limit themselves to the best of the best from every college class. Sure, there were bad doctors, but even if they were bad, they were still smart. (Small consolation, of course, when you’re on the receiving end of malpractice.)

We conservatives knew that socialized medicine threatened all of this and we fought against it for decades. The moment the government takes over medicine, killing the profit motive, it begins rationing care. People have access to doctors; they just don’t have access to treatments that save or improve their lives.

Jen Psaki: Investigations for Thee But Not for Me By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/21/jen-psaki-investigations-for-thee-but-not-for-me/

It’s beyond ironic that the mouthpiece for a regime proceeding with yet another punitive and vengeful investigation into Donald Trump wants to be shielded from an inquiry into her own misdeeds.

Former White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, much like her old boss, is a big fan of investigations.

From her perch at the podium in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, Psaki routinely endorsed criminal, civil, and congressional inquiries into the events of January 6 and warned the individuals targeted—including Donald Trump and his former aides—that they must comply with the legal process. 

A reporter asked Psaki during her first briefing whether Joe Biden believed Trump should “be held accountable for the Capitol insurrection” on January 6. Calling the four-hour disturbance that afternoon an “horrific event,” Psaki said Joe Biden had spoken with lawmakers about how to proceed. “He is going to leave it to members of Congress to carry out their constitutional duty and determine what the path forward is,” Psaki announced on January 21, 2021.

Psaki later announced that Biden would not extend executive privilege to his predecessor related to the January 6 select committee’s inquisition, giving investigators carte blanche access to all of Trump’s records for most of 2020—most of which had nothing to do with January 6. “We are, we have been working closely with congressional committees and others as they work to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6th, an incredibly dark day in our democracy,” Psaki said in September 2021.

The Same Old, Same Old Deja Vu By Victor Davis Hanson

https://pjmedia.com/columns/victor-davis-hanson/2022/11/22/the-same-old-same-old-deja-vu-n1647817

Attorney General Merrick Garland has just announced the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith. But Smith’s team will not look into the Biden family quid pro quo syndicate nor its incriminating confessionals on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Instead, it will further investigate Donald Trump’s possession of presidential records that were hauled off from Mar-a-Lago, as well as his purported role in the January 6 “insurrection.”

We know the script that will follow because we suffered through it for 22 months and spent $40 million for it under Robert Mueller’s special counsel team.

First, the Smith investigation will bear no resemblance to special counsel John Durham’s probes. The media ignored Durham. His team did not leak to the press. And neither a Washington, D.C. nor northern Virginia jury was ever likely to convict any perceived enemy of Trump.

Second, upon the announcement of Smith’s legal staffers, the media will grow giddy that their resumes portend another “dream team,” “all-stars,” or “a hunter-killer team.”

Puff pieces will blanket the media. They will attest, just like “good Ol’ Bob Mueller,” that the former Obama Justice Department public integrity unit lawyer Smith is “an old hand,” “tough but fair,” “nonpartisan,” and a “prosecutor’s prosecutor.”

Weeks into the investigation, the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, or MSNBC will darkly inform their audiences that “unnamed sources close to the investigation tell us that “a bombshell” is about to go off.

Perhaps the “stunning development” will be similar to the fake “walls are closing in” scoop about the conspiratorial pinging in Trump tower from the Alfa Bank in Russia, or the “game-changer” Christopher Steele-fed, pee-pee, Moscow hotel room fable.

Attorney General Merrick Garland Is Attempting to Obstruct a Congressional Investigation By Greg Byrnes

https://pjmedia.com/columns/gregbyrnes/2022/11/21/attorney-general-merrick-garland-is-attempting-to-obstruct-a-congressional-investigation-n1647697

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint Jack Smith as a special counsel to investigate President Trump’s handling of government documents at Mar-a-Lago as well as January 6 needs to be thoroughly investigated and countered by the incoming GOP House of Representatives. They must study if this rogue Attorney General has committed impeachable offenses and, if so, act quickly to impeach him.

President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s loss of a 100% Democrat-controlled January 6th Committee to Republicans now has all the makings of a Constitutional crisis.

Rather than accepting that the other party is now in charge and allowing a peaceful transfer of investigative powers to the Republicans, the Democrats and the Justice Department have opted to break all norms to stop that. This is about more than Democrats losing control of their beloved “narrative.” The appointment of a special counsel will block the newly installed Republican House from investigating uncomfortable questions about the Justice Department and FBI’s behavior concerning the Capitol riot on January 6.

If there were embedded agents in some of the groups of bad actors responsible for the riot, why was no one warned of the impending attack? Or if they were warned, why did they fail to act? Why were law enforcement and the Justice Department so badly surprised by events? Why, despite President Trump’s offer of 10,000 troops in the weeks before the event, were law enforcement officials not pushing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mayor Muriel Bowser to be forearmed and prepared? Or if they were warned, why did they fail to act?

Magic Cars The inconvenient facts about electric cars. by John Stossel

https://www.frontpagemag.com/magic-cars/

Politicians praise electric cars. If everyone buys them, they say, solar and wind power will replace our need for oil.

But that’s absurd.

Here is the rest of my list of “inconvenient facts” about electric cars.

“The future of the auto industry is electric,” says President Joe Biden. He assumes a vast improvement in batteries. Better batteries are crucial because both power plants and cars need to store lots of electric power.

But here’s inconvenient fact 3: Batteries are lousy at storing large amounts of energy.

“Batteries leak, and they don’t hold a lot,” says physicist Mark Mills.

Mills thinks electric cars are great but explains that “oil begins with a huge advantage: 5,000% more energy in it per pound. Electric car batteries weigh 1,000 pounds. Those 1,000 pounds replace just 80 pounds of gasoline.”

But future batteries will be better, I point out.

“Engineers are really good at making things better,” Mills responds, “but they can’t make them better than the laws of physics permit.”

That’s inconvenient fact 4. Miracle batteries powerful enough to replace fossil fuels are a fantasy.

“Because nature is not nice to humans,” explains Mills, “we store energy for when it’s cold or really hot. People who imagine an energy transition want to build windmills and solar panels and store all that energy in batteries. But if you do the arithmetic, you find you’d need to build about a hundred trillion dollars’ worth of batteries to store the same amount of energy that Europe has in storage now for this winter. It would take the world’s battery factories 400 years to manufacture that many batteries.”

Politicians don’t mention that when they promise every car will be electric. They also don’t mention that the electric grid is limited.