Category Archives: Politics 2021

Biden, Economics, Education, Environment, Foreign Policy, Politics 2023

CHINA SECOND

Leave a comment
“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?

Biden, Governance, Immigration, Politics 2023, Representation, Responsibility

FREEDOM’S FUTURE

Leave a comment

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.

Biden, Crime, Economics, Governance, Obama, Politics 2020, Representation, Trump

Dereliction – Derelection

Leave a comment
NY Times photo

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.

Biden, Culture, Economics, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Obama, Politics 2022

AMERICAN GLORY

Leave a comment
I think we can, I think we can…

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.

Biden, Crime, Economics, Education, Elections, Family, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Immigration, Sex

QUESTIONS OF CONSPIRACY

Leave a comment
The Gang’s All Here

There are many forms of conspiracy of which average citizens have some inkling or suspicion, despite, or perhaps because of the concerted mendacity of government officials and agencies, including our military bureaucrats.  Particularly since the Biden administration took control, world politics and military relationships have become more dangerous, more conspiratorial and far more difficult to control, let alone understand.  Naturally, Americans are much more nervous and feeling isolated, as we probably should.  With China encroaching on our spheres of influence and on numerous allies like Canada, Columbia, Panama, African nations and Europe, itself… even Hungary, the “world” seems to be ganging up on the U. S.

This is a rather abrupt turn of events.  One has to wonder if it’s all a matter of incompetence and lack of understanding, or if key power centers in the U. S. are executing a plan.  Can these questions be answered?

  1.           Was Covid-19 a strategy or unfortunate accident?
  2.           Is the widespread “legalization” of very dangerous marijuana and the      onslaught of lethal drugs flooding our neighborhoods, just wretched capitalism or an element of intentional weakness that makes sense to some people?
  3.            Is the attack on Ukraine part of an “approved” plan by globalists to weaken NATO and the U. S.?
  4.            Is the “attack” on oil and gas in the U. S. part of the same plan?
  5.            Where did the basic plan to expand “transgenderism” among grade-schoolers originate?
  6.            How is it that major hospitals suddenly coordinated with the LGBTQ+ agenda and public schools to begin performing transgender mutilations and sterilizations?
  7.            Is the pressure to give virtually everyone from age 5 and up the modified RNA injections part of a larger objective of weakening individual freedom, lower general health and possibly population control?
  8.           Who, or what country(ies), actually benefits from the dramatic changes in  U. S. monetary and immigration policies?
  9.           Who, or what country(ies), benefits from election fraud?
  10.  Who, or what country(ies), benefits from soft-on-crime policies in major cities?
  11. Who, or what country(ies), benefits from high inflation in the U. S.?
  12. Who, or what country(ies), benefits from restricting food production – reducing fertilizer use and sequestering productive acreage?

These are all rather sad questions to be able to posit.  How could so many negative policies suddenly descend upon our nation and people?  Can they all be parts of tragic, unavoidable coincidences?  Or, could they be coordinated from… well, somewhere?  Someone?  Some group?

Can we put much credence into the idea that Joe Biden, a man whose mental state requires guides and “handlers” at all times, actually believes in what he says or does, or that he thought up the set of policies he has put into action?

Or, God forbid, but not an impossibility, is it possible that leftists/globalists in the United States’ “deep state” have considered the evolving relationships and power of Red China, the problems and responsibilities of American freedom and nationalism and the blandishments of the World Economic Forum in terms of a financial control model of vastly smaller populations, and decided that the only answer to the possibilities of wars and nuclear conflict is to throw in with the W.E.F. and establish a global government able to negotiate with, and even coerce China into coexistence?  Perhaps systemic treason has been sold to the oligarchy as salvation.

Biden, Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Foreign Policy, Governance, Health Care, Immigration, Politics 2022, Religion

One Lie, Two Lies, Three Lies, Four

Leave a comment

One way to look at our current national condition is from the top of the Mountain Of Lies.  It’s a better viewpoint for observing the accumulating effects of dishonesty upon the health and strength of the nation to which it is dished on a literal daily basis.  Sometimes there is illumination provided by organizing lists of items that share one or more parameters.  It will be Prudent to consider the entirety, if not enormity of the following list of lies on which Americans’ lives depend:

LAW.  Our history and culture are replete with real and literary conspiracies based on subversion of laws.  To Prudence, undercutting the law is the worst of all lies.  Peace, safety, freedom and life, itself, depend on honesty in matters of law.  It is still worse when it leaves the individual level and seeps into “official” policy and action – denying or subverting the law, that is.  We can see the scope of damage that official lying can do, by reflecting on the completely fabricated “Russia” conspiracy that politicians and law-enforcement agencies attempted to pin on Donald Trump before he won election as 45th President, and through much of his administration.  Subverting federal laws only expanded after that.

A few people lost their jobs at the FBI, but, so far, not their pensions!  The message is that anything illegal done against Donald Trump is not considered to be nearly as bad as illegal acts taken against some other American citizen.  Yes, you broke the law, but it doesn’t bother us enough to apply legal sanctions – wink, wink.  Subversion of law: one of the worst kinds of lie.

But, unfortunately, the unprecedented crimes against Trump are not the worst in terms of how the citizens of the U. S. are besmirched by government lying.  We have to look at immigration and border policies and practices since Joe Biden signed that stack of executive orders on January 21st, 2021.

U.N. and U.S. rules for “refugee” and “asylum” status are pretty loose, subject to multiple steps of acceptance despite previous errors or even untrue/fraudulent applications.  A judge can always accept some claim of good reasons to submit fraudulent statements in order to obtain safety unavailable in their country of origin.  In other words, it is subjective at almost every step.  Those who hyperventilate over “loopholes” in tax laws are singularly unconcerned about the sieve of loopholes in immigration law.  Interestingly, many of the possible claims for asylum are based on non-binary sexuality.  However, there are laws and regulations that govern the processing of asylum claims and of asylees, themselves.  These are being ignored at the President’s direction, leaving millions of illegal entrants in our country with virtually no way for our erstwhile protectors to monitor or arrest them when they fail to appear for “hearings” required by law.

It’s all part of “Progressives’” intention to dissemble our Constitutional Republic.  Every person connected to the Biden administration who comments on “the border,” has lied about it, and quite consistently.  Those are bad lies, sure enough.

We could also bring forth the mendacity surround “Covid” and ersatz vaccines, but there’s only so much we can include, here. See: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2020/08/26/if-you-knew-covid/ . 

LEGISLATION.  Once upon a time in Washington, representatives of the people and representatives of the states would diligently research and debate, in both Houses of Congress, the federal budget.  Presidential administrations would cook up budgets with their own plans and hopes, including the increased spending inevitably required by each and every one of the 1,000 or so executive departments, offices, agencies and “black” projects.  Congress, politically, would dissect parts of it, replace parts of it, gain hours of news coverage about their essential work, and eventually pass some form of it, including myriad political advantages for the parties holding some level of power: earmarks.  And, always, plenty of “pork.”

The two great sources of power in Congress are 1) Spending; and, 2) Taxing.  No matter how motivated or honest a new congressperson may be, fairly quickly he or she becomes either purposefully corrupt or casually corrupted by the systems of Congress.  The orientation process for newbies includes explaining why it is that what each feels is the right thing to do… cannot be done.  In order to accomplish a small bit of what spurred the campaign to enter Congress, much has to be compromised.  That is the economic dynamic of Congress – not right or wrong, but bartering for good and not-good.  With the number-one goal of everyone in both Houses being re-election, the barter system quickly becomes bartering to gain re-election benefits.  Voting on the so-called “budget” offers dozens of barter opportunities, and so it goes.  It is inherently corrupt and corrupting, which means that our fresh new representatives – House or Senate – must lie to us at their first opportunity.

Then, there are the aggregations of spending and taxing ideas that are given names like, “The Inflation Reduction Act.”  These mountains of malarkey cut and pasted by the “power brokers” who then present a 1,000-page or 3,000-page pile of words with hundreds of new “laws” included and call for a vote within 24 or 48 hours.  No one can read or understand the implications all of it before voting, yet there is a great trumpeting of accomplishment.  Most of the time prior to the vote is spent by each “yea” voter to find something – anything – that he or she can tell constituents was “accomplished” for their benefit, including how their representative “fought” for them against the evils of Washington.  Still, where’s the truth?  There are $31 Trillion in the national debt that display 65 years of great lying to American citizens.

IMMIGRATION:  No country is a greater magnet for emigration than the U. S.  Despite the constant Marxist drumbeat of “systemic” racism, imminent murder of blacks by police and unfair incarceration of pathetic, somewhat innocent or non-responsible prisoners, people of color flock to our southern border by the millions.  Some just walk in and say the magic words claiming asylum.  Our Border Patrol officers spend virtually all of their time “processing” the flood of people from up to 100 countries(!).  In The meantime, about 25% as many as claim asylum escape through our poorly secured border, carrying tons of fentanyl and other drugs (drugs that kill over 100,000 young Americans every year) as well as carrying plans in some of their heads to commit terrorist attacks.

It is one of the prime responsibilities of a President and administration to prevent these very circumstances.  For a government to NOT fulfill this obligation requires two forms of “untruth:” 1) a purpose other than protecting the United States or its citizens; and, 2) a constant barrage of utter lies about the “secure” status of the casually breeched southern border, supporting the pretense of an administration that is fulfilling its vows.  Typically, there is a penalty to pay for lying, much more so if the lie causes injury or cost to the subject(s) of it.  What sort of penalty is appropriate for this grandiose lie?

The upshot of this close-to-the-worst-of-lies is that about 4 MILLION illegal entrants are scattered across the country.  Each of them is a living, breathing, expensive lie.  Along with them are the nearly 1 MILLION “gotaways” who evaded apprehension thanks to President Biden’s utter… no, purposeful… failure to complete the border wall, which would at least have channeled prospective entrants to limited points of entry.  They are all lies, too, whose very presence implies some sort of right to be inside our borders.  That there is no such right for nearly all of the 4 MILLION and the 1 MILLION, simply compounds the grotesque lie this administration has been telling American citizens.

COVID:  This compendium of lies began 10 years ago as the great Dr. Anthony Fauci funneled NIAID grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for gain-of-function research on the SARS-2 coronavirus.  He has denied that purpose, of course, which simply shows that lying is common in the federal government’s hundreds of agencies.  Fauci’s NIAID agency of the CDC earned millions in royalties from helping Moderna develop its mRNA “vaccine” (the vaccine that doesn’t prevent infection, doesn’t create immune response and doesn’t prevent contagion), which Moderna was working on in Wuhan months before the world heard of the novel coronavirus, Covid-19.

Interestingly, the only response to Covid infection was – and still is – “vaccination.” All other treatments, some very effective, have been suppressed and discussion of them censored.  Reputable scientists estimate that half a million American deaths can be blamed on failures to treat Covid with known anti-virals, immune boosters and supplements.  Individual personnel within the NIH are allowed to earn royalties from numerous pharmaceuticals they helped to research, including the slickest liar of all, Dr. Anthony Fauci, reportedly the highest-paid employee in the federal swamp.  Lying about Covid must have been the most lucrative scam he’s had.  To really push the mass vaccination program that was part of a tawdry, essentially worldwide scheme, great fear had to be fomented, and locking down the country from most business activity fitted in perfectly with that goal.

First, though, the “Friends of Fauci,” recognized scientists all, conspired to flood medical publications with false opinion papers that claimed, uniformly, that the origin of the ENGINEERED SARS-2 novel coronavirus came from some natural evolution that workers at a “wet market” in Wuhan city were exposed to.  Real virologists, like Fauci, can identify the Furin cleavage site in the viral chain where other genes were added to the original SARS virus.  Yet the papers went forth at Fauci’s direction to confuse politicians and divert attention from the financing of the exact research – begun in the U. S. and shifted to Wuhan – that made COVID-19 so infectious.  Lies have consequences.

COVID killed a lot of people, although far fewer than statistics claim, and nowhere at a higher rate than in the United States!  How could that possibly be?  We certainly have a right to know.

In effect, the pandemic here was handled politically, not medically.  Fauci and others inside the deep state, beholden to big Pharma, and PROFITING from them, advised federal and state governments to impose useless and actually harmful steps, locking down economic and social activities, ruining family economics and, worst of all, forcing protocols on hospitals that ignored known treatments and caused the deaths of thousands who could have survived.  It seems criminal.

As the so-called “vaccines” were introduced, the lies became greater.  The definition of “vaccine” had to be changed to include the weird chemicals that comprise mRNA shots.  Pushing them as vaccines was and still is comforting to the average “emergency use” recipient, now pushed down to infants and children.  Unfortunately, nRNA shots don’t prevent the disease, they don’t prevent infecting others, and they don’t instill normal immune response.   Oh, and they don’t last long in their one effect: mitigating the “severity” of infection.  As one gets into “booster shot” country, the effects dwindle to a month or two.  The shots are utter failures as vaccines and immensely successful as money-transfer agents.

But, wait!  There’s more!… or less.  The shots are dangerous to humans!  You’ve seen the ads, over and over, telling the trusting that COVID vaccine is “effective and safe.”  Some mothers couldn’t wait for them to be available so that their kids could be protected from a disease that is of nearly ZERO threat to them!  Zero as in NO THREAT!  Why force an experimental drug known to damage children to the point that they are at greater risk from the injections than they are from the disease?  I’ll tell you why: FEAR and two years’ of lies from our helpful government.

Other lies… well, let’s talk about IMMIGRATION.  Anyone in this administration or Congressional Democrat who happens to get a question about the “control” of the border with Mexico, lies.  No one stands out as telling the truth about this one issue.

President Biden is virtually never asked about the border – that’s left up to his press flacks: first Jen Psaki and now the incomparable Karinne Jean-Pierre.  On August 29th reporter, Peter Doocy asked “KJP” why tennis star Novak Djokovic cannot enter the United States to play in a tennis tournament because he ‘s not “vaccinated” against Covid, but migrants can just walk into Texas and Arizona unvaccinated and are allowed to stay?

Jean-Pierre’s response was that just walking in was not how it works.  When corrected of that notion she stated that “…it’s not like that you can’t just walk over and…”  And so it goes in the great mendacity machine that is the Biden administration.

Prudence has asked before: Where do we turn when our own government lies to us?

Biden, Crime, Culture, Education, Health Care, Politics 2022, Religion, Representation, Sex

Psychology, If You Don’t Mind

Leave a comment
I have the answer here in my hand…

We’re all psychologists.  Humans could not work together, form societies or even families, if we could not “size up” one another and make relatively accurate judgments as to the attitudes and outlooks of those we need to live with.  Like every other human skill, psychological survival and progress has attracted experts, often the death knell of progress in the field of interest.  Beyond studying and learning about human psychology, psychologists have moved on to defining and even inventing forms of it.  Today it is almost as though the professional in the psychology field had DISCOVERED psychology in humans and that they, psychologists, must be consulted about any and every aspect of it, lest mere humans hurt themselves and others by trying to comprehend it.

Life is animalistic without psychological abilities.  Animal brains only barely exhibit any sense of meaning to the actions they take.  Humans strive to avoid it.  Part of the magic of human psychology is the ability to worship, and to perceive a spiritual existence that is the greatest sense of meaning possible.  What does – or what will – what I’m doing, mean?

Generally, the actions of today are taken because of their meaning something in the future.  We save today for security tomorrow; we court and marry today to produce a family of children tomorrow; we live honorably, creating friends and earning respect from others, so that we’ll have friends and friendship in our old age; we try to avoid poisoning our bodies and avoid danger and injuries because it means we can live longer.  We even attempt to extend our meaning to others beyond the date of our death with inheritances and bequests and instructions.  Unfortunately, we are descending into a process of talking ourselves out of our own humanity.  Psychologists of various stripes have convinced many to deny who they are, and have convinced many others with influence over them, to help them in the process of denial.  What for?

A large element of civilization has been and remains theater.  It could be as simple as street actors and their ad-hoc creation of scenes, characters and stories, to the elaborate production of operas that remain popular over decades and centuries.  Greek and Roman theater still teach us to look at life and meaning in “better” ways; Shakespeare, Marlow, Bacon and thousands of others from every culture, employed costume, staging, music, masks and pretense to teach cultural truths and lessons for living.  Modern electronics make it possible for every individual – including children – to become a preferred pretense character, almost always on a Snap-Chat stage.  It seems, unfortunately, that the “psychology community” talked itself into treating human theater, down to the individual level, as more valuable – more essential – than reality.

As one old Greek noted, “Virtue lies in Reason and Vice in rejection of Reason.”  However, as psychologists are only too aware, or promoters of, Reason cannot be satisfactorily defined, especially from generation to generation.  There seem to be thousands of permutations of reason, and as communications have advanced, so to speak, certain biases have become widely shared, affecting modern concepts of reason, which is not to say, Truth.  Since the 1960’s and ‘70’s, feminism has become the overriding permutation of reason in the United States, and it has led to a society-bending twist of sexual roles and mores.  Psychologists haven’t tried to stem this tide.  Where “psychology” might add to understanding of various truths, instead it seems to adapt to and rationalize social trends.

Prudence can expect to be roundly chastised for the previous paragraph, and, probably, the next one.

Feminism has done more damage to American society than any other belief system besides slavery.  Bit by bit – now chunk by chunk – it has feminized men and destroyed the majesty of motherhood.  Simultaneous with the explosion in homosexuality, feminism has also led to hyper-sexualization of school-age children down to disturbing ages.  As it has torn down the old morality it has failed to replace it with a new one.  Where women used to “civilize” men, they now compete in an arena of irresponsible sexuality where everything is planned or avoidable based on the whims of women.

Women are now the drivers of the new para-psychology called transgenderism.  And, rather than eliminating confusion about maleness or femaleness, it encompasses a host of “sexualities” that mainly women teachers and gay or other “non-binary” “teachers” feel compelled to dictate to, if not guide and groom, children at very young ages.  Where are “the psychologists” on this strange twist of “education?”  Sadly, they seem able to rationalize or even justify the trans-gender fad.  If it didn’t do so much damage to the kids whose theatrical fantasies everyone is rushing to “confirm,” the psychologists might be forgiven.

MOST of transgenderism is theater.  Children, some genuinely confused about sexuality, a very small fraction, and the rest who want to play at being the opposite sex, are pounced upon by agenda-driven teachers, psychologists, doctors and even hospitals(!), who are all in a hurry to “confirm” trans-gender fantasies.  Confirmation, unfortunately, consists of largely irreversible hormone injections and blockers, and even surgeries to remove perfectly healthy organs.  The children are permanently changed and their developments confused chemically.  The greatest effect?  Sterilization.  Not many teenagers and damned few adults can conceive of what full medical transfiguration means as time goes by.  Most come to realize that they have attempted something that is impossible in the majority of cases, and that leaves them neither male or female.  There is more at stake than pronouns.

Yet, some dysphoria is real – the people who transition to another way of living are still real people who deserve as much respect as anyone else.  Heterosexual people are largely unable to accept trans-gender people at “face” value.  Reactions vary over a short spectrum, from disbelief to disgust.  Normal people have a duty to learn respect for those who have found the only way to deal with their relatively rare dysphoria is transition.  Let the rest of us count our blessings.

This doesn’t excuse the agenda-driven recruitment of children to a belief in gender-fluidity.  Parents know that childhood whims and fantasies usually fade away or are outgrown by maturity in nearly all cases.  To pounce on these susceptible kids, especially for teachers, is criminal.  For administrators and political / civic leaders to make it ILLEGAL to prevent gender-predation shall remain a stain on the conscience of the nation.  Shame on us and kudos to those leaders wise enough to resist this weird aberration in human purpose.

Those who are committed to the “trans” state of being and living also need to recognize that their own, understandably very deep biases toward “non-binary” sexuality, bends their views to find trans potential atop almost every pair of legs.  Bigots on both sides need to stifle their angers and misunderstandings.  Professional, expert psychologists and psychiatrists ought to be guiding the confused toward a path that is constructive for society and civilization.  Unfortunately, they have agreed among their professional, expert-laden Societies, to avoid moral judgement and even counsel patients to dissociate themselves from religious codes.  Indeed, such counseling tends to affirm those ideas that comfort the patient, rather than disturb him or her.

In other words, psychology can affirm one’s deepest beliefs, which is not to say truth.  Unfortunately, sometimes beliefs are just wrong and counter-productive or damaging to society.  They can interfere with forming positive bonds with others, with family members, or with others who would be good for the individual.  Psychology has drifted too close to chemical solutions for too many conditions/reactions; they also tend to counsel for far too long, with patients dependent upon their therapists to maintain a new normalcy.

As Americans ponder the decline of trust in the institutions that ought to defend successful traditions and uphold the greatest strength of U. S. culture, one of those has been medicine, including mental health medicine.  The professionals in that society have always been people of sense, ready willing and able to advise patients toward the healthiest, most sensible habits and actions.  This used to include psychologists and psychiatrists, but this has all changed.  Why?  How did industries – professions – of HONOR, become so sullied? 

Politics and money, not synonymous, but often congruent.  If politics were corrupted by only money we could survive and even thrive as the running battle against corruption played its parallel games.  But politics has been corrupted by ideology, hatred and mendacity.  The Covid pandemic exposed the degree of twist that has occurred.  One political party routinely condemns half the voters in the country, not as those who see a different way to improve and strengthen America, but as a group that can’t be permitted to hold or even share power… a group that threatens the republic, that is racist, homophobic, transphobic and every other epithet that can be used on TV to denigrate another person.  Then that same party does everything that their opponents are accused of doing, BY THEM.  It is no longer politics, but managed hatred, and it has coopted the institutions of government, justice, education and medicine, among others.  None of the professions that once held the nation together have been spared.

The various forms of artifice are all masks, covering the faces of evil.  Millions of true patriots resist and believe in the majesty of the American way – most are Christians.  They – we – are the conscience of America.  A new professionalism and a new citizenship are all that can restore us… and a new / old spiritual understanding of why humanity is male and female, and how it can survive and grow stronger.  Honestly.

Biden, Culture, Economics, Education, Elections, Governance, Politics 2022, Taxation, Transportation

CLIMATE, WHETHER OR NOT

Leave a comment

The Green New Deal has become a means of theft: elites taking freedom and independence, and possibly life, itself, away from the middle and lower classes.  “Oh! No!” you say, “Surely you are misinterpreting the existential threat of climate change and their intense efforts to save the planet.”  Well, no, actually I’m trying to balance reality with what we’re being told.

Many hundreds of statements and declarations are made on a weekly, monthly, annual basis – certainly on every hot day, cold day, dry day or wet day, that “climate change” is wreaking havoc on the planet and on the poor and downtrodden, minorities and LGBTQ+ “communities” worst of all.  It’s all the fault of you smug suburbanites and your SUVs spewing that awful carbon dioxide… and the cow farts you cause by eating burgers made from meat and not insects.  Don’t forget your air conditioners and outdoor grills – all hastening our extinction.

This would be such a nice planet to live on if it weren’t for all you… well… people for goodness’ sakes.  (Can’t say ‘God’s sake.’)

Actually, if it were not for the constant tilt of most media outlets, the condition of the earth and its climate could be discussed and better known by young and old, alike.  We are just coming to the end of a very hot summer.  There were drought conditions in many countries.  We will soon be inundated with claims of the planet having a “fever” and “the earth is on fire,” and similar declarations.  So far, we haven’t suffered a hurricane coming ashore to the United States; as soon as one does, we’ll be told there are more -and stronger – storms because of our driving “fossil-fueled cars” and resisting buying non-polluting “electric vehicles,” EV’s.  If we have a severely snowy winter with lots of cold, cold days, they’ll all be our fault, too.

There is some supposed perfect average global temperature… one we like.  It is impossible to define the “ideal” climate, the ideal temperature, the ideal amount of ice at the poles, the ideal amount of cloud-cover or precipitation… or the ideal anything else.  What does seem easy to idealize is the right population the earth should hold and support, and it is a Hell of a lot smaller than the population we have, today.  Various oligarchs, like Bill Gates and others, think the world is overpopulated by 5 BILLION people, or even more.  It’s going to take substantial new rates of sterility and deaths to achieve the “ideal.”  What an achievement that will be.

Around the planet ice is melting… from the poles (supposedly), Greenland, various glaciers and so forth.  This causes terrible worries.  Oddly, they’re more terrible for leftists in the West, than for conservatives.  They don’t make a damned bit of difference to leftists in Russia, China, India and elsewhere, or to Islamists, who are happy with any number of earthlings as long as they’re all Muslims – the right kind of Muslims.

It’s rather comforting that the climate is changing, whether warming or cooling at any time: the climate has been changing for hundreds of millions of years – maybe billions of years… as long as we’ve had an atmosphere.  No one would want to be here on the day the climate STOPS changing.  For most people, “climate change” translates as “global warming.”  We can see videos of running water on Greenland and shrinking glaciers in the mountains.  Definitely, it’s warming.  Then we have a summer like 2022’s and we are convinced of the imminent danger of the seas rising and a hurricane toppling our houses.  Look what happened to New Orleans, for Pete’s sake.  Maybe if they’d all had electric cars in 2005, the people who wasted the federal moneys for strengthening the dikes around the ninth ward might have gone to jail.

It’s hard to predict the future, and that’s the only kind of predicting there is.  There is a form of false, God-save-us-if-this-happens sort of prognosticating, though, that is employed stridently by “Climate Campaigners.”  It’s always negative.  People who worry about and inveigh about the climate, are certain that change means some form of doom.  They never seem to make any predictions of benefit from “climate change.”  It’s always an imminent disaster, and it’s always our fault, meaning that we have to make drastic changes to avert certain death in as few as 10 or 12 years.

The premise of prediction is history.  Recorded history of what people have done, or which volcanoes blew up or geologic evidence of mile-thick ice sheets that created the Great Lakes and the like, as well as records of various past weather trends and climatological periods, provide a basis from which inferences are drawn and, in very grave tones, predictions are made about the future of climate and weather over the next hundred years or so.  It’s all very scientific, except it’s impossible to replicate the conditions to see if the same effects take place, so climatologists are unable, actually, to apply the scientific method to historic evidence and add to the evidence of the first “experiment,” seeking correlation.

Atmospheric scientists have gained great knowledge and reasonable predictive power of weather deriving from worldwide patterns like El Niño, although little has been said about movements of the magnetic poles, for example, and the focus of charged particles changing cloud formation patterns.  The availability of satellite data, global photography and thousands of measurements daily and hourly, have given meteorologists perhaps too much confidence in prediction, and this has seeped in to the self-esteem of climatologists, too.

Whether from ice cores or dendrochronology (tree rings), climatologists can paint what they feel is an accurate picture of what the climate has been for hundreds, if not thousands of years.  Things become more sketchy when they try to make inferences as to WHY they were the way they were.  Bias, or belief, can sway even the best scientists’ theories of cause and effect.  It’s something “science” ostensibly guards against and works against no matter the line or field of inquiry.  Replicating experiments and finding the same or similar results – and publishing those results for other scientists to review and try to replicate or prove wrong, is how science makes real progress towards understanding.

It is not possible to replicate the past; it’s not possible to mimic all the conditions, both on the earth and impacting the earth hundreds or thousands of years ago.  But there is great pressure, whether personal or from the all-important funding sources (grants) for a direct correlation to be discerned… cause and effect.  Why?  Because the reason the study of the past is being funded is often because of beliefs about today’s climate and weather, and that there is a way that humans and their bold politicians can avoid the conditions of the past.  A little humidity – if not humility – is called for.

Politicians and the scientists they fund, have an overriding belief that we humans can modify the climate to keep weather as pleasant as we like, the oceans at the depths they currently are, the glaciers as big as they are if not bigger, and polar bears in their favorite conditions, too.  Underlying this presumption is a belief that we humans have caused changes in the climate to begin with.  Otherwise, we are powerless to undo the damage it is believed we have done!  So, to start with, let’s agree that humans HAVE altered the climate somewhat, and not just around cities.

Cities form “heat islands” with huge blocks of real and manufactured stone, steel and asphalt absorbing more sunlight than the natural environment they replaced.  But huge, multi-square-mile farms also modify natural environments, also changing sunlight absorption, requiring and transpiring huge volumes of water – water that is artificially moved away from its natural location(s).  Are either of these commonplace alterations of the natural environment changing climate?  Somewhat, but how much?  It is very hard to quantify or even describe.  That is, we know the CAUSES we’re concerned about, but we cannot, despite many claims, actually pin down the EFFECTS of these two causes.  Certainly there are some, but what should people be forced to stop doing in order to offset those effects?  We don’t really know, but there is a strong political pressure to force people to stop doing something because of some politicians’ FEARS.  Indeed, one of their biggest fears is of doing nothing or, worse, of failing to force other people to stop doing something.

The urge to do something and to force others to do something comes, deep down, from a belief that a wise-enough human, especially from the leftist persuasion, can control almost anything, including populations, countries and planets.  To a great degree, these same authoritarians will automatically adopt any tool or method to control those who aren’t in agreement with them, especially people whose faith tends toward religious origins rather than government ones.  Soon, the authoritarians commence to blaming those who don’t agree with their beliefs, for the problems they believe they, the ‘wise,’ are destined to solve.  Any contrary data, facts or “science” non-leftists discover, are automatically denigrated and their proponents are labeled “deniers,” as an attempt to more firmly cement the immutable truth of what leftists believe.  It becomes difficult to discuss or debate ideas in that environment.

Because CO2 is generated by so many human activities and machines, not least of which is electricity generation, and because climatologists have observed wide fluctuations in the apparent concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere over millennia from all those ice cores and tree rings, there has grown up a set of beliefs about the correlation of temperatures at different points in time and CO2.  We can summarize this fear quite easily: More CO2 than the magical percentage is BAD; less CO2 than the magical percentage is GOOD.  Sometimes the rise in CO2 concentration precedes a warming period, sometimes it follows, but there is definitely, we’re almost certain… in fact, we’re so close to certain that it’s time to pass laws that we think will reduce the amount of CO2 that enters the atmosphere so that the average temperature of the entire planet’s biosphere can be controlled.

Whether these temperature fluctuations are caused by carbon-dioxide or not is unproven and unprovable.  But, it is definitely believed by many.  Of course, CO2 is essential for life and good for vegetation in particular, from which our food derives: farms and crops and things.  So we wouldn’t want to interfere too much, would we?  How much is too much?  It’s impossible to say, but less than we’re making now, we’re quite certain.

CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor are the primary “greenhouse gases.”  They’re all natural.  Many chlorinated and fluorinated gases that we manufacture also have the effect of “trapping” solar energy.  Fortunately, they are much smaller fractions of the atmosphere, although not as small a fraction as the dreaded CO2.  [See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/07/20/a-home-on-the-beach/ ]

It’s common to see descriptions of human contributions to total greenhouse gases based on what percent of our (American) contribution is CO2.  This makes it look like CO2 is a gigantic problem and the U. S. contributes over 70% of it!  Ye Gods!  Stop breathing!  On the other hand, it is very reassuring that over 70% of what we contribute is CO2 and not methane or manufactured gases.  Methane is natural gas, basically, and the product of bacterial action on organic materials, like food we eat or grasses and grains that cattle, deer, antelope, bears and squirrels eat, among other living things.  Those gases escape, both intentionally and accidentally.  As far as we know, animal escapes are all accidental.  Still, methane is a greenhouse gas, the concentration of which also should be reduced, according to the magical percentage theory of global management.  This has led to calls to reduce cattle herds and, less publicized, to reduce human herds, too.  Ye Gods, again!

Those who are deeply committed to the magical percentages of greenhouse gases theory, are equally committed to blaming their fellow humans for every weather event that is less than perfectly comfortable for everyone from the Amazon watershed to the arctic tundra.  Everything is now our fault.  It has become a great tool for forcing people to accept authoritarian government as it lovingly struggles to avert the imminent climate catastrophe.  A “climate crisis” is declared repeatedly.  Taxpayers and anyone who wants the United States to survive and prosper, should have justifiable concern about any use of “crisis” in relation to items of government interest.  The designation is uniformly employed to justify borrowing from future generations to create politically advantageous spending, now.  There’s a $31 TRILLION liability on our balance sheet that demonstrates the effectiveness of this spending strategy.  Thus it is that “climate change” has become “climate crisis,” a political tool, and not just for the U. S.  Climate is global, and through the World Economic Forum [See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2022/04/16/where-the-globalists-struck-first/ ] it is politically valuable to globalists and other socialists.  There is no reason to trust them.

The W.E.F. has determined that nitrogen-based chemicals, like most fertilizers, must be curtailed in order to save the planet.  You can see the conflict: humans eat the products of fertilized crops.  We like to eat meat, too, often simultaneously, and the animals that provide it also contribute to nitrogen chemicals resulting from bodily functions.  It is what it is.  The globalist solution?  Less eating!  Unfortunately, many governments pay attention to the blatherous emanations of the W.E.F., and adjust policies to fit.  You can read of the effects of this nonsense in the Netherlands, where farmers are in serious protest, or in Sri Lanka where people are starving.  Oddly, the same people who want to mandate the mRNA “vaccines” are they who want to limit food supplies to avoid climate change.  Are the two efforts connected in purpose?  Population reduction?  Certainly, in terms of the net effects of the Covid-19 “vaccines,” population reduction appears to be the biggest net effect.  The spike in non-Covid deaths among the healthiest demographic (ages 25 to 64) in the U. S., Canada and the U. K., is continuing.  The victims are vaccinated against Covid.

It seems intensely Prudent to be intensely skeptical of the unsubstantiated claims of Climate believers. 

We should consider the benefits of warming and the ancillary costs of attempting “carbon neutral” or, worse, “zero carbon” by any date-certain.  All the public statements about “climate change” fit under one heading: “The sky is falling!!” Note the dual exclamation points!  Once the rabid claims are sorted out – and the overblown statistics corrected-for – the best projection for the extent of warming is 2 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit by year 2100.  What are the upsides?

One is longer growing seasons for the crops that sustain the world’s population.  This can also translate to requiring less fertilization and more fallow periods for fields, enabling natural processes to enrich the soil between crops.  There will be more arable land, now covered by ice.  Some may think this is a tragedy, but those who live near the ice are glad to see it go.  Earth’s current weather patterns will change.  This may mean more rain in lots of areas.  Deserts that have evidence of past wet periods might return to that condition, improving opportunities for many peoples to feed themselves and spend less time on subsistence, leaving more time to develop their societies and, perhaps, correct their crappy politics and improve millions of people’s lives and futures.

Less energy will be expended heating homes and other buildings; less fuel expended clearing snow.  Meanwhile, should we manage to avoid or stifle the warlike designs of globalists and Communists, the invention and innovation of free, well-nourished people will be making at least as much progress in engineering and science as we’ve made in the past 80 years.  Our economies will cost less in energy density, transportation will be logarithmically more efficient.  People who are bound by ideologies that condemn half the population, and who are willing to twist “science” for political advantage, cannot conceive of humans creating solutions to the problems that serve one political ideology today: leftist authoritarianism.

In short, there are more reasons to hope for the future than to fear it.  If we have the wisdom to restore freedom as our flame of purpose, there is nothing to fear.  Biden and his ilk will be gone.  Education will be dramatically decentralized and made honest and non-ideological.  Freedom, Hope and Genuine Progress: bring it on!

Biden, Economics, Elections, Family, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Politics 2022, Representation, Taxation

THE INFLATION CHRONICLES

Leave a comment

The Biden “administration” has done everything it could in 19 months to destroy the trajectory of the U. S. economy, and, possibly, U. S. permanence.  Above all, everyone is either helped or hurt by the big “bugaboo,” inflation.  Economists, pundits, commenters and news-readers galore, all have wise-sounding opinions, yet no one seems to know what inflation IS!

It seems Prudent to assume that some of them do, but the average person listening to any such is not going to find it out.  To a mouth, all say in so many, many words, that “inflation” is prices increasing.  Well, no it isn’t.  Inflation is inflation of the money “supply.”  And that isn’t even accurate; it’s inflation of available cash OR CAPITAL that is “liquid,” or lendable.  Capitalism and “inflation” go hand-in-hand to create prosperity for most people.

“Wait just a minute,” you’re thinking, “Inflation makes prices go up, and that’s bad, so it’s not helping MY prosperity.”  Actually, it has helped it – look at the riches and bounty we enjoy.  It’s a two-edged sword… like fire.  It can cook our food, keep us warm, run our engines or… burn the house down.  The key is keeping inflation where it runs the engine without burning down the house.  So, where does this wonderful inflation come from?

The simple answer is debt.  Our economy – even your personal economy – operates on a “futures” basis.  If you own your home you probably have a mortgage on it, which is a long-term debt, well into the future.  One of the quirks in our economy is that banks can legally loan out more “money” than they actually have on deposit.  It’s called “fractional reserve,” and it is about 14%.  In other words, among all the stored “savings” deposits and “performing loans” and temporary deposits, the “Bank” has an average number of dollars “in reserve,” at any given time.  If it amounts to a million dollars, our laws allow the bank to lend out up to $7 Million, round numbers, of which 6/7ths is, fundamentally, air.  So long as the honesty and ability to repay of most borrowers are intact, this is a safe system and the recipient of the check for the house you bought, accepts the dollars that were created to write it, as well as if he saw them peeled from a big fat roll of $100-dollar bills.

If the seller of the house also dealt with the same bank, his or her new deposit of, say, $400 thousand will, for a while, increase the average “reserve” the bank can lend seven times as much of.

Anyway, you commit to paying your mortgage for 20 or 30 years because the pain of losing your home is worse than the pain of making the payments.  Besides, you have a job, you’re productive, you’re helping to create profits somewhere – productive surplus, if you will.  It is reasonable that you will keep your promise to pay.  You have made your work valuable enough to produce some “productive surplus” for your own family.

Try to imagine where the construction industry and millions of jobs would be if there were no such thing as mortgages or construction loans.  But, if you’re worried about inflation, look at what you just did: you caused the inflation of the money supply by about $340,000!  Depending on the “velocity” of that money (through the economy), possibly even more than that.  But!  It’s OK.  You’re going to pay it down – or “back” – to the bank.  Owning that house will cause you to buy a bunch of other stuff that increases production (let’s hope, inside the U. S.), as well as future repairs and upgrades, and it will enable you to raise your children to become productive, too.

Transactions like these happen thousands of times a day, whether for homes, or cars, or work vehicles, trailer trucks and on and on.  Every loan creates some inflation, but not more than the “economy” will absorb, or, we might say, not more than the economy needs.

In the process of economic activity, wages, sales and so forth, governments collect taxes.  That is, BECAUSE THERE IS PRODUCTIVE SURPLUS in our economic activity, “we” can afford to pay taxes for those services and public works that individuals cannot provide for themselves.  Among these are public school facilities, police departments, fire departments, all the bureaucrats who are there to help US, the military, highway and roadway constructions, sewage treatment, water works and sewers, themselves.  All that stuff is paid for from productive surplus.  If kept in a rough balance, it all works together amazingly well as more people become productive and relatively financially independent, and benefiting in safety and economy from our shared public works.

How does it get out of balance?  Put most simply, if the money supply grows with no commensurate increase in production or productivity.  Take the example we’ve experienced recently where governments, based on perceived, raw, political advantage, decree that the “minimum wage” shall be $15.00 per hour.  A kid stuck at the fry station in a McDonald’s, making French fries for as many customers as desire some, gets a sudden, say, 20% pay increase.  He or she cannot fry more potatoes than before the raise, there are only so many orders for fries in a given day.  The added pay does not enable the fry-kid to encourage more people to buy fries than they used to buy before the change in pay.  Do you think the individual cost of an order of fries is going up?  Of course.  Or, is it possible that customers might wait a little longer to get their fries – and their whole orders, when it’s busier?  Perhaps the restaurant owner can’t afford to put two kids at the fry station in busy periods, now that the pay has increased arbitrarily.  The customer pays – or suffers – for this arbitrary work rule.

So, French fries go up in price, but is that “inflation?”  Well, no, obviously.  It’s an imposed change to the “CGS,” or Cost of Goods Sold.  How would inflation cause the price of French fries to go up?

Suppose that in a certain marketplace: your town, for example, there are both a lot of disposable income – free cash, as it were – and a limited supply of frozen French fries.  Potatoes are neither grown nor processed locally; they are transported some distance to the restaurants that want them in your town.  People in your town are in the habit of ordering fries with their burgers and sub sandwiches and business in fries is brisk.

Because the supply of spendable cash has been inflated (increased), people who might have held off adding fries to their sandwich orders, have started to order them more frequently, yet the total volume of fries coming from the processors can’t increase for quite a while, as the extra cash in everyone’s pocket makes it possible to afford the fries in other towns, as well, and the price of fries appears to be a bargain where they used to be a bit of a luxury.

Restaurants are finding that they’re “selling out” of fries and seeing customers go to another restaurant that still has some.  The owners get on the phone to order more fries but there aren’t any extra to be had.  Very quickly busier restaurants will offer a premium price to the distributor to get an extra case of frozen fries every day.  Realizing the nature of the increased demand, the distributor makes a deal with a potato processor who guarantees additional frozen fries, but at a higher wholesale price, too.

Pretty soon, the French fry supply problem is solved and people in your town can obtain all the fries they want, although each order costs a little more.  Lo, and Behold!  Inflation of the money supply changed demand patterns in the French fry marketplace.  This example is too simple, but also real.  During the engineered Covid crisis, the federal government wrote checks to millions of people that it/they, the federal, state and municipal governments had thrown out of work… billions and billions of dollars’ worth, but they were from accounts that had no actual – although highly hoped-for-future – money in them!  The checks were written from AIR.  Worse, they were doled out without regard to increasing productivity or other economic growth.  No new crops were planted, tended or harvested; no new mines were opened and their valuable minerals retrieved; no new inventions were spurred causing new manufacturing to commence.  But people accepted the ‘air-checks’ and spent them like money.  The money supply increased by over a Trillion Dollars while the supply of goods to be purchased actually went DOWN!

Prices started to go up until states started to re-open their businesses and let people go back to work.  The economy was roaring back when Biden was shoveled into office.  He promptly signed another Trillion-dollar “Covid Relief” bill that was no longer needed, indeed it extended payments to not work, and inflation really started shooting up.  The money supply – more air, but who’s counting – was now completely untethered from productivity, production or quantities of goods for sale.  In addition, there was an even larger incentive to not work.  The Consumer Price Index (CPI) started to take off in a serious way.

Because of “petro-dollars,” a sweetheart deal we made with Saudi Arabia (and, therefore, OPEC) when Nixon closed the gold window in the early ‘70’s, our federal spenders have developed a habit of calling everything a “crisis.”  It doesn’t have to be a war, a disaster, a plague… just a problem – like getting re-elected.  And, since there is (almost always) a terrible crisis, they can justify borrowing to resolve it.  So, they spend about one-third or more, MORE than the real money tax receipts that the federal government collects each year.  That missing third or 40% or so must be borrowed, largely adding to the “national debt.”

Now, if the extra federal spending were creating real wealth, which is what real investment does, the loans would steadily be repaid by the productive surplus the investments made possible.  Another way of saying it is that the DEBT would be DESTROYED.  That’s a good cycle: ideas vetted, loans obtained, practices, processes or new resources are implemented or obtained,* and the new productive surplus can be applied, in part, to “retire” the loan while net societal – or National – wealth increases.  Living standards improve and the repaid capital (the loan) becomes available for other real investments.

This neat system collapses when non-productive or ANTI-productive effects of the loan (deficit spending, it’s called) are mandated by law.  Most commonly, it collapses because the government borrows money to PAY FOR CURRENT EXPENSES, like welfare, interest on older loans, increasing the numbers of people employed in non-productive pursuits, and so forth.  A good example of hiring more people to be non-productive is part of the recently passed “Prosperity Reduction Act,” or, as it is officially mis-labeled, “The Inflation Reduction Act.”  Inside of this dishonest legislation is a provision to hire 87,000 more IRS agents, who will harass and impoverish productive people (tax-payers they are called) with absolutely no increase in productive surplus for anyone.  Oh, there’ll be some fat paychecks, but the net wealth of our economy will decline. 

The extra payroll dollars (among others in the bill) will inflate the money supply, however, and prices will move upward again as more cash chases fewer goods.

There are $600+Billion other dollars in the “bill” that also don’t represent any new production, productivity or wealth… they just lower the value of all the dollars floating around or in your wallet and retirement accounts.  Thanks, Brandon.

*Where are new resources “obtained?”  Well, there are only so many sources of new wealth that can add to an economy and total wealth of a nation.  The first is agriculture.  The elements of a crop of wheat or corn or soybeans or potatoes, are relatively inexpensive.  We count on God to provide the soil, the rain and sunlight… even the seeds, although humans have figured out how to augment everything but sunlight, and how to till the soil and harvest the crops with automated machinery, which has reduced the cost of labor in food production, as well.  Barring weather disasters and political interference, agriculture creates new wealth with every crop-cycle.  Many inventions and new mechanizations have been developed in response to the need for better food production as population has grown.

Coincident with expanding agriculture are various forms of mining, whether for coal, metals, oil, gypsum, quartz and dozens of other riches the earth provides.  From them have come thousands… no, Millions of products and inventions and improvements to standards of living, not least of which are pharmaceuticals and computer chips.  Virtually every one of these bits of progress and improvement has required some “financing,” or, as better known, debt.  Little by little every step has also “inflated” the money supply, but in rough equivalence to the new economic activity each has spurred.  A lot of that activity has been in the form of “fixed” assets, like buildings, roads, bridges and so forth.  At their creation, “fixed” expenditures DEFLATE the money supply, while enabling long-term economic benefit for lots of other activities, comforts or safety.

Somebody is going to paint those buildings.  We’re still driving across bridges that were built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s.

Some companies, banks, agencies, treasuries and individuals are benefitted very nicely by inflation, primarily the federal government.  They get to spend the money first.  Debts and other invoices the federal government owes are paid off with “cheaper” dollars.  Increased payrolls result in increased tax receipts.  Favored industries obtain contracts and payments to carry out policies incorporated in the inflationary legislation.  Millions of votes are purchased as loans are forgiven and exorbitant expenses incurred and paid off.  So, some benefit immediately and don’t begrudge deficit spending.  Others, tax-payers, not so much.

The actual net result is a reduction in both national and individual wealth for MOST people.  The few favored in the legislation get an artificial boost of income.  It’s all very unfair and sold to the American people as a universal “good.”  But, what does it have to do with “petro-dollars?”

Petro-dollars refers to our agreement with OPEC that oil would be traded only for dollars.  Every nation, basically, would need to always have some dollars on deposit – some even made the U. S. dollar a “reserve” currency – so that when they needed to buy oil they could.  If they sold oil, they accepted having billions of U. S. dollars on deposit.  Dollars could be exchanged for any other currency an “oil” nation needed to buy products from anyone.  Still, a global acceptance of dollars gave a golden “carte blanche” to ignorant congresspeople to borrow without any practical limit.  All they need is a “crisis.”

At the same time that President Biden has ruined relations with Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC, and attacked fossil-fuels in the United States, multiple countries like Russia, China, Brazil and Iran, are making moves to eliminate the dollar as the currency of trade in oil.  When they succeed – WHEN they succeed – countries will start dumping dollars.  They won’t have the impetus to buy stuff from the U. S. in order to use up the dollars they have had to hold.  Currency markets will turn upside down.

We will experience price increases that are unimaginable.  All the goods and goodies that we import now, will have to be paid for with more valuable currencies than U. S. dollars.  Exchange rates are going to punish the dollar when that day comes.  All the dollars that have been created in other countries and banks have been inflating the same “money supply” we talked about earlier.  Every dollar BILL is, in fact, a bill that must be paid with something valuable, not merely with more “Federal Reserve Notes.”  The mendacious debt that Congresses and administrations have racked up to the tune of almost $31 TRILLION, will complete its cycle of inflation, as well, while much of the trading world rejects payments in dollars, preferring gold, rubles, rials, or, most likely, yuan.  We have no concept of and no political ability to balance our books and bring the number of dollars floating around into alignment with some form of productive output from our economy.  Prices, for everything, will shoot up.

We can see the World Economic Forum, a group of self-selected control freaks by which real governments – including our own – are being influenced, is spreading the organic fertilizer of “nitrogen pollution,” since carbon-dioxide hasn’t scared enough people.  To limit “nitrogen” requires, in their view, reducing crop yields (by refraining from using chemical fertilizers) and going “organic.”  There is an agenda that is far removed from “climate” at work here.  What will we do when hyper-inflation is chasing reduced supplies of food around the world?  Or, when Chinese- and Bill Gates-owned land is held out from cultivation in our own country?  We need miss only ONE growing season to be faced with famine, which is very unpleasant, even here.

Looking at the effects of the “green” movement and the recent pandemic-inspired tyranny, and the so-called vaccines that resulted, the main effects, cumulatively, have been death and sterilization.  Sounds like population reduction, if one were being Prudent.  Lo, and behold!  Bill Gates and the people he hob-nobs with agree that there are too many people on Earth, by a factor of two-thirds or more!  Let’s “vaccinate” every person on the planet.  Inflation won’t be a problem, then.

Biden, Crime, Economics, Governance, Immigration, Obama, Politics 2022

WELCOME MAT, DOORMAT

Leave a comment
AP

WELCOME MAT, DOORMAT

Following the assassination of John Kennedy, numerous bad, poorly thought-out ideas became legislation and law, not least of which was “The Great Society.”  Among them was the Immigration and Nationality Act.  Promoted by avowed socialist, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, the “Hart-Celler” act opened immigration to all nations somewhat equally, no longer favoring European nations, and gave preference to those who claimed relatives already resident in the U. S.  The wording of the bill included preference for skilled persons, but the new relative-based “Chain” migration superseded that.

Immigration increased and shifted dramatically in nationalities represented, but it took a while for Democrats, fairly solidly in power in the congress for 40 years, to grasp the possibility of using immigration to increase the population of Democrat voters.  In 1986, during the Reagan administration, the first codification of a premise called “amnesty,” the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, was sold to the President as a means to control illegals’ taking of jobs in the private economy, while strengthening the Border Patrol.  Rather than a “solution” it created a platform for increasing problems, the worst of which, in a legal sense, is the concept of “amnesty,” which is a pleasant-sounding term for “helping” the downtrodden.  Amnesty does, in fact, help the poor unfortunates who “risk everything” to escape less-pleasant circumstances to sneak into the U. S., which is not to say that such “helping” is the business of the U. S. or of those American citizens elected to administer the government of the United States.

That is, “our” representatives, the crux of our democratic Republic, have NO BUSINESS giving away the birthright or adopted, legal citizen-rights of U. S. citizens.  Prudence hopes that statement is not confusing to her readers.

Between these two nation-weakening steps the political left in the U. S. learned the power of guilt as a means of twisting national direction.  Hillary Clinton and many others thought her husband’s presidency was finally the time to take over health care, a cornerstone of the Communist Manifesto.  While the timing was off, and Bill Clinton’s mendacity led to his moving rightward to win re-election, the pattern was set.  Along with “de-education” by their friends in the education unions, left-facing Democrats could shift America to a one-party state with sufficient guilt (over racism), the unseating of Christianity, and control of the Supreme Court – courts, generally, being merely another political tool to use when Americans proved too dense to agree with global socialism.  Hatred became the political engine to keep the shift moving.

Hatred was firmly applied in the George W. Bush administration.  Hardly a day passed that he wasn’t vilified, yet he still managed to defeat Kerry to earn a second term.  The election of Barack Obama established non-compromise as a policy.  Not only with “Obamacare,” but with numerous issues, compromise with Republicans became the very last, possible resort to get things done.  No longer were Republicans brought in to help shape solutions; Obama’s goals were all transformative, anti-Constitutional, and, largely, party-line.  “Elections have consequences.”

A fairly porous southern border became, under Obama, fairly open.  For the first time “caravans” of illegal immigrants formed up at the southern Mexico border, or in Guatemala, and moved north with substantial help from human traffickers – cartels that found they could charge many thousands of dollars for individuals and whole families to get to the U. S. border.  They even taught the interlopers what to say to guarantee a hearing on refugee or asylee status.  Illegal entrants, always a problem, nearly untouched by “amnesty,” became a flood.  Obama and his corrupt AG, Eric Holder, had no interest in stemming the flow.  Despite higher “deportation” numbers than previous administrations, Obama changed the immigration landscape with selective enforcements and easier entry for children.  Cartels took advantage of changes and began teaching people to say the right things to create potential asylum, and to have children with them at the border, even if only “rented” for the purpose.  “Immigration” became one of the potent issues that propelled Donald Trump into the White House.

Obama, extra-legally, also invented “DACA,” Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals.  By executive order the President changed the status of those who were brought into the U. S. illegally before they turned 18, making them magically less illegal than their parents.  It covered some 750,000 child arrivals.  That group also were given renewable work permits.  Since they had “grown up” in the U. S., everyone felt sorry for them and that it would be cruel to force them back to their own countries.  More magic.

At the time of the 1986 Amnesty bill / farce, illegals were estimated to number about 7 million.  As the next few years passed under Clinton, that estimate slid up to “12 million,” and no matter how illegal they might be, surely it was not possible to “arrest 12 million people” and deport them!  The groundwork for lawlessness being rewarded was being put into place.

The Obama administration saw an explosion of “sanctuaries” for illegals: first towns and cities, and later whole states, declared themselves “sanctuary” jurisdictions where local and state police would be directed to not cooperate with federal C.I.S. and I.C.E. agents as they attempted to apprehend known criminals who were illegal entrants.  I.C.E., standardly, would file a detain and hold notice in a local jurisdiction or with a court magistrate whenever local police or sheriffs had arrested a fugitive illegal.  Local authorities, even judges, would facilitate the escape of the fugitive, even sentencing them to a number of days that meant they were free to go following their court appearance.   Then an employee or even a court officer would help the criminal out a back door so as to avoid federal I.C.E. agents attempting to serve an arrest warrant.  Criminal magic.

Is this “nullification?”  Not quite, but it certainly skirts the law.  Federal jurisdiction clearly extends to our borders and immigration, customs, contraband interdiction and arrest and deportation of illegal aliens.  In effect, our borders extend to any physical location of an illegal entrant.  “Sanctuary” status, self-declared by local authorities, attempts to establish local jurisdiction over illegal entrants where none exists, and in contravention of federal jurisdiction, that does exist, in law.  When President Trump attempted to withhold federal aid to police agencies that refused to cooperate with federal warrants, he was rebuffed by judges on the basis that there were no provisions for singling out departments or agencies for such withholding unless they had broken certain laws including misuse of funds.  Since police power is the jurisdiction of respective states, the President’s instincts couldn’t apply.  This is not to say that “Sanctuary” status is recognized in law or precedent; it is tolerated for lack of sanctions and lack of will to legislate them by Congress.

For the most crass and cynical reasons of political advantage, protecting illegal aliens became widespread: for Democrats, the eventual amnesty they pushed for might create millions of democrat voters; for Republicans, being accused of being anti-immigrant, or anti-Hispanic or, worse, racist, was too hurtful or too much trouble to refute.  Both parties’ supporters are happy to have cheap labor.  Neither party has made much sense in immigration over the past 40 years.

Trump, at least, attempted to gain control of our geographically and topographically open border with Mexico.  Democrats fought him at every step, particularly in terms of building a wall that would force potential entrants to specific points of entry where administrative procedures could be followed, including adjudication of refugee or asylee claims, most of which are legally denied.  Ultimately he had to divert dollars from military budgets to pay for about 500 miles of fencing.  One of the first steps President Biden took was to stop construction, putting all those expenditures and materials yet to be installed, to waste.  Elections have consequences.

Biden brought in Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security.  Mayorkas is an accomplished and committed liar.  To place him in the Cabinet is an affront to American citizens and to all those who have served in presidential administrations.  To place him over “DHS” is a lie in its own right.  There is no reason to trust that the Homeland is Secure.  There’s no such thing as compartmentalization of national security – it functions as a whole.  One cannot administer 1800 miles of wide-open border while claiming that, 1) the border is closed and secure; and, 2) we are secure at all of our ports, airports, imports and immigration procedures.  One can try, however, as Mayorkas has, including serial perjury before Congress.  Perhaps he’ll take the fall for the Biden administration when the rule of law returns to Capitol Hill.

Since Biden took office and started signing Executive Orders he may not have even read, more than 3 MILLION illegal entrants, claiming asylum, have been processed by the Border Patrol / DHS.  They include large numbers of Central and South American migrants, family units and children and hundreds of unaccompanied “minors.”  As they are “processed” they receive free cell-phones, clothing, back-packs and other niceties like “EBT” cards or meal chits, and bus or plane rides to their preferred location.  What a country!

Over the same period, however, illegal entrants from over 100 other countries – people whose claims to asylum require suspension of disbelief, as they have traveled many thousands of miles to get into Central America for the walk to el Norte.  There doesn’t seem to be any maximum number the administration is hoping to reach for migrants streaming across our “closed” and “secure” border.

Worse, some 900,000 “got-aways” have entered, too.  Now we’re talking.  No country has survived for long, nor any culture, nor any “people,” has or will survive for long if left undefended.  The Biden presidency is best defined as being anti-American, best-exemplified by failure to defend the nation. Unbridled and un-vetted immigration, free from the constraints of economic merit and/or freedom from disease, is a classic form of national dissolution… as though anyone would aspire to such a level of stupidity or incompetence.  One must stretch his or her incredulity to accept that Joe Biden actually received more votes for president than any other candidate ever has.  None of us should overlook the leftward collapse of Biden and, essentially, everyone he works with… or for. 

Mr. Biden has not only failed to comprehend the consequences of bad policies and incompetent appointees, he appears to actively pursue them.  What on Earth for?  More money?  More recognition or fame?  Help his depraved son, Hunter?  Maybe he doesn’t recognize depravity when he sees it in his own family.  Or, if his daughter’s diary can be believed, may… and it seems possible… maybe he doesn’t KNOW what is depraved and what is not – doesn’t know that Hunter’s incest with his older brother’s widow was depraved – or that hiring hookers to have sexual orgies laced with crack cocaine is depraved – or, as most ethical people would agree, doing the exact opposite of what he had sworn to do before God and country during inauguration, is also depraved.

Indeed, doing the exact opposite of what he has stood for during his political career is also a little depraved, when you think about it.