One need not look very hard or long to discover immense government mendacity and incompetence. Yet, when found, both qualities of questionable federal actions serve to confirm excellence and veracity for those whose intentions are fulfilled thereby. In other words, almost everything federal departments do is subject to the ideologies of long-term employee-perpetrators, and very little to do with the intentions of Presidents or Cabinet Secretaries. Elected officers are relatively temporary, especially Presidents and their appointees – ostensibly the most powerful people in government. All of this potential failure is exposed sharply in a little town named East Palestine, Ohio.
Norfolk-Southern operates a two-track main through the town of East Palestine. Across those rails travel a thousand products every week, mostly in bulk – products like cement, flour, gypsum, wheat, oil, and a host of manufactured volatiles like vinyl chloride, methyl ethyl ketone, butyl acrylate, benzene residue and dozens of other toxic fluids and materials. People whose lives place them along the tracks of Norfolk-Southern, are usually ignorant of, if not oblivious to, all of these potential hazards flying by at 50 and 60 miles an hour on trains that weigh so much that their cumulative momentum require up to a mile of normal braking to come to a halt. On February 3rd, 2023, a train of 150 cars and tankers of various types was routed to pass through East Palestine around 9 o’clock in the morning, but it never made it through… most of it.
A bearing on a bulk dry-materials car was overheating. That car and bearing may have traveled 300 miles or more since the train was “made up,” and the imminent failure of that bearing and axle was visible in Salem, at least 20 miles ahead of East Palestine, as sparks and eventually flames spewed from the doomed journal. It lasted another 20 minutes until it failed catastrophically in East Palestine. By raw luck no one was killed as 38 of the cars crumpled together and started burning, including 10 cars with truly hazardous chemicals. Further luck allowed for only fire and not an explosion, which might have thrown metal a mile or more from the site.
One of the risk factors for the residents of East Palestine appears to have been that many of them voted for Donald Trump and, worse, that most are white-skinned. Otherwise it is difficult to assess why the federal government was so slow to respond to the plight of the little town of 5,000 souls who were so rudely alerted to the unsafe nature of America’s rail transportation, and its ruinous costs for innocent victims of its accidents.
Of course, the huge costs of “breaking” a train somewhere along the main line, in order to remove one defective car, is very, very high. We must recognize the difficulties of running a railroad. Still, had they stopped the train to remove the car with the burning axle, they’d have had to bring another engine up to the rear section and pull it back away from the damaged car. the front section could be pulled away from the other end of that car. But then what? Bring in a crane to pick it off the rails? Probably just pushing the car off the tracks with a piece of construction equipment would have been the cheapest temporary solution. The rest of the train could be coupled together and complete it’s risky journey. Definitely it would have been a more elegant solution than the one they tried. Even the relatively insensitive thermal detectors that all railroads use to alert them to overheated bearings, must have detected a journal with sparks and flames spraying from it
Pulling that mess through East Palestine must have been an economic decision.
Despite Ohio and Federal EPA assurances, no one in East Palestine trusts either the water or the air. Local anecdotes about headaches, sick pets and farm animals, rashes, burns and inability to tolerate the air in their homes and businesses, are discounted automatically. “Everything is safe to breath and drink,” they are told, but after the conversion of vinyl chloride into phosgene gas and hydrochloric acid thanks to “burning off” the remaining vinyl chloride that hadn’t burned on its own, no one is taking the word of anyone in authority. That and the mixed messages of safety and advice to drink bottled water, has everyone who can smell the chemicals on edge. The Secretary of Transportation, one Peter Buttigieg, reassured the aggrieved residents with the information that there are as many as 1,000 train derailments every year in the United States and, despite the excessive attention being paid to East Palestine currently, they shouldn’t feel especially victimized, apparently. Oddly, his wisdom provided no comfort, whatsoever. Who hired that dope, anyway?
Eventually the EPA began serious cleanup, and the black cloud with which “they” had blessed this beautiful little spot of earth, dissipated, which is not to say that the poisonous gasses released “went away.” They are now part of our environment… and everyone’s else, but “the solution to pollution is dilution.” Closer to ground zero, however, the black ash fallout is a worry for those on whose property it fell. No one really knows what the long-term health effects may be for those most impacted. On February 3rd, their homes plummeted in value as did their land. Norfolk-Southern is not likely to make them whole, probably no one can. A thousand derailments per year… hmmmnnh, maybe there is something important for the Secretary of Transportation to do.
Currently we seem to be as concerned about inflation and the “consumer price index” as we are about any other nationwide issue. “Inflation,” of course, refers only to the inflation of the money supply, something that is only partly affected by the actions of people in the day-to-day economy… what we call, “Main Street.” This reference is usually juxtaposed to “Wall Street,” where the wizards of finance operate at, supposedly, an entirely different level of economics than the rest of us. Though Wall Street money machinations are more arcane, they are not so very different from the decisions we all make regarding the presence or lack of “money” and the affordability of things we’d like to buy.
“Wall Street” is a combine of INTERNATIONAL money manipulators, and they are tied to many governments, especially that of the United States, where finance involves multi-Billions and even Trillions of dollars; financing shopping centers, small businesses and residences is not their particular concern. They, like Federal socialists, are delighted to mess with 10’s and 100’s of thousands of mortgages, including selling “options” and “futures” contracts based on their supposed flow of billions and hundreds of billions of future mortgage payments – delighted, that is, until their phony financial instruments caused the destruction of several of their own pack, like Lehman Brothers. At that point, thanks to their financial entanglements with “our” federal government and governors, they felt free to compel the taxpayers of America to bail them out. Otherwise, they’re just like us.
In either case, “money” is defined as instruments of real worth or value: a dollar once was exchangeable for a dollar’s worth of silver or, in theory, of gold. People – and banks and governments – around the world, recognize precious metals and true weights and purity thereof, as items of intrinsic value. Right now, the “dollar” bill we are familiar with is no longer even tied to the United States directly; it is a “Federal Reserve Note” that the U. S. Federal Government declares must be accepted as “legal tender” for all debts public and private. But, all you can get at a Federal Reserve Bank (neither federal nor a reserve) in exchange for a one-dollar Federal Reserve Note is another Federal Reserve Note. So, our “currency” today is only “tender,” not actual money. Others accept it in exchange for real goods and services and as long as this is true we can function economically.
Our good and trusted Representatives, however, legislating in “The People’s House” on our behalf, have decided over many decades to spend more “money” than we can actually afford to pay in taxes. Our Federal “budgets,” such as they have been since 1960 or so, have been out of “balance,” now accumulating some $32 Trillion of DEBT, which has placed an obligation on the backs of all of us, thank them very much. This occurred at an accelerated rate over the past two years of the Biden administration and the last year of the Trump administration, thanks, ostensibly, to a COVID-19 pandemic, and this has both distorted our employment, wages and sense of responsibility, and caused tremendous INFLATION of the money supply. Well, actually, it’s not money that it has inflated, but our “legal tender” or “currency.” Keep in mind that it is not “money” that gets inflated – that supply only grows by the quantities of goods and fixed assets that increase thanks to PRODUCTION of those goods, goods that have intrinsic value. That “intrinsic value” is the closest thing to “money” that we have.
Unfortunately, as fascistic leftists shut down our economy and started paying newly locked-out workers to stay home as their jobs evaporated, PRODUCTION, oddly enough, declined! Suddenly we had trillions of new bits of legal tender floating around with fewer goods – or SERVICES – available to buy! This logically caused prices to rise. That’s not “inflation,” regardless of how often we call it that, it is PRICE INCREASE derived largely from supply and demand. In our foolishness we lowered supply while we multiplied demand. Indeed, our decades-long transfer of production to China, where it was also restricted by COVID (including screw-ups in the supply chain, keeping what products were made out of our marketplaces) made our own inflation-generated price increases even worse. Anyone who calls rising prices, “inflation,” is simply ignorant. The Federal Government and the current administration are the most frequent mis-staters of what “inflation” is, but it helps to confuse – or lie to – the American people, one of which is always a Federal goal.
Consequently, President Biden and his tight tether to the truth, loves to claim that “inflation” has “come down” for the past 6 consecutive months. How wonderful that sounds, as though his spendthrift administration were responsible for improving the economy for average folks. But what is reality? Do Biden’s truths have any congruence with reality?
Prices are still high and getting higher. What does Biden’s claim of slowing “inflation” have to do with that? Well, when we recognize what his “inflation” really is: price increases, Biden is patting himself on the back for slower price increases. Swell. What he hopes to obscure is the painful fact that all the price increase that has already taken place IS STILL THERE, and those prices are STILL GOING UP, just a little slower. That is not a victory. Factually it is a sloppy admission that the pain he has inflicted on Americans with his dumb-ass policies is as bad as ever and getting worse. Congratulations, you old dope.
Add to the damage being done the fact that the rate of price increases (so-called inflation) is no longer honestly stated to begin with, thanks to Federal political calculations, since they no longer include ENERGY or FOOD! What a hoax. That lets the Department of Commerce claim that “inflation” is only 6 or 7 or 8 percent, when it’s actually 12 or 13 percent! People might really vote against someone who presided over an economy with 13 percent inflation (whatever that is). As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
So, Prudent readers, inflation isn’t the same as price increases, but it is a significant cause of them. It isn’t something people cause; it is a tool of government that performs as a relatively slow devaluation of the currency. Unfortunately, that is the same legal tender that we, all, depend upon for affording our means of living. Don’t vote for politicians or erstwhile “leaders” who willingly devalue the money you have earned and the wealth you have accumulated over years. Who the Hell do they think they are, to steal from every citizen? Indeed. Check out: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2022/08/21/the-inflation-chronicles/
“Beijing, China – December 27, 2011. Young soldiers marching in the Forbidden City.”
Forty years ago a local newspaper asked its readers about the coming millennium and what each thought would be the great progress, or major changes, that might be made in the next century. Prudence wrote back – long before she realized how Prudent she was – that the next 100 years would be based on China and everyone’s reaction to or accommodation of, China. In the mid-‘80’s the United States was feeling pretty good about itself: strong, prosperous, winning against the Soviet Union and mostly at peace. People were proud of being American.
Starting with the Carter administration, followed by a period of clear thinking in the Reagan administration, and then under full steam in the Clinton administration, the United States has followed policies that have enriched and built-up Communist China. Carter changed our policy regarding Taiwan’s independence. Clinton accepted millions of “campaign” funds from Chinese sources and weakened restrictions on technology transfers. It was a transfer from the “Loral Space” corporation that enabled China to accurately launch and control missiles. Supercomputer technology was allowed to transfer in the late ‘90’s, after overriding Defense Department objections and rules. A lot of money moved toward the Clintons during the two presidential campaigns; dozens of Chinese operators accepted plea deals or fled the country to avoid prosecution. Almost singlehandedly, Bill Clinton – with unknown levels of action by Hillary Clinton in the background – relinquished U. S. superiority in missile and space technologies, perhaps 20 years or more of advantage over the Chinese. Everybody has a price… well, not everyone, but definitely that couple does. It is beyond the scope of Prudence’ recollections to plumb the extent of influence selling through the Clinton Global Initiative: Hillary’s bribery laundering mechanism.
For more than a century the “West” treated China as a football, kicked around and taken advantage-of by multiple European countries and by the U. S. Communism, starting with the Soviets and spreading aggressively, finally began to focus American attention on the most populous country. Japan went to war in China long before it attacked Pearl Harbor. Their presence and brutality solidified the division of China into Nationalists and Communists China suffered as many as 20 million deaths and multiple millions of other casualties. The uneasy alliance of the Nationalists and the Communists against Japan held until Japan was forced by the U. S. to retreat. The corrupt Nationalists, saddled with terrible, deadly decisions they had made during the war with Japan, wound up with their only “friends” being the U. S., who protected them as they fled to Formosa Island, later called Taiwan, a de-facto independent nation, but only because the U. S. maintains its “defense” of Taiwan.
China has matured under communism, but, thankfully, large fractions of the population still understand when they’re being tyrannized, as recent demonstrations have shown. Unlike Americans, Chinese citizens are acutely aware of their government’s lies and how dangerous acquiescence to Communist dictates actually is. Americans seem to be divided over whether one recognizes government lies or accepts them as true. The latter are largely Biden voters and, earlier, Obama voters. They also become very angry when events like the 2020 elections are questioned, probably out of fear that the questioners may be right. Fortunately, every “good work” President Biden has done has reinforced their belief that he really did earn the highest presidential vote total in history. China is actively and fairly successfully taking advantage of this American gullibility: enough trade and McDonald’s restaurants can convert anyone into an honest ally.
America has a bad habit of absorbing the first blow… even telling its adversaries where to land it and then, how to obtain American financing for their expenses. It’s not clear that we will rise up and demand victory over our enemies in the absence of a Pearl-Harbor-like attack. Such it is with so-called climate change and the Paris Accords that are a guilt-laden means of extracting reparations from us while we hurt ourselves economically to save the planet. We are not alone in the west in cutting our energy use, raising its costs and reducing our productivity and prosperity, all to reduce CO2 emissions.
But, did you know, China, in the Paris “accords,” agreed only to top out its estimated peak CO2 emissions by 2030? Did you know China will still be building coal-fired generating plants until then… or that it will bring on line more coal-fired plants in 2023 than the U.S. has altogether? All the Western industrialized nations COMBINED don’t emit as much CO2 as China does, now – by about HALF – yet we are flagellating ourselves with ideological restrictions on energy use, restrictions that won’t change the temperature of the Earth by one whit, 80 or 100 years from now. What in God’s name are we agreeing to? And, why? Is it just to make it easier for China and its Communist tyranny to de-construct the U. S. while they become the dominant economy and military power?
We, Americans, the conscientious ones, at least, tend to look for good in everyone. It is a weakness that could, one day, leave us under tyranny. China has brought to bear numerous weapons of “war” that are daily undercutting America’s strength, alliances, economics, education – right down to kindergarten and throughout higher education – Chinese millions and billions of dollars are buying our philosophies. Surely we don’t expect education establishments that bend to woke demands from young, unaccomplished students, with speech codes and lists of allowable pronouns, to stand up for America against China, do we? We must wonder why the Biden administration cancelled enforcement of reporting requirements for universities to reveal how much in foreign grants and investments they accept. We know that the University of Pennsylvania, for example, created the “Penn-Biden” center – sort of a think-tank – with tens of millions of Chinese dollars. Following his vice-presidency, Joe Biden was paid nearly $1 Million for a single speech / seminar in at least one year. That’s a nice gig… makes one wonder how they chose Joe Biden to pay that high fee to for little work. Perhaps they were paying for the opportunity to review classified documents that Biden stored there.
Without American technology, China would be a much smaller economy and far less militarily developed. Yet our own tax policies made it profitable to move manufacturing to China and then ship the products back to the U. S. Unfortunately, China doesn’t allow manufacturers to operate unless they share their technology with the Chinese. This form of unfair trade practice soon produced planes and weapons that look a lot like the latest developments inside the U. S. We are not smart about our relationship with China. Sadly, many, many people in permanent government are satisfied to get paid off by China no matter what the cost is to our security. Chinese spies make certain to get close to a number of House and Senate members to keep legislation dormant that might put a stop to Chinese intrigues.
Whew!
When one reads or hears enough bad news about the international stupidity the White House, Intelligence agencies and our State, Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security and even Transportation departments put forth for policy in the name of the American people, it’s enough to depress even the sunniest of optimists. Then we look at our solid-looking cities, highways, airports and shopping centers and we try to imagine that no one could ever defeat us or ever force us into subjugation. After all, this is such a nice country and such nice people, nobody would even try to take us over… we’re the United States of America for Heaven’s sake! Still…..
Still, China is a serious, uncompromising threat to the nature and value of the United States. What can the individual American do? First, learn the truth of The Biden administration’s relations and relationships with China and its dozens of tentacles that are reaching directly into our government, business and financial institutions, for indeed they are. Then prepare yourself and as many as you can influence, to vote against those who ignore or accept or even encourage greater business connection to China. If you get to speak to an elected official, locally, state-level or federal, ask what he or she is doing about disassociating our nation and economy from China and from the Communist Party of China. Ask about the crucial products that we depend upon that are sourced only from China. What is she or he going to do to change that? We still have enough power and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Our historic weakness toward China is a genuine grievance.
Then, publicize what you have learned about that official’s position and encourage all you can to VOTE for America First policies. What? There’s some better policy than America First? Are you nuts?
Homelessness, despite its explosive increase in the past 30 years, still feels like an exception, an anomaly in the grand, prosperous and self-righteous tableau that is America. How can so many be living “on the street,” basically, in a country with so many resources and so comprehensive a political infrastructure? Liberalism causes otherwise rational people to defend the RIGHTS of the mentally ill, weird or addicted and largely uncivilized people to sleep in public places. Eventually, their rights to urinate and defecate in public places are also “recognized.” Due to some dislocation in the logical thinking of other liberals who consider themselves civilized (living in houses, indoor plumbing, decent ‘human’ activities and some form of productive wealth), residents of the same jurisdiction are permitted by virtue of the existence of other “rights,” to make their ways around the city, including eating in restaurants and entering various other businesses, in the nude. Once good sense is breeched, the uncrossable lines of civilized decency become harder and harder to discern.
To varying degrees, many municipalities have descended into some form of what San Francisco has become a leader of. Prior to the last 20 to 30 years western civilization, largely founded according to Judeo-Christian beliefs and ethics, was endeavoring to advance in terms of human civilization, habits and public, interactive, practices. That direction has reversed. That reversal seems to be centered in and controlled by liberals, leftists and socialists. Conservatives are distinctly unimpressed by these trends, if not disgusted – as seems Prudent.
This accelerating retreat from good sense makes almost every “civilized” resident very uncomfortable. It has seeped out into criminal justice to the point that criminals are coddled while ultra-liberal prosecutors expand the list of crimes for which punishment and retribution are no longer very important. But the trend started with rampant and financially-encouraged homelessness – all of which programs have failed despite the millions of explanations of success by those same liberal politicians. Liberal “government” has foresworn any moral judgment to the point that anywhere it can insert some “public” monies must also eliminate morality as a shared ethic.
The Prudent approach is to recognize that life is better, safer, cleaner, more productive and successful when the vast majority of the population – and its “governors” – share a basic morality. In such a civilized environment certain behaviors and practices are not allowed for sensible reasons of health, public safety, compassion and cleanliness. We can begin the return to civilization by ending the “root causes” of homelessness. This will require the enforcing of laws despite the chagrin of some who are incorrigible – both homeless and “normal.”
Block by block, street-sleepers have to be rounded up and held in temporary – emphasis on temporary – facilities for evaluation. Which of them are addicted? Which truly mentally ill? There won’t be any free needles or free drugs… only compassionate detox, physical clean-up and healthy food. Every person will be required to adhere to rules in order to eat, hunger being the universal motivator. Those who are clinically determined to be mentally ill will be treated, possibly medicated if it will help, and housed separately… depending on the nature of supportive bonds with others, mentally ill or not. Instead of spending tens of millions of dollars on better tents or other free stuff that facilitates living on the streets, every person will be rehabilitated to the best degree possible. Vocational training will be offered within controlled circumstances. For many this will be a refresher for skills that used to support them before addiction took over. Each will have to work in some way to earn his or her room and board. Each should also be offered contact with religious people, ministers, or others. There is always hope.
In a sense it is a program of second chances, but not a second chance to live on the street. For those whose mental illness can’t be controlled, proper institutionalization is needed – not “warehousing” of humans, modified assisted living. Nearly every state has a history of terrible handling of the mentally ill. It always offended Prudence to hear about bad treatment and terrible conditions that seemed to go on and on… for years and decades. Were those the only solutions human beings could come up with? Was there someone else who could be blamed for the cruelty and stupidity that marked so many mental hospitals?
No, it was us, the same people who threw up their hands and closed the awful facilities and “mainstreamed” mentally ill people. Every person living “homeless,” can be helped, rehabilitated made more healthy and given / offered new direction and opportunity to take good care of themselves. If your politicians don’t agree, get some new ones. Politicians who are willing to run on a platform of honesty would be the best place to start.
Predictions are generally not very Prudent uses of mental energy. Every new year period yields predictions from financial experts, various historians, and, practicing their strong abilities to follow trends, politicians. Politicians are no more intelligent than 99% of the polity they claim to lead. Their skills are no greater than roughly that same percentage. They DO have unusual experiences, having agreed with their own ethics and advisors of various sources, to get involved with politics, campaigning and the miasma of half-truths and virtual untruths that “politics” seems to require in order to gain majority support.
Prudence is very close to a man who ran for office in the 1980’s. One of the most common questions directed to him was, “Why do you want to get mixed up in this stuff?” His strong beliefs about where his state government was off kilter didn’t really answer that question. In its simplest terms, it was almost, “Why would you want to become a cesspool adjuster?” Hard to answer.
One must multiply the paltry and rotten problems of one state by ten times or twenty, to appreciate the corruption of the U. S. Congress and the “swamp” it finances. Where does that leave us in the matter of predictions?
One of the most prescient observations, which sadly became a clear prediction, was from Scotsman, Alexander Fraser Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. …” It would be difficult to fashion a more succinct description – warning – of the political history of the United States. Having just watched the querulous assignation of the Speakership of the House of Representatives to Kevin McCarthy of California, and appreciating the truth of Tytler’s observation-prediction, some fresh predictions are now become Prudent.
Much of the battle for the speakership involved demands from actual conservatives to cut federal spending, even holding it to 2022 levels (a very low bar for measuring success), which would be a departure from the profligacy of recent decades of lies and spending. In other words, what those 20 or so conservatives promised to win elections is a departure from the direction of the past 7 or 8 administrations. Based on his history of “working across the aisle,” as though that were a mark of wisdom to be celebrated, McCarthy’s instincts would not have led him to run the house, its committees or the budgeting process, such as it is, along those lines. His history in the house, and some of his comments on hot issues, indicate that McCarthy acted as much in service to his party position as to hard principles. He supported Trump and criticized him. He voted for and against what might be considered “liberal” legislation. He has been more steadfast in opposing Biden-supported spending plans.
This all leads to both speculation and prediction. Not even Prudence can discern the innermost motivations of a politician, so trying to predict what the McCarthy-led House will actually do on specific issues is not likely to be useful. However, it seems Prudent to predict that some of the 6 holdouts who led the opposition to McCarthy, will face retribution, regardless of any promises from the new Speaker. The Speakership brings a lot of power, both administrative and political… plus a fatter paycheck; threats to that power will be punished.
Further, any motion to “vacate the chair,” now makeable by a single member, will never result in a change in speakership. Accepting this new rule seems like a major concession by McCarthy, but it will prove hollow.
A lot of heat will be generated from “oversight” investigations by several committees. Will any dishonest Biden administrator, of which there are several, actually be impeached or forced to resign? This is unlikely, despite the substantial law-breaking and lying to Congress that has transpired. Will anything substantive come from an investigation into Hunter Biden’s and presidential brother, Jim Biden’s, nefarious foreign influence-peddling over the years Joe Biden was Vice President? This appears to be a slam-dunk, but is also likely to be mostly heat, not light. There may be some sort of resolution passed by a slim majority in the house, but no impeachments.
Can the House, alone, force Biden to close the southern border? Theoretically… and according to the Constitution, Congress’ control of the “purse strings” can be used to propose “revenue”-raising legislation, taxation and borrowing and the like. All such must arise in the House. In addition, the ability for the Executive branch to draw moneys from the Treasury is dependent upon Congress’ passing of appropriating legislation to that effect. Amidst all the horse-trading and dealing done between the House and Senate, let alone in each House, the likelihood of targeted restrictions on expenditures in order to control or punish any executive department or agency for bad behavior, lying to Congress or various malfeasances, is quite small. It would be a watershed event, in practice, and seems doubtful in Prudence’ view.
It is more likely that specific appropriations might be voted for the purpose of closing the border and other needful actions, but, barring the willingness to perform quick impeachments, those directions given via appropriations can be “slow-walked” by the “swamp” for the duration of an administration.
Ultimately, in order to impose its will in any meaningful way, the “Republican” House will have to endure a government “shutdown.” In our lifetimes there has been very little political stomach for accepting the slings and arrows that are always directed at Republicans for such a “crisis.”
The pressure in Washington, within the deep state, certainly on Capitol Hill and, to our detriment, within the so-called Biden administration, is to send money from the Treasury out to thousands of programs that reach millions of Americans, buying their votes in the process. Along the way we may adequately defend the country, but that is becoming more questionable as “woke” nonsense infects the military establishment.
Can a couple dozen conservatives in the House actually change the direction of our decline? May God make it so… otherwise, let’s all be prepared to defend our nation, economy and border.
Wise humans generally have tried to select their leaders from among those who think logically relative to the traditions and cultural mores of the society. Those who would be leaders, but who tend to propose completely opposite ideas and beliefs at proximate times, are generally rejected for positions of leadership, and denied power over the “people” who have sought leaders who will protect their families and partner in achieving greater safety, comfort and wealth. Along the way, their leaders are expected to protect and strengthen the children so that society will grow, be strong and continue.
In earlier times, especially when education was not widespread – mainly reserved to self-selected religious leaders and somewhat self-selected royal families – populations accepted their statuses as serfs and peasants for whom reverence of their “leaders” was how safety for themselves and their families was increased, including food security. Things changed as education became “public.” Wisdom and philosophies from the “ancient” past spread among millions of thoughtful humans, some of whom refined and expanded on the “pure” ideas of the Greeks, Hebrews, Romans, Persians and many others, interpreting human interactions amidst the “new” realities of economics, civic participation and independence.
Great minds eventually proscribed the foundational ideas of the United States, and they are quite simple!
Underlying the simplicity of the Constitution are principles of preventing or avoiding the proven tendencies of the worst of human nature to gain power and wealth at the expense of others: tyranny of one form or another. Let’s consider the simple ideas and the assumptions on which they are dependent. Our founders designed “self-government” against the backdrop of tyrannies they had seen and fought, both religious and monarchical, as well as militaristic. They could not include tools designed to thwart the new tyrannies defined and refined by Marxism in the middle of the 19th century. That is our job, today.
The first simple idea, upon which our survival depended then and does, now: religious freedom. Education in the late 18th century was based largely upon religious philosophies and structures of good and evil as spread by and through churches and prelates of all kinds, mostly Christian, and by locally hired teachers. The vast majority of Americans shared basic beliefs in right and wrong as they ratified the Constitution; they never imagined that within a few generations the vast majority of Americans – AND THEIR CHURCHES – would no longer agree upon the principles of right and wrong and self-discipline. The functioning of Constitutional republicanism depends upon “the people” being a moral, self-disciplined body politic. To participate in and manage a republic, requires that its members – citizens – be educated in its principles and practices. Sadly, this is no longer the case.
The second simple idea is representation. A people who have learned to choose their representatives such that those so chosen will guard the people from the worst excesses of executive rulers, will, if properly educated, keep a civic eye on those representatives, in our case, on members of the House of Representatives. Our Founders believed, based on a social compact within which nearly everyone shared common rights and wrongs, that representing people in the many states, would remain a mission of honor and fealty to their constituents. They never imagined that election to Congress would become such a lucrative opportunity for personal gain, that re-election, and the many corruptions that facilitate re-election, would replace the proper role of service and honor. “The People’s House” is no longer a place of honor but for a few. Americans must educate themselves about the original purpose and model for representation, and MAKE THE CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES required to restore representation to the primary purpose – and effect – of election to “The House.”
The third simple idea is states’ rights. That is, that the Federal government is limited to those functions that states cannot do for themselves, and that the powers not granted to the Federal Government, or prohibited to it, are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people. Senators are supposed to represent the interests of the States; they are not supposed to be longer-serving, at-large representatives of the people. They are supposed to be selected by the state legislatures to represent the STATES, guarding their rights and powers in a federal, not NATIONAL system of governance. Because of the failures of some state legislatures during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, leaving Senate seats unfilled, Congress proposed the 17th Amendment and it was ratified with little delay. Since then, 6-year-term Senators have been elected similarly to 2-year-term Representatives. Thus were the constituencies of Senators changed from their state governments to the general populations of states, which changed the responsibilities of Senators. Being elected “at large” means that Senate candidates have, ever since, been able to lie at varying levels of effectiveness, twisting truth and news, particularly for incumbents, to gain popular vote victories.
If the Senator in question had to answer to members of his or her state’s legislature, men and women who, to some greater degree, know what is going on and what they instructed their Senator to do, then the re-election/appointment landscape would be far, far different than the amorphous, dishonest campaigning that works with popular-vote elections. Prior to the 17th Amendment, states’ senators had to answer for what they did in Washington. It would be very good to repeal the 17th and make Senators responsible to SOMEBODY. The chance of senators being re-elected for 24, 30 or 36 years, would be much reduced: a good thing.
The fourth simple idea is equal application of the laws. The fundament of individual sovereignty and freedom is equal STATUS under the laws. Our Bill of Rights, without which the Constitution would have never been ratified, or even considered for ratification by some states, codifies the assumptions that underlay the debates that developed the Constitution. Madison and others believed that having won independence from a powerful monarchy, under which laws and persecutions were applied differently to citizens deemed by the monarch to be favored or unfavored, had cemented the concepts of equal application of law into the American people. In fact, the ability of governments of any type: elected or hereditary, to become tyrannical, was bound to color the debates. The likelihood that executive authority will garner power not specifically granted to it, is historically likely. Government can NEVER be trusted to control itself on behalf of even the highest principles. The rules limiting the power of government and protecting the unalienable rights of every person, had to be part of the proposed Constitution. Ratification was effected by legislative agreement of three-fourths of the states; the formation of a FEDERAL government was a function of the STATES and not even of popular vote.
Let’s repeat that concept: the Federal Government is a creation of the states. The power and rights of, now, 50 STATES, are SUPERIOR to the powers of the Federal Government. How foreign this truth sounds. It means that criminal laws as well as civil laws, are primarily the business of states, and that federal laws should be few in number and limited in scope to matters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and other amendments, and matters of military justice and treason. It also means that federal police powers and the so-called “F.B.I.” should be severely limited in terms of interactions with individual citizens. Things have changed, to say the least.
The fifth simple idea is the ELECTORAL COLLEGE, which provides a mechanism of election of the Chief Executive Officer / Commander-in-Chief, free of undue influence from Congress or from direct democracy. Our Founders understood the inherent dangers of pure democracy and that democracy, alone, would quickly yield tyranny of shifting majorities. This is why so many mechanisms dividing power between states and the federal system, between states and pure democracy, and between citizens and their representatives, are built into the Constitution. Lately, many on the Left have complained about the Electoral College, always touting the “popular vote” as having favored a losing Presidential ticket. Needless to say, the popular vote is meaningless in presidential politics. The Electoral college makes sure that presidents are elected by the States, not by popular vote. The U. S. holds 50 state elections for 50 slates of electors who are committed to a presidential ticket. While electors are related to representative numbers: 2 senators per state plus the number of representatives per state, presidential tickets must win the majority of presidential electors, state by state. Both large and small states are important to the final total. Presidents are elected by the states, not through direct democracy.
Those who want to get rid of the Electoral College are those who want government to be empowered through pure democracy, and they are not to be trusted with real power.
Another simple idea, relative to the Executive authority, is that Congress must declare war, not the President. Under monarchies, the monarch can dictate foreign policy and declare war when he or she doesn’t get what he or she desires. Again, to limit the concentration of power in the executive branch, our founders anticipated that Congress’ interests would be closer to the people and rarely in complete agreement with the Chief Executive. What was never anticipated was that both the House and Senate would be so willing to avoid responsibility for much of anything, and so willing to relinquish powers to the executive bureaucracies of unelected rule-makers, as is attractive to communists. Like all contracts and covenants, they are only as good as the quality and integrity of the parties to them.
Our founders, likewise, never anticipated that Congress would devise a means of creating perpetually growing public debt (in the form of the extra-constitutional “Federal Reserve” Check out: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2020/09/27/knife-edge-election/). In 1789 people – and governments – had to pay their debts before more loans would be offered; today we raise the “debt ceiling” so that we might borrow enough to pay only the interest on previous debts, let alone pay down the principals. This results in our “representatives” failing utterly to represent the interests of the people each is paid handsomely to represent… adding annually to the peoples’ debt burden and being re-elected despite having done so.
The SUPREME COURT is a simple idea, although modern beliefs complicate it beyond reason. The Constitution provides federal judges, including Supreme Court Justices, with lifetime appointments. The purpose is to insulate justices from political whims and winds of change, and, presumably, allow them to hold firmly to the meaning of the Constitution’s words as ever newer, unanticipated legal problems emerge. Politics has caused never anticipated complications to the balancing work of the Supreme Court. Elected men and women have added to the responsibilities of the Federal government beyond anything the Founders could have imagined. The lines between Constitutional powers and protections of individual rights, have become broader and diffuse as politicians have found political power in the invention of new “rights,” many based on falsehoods. The Left’s penchant for changing the definitions of words has made “equal protection under the law” nearly impossible; foolish politicians have passed laws to accommodate false definitions and whimsical “realities.” The supreme court is tested to find narrow truths amidst broadened political fantasies.
Yet, the concept of a final arbiter of our Constitutional protections is both wise and essential. That the U. S. was founded in the presence of printing and publications, forms of mail service and book-binding, kept our founders mindful of the spread of new ideas and opinions. Launching the new nation on a “ship” of ideals required that some mechanism of preserving and reinforcing those ideas and ideals was essential. The Supreme Court, almost inadvertently, became that mechanism, thanks to the innovative application of its limited powers by Chief Justice John Marshall.
Finally, the NINTH and TENTH amendments are a combined, simple idea. Hardly any of our student youth are taught about the Constitution, and few of them, or even of their parents, have knowledge or opinions about the last two amendments of the Bill of Rights.
Amendment 9 admonishes the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT that the rights named and listed in the Constitution – rights of individuals – cannot be construed to “deny or disparage” others (rights) retained by the people. This is worth contemplating every day and upon every election: The rights that are inherent in every citizen (unalienable rights), ARE NOT LIMITED to only those “enumerated” in the text of the Constitution, NOR can the constitution be employed to limit any of them! These few words are quite possibly the most important and far-reaching in our Constitutional system. EVERY piece of legislation and every surreptitious new regulation that spews forth from the tens of thousands of unelected bureaucrats, should be evaluated BY OUR (ostensible) REPRESENTATIVES as to its neutrality toward or protection of our inherent rights as individual citizens. What a different “official” status we are each entitled to, than what we are now saddled with.
The 10th Amendment, in effect, reserves to the STATES, much as the 9th reserves to the people, all powers not specifically delegated to the federal government by the Constitution. It then goes beyond the power of states and reserves the rest to the people, again. This remarkable Constitution is unique in world history, and exceptional. The rights secured to the citizens of the United States are exceptional among all the nations. How is it that we have elected so many to Congress and even to the White House, who do not agree with what the Constitution says and promises to us as citizens?
Dear readers and fellow citizens, the simplest, most Prudent idea of all is to learn, teach, discuss, and study the Constitution and the thinking that supported its ultimate design. Our students are deprived of the ONLY knowledge that will keep us and them, free. If you have the ability to communicate to whomever is educating your children, insist that they, and all other teachers, produce high-school graduates who understand our rights and powers as U. S. citizens.
As the Christ Mass approaches we tend to – are obligated to – place our most prized results of our year of labor and multiplication upon the altar, proving our willingness to sacrifice for God and thanks to God. It’s metaphysical… in a non-computerized sort of way. God, of course, doesn’t need our sacrifices, he needs the act of sacrificing. He needs that expression of love, and so do we.
There’s a lot of charity flowing at this time of year, as you surely notice. Charity is an act of selfless, as in “non-selfish” love; acts of love with no physical benefit in return. Of course those and their organizations whose appeals we may answer as Christmas nears, do their best to thank all who gave of our supply of time or treasure, but acts of charity don’t require such recognition. Thanking is certainly good manners, sometimes done to ensure future charity and, truth be known, most humans resent the lack of thanks, but it’s not a true factor in the equation of love or of its charitable expression.
We humans are beings defined, or measured, by economics. We consistently judge the values of giving and receiving, thanks for a gift… or for charity. It’s not always a healthy calculation, nor is it part of the love equation. Or, of the charity equation. Love, or charity, is an aetheric substance. What we do here on Earth is a rather crude reflection of the pure, spiritual development that happens to and for our higher selves, our non-physical selves. Except, we can’t manifest things to and for other humans without being in the physical plane, as it were. If we are, someday, accepted into the plane where our soul is supposed to be, love is an automatic manifestation, not a choice. Here, amidst a thousand distractions and evil opportunities, love and charity are a decision – sometimes a difficult one. If you find it easy to express love for others and to sacrifice for others, count your blessings.
One of the tests we must pass is how to not slip through the diaphanous membrane between love and hate. Hatred is often expressed towards ourselves, where it is most damaging. It may be as simple as a mistake, even just dropping something, spilling something… stupid stuff. Immediately we chastise ourselves in words we’d never apply to another, certainly never towards someone we love. If our spouse or child experiences something irritating, an accident, a time-consuming error that makes him or her angry, your usual reaction is to sooth and help in resolving the problem. Yet when we do something similar, ourselves, we immediately express self-hatred for our failing to do something smarter. Prudence can’t explain why it works this way, but “the force,” God, the Universe, or Life, cannot deliver the best, most fortunate opportunities to you if you are immersed in hatred of yourself, OR, toward others. It’s an equation: Love fits into it but hatred never does. Love yourself – you are a product of love and of an investment by your mother and others of love. You never deserve to be hated.
The greatest gift we can give, whether at Christmas or on any morning, is to review and refresh the love you are giving to yourself and others. Even in mundane, economic interactions like sales, the advice always is to imagine that you love the stranger you would like to have a sales relationship with, before you pick up the phone or walk into an office. It seems to make the interaction far more successful. Prudence can testify to this effect.
How different might all interactions be if every human projected love toward his or her correspondents. Unfortunately, our society and politics, even our elementary schools and teachers(!), spend much of their efforts at teaching children and grownups alike to hate others. What a gross distortion of the life opportunities God gives us every year and day.
Children, most sadly, are taught not just hatred of their race or skin color, but hatred of their selves. If born male, they are taught to forego the responsibilities of manhood and to pretend to be female; if born female, they are taught to forego the majesty of motherhood and to pretend to be male: two special forms of self-hatred. Part of the self-hatred process involves separation from parents and other relatives who won’t “confirm” their new sexual outlook. Learning to no longer trust one’s parents is a giant step toward hating them or, at least, hating their roles.
Children can be, and should be, taught to love themselves… not to hate themselves… or others. Like Critical Gender Theory, Critical Race Theory is an agenda based on hatred.
Questions of race and slavery generate peculiar ripples of hatred, essentially only in the United States. Millions are caught up in them, especially politicians of various stripes, who have learned that constant aggravation of these questions can yield political influence. Such influence is fruitful within a population of people who “enjoy” rubbing hatreds raw, including within themselves. Foolishly, politicians have figured out that hatred can be not only powerful, but profitable. Still, the strong feelings do not, and cannot, lead to solutions or transformation into positive feelings, outlooks and cooperation.
There are truths about slavery… and falsehoods. There are truths about racism… and falsehoods. Falsehoods seem to prevail, but truths about both subjects are immediately seized upon to draw false conclusions and false premises about what some true piece of history should force upon people of today. Just the fact of slavery in the past has proven sufficient reason to never stop hating, as evidenced by the renewed, and listened-to demands for “reparations.” Reparations justify hatred for white-skinned people: apparently whites owe an undying debt to blacks because of slavery. Whites, it seems, are prone to guilt over having succeeded in mastering so many sciences and skills. Not all skills, of course, but whites pioneered in many skills that not only have created comfortable standards of living and great wealth, but which have benefitted virtually all peoples on the planet. Perfectly? Absolutely not.
If we are waiting to stop feeling guilty until we are perfect, no less, we’ll wait forever. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t become better. But, are the children guilty of the sins of their parents? Only by choice and training; those who decidedly choose a better path than their ancestors, better ways to treat and interact with everyone else, skin color notwithstanding, should be respected and loved as anyone might be loved. There’s no guilt appropriate. Unfortunate and deceitful politics, however, casts all whites into the guilty column because some of their forbears owned slaves or mistreated blacks following slavery. What is owed to whom, today?
One of whites’ imperfections is an expectation that money can replace sin – the monetization of guilt. It is the fundament of perpetual welfare and the social welfare state. Perhaps handing over money for no value will convert hatred for whites into love for whites. That seems doubtful based on the “success” of the Great Society. Otherwise, every welfare recipient would run into the street to hug any taxpayer who wanders by their less-than-ideal, welfare-provided home. Nope. Giving free stuff makes only the most temporary of friendships and quickly reverts to resentment. The only “reparations” of any value or consequence to the quality of life for anyone, is teaching a person how to succeed in our culture, perhaps even helping that person to succeed for a limited time. But locking that person into perpetual victim-hood and welfare-poverty is a system designed to destroy that persons humanity and worth, yet we persist at it, waiting for the miracle socialists promise.
For their part, far too many blacks believe that destroying the society and culture whites have succeeded in, is going to make their lives better and balance the cosmic scales, somehow. That approach requires perpetual hatred and resentment – there is no love that is part of it. One doesn’t steal, loot, destroy and burn the work of others out of love. One doesn’t teach others to hate anyone, let alone a group, or to hate themselves… out of love. This is why socialism is an abject, deceitful lie: it is premised on the belief of the inability of the individual to elevate him- or herself, improving skills and understandings and esteem while teaching him or her to love the good in everyone and to strive against the bad. Under socialism, all trust is placed in others, mostly unknown.
Interestingly, America is full of blacks who have raised themselves up by working within the system and then transcending the system, leading the rest of us to better ourselves. In almost every field, great, accomplished black-skinned Americans have excelled and led. Why not emulate them instead of hating whites? Crappy politics, that’s why. Since the Clintons popped into the White House, hatred has become the overarching driver of political action: not freedom, not justice, not improvement of living standards, not wisdom in foreign policy, not budgeting on behalf of American citizens, not “America first.” Despite constant accusations from the Democrat left, most of the hatred emanates from Democrats and their allies. Yes, there are haters on both sides of the divide, but the distinction between left and right is gigantic, culminating in the Communist uprisings in 2020 and the Covid pandemic. There weren’t “right-wingers” burning America in 2020.
There weren’t right-wingers creating and pushing Covid across the planet, or creating and pushing ersatz vaccines into every body. Those were the works of the left. Why?
It wasn’t to increase individual freedom or to balance the budget; it wasn’t to prevent inflation of the monetary supply or to strengthen energy independence and the U. S. balance of payments with other countries; it wasn’t to solve our weak border enforcement, improve public safety, reduce the rate of drug overdoses and deaths or to strengthen the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights in any way. Why would a political movement take significant, even drastic steps that weaken the United States of America?
Well, aside from enrichening its adherents, it would be to, well… weaken the United States.
Love of country makes us stronger; hatred of it makes us weaker. To govern and legislate in conformity with the warped ideas of the World Economic Forum and with the corrupted, communistic ideas of the United Nations, is to express hatred for the United States. To promulgate policies, persecutions and punishments that divide Americans into two classes – favored and hated – is to DIS-unite the previously United States: hatred.
This is the time of this most important year, when love of others, of law, of nation, of selves and of God, should be foremost in all of our intentions, yet our politics has failed us, creating problems that our democratic republic can’t solve, while rewarding hatred as the means to power. Let us pray as we see fit to return ourselves to a transcendent path, not the descendent path we’re on.
It has been two years since the infamous “2020 elections,” and almost two years since the notorious “January 6th” ahh… riots, assault on democracy, insurrection, deadly attack. Everything about November 3rd, 2020 and January 6th, 2021 must be parsed for truth, opinion and outright lying.
NOVEMBER 3RD, 2020
Books have been and will be written about the 2020 Presidential elections… plural. There is no “popular vote” that matters in the selection of a president; there are 50 simultaneous state elections for slates of “electors” who are pledged to one “presidential ticket” or another – usually a choice between two such tickets, although third parties sometimes attempt to perfect our corrupt elections. There are 50 “popular votes” that do matter.
Heading into election day, President Trump appeared to have extraordinary popular support despite 5 years of attacks from Democrats, including two spurious impeachments, the equally baseless “Meuller investigation/report” and a series of media-fed, illegal FBI activities and virtually daily calumny related to Covid-19 and the incipient vaccines. None of it was sticking. On the other hand, candidate Joe Biden spent his time safe in his home in Delaware, barely campaigning at all, making few speeches, usually drawing only a handful of people to his live appearances. Trump, throughout the year, made numerous “rallies” drawing overflow crowds of thousands. People in the campaign industry can state that the amount of popular support needed from which thousands will change their habits to attend a political event, is extraordinary, and reflects very broad support.
Biden, meanwhile, and Democrats in general remained absolutely confident, claiming deep support for good ol’ lunch-bucket Joe. We know that Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg had committed over $400 Million to “aiding” election departments in certain states with close balance between Republicans and Democrats. Almost all of the money was spent increasing Democrat turnout in cities, but never described as campaign contributions. At the same time, Google, whose management had sworn to not allow “2016” to happen again, was shifting information leftward, maximizing positive results of searches favoring Democrats and Biden, while eliminating or making difficult, results to searches that might favor Republicans. Estimates reach into the hundreds of thousands in terms of how many votes could be shifted just by Google.
Even with major cooperative media sources helping, Democrats still had a huge populist force to overcome. Two key strategies were needed: 1) Unconstitutional changes to voting laws and procedures; and, 2) Ways to shift, create, and generate votes regardless of how many legitimate votes were cast. Both seemed to have the desired effects. Before the reader clicks away from Prudence’ report, here, read a bit more and consider what is known with an open mind.
Democrat operatives and lawyers brought suit in numerous states to allow for mail-in ballots and early voting, based on supposed fears of Covid-19. Rather than passing laws through the respective legislatures, as required under the Constitution, these teams brought suit, instead. Time, apparently, was of the essence. Behind the efforts to keep voters “safe” from Covid, and in the background, is the fact that every state does not maintain its voter lists according to federal law. In fact, the Judicial Watch organization has been suing states successfully to require cleaning of voter rolls. The County of Los Angeles, alone, had to remove about one and a half million names of deceased and moved-away citizens (one hopes). But, in the run-up to November there remained SEVERAL MILLION invalid names on states’ voter lists, not least of which were the states targeted by these “Covid” lawsuits for mail-in ballots. Georgia, alone, had 138,000 invalid names still on its rolls. With the entire difference in the electoral college dependent on fewer than 45,000 votes across half a dozen states, that becomes a huge number.
“So what?” you may ask. Well it doesn’t take that large an organization, with knowledge of the invalid names on the rolls, to mail in a few thousands of ballots based on those names, to skew an election. To inadvertently facilitate this fraud, some states actually mailed out ballots to every name on the voter rolls, valid and invalid! Thus, ballots returned from every one of those names were valid. Of course, signatures on those ballot envelopes had to be “compared” to signatures on file but this step was frequently not done at all, or was done through scanning systems that were set to a level of “fuzziness” (in terms of match quality) that there was essentially no checking. Lawsuits had further required that ballots mailed right up to voting day would be accepted and counted up to TWO WEEKS later.
Republicans had seriously fallen down on their end to challenge these ridiculous lawsuits and force, at least, certain provisions to keep the tallies as honest as possible. Throw in some heavy-duty ballot harvesting (illegal, also) and questionable counting procedures, connection of voting machines to the internet and a host of other weak links, and a close election could be easily swayed to the desired side. Trump lost Georgia by fewer than 13,000 votes.
Well, that’s just Georgia, you may be thinking. What you may not realize is that there were patterns of voting IN EVERY STATE that were related to the 2010 census. That is, every county in all the states tested, had similar patterns of voting, a pattern that is so statistically unlikely as to be impossible. Well, you may be thinking, that doesn’t prooove that it didn’t happen. Technically that is true, but when you consider the earthquakes in voting procedures blamed on Covid, there ought to be wide variations in voting patterns as compared to the 2010 census. That is, not compared to 2010 VOTING PATTERNS, but to the census, a set of statistics that has very little to do with even the prediction of voting patterns. Although each state compared to its 2010 census by slightly different percent-rates, every county in each state followed the same rate of difference with the 2010 census! Apparently the census was used as a reasonably reliable set of numbers ON WHICH PRE-DETERMINED VOTE TOTALS COULD BE BASED!
Stealing elections is not new, and typically it’s a matter of benefitting Democrats, particularly in cities… indeed, it has been a matter of humor for 150 years. Urban Democrats have joked about who is going to get the votes in this or that cemetery, and to watch out for the time lost figuring out the ballot questions. The crude efforts of the last century are so much more sophisticated, now.
Did you know that there were more than a million temporarily deceased voters still on the rolls among the many states? Trump lost the electoral college by fewer than 45,000 votes in 5 states, TOTAL.
Did you realize that more than 300 counties in the United States show more voters on the rolls than there are people of voting age resident? Just 500 extra votes from each of those counties (mostly urban) would be 150,000 votes; did we mention that Trump was “defeated” by fewer than 45,000 votes in 5 key states?
Maybe you’ll be a little more nervous about 2020 when you learn that there were dozens of internet connections traced from foreign countries into voting machines during and after election day, 2020, voting machines that the law says must not be connected to the internet. Aside from the anomalies already described, 4 key states stopped their vote counting/reporting between 2 and 4 AM on November 4th, following which huge “dumps” of as many as 100,000 votes per state appeared – another most unusual event.
Some precincts in the urban areas of the 5 most crucial states voted as much as 90% and even more, for Joe Biden, having been thrilled by his rousing campaign speeches. Any voting district that approaches 80% one way catches attention, normally. Every percentage above that raises eyebrows. This anomaly happened in multiple places, a statistical improbability. Trump-haters can easily dismiss these oddities because they aren’t “proof” that anything illicit happened. A case based on the preponderance of evidence, however, could be made. There were a number of instances where votes recorded for Trump at one point in the evening of November 3rd, were magically shifted to Biden some time later. “Oh, those were simple errors,” we’re told. Maybe, but no candidate should be expected to accept that non-explanation, even Donald Trump.
As the last tens of thousands of unverified, unmatched mail-in ballots were added to the total over the following days, more anomalies appeared. Somehow, Joe Biden, (“If you don’t know if you’re voting for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”) a racially insensitive, if not actively racist politician who was not only disliked by Barack Obama, but distrusted by him, apparently received MORE “black” votes than Obama received, himself, the first “black” president in our history! People who really, really hated Trump are willing to believe that, as well. Seems highly unlikely.
For his part, Trump obtained 6 Million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016, to a total of 75 Million. He is the first President who added to his first term totals significantly who went on to lose re-election. Somehow, due to his colorful and incisive campaign, Joe Biden received not only more black votes but more votes overall than Obama did, and, it says here, more votes than any presidential candidate in history(!): 81 Million to Trump’s huge 75 Million. Any honest observer of elections over any length of time has to suspend disbelief to swallow that.
Imagine the likelihood of a different outcome had the Hunter Biden laptop story not been so carefully suppressed by collusion between the FBI and others, the DNC, Biden campaign, etc., and Twitter, Facebook and Google. Polling indicates that millions of people would have voted against Biden had the crimes revealed in that laptop been publicized.
Mathematicians and statisticians who have taken the time to analyze 2020 have estimated that as many as EIGHT MILLION VOTES were fabricated in 2020. None of this has been adjudicated and the reasons are simple: politics… not honest, good ol’ American politics, but politics.
More than 30 lawsuits were brought among several states. Judges refused to hear them on several bases, mainly lacks of “standing.” That is, the plaintiffs were judged, rather subjectively, as most “standing” rulings are, because they couldn’t prove a satisfactory “interest” in or “damages” resulting from, the allegations they were making. Virtually any of the judges so approached could have declared sufficient public or other interest in the adjudication of those allegations, but they chose not to. This neatly prevented discovery, deposition or other testimony, and sidestepped the need to bring public officials into court.
There is a lot of political pressure on courts in such matters. Attorneys are adept at answering such rejections, but it requires time for appeals to other courts or tribunals who have multiple reasons for avoiding such cases. There is very little time available prior to the step of state “certification” of the vote counts. Again, Republicans were caught flat-footed. Their time should have been spent challenging all the stupid changes to voting laws that were not Constitutional. Sadly, and to their shame, the Roberts Court refused to consider constitutional challenges to the election on the basis of direct wording in the Constitution: Article I, Section 4 – “The Times, Places and Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such regulations, except as to the Places of chusing (sic) Senators.” With every state using the same regulations to choose Electors (for the Electoral College) as they do for electing representatives and senators, changes to how they do so must, in fact, be made only by the legislatures thereof. This was not done in many states, but, rather, by court rulings, which are prima facie unconstitutional. With the challenges based on precise Constitutional language, the Supreme Court has primary jurisdiction over such cases and should not wait for lower courts to rule and appeal over many months.
The Court could have and should have taken up the cases made on this particular basis, but failed in its duty to do so.
After 5 years of unceasing malevolence, law-breaking and baseless accusations from many sides, it is no wonder that President Trump was rather irked following November 3rd, 2020. His quite rational complaints about our shoddy election mess in 2020, simply became the latest reason Trump haters should hate him even more, like everything else he’s done… except for when he contributed money to democrats.
JANUARY 6th, 2021
After failing, as noted, to engage any state or federal court in ascertaining the legitimacy of the vote count, despite real questions of law and practice, President Trump could see only one opportunity to set the 2020 result right, and that was to halt the counting of electoral votes as certified by the several states, particularly those states with the most egregious anomalies in their vote patterns and practices. It was, however, on very thin grounds that he encouraged Vice-President Pence to refuse the certified electors from those certain questionable states amongst which Trump lost their collective electoral votes by less than 1% of the totals claimed – and certified – to have been legally voted.
The Constitution doesn’t assign more than the counting of the electoral votes to the duties of the “President of the Senate” – the Vice-President – in the matters of the electoral college. Some attorneys read into some precedent cases the possibility that the V.P. had the authority to challenge certain states’ certified results, indeed, the Twentieth Amendment uses the term, “qualified” and “…has qualified” for cases where the election of or the ability to serve of a president is in question, or if he has died before taking office. But neither Article II of the constitution, nor Amendment XII or Amendment XX actually grants much in the way of decisive power to the vice-President when the votes are counted. Trump was clinging to straws.
To be fair, and all of us should be fair in the judgement of such odd circumstances of the Trump presidential experience, the President perceived the 2020 elections as one of the most grotesque electoral crimes in history, and the subsequent installation of Joe Biden as having been duly elected President as a tragedy and part of the theft of his, Trump’s, rightful election. There were, and are, so many, many questions – none adjudicated.
When John F. Kennedy was elected thanks to extensive vote fraud in Chicago in 1960, Nixon lost, on average, by about 1 vote per precinct nationwide. He was strongly urged to demand a recount in Illinois and perhaps Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But fairly quickly he chose to avoid the damage to the nation by so demanding and Kennedy was the “winner.” This is the precedent that Democrats have hung their hats on: always accept the vote count no matter how crooked. Otherwise, you’re an “election denier.”
There isn’t space to analyze the events of January 6th at the Capitol. A lot of it was stupid, most of it quite innocent. Let’s hope the truth is exposed, since it certainly hasn’t been so far. Most of what the “January 6th committee” has reported is only partially true; even more of what the Democrat press reports is less so. Those arrested, some on quite thin, even spurious grounds, have been maltreated worse than murderers, rapists and arsonists. One hopes for justice in all their cases, and for justice for those guards and administrators who have been needlessly brutal and cruel towards them.
Why would Americans act this way? Hatred. Those arrested for any reason related to January 6th, are all perceived in two ways: 1) supporters of Donald Trump, whom we are all taught to hate; and, 2) they are hated as threats to the government – the administrative, hyper-politicized state – for whom all the arresting and jailing powers work. The challenge to the corrupt congress is perceived as a personal threat by government workers. Those who threaten or even murder common citizens, are of far less concern to federal employees, apparently. For shame.
Trump grasped at straws and couldn’t have succeeded, but it’s hard to lay blame after all other avenues of legitimate questioning of the elections were closed to him. He knew the election was rigged against him by people who have years of experience doing exactly that. He was supposed to bow down to the leftists and he didn’t. He was supposed to react like Nixon and he didn’t… nor should he have, although the January 6th rally was not smart.
In Prudence’ view, there are $31 Trillion reasons to storm the Capitol; two dozen Congresses and 11 administrations, at least, have lied to the American people rather steadily and saddled us with virtually permanent debt. The 2020 “derelection” is just the last straw. There is only one “T” in Democratcy.
There are so many things to think about, wonder about, dream of or simply, profoundly contemplate… at Christmastime. Modern society provides thousands of distractions to contemplative thought, even of religious thought. It confuses young and old and even quite intelligent people, who, many of them, find comfort in overthrowing traditions and beliefs that, however jerkily, created pathways of progress and even enlightenment. Enlightenment’s end will be realized when “woke” ideologies capture the last government.
Christmas takes place at the altar of God, like it or not. Mankind is obligated to bring gifts of thanks to the Creator, gifts derived from multiplying what we have been given for a full year’s cycle of days and nights, pains and suffering, triumphs and failures, loves and losses, lives and deaths, babies and aged cadavers. If we manage to not be destructively distracted, we have much to offer our Creator, and offer it we must. This is not a new or even a “Christian” concept. Most religious traditions include significant measures of time, “moons,” seasons and solstices. The traditions that built our civilization caused the development of calendars that have a clear beginning and ending, recognized by everyone. Those who understood the segments of time and lengths of daylight hours gained great influence. As God and His prophets explained and taught spiritual laws, it was into the traditions of our incipient civilization that they fit them. As much as the first day of a new year is meaningful about beginnings, plans and courage to attempt new things, the end of the year is important for tallying the results and expressing gratitude for the victories and challenges thereof.
That there is believed to be a cycle of receiving and giving and of giving and receiving, all of which may contribute to a better destiny after one’s earthly life is finished, formed the basis of ethics, charity and hard work, and, it can be said, of honesty and personal responsibility. Populations that share these concepts develop individual consciences and the greatest of all gifts: self-control. This very capability is essential – indispensable – for the creation and maintenance of a personal relationship with God, God by any name, and, clearly, for the establishment of the democratic republic of the United States of America.
Many are alive today who, as socialists also do, believe that their purpose in life is to take as much advantage of society as possible. They expect levels of wealth, comfort and licentious rights as though by magic. Many don’t work or produce anything of useful value to others. If they are in college due to signed loan contracts, they tend to agitate energetically for “the government” to absorb their debts, as if they who signed those contracts were magically absolved of a solemn promise. It is an extraordinary expectation with literally no prior basis in law or social organization. Such an outlook is the diametric opposite of accepting an annual opportunity to live, multiply and serve others, and laying the results on the altar at the conclusion of the annual cycle. Education, parenting and religion have failed these people.
The American holiday, Thanksgiving, fits our founding philosophies perfectly. As we approach the end of each year, we are reminded unceasingly that it is time to give thanks for the blessings of freedom and of our Constitutional governance. Amongst the football, shopping, road-races and overeating, families and friends come together, let’s hope without conflict, where, even if not articulated, being thankful seeps in to the most unaware. But, thankful to whom?
Some might think they are thanking the government… for the good fortune that has found them in the United States. Yet the government spends most of its time limiting our freedom, not something to thank anyone for. However, we do enjoy a good fraction of the freedom that was present at our founding and we should be thankful for that. We still enjoy a measure of personal responsibility, the one ingredient in freedom that makes our personal choices meaningful as it makes our lives meaningful. Government seems to be actively eliminating personal responsibility as though everything good or bad that happens is a social consequence, not a personal one. That’s not what – or whom – we are thankful for, either.
Like love, hate or forgiveness, thankfulness is uniquely human. So, too, is the ability to worship. This combination of human attitudes and abilities is why socially sensitive civilizations exist. Add to them the sense of sacrifice that spurs preparation for a better future for ourselves and for others, and some of the most sublime philosophies of social organization, economics and government can be understood. The greatest advances of science and medicine would be impossible without certain attitudes, including sacrifice. These are attitudes common to what we call, “human nature,” and which are fought against consistently by philosophies of what we call, “socialism.”
Humans have a further grant from, well, their creator… certainly not from any government. We call it “free will” and it refers to the opportunity to choose from evil, which is to say, “away from evil.” Clearly, God (I’ll use “God” – easier to type, you know) brought humans into being on a planet where “free will” would always be tested against the blandishments of evil. Freedom will exist only so long as the young are taught about it and of it and, if truth be told, so long as God is worshipped. No form of governance that denies those understandings is able to keep people out of tyranny. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, and hearts to maintain the courage of free will, I am thankful.
“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.” Frederick Douglass
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams
On November 8th, a cold day before the first frost, hereabouts, Prudence found the very last Morning Glory blossom on a set of vines that looked dead for more than a couple of weeks. While it seemed lonely, perhaps forlorn, that blossom faced the sun with purpose. It was telling its world that even when all doors seemed closed, the spark of life, matched with a strong purpose – or courage – was overcoming almost everything.
We are witnessing the dismantling of the United States as a sovereign nation. It is sad that no news organization asks questions about it. It is the only end result that makes sense of Biden’s open-border tragedy and it’s not a new idea: George W. Bush talked about creating a “North American Union” similar to the European Union, where petty local elections would mean less and less and less. The free flow of peoples is part of it. Erasing quaint ideas of nationalism and America-first, are parts of it, too. No wonder Trump was so hated by the anti-nationalists who are in charge. It’s all globalist crap, and every Democrat supports it, yet not more than two Republicans have spoken of it, much. American citizens? Why tell them anything?
The deep state has discussed the concepts of an “NAU” with both Mexico and Canada over the past 20 years and probably more. There hasn’t been any effort to speak to the United States about it. President George H. W. Bush spoke of “… a new world order…” in the early 90’s, as though the actions and policies of the United States were somehow leading to that mythical utopia. You can spot those who share that concept: they looove the United Nations. They get a thrill from hearing people from less-successful and far more oppressed nations telling the United States what to do.
Barack Obama is a true acolyte in that church. Not only did he apologize to the world for real and imagined mistakes the U. S. has made… forever, but he couches his basic hatred of his own country in terms of racism: the unassailable condemnation. There are many like him. They’ve taken to calling for U. N. oversight of OUR elections! Yet, there is almost nothing the U. N. does that improves freedom or raises standards of living – except for the standards of living for those that work for the U. N. It is an horrendously corrupt and wasteful bureaucracy, and the U. S. feels compelled to pay the lion’s share of its many budgets. Being “woke” began with the U. N. after World War II; supporting the U. N., even over support for the U. S. is one of the greatest virtue-signals possible.
To rush along the “New World Order,” leftists within our own government favor and work for acceptance of U. N. directives. The fundamental process requires giving up bits and pieces of U. S. sovereignty, which also means discarding our Constitutionally protected, God-given rights. Within every variation of justification for elevating humanity to become our own gods, there is a constant drumbeat against religion (mostly against Christianity) and no room for God, himself. Here in one of the few nations founded or premised upon religious freedom, we find numerous CHURCHES and watered-down, rainbow-flagged liturgies, that strongly support the U. N. Individuality and individual relationships with God and Christ are not preached or honored there, any longer. Marching toward the new world order is a march to the left, Godless and socialist.
“The New World Order” is not a phrase that’s tossed around of late. What is dropped often enough is the term, “The Great Reset.” Everyone in favor of the Great Reset is perfectly happy with the prospects of a new world order, make no mistake. “Great Reset” is the brain-fart of the self-exalted “World Economic Forum,” led by the chief fart, Klaus Schwab. No one elected him; he and the rest of those who are “members” of the “Forum,” are self-appointed, very wealthy individuals who have developed significant sway over actual political, elected leaders. Despite their capitalist origins, they all seem quite comfortable with a socialist, one-world future. All seem convinced that socialism has failed heretofore only because those attempting to employ it were not as smart as this current gang of utterly secular insurrectionists… insurrection being the overthrow of existing government(s).
The Great Reset received a huge boost from the COVID-19 pandemic. Incipient global rulers watched the lockdowns and mandating of experimental vaccines with satisfied glee. Millions of hitherto “sovereign” citizens were accepting extra-legal control of movement, employment, worship and assembly on the premise of stopping an infectious virus. Constitutions and other statements of rights were set aside with minimal resistance. To globalists, this behavior showed that tyrannical control is manageable. God forbid.
Still, among the dying vines of freedom, faith, private property rights and individuality, there are enough living cells to blossom forth in glory. But, can we protect freedom’s flower from the coming frost of de-population, famine and global communism, under which, according to the benevolent Klaus Schwab, we will “own nothing and be happy?”
Representatives of our own government, including the incredibly corrupt Vice-President, Joseph Robinette Biden, descendant of slave owners and top dog in a corrupt and morally twisted family, have attended and addressed the W. E. F. in its Davos meetings. Biden’s last speech there, a couple days before Trump’s inauguration, was full of internationalist palaver and platitudes of cooperation salted with anti-Russian, anti-Putin derogation. As President, however, Biden has governed this country in contravention of his utopian dreams expressed to the W. E. F. Indeed, he has governed in contravention of his sworn oath upon inauguration: his word is cheap – easily purchased. With some 150 instances of questionable financial transactions among the several Bidens and foreign countries, it may prove difficult to ascertain who owns the largest portion of good ol’ Joe’s integrity. Observations – and Biden’s own actions – would indicate that significant ownership of his integrity belongs to Communist China, and not to the citizens of the United States.
“The West” owes to itself and to all mankind a proper regulation / limitation of raw capitalism. Today’s youth are rightly fed up with the distortions caused by hyper-accumulation of wealth. Capitalism was the servant of freedom while free-enterprise was possible, encouraged and promoted by republican governments. It worked while laws and judicial impartiality provided an honest business environment, one of the best in the world. In other words, free enterprise worked when government was honest, both federal and state. A hundred aspects of Covid-19 response have shown that our governments and multiple enforcement agencies have become dishonest, with even our largest, most trusted, government-corrupted, medical delivery systems forcing forms of protocols that have increased the death toll from Covid at least 100%. The “government” provided financial incentives to hospitals to both identify and treat “Covid” patients, including specific treatments and, oddly, lacks thereof. Thousands have died because normal treatments and checkups for cancers, heart disease and many other conditions, were stopped or avoided by patients. The crimes are so huge we’ll never have all the statistics.
The fastest way to start stitching the American opportunity society back together, is to return to honesty in government – something that seems anathema to today’s politicians and to the deep state.
All we true Americans need is the single-minded purpose of a Morning Glory blossom, determined to return our glory to the world.
