U.S. Citizen With No Legs, And 30 Million Other Americans: Where’s Our $1,400?

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

In an article entitled “Stimulus checks: Payment blockage resolved for nearly 30 million Social Security recipients,” Denitsa Tsekova has written at Yahoo!Money:

The blockage of nearly 30 million stimulus checks for Social Security and other federal benefits recipients has been resolved after the Social Security Administration sent relevant files to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Thursday morning, according to the House Ways and Means Committee.

“We are gratified that the SSA leadership finally recognized the urgency of the moment and acted swiftly on our ultimatum,” members of the committee said in a press release on Thursday. “Now the IRS needs to do its job and get these overdue payments out to suffering Americans.”

The delay affects Social Security recipients and other beneficiaries who did not file their 2019 or 2020 taxes or did not use the IRS ‘Non-Filer’ tool for direct payments. The IRS is now working on updating the information for the rest of the eligible federal benefit recipients. The IRS did not respond to a request by Yahoo Money on exact timing of the delayed payments.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-MA) and other Democrats blamed Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, for the delay.

“The delays imposed by Commissioner Saul defied congressional intent and imposed needless anxiety and pain on taxpayers,” the lawmakers said.

A total of 127 million payments worth $325 billion — more than 70% of the $450 billion earmarked for stimulus payments — have been disbursed as part of the first two batches of the latest stimulus direct payments. More batches of payments will be issued in the coming weeks as direct deposits or as mailed checks and prepaid debit cards. The majority of the third round of stimulus checks will be directly deposited in Americans’ bank accounts.

This round is $1,400 per eligible individual plus a $1,400 bonus per dependent. Around 158.5 million households are expected to receive a payment under the new stimulus deal, according to the White House.

Here’s more of what you need to know about the third round of stimulus checks.

Who gets a stimulus check?

Under the latest amended bill, a single filer making up to $75,000 will receive the full payment, while those earning up to $80,000 will get a reduced amount. Joint filers making up to $150,000 will get the full $2,800, while those earning up to $160,000 will receive a smaller amount. Previously, the phase-out thresholds were $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for joint filers in the House version.

Eligibility will be based on your most recent tax return and your adjusted gross income. For the third round of checks, the IRS will use your 2019 or 2020 tax return to determine if you qualify for the direct payment.

Social Security beneficiaries, Disability Insurance beneficiaries, Supplemental Security Income recipients, Railroad Retirement Board beneficiaries, and Veterans Administration beneficiaries all are eligible for the payment even if they didn’t file a 2019 or 2020 tax return.

Eligible taxpayers who used the IRS Non-Filer tool for the first round of checks will be treated as providing returns and will also receive payments.

Additionally, Americans who qualify for the stimulus payment and have dependents will get an additional $1,400 per dependent. The bonus can be claimed for college students, disabled adults, and other adults who are dependents. Previously, parents or guardians could only claim the bonus for child dependents under 17.

Deceased people may also receive a payment. Checks will go to all eligible taxpayers who were alive as of Jan. 1, 2021.

Who doesn’t get a check?

Those without a Social Security number and nonresident aliens — those who aren’t U.S. citizens or U.S. nationals and don’t have a green card or have not passed the substantial presence test — are not eligible for the direct payment.

Married taxpayers who file jointly where one spouse has a Social Security number and the other doesn’t will get one $1,400 payment, in addition to $1,400 for any child with a Social Security number.

Taxpayers with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) aren’t eligible for the payments.

How will the government send you the stimulus check?

The IRS will use the direct deposit information you provided from the taxes you’ve filed for 2019 or 2020.

You may be able to use the IRS’ Non-Filers tool to provide your information like the first round. But so far, the IRS has not announced whether that tool will be available if this stimulus bill is passed.

The tool was for eligible U.S. citizens or permanent residents who had gross income below $12,200 ($24,400 for married couples) for 2019 and weren’t required to file a 2019 federal tax return.

If you have no direct deposit information on file or if the account provided is now closed, the IRS will mail you a check or pre-paid debit card instead.

If you received no payment and you think you’re eligible or you got the wrong amount, you’ll be able to claim it on your 2021 tax return.

How can I track my payment?

Americans can now check the status of their third stimulus check using the IRS’s online tracking tool ‘Get My Payment.’

The tool allows Americans to follow the scheduled payment date for either a direct deposit or mailed payment. It’s an online app that works on desktops, phones, and tablets and doesn’t need to be downloaded from an app store. To use the tool, you need to provide basic information:

Social Security number or Individual Tax ID Number (ITIN)

Date of birth

Mailing address

The tracking tool will no longer show the status of the first or second round of stimulus checks — the $1,200 payment under the CARES Act and the $600 payments under the December $900 billion stimulus deal. To find the status of those previous rounds, you must create an account.

If your payment is delivered by direct deposit, the tool will show when the direct deposit is expected to be made or when it was delivered along with the bank account it went into.

If you receive the message “Payment Status Not Available,” the IRS may not have processed your payment yet or you may not be eligible for a payment.

Will I get the dependent bonus for a newborn?

If you had a baby in 2021 and meet the rest of the eligibility criteria, you can claim the additional $1,400 per child when you file your 2021 taxes.

If you had a child in 2020 and your return has been processed, you should automatically get the additional payment. If you haven’t yet filed your 2020 taxes or they haven’t been processed by the IRS by the time the payments are issued, you can claim the dependent bonus on your 2021 taxes

Do you have to pay back the stimulus check?

No, you don’t have to pay it back. It also doesn’t reduce any refund you would otherwise receive.

“No, there is no provision in the law requiring repayment of an Economic Impact Payment,” the IRS website said about the first round of checks.

If your income dropped in 2020 compared with 2019, you may now be eligible for the payment or a bigger payment if you have already filed your taxes and they have been processed by the IRS.

If your payment is too high based on your 2020 income and you still haven’t filed your 2020 taxes, you’re not responsible for paying back the difference.[2]

Despite the assertion made in this informative article, approximately 30 million Americans have not received their $1,400, and the blockage has not been resolved.  Many if not most of these Americans are senior citizens who barely exist on their Social Security retirement and other similar benefits.  They are suffering greatly, with some on the edge of giving up, if not committing suicide.  China’s deadly Coronavirus has devastated their lives: physically, psychologically and economically.[3]  They were hanging by a thread already, and now this.  Many don’t have money for food, shelter, medical care or the like.  Many are living day-by-day, hour-by-hour at best.

A few examples of the comments beneath the Yahoo!Money article tell the tale:

•   “I’m a US natural born citizen receiving the smallest possible amount of Social Security since I lost both legs in 1998.  I got married in 2003 and disability was no longer available to me.  Since becoming separated in September of 2019, do you think that money is available to me, now?  You would think it is.  Nope… and no I never received any stimulus check. Not the first second or third so far” (Jamye)

•  “‘The IRS did not respond to a request by Yahoo Money on exact timing of the delayed payments.’  Why not???? Are they mentally challenged???  In the mean while, the first two checks went out without a problem and ‘they’ obviously had the information needed.  What did they do with that information???  Lose it??  I am angry with this whole system.  Repubs, Dems, it doesn’t matter any more.  I am sick and tired of all of them.  My mere existence is at stake and they are playing games with each other” (chrisw)

•  “First one came relatively fast, the second even faster, but yet here I sit still waiting on 3/25/21 and no clue when.. Tho my landlord is seriously tired of waiting, and I’M HUNGRY..Having a fixed income does have its drawbacks, specially for food costs..” (Nobody)

•  “I remind you that we all could have gotten the 2000 dollars in december but Pelosi blocked it to get more pork in the system. 1.4 trillion extra” (Russell)

•  “If this had happened under Trump, Pelosi would be screaming her head off.” (Retired_LC)

•  “I think 2022 would be a great time to show this administration exactly how SS recipients feel about this obvious slight!!!!” (Hamster Fodder)

With all due respect to those who might blame the Trump administration, the fact is that the legislation was proposed and enacted by the Biden administration and the Democrats, which is where the buck stops.  Having spent most of my professional career working in and with the U.S. Congress, I have seen many administrations come and go, and transitions take place.  Even before presidential elections, staff members of the challenging candidate are assigned to the major federal agencies to coordinate such transitions and make sure they run smoothly.  Certainly after the 2020 elections, this took place; and it surely took place when the Biden administration took office and fashioned the new legislation that included the $1,400 payments.  Thus, there is no excuse for “glitches,” and for the nonpayment of those who arguably need the money most—just to survive.

Some of the readers of this article might argue: “Why is this important or relevant to me?  The $1,400 payments are peanuts, and do not affect me at all.”  The answer is that the Biden administration is fashioning follow-on legislation[4]; and if the $1,400 payments can be denied, or postponed, so can the benefits of their future legislation.

 

PHILADELPHIA – MAY 8: Economic stimulus checks are printed at the Philadelphia Financial Center May 8, 2008 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One hundred and thirty million households are eligible to receive a tax rebate check under the $168 billion economic stimulus plan. (Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images)

 

© 2021, Timothy D. Naegele

_____

 

[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-20-6-30). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://money.yahoo.com/stimulus-checks-payment-blockage-resolved-for-nearly-30-million-social-security-recipients-183112988.html (“Stimulus checks: Payment blockage resolved for nearly 30 million Social Security recipients”)

[3]  See Timothy D. Naegele, The Coronavirus and Similar Global Issues: How to Address Them, 137 BANKING L. J. 285 (June 2020) (Naegele June 2020) (Timothy D. Naegele) [NOTE: To download The Banking Law Journal article, please click on the link to the left of this note] 

[4]  See https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9411849/Biden-roll-COVID-relief-April-separate-4-trillion-infrastructure-package.html (“Biden will roll out another COVID relief plan in April on top of $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, Jen Psaki reveals”)

Race Relations In America Have Gone Berserk

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Americans of all colors, ethnic backgrounds and religious preferences owe the present tragic state of affairs to the un-American racist and anti-Semite Barack Obama.  Indeed, If one person could be singled out for having exacerbated race relations in the United States, it is Obama who has torn our great nation asunder.  

He has done far more than any President in our great nation’s history to sow racism, strife and discord.  And he has done this at a time when China’s Coronavirus has killed or hurt so many Americans, physically, psychologically and economically.[2]  Aside from trying the destroy the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump from Day One—which is treason—Obama has produced a racial divide that may take years if not generations to heal.

Obama should be in prison today, for his many crimes.  Indeed, this was all predictable if Americans had read his book, “Dreams from My Father,” before he was elected to national offices.  It sets out his racism explicitly and in his own words, which have withstood the test of time.[3]

Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has written an article entitled “Who and What Killed George Floyd?” as follows:

Friday, as the jury was being empaneled for the trial of fired police officer Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis City Council voted 13-0 to approve a record $27 million civil settlement with the family of George Floyd over his death in police custody.

The jury will not likely miss this message sent by the city fathers:

I.e., an atrocity was perpetrated by our police, and we are admitting our responsibility and doing our duty by offering these reparations for Floyd’s cruel and unjustified death and the suffering visited on his family.

Most Americans who saw the nine-minute tape of Chauvin with his knee on the neck of George Floyd as he pleaded, “I can’t breathe,” will probably concur with the charge of criminal culpability of Chauvin.

Yet, over the months, new facts and factors have emerged.

George Floyd was not choked to death. He was not asphyxiated. He was not killed by Chauvin’s knee on the side of his neck. An autopsy showed Floyd’s neck muscles were not even bruised.

Floyd died when his heart stopped. Yet, he was already suffering from an enlarged heart with constricted arteries, one of five of which was 90% blocked and two others were 75% blocked.

An autopsy found heavy concentrations of fentanyl in Floyd’s system and traces of methamphetamines. If Floyd had collapsed and died in the street while being wrested into the squad car, his death would have been attributed to a drug overdose and a bad heart.

Also, a videotape of the minutes prior to Floyd’s being put on the pavement, his neck under Chauvin’s knee, shows Floyd crying, repeatedly, “I can’t breathe,” while resisting the two rookie cops trying to put him in the patrol car.

Moreover, there is testimony from those with Floyd when he was stopped for passing an allegedly phony $20 bill, that he had passed out in the car before the cops arrived. And the arresting cops claim he was foaming at the mouth before being restrained.

In short, Chauvin’s defense attorneys will likely make a credible case, backed by evidence, that Floyd’s death was not caused by the knee on his neck but by the battered condition of his heart, the near-lethal dose of fentanyl in his system, and his anxiety and panic at being arrested and fearing, as he wailed, that he was going to be shot.

The prosecution will counter-claim that Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck, and the two other cops sitting on him, precipitated the stopping of his heart.

But the prosecution faces other questions.

How could Chauvin, who arrived late to the scene, know Floyd was a drug addict with a serious heart condition and a large amount of fentanyl in his system, before using the restraint technique of sitting on him and putting a knee on the side of his neck?

What was Chauvin trying to do when he arrived to see two rookie cops trying to cope with a powerfully built, six-foot-four-inch, 220-pound man violently resisting arrest?

Did Chauvin put his knee on Floyd’s neck to kill him? To torture or injure him? Or did he use the technique to restrain him?

Prosecutors will contend that the knee on the neck was criminal assault, a felony that caused Floyd to black out and his heart to stop?

But that raises another question:

Is placing a knee on the side of the neck an outlawed or a prohibited procedure for police to use to restrain a suspect violently resisting arrest, as a chokehold is in some precincts?

Or is it a procedure some police use legally at times?

Chauvin was clearly familiar with the technique. Had he used it before without injury to a suspect?

In a motion to dismiss the charges he himself faces in the death of Floyd, former police officer Thomas Lane included 30 pages of Minneapolis PD training materials including information on the “maximal restraint technique.” Lane included a photo of an officer with a knee on a suspect’s neck, similar to the hold used by Chauvin.

In preparing for the trial of Chauvin, Minneapolis has fortified, with concrete barriers, fences and razor wire, the courthouse where it will be held. Understandably, for any acquittal of Chauvin, or conviction on a lesser charge than murder, could trigger a riot like those that plagued the city through the summer of 2020.

And if a mob does take to the streets in Minneapolis, as it did all last summer, the national reaction will be telling.

How does one accurately describe a crowd that gathers outside a courthouse to demand, on the threat of a riot, a verdict of guilty?

And should a riot occur — and violent protests in Louisville, Seattle and Portland over the weekend seem to point to another such long hot summer — may we expect our new national leaders (Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer) to denounce the mob and stand up unequivocally for the rule of law?[4]

The thugs, slugs, hoods and mongrels of “Black Lives Matter,” Antifa and other far-Left groups have burned our cities; killed or hurt innocent Americans including our police; and destroyed black and other businesses.  Instead of being coddled or embraced by Joe Biden and his Democrats, they should be put down like rabid animals.

America’s blacks constitute less than 14 percent of our population.[5]  Yet, turn on TV any given day, and one might think that they are the dominant group in our population. This overcompensation permeates and distorts our society; and it is creating anger and revulsion among non-blacks.  Rather than improving race relations, it is exacerbating them.

Preferences have been given in academics, which the voters of far-Left California have rejected.[6]  On men’s professional football and basketball teams, there are very few white players.  When the football players take a knee as our flag is saluted and/or our national anthem is played, more and more of white America tunes out and refuses to watch. And when this occurs, they are branded as racists by the Democrats and the Left.

But it must never be forgotten that the Democrats gave us slavery, and perpetuated it after our Civil War with the KKK, segregation and later Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs that destroyed black families and consigned them to economic servitude.  Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans ended slavery.

Many on America’s Left do not want inclusion or equality; they want racial preferences, which would distort the United States forever.  Of course the idea of reparations is patently absurd, but it has become the mantra for many on the Left.  Like Barack Obama, they hate America and believe its history is fundamentally flawed and racist.

Unlike the first black to serve in the U.S. Senate after Reconstruction, Edward W. Brooke—who came from a loving family, and served as an Army officer during World War II—Obama came from a broken family.  He was raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, and never lived on the American mainland until he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.  And on some level, he hates the United States, its history and its values.[7]

Lastly, as I have stated previously:

I believe in this country, and I believe in Americans of all colors, faiths and backgrounds. The United States is the only true melting pot in the world, with its populace representing a United Nations of the world’s peoples. Yes, we fight and we even discriminate, but when times are tough—like after 9/11—we come together as one nation, which makes this country so great and special. Also, all of us or our ancestors came here from somewhere else. Even the American Indians are descended from those who crossed the Bering Strait—or the “Bering land bridge”—according to anthropologists.[8]

I believe this fervently.  All of us are equal in the eyes of God.

 

 

© 2021, Timothy D. Naegele

_____

 

[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-20-6-30). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See Timothy D. Naegele, The Coronavirus and Similar Global Issues: How to Address Them, 137 BANKING L. J. 285 (June 2020) (Naegele June 2020) (Timothy D. Naegele) [NOTE: To download The Banking Law Journal article, please click on the link to the left of this note] 

[3] See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ (“Is Barack Obama A Racist?”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”) 

[4]  See https://buchanan.org/blog/who-and-what-killed-george-floyd-142867 (“Who and What Killed George Floyd?”)

[5]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2020/06/26/american-blacks-constitute-less-than-14-percent/ (“American Blacks Constitute Less Than 14 Percent”)

[6]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16 (“2020 California Proposition 16”)

[7]  See supra n.3.

[8] See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/america-a-rich-tapestry-of-life/ (“America: A Rich Tapestry Of Life”) (quoting http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/10/11/greenspan’s-legacy-more-suffering-to-come/ and http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/2951-ilene/31177-interview-with-timothy-d-naegele) 

Does Each New Administration Kick The Debt Can Down The Road?

  
  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

That is the lesson I learned when I came to Washington, and began working at the Pentagon.  When the Congress was breathing down its neck, it simply reorganized—and hid the ball some more—and when the Congress was catching up again, it would repeat the process.

Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has written an article entitled “Today France, Tomorrow the USA?”:

As that rail and subway strike continued to paralyze travel in Paris and across France into the third week, President Emmanuel Macron made a Christmas appeal to his dissatisfied countrymen:

“Strike action is justifiable and protected by the constitution, but I think there are moments in a nation’s life when it is good to observe a truce out of respect for families and family life.”

Macron’s appeal has gone largely unheeded.

“The public be damned!” seems to be the attitude of many of the workers who are tying up transit to protest Macron’s plan to reform a pension system that consumes 14% of GDP.

Macron wants to raise to 64 the age of eligibility for full retirement benefits. Not terribly high. And to set an example, he is surrendering his lifetime pension that is to begin when he becomes an ex-president.

Yet, it is worth looking more closely at France because she appears to be at a place where the rest of Europe and America are headed.

In France, the government collects 46% of the GDP in taxes and spends 56% of GDP, the highest figures in the Western world.

And Paris appears to be bumping up against the limits of what democratic voters will tolerate in higher taxes, or reductions in benefits, from the postwar welfare states the West has created.

A year ago, when Macron sought to raise fuel taxes to cut carbon emissions, the “yellow vests” came out in protests that degenerated into rioting, looting, arson, desecration of monuments and attacks on police.

Paris capitulated and canceled the tax.

How do we compare?

The U.S. national debt is now larger than the GDP. Only in 1946, the year after World War II, was U.S. debt a larger share of GDP than today.

In 2019, the U.S. ran a deficit just shy of $1 trillion, and the U.S. government projects trillion-dollar deficits through the decade, which begins next week. And we will be running these deficits not to stimulate an economy in recession, as President Obama did, but to pile them on top of an economy at full employment.

In short, we are beginning to run historic deficits in a time of prosperity. Whatever the economic theory behind this, it bears no resemblance to the limited government-balanced budget philosophy of the party of Ronald Reagan.

The questions the U.S. will inevitably face are the ones France faces: At what point does government consumption of the national wealth become too great a burden for the private sector to bear? At what point must cuts be made in government spending that will be seen by the people, as they are seen in France today, as intolerable?

While a Republican Congress ran surpluses in the 1990s, when defense spending fell following our Cold War victory, Dwight Eisenhower was the last Republican president to run surpluses.

Opposition to new or higher taxes appears to be the one piece of ground today on which Republicans will not yield. But if so, where are the cuts going to come from that will be virtually mandated if U.S. debt is not to grow beyond any sustainable level?

America’s long-term problem:

Deficits are projected to run regularly in the coming decade at nearly 5% of GDP while economic growth has fallen back to 2%.

With taxes off the table, where, when and how do we cut spending?

Or does each new administration kick the can down the road?

The five principal items in the federal budget are these:

Social Security, which consumes 25% of that budget. Yet, Social Security outlays will reach the point this year where payroll taxes no longer cover them. The “trust fund” will have to be raided. Translation: The feds will have to borrow money to cover the Social Security deficit.

Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and other health programs account for another fourth of the budget. All will need more money to stay solvent.

Defense, which used to take 9% of GDP in JFK’s time and 6% in Ronald Reagan’s buildup, is now down to 3.2% of GDP.

Yet, while defense’s share of GDP is among the smallest since before World War II, U.S. commitments are as great as they were during the Cold War. We are now defending 28 NATO nations, containing Russia, and maintaining strategic parity. We have commitments in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and the global war on terror. We defend South Korea and Japan from a nuclear-armed North Korea and China.

Yet another major item in the budget is interest on the debt.

And as that U.S. debt surges with all the new deficits this decade, and interest rates inevitably begin to rise, interest on the debt will rise both in real terms and as a share of the budget.

Again, is France the future of the West?[2] 

At what point do the chickens come home to roost?  Or do they?

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

---

[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-20-1-1.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://buchanan.org/blog/today-france-tomorrow-the-usa-137917

Terminate Every Congressional Democrat, Or Endure A Permanent Impeachment Process

  
  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

And yes, lots of us began as Democrats but will never vote for one again.

In an article entitled “The Democrats’ Alternative Universe Impeachment,” the former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Newt Gingrich has written:

Watching recent developments in the House Democratic Party, it is clear that the effort to impeach President Trump has nothing to do with facts or a normal process of investigation and evidence-based prosecution.

We are living through a process defined by a pro-Trump universe and an anti-Trump universe. The great economy, record-low unemployment, the conservative judges, the achievements in renewing the Space program, and a host of other positive things are occurring in the pro-Trump universe.

However, the willful avoidance of facts and evidence by left-wing media and left-wing Democrats is a sign that there is an alternative anti-Trump universe.

The report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz was devastating in its indictment of senior FBI officials – and even more in its repudiation of the lies being told by Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who is the public face of the impeachment effort. Again and again, Horowitz vindicated the former chairman, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, and rejected Schiff’s assertions.

On Sunday, Chris Wallace made vividly clear with both former FBI Director James Comey and Chairman Schiff that they simply were not telling the truth. Every American should watch the Wallace interview.

Further, Schiff is not the only Democratic congressman with a big credibility gap. As Paul Sperry reported for RealClearInvestigations, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler has some real explaining to do.

Sperry wrote that in February 2018, Nadler circulated a ‘Dear Democratic Colleague’ letter – later leaked to the press – that trashed a House Intelligence Committee report detailing FBI spying abuses involving former Trump campaign staffer Carter Page.

But Horowitz last week found the FBI did in fact abuse its authority.

Sperry also notes that “Nadler also insisted in his four-page letter … that a discredited Clinton campaign-funded [Christopher Steele] dossier did not play a substantial role in supporting warrants to spy on Page.”

Inspector General Horowitz found the opposite.

In his letter, Nadler implied that Nunes, was lying about what he had read in classified documents.

But the Horowitz report concurred with Nunes’s findings. In fact, one Republican committee staffer told Sperry that Nadler “has no credibility left.”

The failure of the secret Schiff kangaroo court hearings, combined with the growing repudiation by official inquiries, has convinced many Americans that the whole impeachment process is simply a scheme by Democrats, partisans, and fake news media members who hate President Trump.

In fact, the Horowitz report and other investigations make increasingly clear that The Washington Post, and The New York Times should return the Pulitzers their reporters received for the fake news they were being fed by the deep state opponents of President Trump.

As Lee Smith makes clear in his book The Plot Against the President, the systemic dishonesty of the deep state-fake media-Democratic Party system is deeper and more dishonest than anyone could have imagined a decade ago.

The Democrats’ problems aren’t just with their chairmen. Consider this new report by Chrissy Clark [] in The Federalist:

“Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.”

Of course, in the Democrats’ alternative universe, having Hunter Biden accept millions from a Ukrainian company, or a Judiciary Committee member’s husband accepting $700,000 in Ukrainian oligarch funding, or an FBI senior manager’s wife getting nearly $700,000 in campaign funds from Clinton-aligned Democrats are simply business as usual. In the Democrats’ left-wing world, all bad things are Republican and conservative and no wrongdoing can be alleged against the deep state-fake news-Democrat alliance against President Trump.

The growing understanding of how sick the system is has turned more and more Americans against the Democratic Party’s impeachment campaign. In a remarkable turn of events people actually believe the process may strengthen President Trump. This is literally making fake news analysts’ heads hurt.

Steve Krakauer in the Fourth Watch media newsletter wrote that a recent CNN poll found that only 25 percent Americans think the impeachment circus will hurt President Trump’s re-election campaign. Meanwhile 37 percent think it will have no effect and 32 percent believe it will help him get re-elected.

According to Krakauer: “When David Chalian reported this to Anderson Cooper tonight on AC360, Cooper was stunned. ‘This poll hurts my head,’ said Cooper. ‘I mean, David, do you believe these polls?’

With the current impeachment process having lost ground with the American people – and with the Republican Senate certain to sustain the President and reject the dishonest hypocrisy of the House Democrats – what can we expect in this world of an alternative, anti-Trump universe?

The answer is apparently a permanent impeachment process – no matter what the American people want or what the evidence or lack of evidence indicates.

Consider this report from Politico:

“In a filing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued that the House’s demands for grand jury materials connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were still urgent because such evidence might become relevant to the Senate’s expected impeachment trial next month.

“But Letter went further to note that even apart from the Senate trial, the House Judiciary Committee intends to continue its impeachment investigation arising from the Mueller probe on its own merit.

“‘The committee has continued and will continue [its impeachment] investigations consistent with its own prior statements respecting their importance and purposes,’ Letter wrote in a filing Monday as part of the House’s bid to obtain Mueller’s grand jury evidence.”

In other words, the Democrats are already laying the ground for yet another impeachment effort once this one fails.

The 2020 campaign is going to be a tale of two vividly different universes.

Which one the American people decide is better for themselves and their country will do a great deal to define the next century of American progress – or decay.[2] 

Again, Congressional Democrats must not only be defeated but crushed, in elections across this great nation.  The despicable Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler must become the Joe McCarthys of this era: pariahs who are ridiculed and driven to shame and obscurity.

Next, Americans must turn their attention to imprisoning the racist anti-Semite Barack Obama and his fellow treasonous co-conspirators for the rest of their lives, at the very least.[3]  

Nothing less will suffice!

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-20-1-1.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://www.gingrich360.com/2019/12/the-democrats-alternative-universe-impeachment/; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich (“Newt Gingrich”)

[3]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/15/when-will-barack-obamas-trial-for-sedition-begin/ (“When Will Barack Obama’s Trial For Sedition Begin?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/should-barack-obama-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Should Barack Obama Be Executed For Treason?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/the-real-russian-conspiracy-barack-obama-the-clintons-and-the-sale-of-americas-uranium-to-russias-killer-putin/ (“The Real Russian Conspiracy: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Sale Of America’s Uranium To Russia’s Killer Putin”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ (“Is Barack Obama A Racist?”)

The Democrats Are Hated

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

And yes, lots of us began as Democrats but will never vote for one again.

In an article entitled “Hidden by impeachment: One of Trump’s ‘best weeks yet,'” Paul Bedard has written:

 

While the media and his critics focused on the bitterly divided House impeachment hearings, President Trump this week collected the most agenda wins yet, policy victories, including some backed by Democrats, that bolster arguments he’s making for reelection, according to advisers and analysts.

From adding judges to foreign policy, trade, immigration, defense spending, and China, Trump added several more achievements he will tout when he hosts his next campaign rally, standing in front of a 2020 “Promises Kept” sign.

“It was one of his best weeks yet,” said a key White House adviser.

One of his pollsters, John McLaughlin, joked that if public anger at impeachment continues to grow, worried Democrats might get in line to pass more of his agenda to give them protection in their reelections next year.

“Democrats in states and districts the president won are at serious risk if they vote for impeachment. So they are rushing to vote for the president’s popular positions,” he said, adding, “If [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer keep pressing impeachment, it’s likely the president will get his entire agenda passed and reelected in a landslide.”

Added to the list of accomplishments this week: 

•  An agreement on a new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
•  A new budget including more than $1.3 billion for a border wall and blocks a government shutdown.
•  House approval of the U.S. Space Force, a brand-new branch of the military.
•  Government family leave that will be a model for a proposal for the public.
•  Tentative agreement on trade with China.
•  Approval of Trump’s 50th federal appeals judge.
•  Confirmation of a new Food and Drug Administration chief.
•  The signing of a pro-Israel anti-Semitism executive order. 

Plus, advisers noted, Wall Street hit another record, and Pelosi conceded that on impeachment, “It’s been going on 22 months — two and a half years, actually.”

And, the advisers added, with impeachment likely, the president was assured by McConnell that the Senate would move fast on a trial that will end in acquittal and might include the support of two Senate Democrats, according to Sen. Rand Paul.

“There is one world where the mainstream media is covering impeachment, but there is another world where Trump is racking up a myriad of accomplishments, many of which have the support of the same Democrats who want to remove him from office,” said political communications strategist Ron Bonjean.

A GOP adviser said, “President Trump and the Republicans are an irresistible force surging over, around, and through the gelatinous Democrats — a growing number of whom are realizing daily that what they’re doing is seen by the public as trivial and senseless. Just think of what could be accomplished for our country if the loony Left wasn’t so obsessed with destroying Trump.”

Trump biographer Doug Wead also took note of the president’s actions in the shadow of impeachment.

“Perhaps, for now, what he accomplished this week will be overshadowed by the impeachment, but by next summer, the impeachment may be seen as mean-spirited and partisan, and the string of victories will add to his incredible list of victories going into reelection season,” he said.

Wead, who spent months inside the White House interviewing the president and top aides, said that he hadn’t been surprised by Trump’s aggressive fight on impeachment and his campaign to rack up wins.

“During impeachment, any other president would retreat into the bunker and be consumed with defense. Endlessly gaming various scenarios. Instead, Trump, the businessman, is looking for a way to use it to his advantage,” he said.

“He is the master magician, waving one hand to distract, while with the other hand, he makes the trick work. In this case, the Democrats provided this unwanted distraction, but he clearly seized on the moment,” Wead added.[2] 

 

Democrats must not only be defeated but crushed, in elections across this great nation.  The despicable Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler must become the Joe McCarthys of this era: ridiculed and driven to obscurity.

Next, Americans must turn their attention to imprisoning the racist anti-Semite Barack Obama and his fellow treasonous co-conspirators for the rest of their lives, at the very least.[3]  

Nothing less will suffice!

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-20-1-1.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/hidden-by-impeachment-one-of-trumps-best-weeks-yet; see also https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7789231/PIERS-MORGAN-Boris-Johnson-triumph-socialists-celebrities-electoral-poison-Trump-decimate-2020.html (“Socialists and celebrities are electoral poison”) and https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7792923/Donald-Trump-receives-huge-ovation-70-000-fans-Army-Navy-football-game.html (“Donald Trump receives a huge ovation from 70,000 fans at Army-Navy football game”)

[3]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/11/15/when-will-barack-obamas-trial-for-sedition-begin/ (“When Will Barack Obama’s Trial For Sedition Begin?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/should-barack-obama-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Should Barack Obama Be Executed For Treason?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/the-real-russian-conspiracy-barack-obama-the-clintons-and-the-sale-of-americas-uranium-to-russias-killer-putin/ (“The Real Russian Conspiracy: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Sale Of America’s Uranium To Russia’s Killer Putin”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ (“Is Barack Obama A Racist?”)

When Will Barack Obama’s Trial For Sedition Begin?

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Perhaps an even more important and obvious question is when will Barack Obama go to prison—at the very least—for his many crimes including treason, which is punishable by death?[2]

He is an un-American racist and anti-Semite, who has done more damage to our great nation than any other president.[3]  Most egregious is that he is responsible for the efforts to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump, which continue to this day in the form of farcical impeachment proceedings on Capitol Hill.

Until Obama is brought to justice, no American should believe in our system of justice again.  It is a joke, and nonexistent.[4]  The Clintons—Bill and Hillary—proved that in spades as they scoffed at the system, and effectively ignored it.[5]  And yes, lots of us began as Democrats but will never vote for one again.

Having brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency, America’s Left—in the form of the Democratic Party and their so-called “mainstream media” cohorts—tried desperately to destroy the presidency of Ronald Reagan as a result of Iran Contra hearings and investigations.  Now they have moved on to their third GOP president, Trump.

Having produced nothing as a result of Robert Mueller’s extensive investigations[6], they have shifted their avenues of attack to one issue after another, hoping desperately to destroy the Trump presidency—or at least wound it fatally before next year’s elections.

They are the “Pigs” that George Orwell wrote about in his prescient Animal Farm, where all of the animals were equal until the “Pigs” accreted power and control, and reigned supreme, and were masters over—and subjugated—the other animals.[7]  They must be stopped in their tracks and destroyed, like Abraham Lincoln ended the lives and efforts of those who would have torn asunder our great nation and left it in ruins.

We are in a battle for the “soul” of America, which will determine whether it will survive or not.  The stakes are every bit as high as those facing Lincoln, and his two key generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.  Lincoln went through lots of military commanders until he found the right two; and the three of them saved our nation from certain destruction.[8]

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/should-barack-obama-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Should Barack Obama Be Executed For Treason?”)

[3]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ (“Is Barack Obama A Racist?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/the-real-russian-conspiracy-barack-obama-the-clintons-and-the-sale-of-americas-uranium-to-russias-killer-putin/ (“The Real Russian Conspiracy: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Sale Of America’s Uranium To Russia’s Killer Putin”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”)

[4]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/illegal-immigration-the-solution-is-simple/ (“Illegal Immigration: The Solution Is Simple”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/the-american-legal-system-is-broken-can-it-be-fixed/ (“The American Legal System Is Broken: Can It Be Fixed?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/divorces/ (“Divorces”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/are-colleges-dinosaurs/ (“Are Colleges Dinosaurs?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/poverty-in-america/ (“Poverty In America”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/the-united-states-department-of-injustice/ (“The United States Department of Injustice”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/justice-and-the-law-do-not-mix/ (“Justice And The Law Do Not Mix”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/the-state-bar-of-california-is-lawless-and-a-travesty-and-should-be-abolished/ (“The State Bar Of California Is Lawless And A Travesty, And Should Be Abolished”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/global-chaos-and-helter-skelter/ (“Global Chaos And Helter Skelter”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/18/the-u-s-supreme-court-is-a-tragic-pathetic-joke/ (“The U.S. Supreme Court Is A Tragic, Pathetic Joke”)

[5]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue”)

[6]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/robert-mueller-should-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Robert Mueller Should Be Executed For Treason”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/what-atrocities-did-robert-mueller-commit-in-vietnam/ (“What Atrocities Did Robert Mueller Commit In Vietnam?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/03/24/the-mueller-witch-hunt-is-over/ (“The Mueller Witch Hunt Is Over”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/the-mueller-report-a-monumental-travesty/ (“The Mueller Report: A Monumental Travesty”)

[7]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm (“Animal Farm“)

[8]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/ulysses-s-grant-an-american-hero/ (“Ulysses S. Grant: An American Hero”)

Why Do So Many Americans Support Socialism?

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

The title of this article opens up vistas that few Americans have ever thought about, much less explored fully.  Many if not most are idealistic, and want to survive and want for the very best of their loved ones; and they want the best for those whom they know, and for their fellow Americans.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was no poverty or homelessness, or unattended and unremedied illnesses, and that every American lived a life that was healthy and fulfilling, inspirational and constructive.  On February 26, 2010, I published an article here that was entitled, “America: A Rich Tapestry Of Life.”  In it, I quoted an interview that I had given:

I believe in this country, and I believe in Americans of all colors, faiths and backgrounds. The United States is the only true melting pot in the world, with its populace representing a United Nations of the world’s peoples. Yes, we fight and we even discriminate, but when times are tough—like after 9/11—we come together as one nation, which makes this country so great and special. Also, all of us or our ancestors came here from somewhere else. Even the American Indians are descended from those who crossed the Bering Strait—or the “Bering land bridge”—according to anthropologists.[2]

I believe those words today, as fervently as ever.  To the best of my beliefs, I am not jealous of anyone; and I want Americans of all shapes, sizes and colors to succeed and be happy and fulfilled.  In a new article—”Socialism guarantees failure and suffering – So why do so many Americans support it?”—Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow in military history at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, has written:

Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to European redistribution, continue to fail.

Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades of Soviet-imposed socialist chaos.

Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Venezuela are unfree, poor and failed states. Baathism — a synonym for pan-Arabic socialism — ruined the postwar Middle East.

The soft-socialist European Union countries are stagnant and mostly dependent on the U.S. military for their protection.

In contrast, current American deregulation, tax cuts and incentives, and record energy production have given the United States the strongest economy in the world.

So why, then, are two of the top three Democratic presidential contenders — Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., — either overtly or implicitly running on socialist agendas? Why are the heartthrobs of American progressives — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — calling for socialist redistributionist schemes?

Why do polls show that a majority of American millennials have a favorable view of socialism?

There are lots of catalysts for the new socialism.

Massive immigration is changing the demography of the United States. The number of foreign-born U.S. residents and their children has been estimated at almost 60 million, or about 1 in 5 U.S. residents. Some 27 percent of California residents were born outside of America.

Many of these immigrants flee from poor areas of Latin America, Mexico, Africa and Asia that were wrecked by statism and socialism. Often, they arrive in the U.S. unaware of economic and political alternatives to state socialism.

When they reach the U.S. — often without marketable skills and unable to speak English — many assume that America will simply offer a far better version of the statism from which they fled. Consequently, many take for granted that government will provide them an array of social services, and they become supportive of progressive socialism.

Another culprit for the new socialist craze is the strange leftward drift of the very wealthy in Silicon Valley, in corporate America and on Wall Street.

Some of the new progressive rich feel guilty about their unprecedented wealth. So they champion redistribution as the sort of medieval penance that alleviates guilt.

Yet the influential and monied classes usually are so well off that higher taxes hardly affect them. Instead, redistributionist taxation hurts the struggling middle classes.

In California, it became hip for wealthy leftists to promote socialism from their Malibu, Menlo Park or Mill Valley enclaves — while still living as privileged capitalists. Meanwhile, it proved nearly impossible for the middle classes of Stockton and Bakersfield to cope with the reality of crushing taxes and terrible social services.

From 2008 to 2017, the now-multimillionaire Barack Obama, first as candidate and then as president, used all sorts of cool socialist slogans, from “spread the wealth around” and “now is not the time to profit” to “you didn’t build that” and “at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

Universities bear much of the blame. Their manipulation of the federal government to guarantee student loans empowered them to jack up college costs without any accountability. Liberal college administrators and faculty did not care much when graduates left campus poorly educated and unable to market their expensive degrees.

More than 45 million borrowers now struggle with nearly $1.6 trillion in collective student debt, with climbing interest. That indebtedness has delayed — or ended — the traditional forces that encourage conservatism and traditionalism, such as getting married, having children and buying a home.

Instead, a generation of single, childless and mostly urban youth feels cheated that their high-priced degrees did not earn them competitive salaries. Millions of embittered college graduates will never be able to pay off what they owe — and want some entity to pay off their debts.

In paradoxical fashion, teenagers were considered savvy adults who were mature enough to take on gargantuan loans. But they were also treated like fragile preteens who were warned that the world outside their campus sanctuaries was downright mean, sexist, racist, homophobic and unfair.

Finally, doctrinaire Republicans for decades mouthed orthodoxies of free rather than fair trade. They embraced the idea of creative destruction of industries, but without worrying about the real-life consequences for the unemployed in the hollowed out red-state interior.

Add up a lost generation of woke and broke college graduates, waves of impoverished immigrants without much knowledge of American economic traditions, wealthy advocates of boutique socialism and asleep-at-the-wheel Republicans, and it becomes clear why historically destructive socialism is suddenly seen as cool.

Regrettably, sometimes the naive and disaffected must relearn that their pie-in-the sky socialist medicine is far worse than the perceived malady of inequality.

And unfortunately, when socialists gain power, they don’t destroy just themselves. They usually take everyone else down with them as well.[3] 

Of course Hanson is correct, about everything that he wrote above.  I have written about all or most of these subjects, and other related issues that Hanson did not address.[4]

I have been a multi-millionaire, and I have been homeless.  I have known billionaires and lots of famous people[5], and plenty of millionaires; and I have known the homeless who sleep out at night, in all kinds of weather.  Each is a human being and a child of God—even the most committed Atheists and Agnostics, or so I believe.[6]  I have helped millions of Americans as a result of legislation that I wrote and shepherded through the Congress when I worked there[7]; and I try to help the least among us.  I am no saint, but I try.

Hanson is correct: “Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism.”  I have written about these events, which produced so much suffering for millions.[8]  And I have written about senseless wars[9]; human trafficking and other forms of slavery[10]; weapons systems that might kill us in the blink of an eye[11]; the inhumanity of many to their fellow beings[12]; natural disasters and tragedies over which we have no control[13]; discrimination[14]; and related subjects[15][16].

Hanson’s last paragraph is of utmost importance.  It mirrors what George Orwell wrote in his prescient Animal Farm, where all of the animals were equal until the “Pigs” accreted power and control, and reigned supreme, and were masters over—and subjugated—the other animals.[17]  This is the net effect of Socialism, in actuality.  It is not some utopian dream that is manifested for the benefit of Mankind.  That is an ignorant myth, which history has debunked.  Would all of us wish that we had never gone through hard times, or suffered in any respect?  Of course so, but that is not reality, or Life.

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/america-a-rich-tapestry-of-life/ (“America: A Rich Tapestry Of Life”) (citing http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/10/11/greenspan’s-legacy-more-suffering-to-come/ and http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/2951-ilene/31177-interview-with-timothy-d-naegele)

[3]  See https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/victor-davis-hanson-history-socialism

[4]  See, e.g., infra n.7-15

[5]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/31/jerry-perenchio-kind-and-caring/ (“Jerry Perenchio: Kind And Caring”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/edward-w-brooke-is-dead/ (“Edward W. Brooke Is Dead”)

[6]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/what-and-where-is-god/ (“What And Where Is God?”)

[7]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf and Timothy D. Naegele, “The Brooke Amendment And Section 8 Housing: Revisited,” 136 BANKING L. J. 245 (May 2019) (Naegele May 2019) (https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/timothy-d.-naegele.pdf) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/the-brooke-amendment-and-section-8-housing-revisited/ (“The Brooke Amendment And Section 8 Housing: Revisited”)

[8]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-silent-voices-of-stalin%E2%80%99s-soviet-holocaust-and-mao%E2%80%99s-chinese-holocaust/ (“The Silent Voices Of Stalin’s Soviet Holocaust And Mao’s Chinese Holocaust”)

[9]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/israels-senseless-killings-and-war-with-iran/ (“Israel’s Senseless Killings And War With Iran”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/the-next-major-war-korea-again/ (“The Next Major War: Korea Again?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/china-is-americas-enemy-make-no-mistake-about-that/ (“China Is America’s Enemy: Make No Mistake About That”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/the-death-of-putin-and-russia-the-final-chapter-of-the-cold-war/ (“The Death Of Putin And Russia: The Final Chapter Of The Cold War”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/08/13/china-is-americas-enemy-and-the-enemy-of-free-people-everywhere/ (“China Is America’s Enemy, And The Enemy Of Free People Everywhere”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/the-middle-east-is-not-americas-fight/ (“The Middle East Is Not America’s Fight”)

[10]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/28/human-trafficking/ (“Human Trafficking”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/10/25/remembering-the-comfort-women-victims-of-human-trafficking-and-slavery/ (“Remembering The Comfort Women, Victims Of Human Trafficking And Slavery”)

[11]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/emp-attack-only-30-million-americans-survive/ (“EMP Attack: Only 30 Million Americans Survive”)

[12]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/problems-with-foreign-adoptions/ (“Problems With Foreign Adoptions”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/abortions-and-autos-kill-more-in-america-than-guns/ (“Abortions And Autos Kill More In America Than Guns”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/15/who-is-next-the-murder-of-a-young-american-and-the-harvesting-of-his-body-parts-in-mexico/ (“Who Is Next? The Murder Of A Young American And The Harvesting Of His Body Parts In Mexico”)

[13]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/earthquakes-the-big-one-is-coming-to-at-least-los-angeles/ (“Earthquakes: The Big One Is Coming To At Least Los Angeles”)

[14]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ (“Is Barack Obama A Racist?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/06/islamophobia-is-un-american/ (“Islamophobia Is Un-American”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/ariel-sharon-is-missed/#comment-7039 (“Is Night Falling Again For European Jews?”)

[15]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/illegal-immigration-the-solution-is-simple/ (“Illegal Immigration: The Solution Is Simple”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/the-american-legal-system-is-broken-can-it-be-fixed/ (“The American Legal System Is Broken: Can It Be Fixed?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/divorces/ (“Divorces”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/are-colleges-dinosaurs/ (“Are Colleges Dinosaurs?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/poverty-in-america/ (“Poverty In America”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/the-united-states-department-of-injustice/ (“The United States Department of Injustice”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/justice-and-the-law-do-not-mix/ (“Justice And The Law Do Not Mix”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/the-state-bar-of-california-is-lawless-and-a-travesty-and-should-be-abolished/ (“The State Bar Of California Is Lawless And A Travesty, And Should Be Abolished”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/global-chaos-and-helter-skelter/ (“Global Chaos And Helter Skelter”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/06/18/the-u-s-supreme-court-is-a-tragic-pathetic-joke/ (“The U.S. Supreme Court Is A Tragic, Pathetic Joke”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/will-the-eus-collapse-push-the-world-deeper-into-the-great-depression-ii/#comment-20728 (“The EU Is Insufferable”)

[16]  Beneath these articles are extensive comments, which might be read as well.

[17]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm (“Animal Farm“)

The Democratic Party Defines Itself As The Party Of Women, Gays, Hispanics, African Americans And Other People Of Color

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

For openers, African-Americans (or blacks) are by no means monolithic.  They have been used and abused by the Democrats for generations; and lots of them have been benefiting economically from the policies of President Trump.[2]  The same is true of Hispanics and other “people of color.”  And yes too, lots of us began as Democrats, but will never vote for one again.

The title of this article is the conclusion of Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—who has written:

After celebrating Tuesday’s takeover of Virginia’s legislature and the Kentucky governorship, the liberal establishment appears poised to crush its biggest threat: the surging candidacy of Elizabeth Warren.

From the tempo and tenor of the attacks, establishment fears of Warren’s success are real — and understandably so.

Two Wednesday polls show Warren running even with Joe Biden nationally. And a new Iowa poll shows Warren in front of the field with 20%, and Biden falling into fourth place with 15%.

The danger for Democrats: While Warren is now the party’s front-runner, they fear she’s a sure loser to Donald Trump in 2020.

And, again, with reason. A recent poll of six battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan, showed Trump beating or tying Warren in all of them except for Arizona.

Nightmare scenario: Warren wins the nomination, but when her neo-Marxist agenda is exposed, Middle America recoils in horror.

The economic elite is already sounding the alarm.

Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase says Warren “vilifies successful people.” Microsoft founder Bill Gates says her proposals would imperil “innovation” and “capital formation.”

Writing in The New York Times, Obama adviser Steven Rattner describes a Warren presidency as “a terrifying prospect.”

Warren would “extend the reach and weight of the federal government far further into the economy than anything even Franklin Roosevelt dreamed of (and) … turn America’s uniquely successful public-private relationship into a dirigiste European-style system.”

“If you want to live in France” — where half the GDP is controlled by the regime — says Rattner, “Warren should be your candidate.”

What finally shocked anti-Warren liberals into action was her recent revelation of how she intends to pay for her “Medicare for all” plan.

Warren’s plan would require at least $23 trillion more in federal spending over a decade. Other experts say the added costs could run to $32 trillion, raising the U.S. government’s share of the GDP by one-half and abolishing the private health insurance plans of 156 million Americans.

“Many of America’s global champions, like banks and tech giants, would be dismembered,” writes Rattner, “Shale fracking would be banned, which would send oil and natural gas prices soaring and cost millions of Americans their jobs.”

Beyond “Medicare for All,” Warren has other plans. Universal child care and free schooling from pre-kindergarten through college and the cancelation of student loans, plus a new look at reparations for slavery.

How would President Warren pay for all her “plans”?

She would raise the corporate rate to 35% from 21%, and slam a 40% tax on the profits of companies that try to flee the country.

She would raise the capital gains tax, impose new estate taxes, raise Social Security taxes on folks with higher incomes, and confiscate 2% of the wealth of those with $50 million in assets and 3% of the wealth of those with $1 billion, every year.

Writes Politifact: “All told, we counted $7 trillion in new spending over a 10-year period, and that’s without Medicare for All. On the flip side, Warren offered specific tax proposals that came to $4.55 trillion.”

Still, Warren’s socialism is not what her main rivals, all white men, are zeroing in on. They’ve decided to play hardball.

Thursday, under a headline, “Warren Faces Accusations that She’s ‘Angry,’ Which Supporters Say is Sexist,” The Washington Post reported:

“Two of the leading male candidates in the Democratic presidential primary race — Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg — have escalated separate lines of attack as they attempt to counter the field’s most prominent woman: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is antagonistic and angry.”

Warren has a “my way or the highway” approach, said Buttigieg, she is “so absorbed in the fighting that it is as though fighting were the purpose.”

Biden says Warren, who has a real shot at taking the nomination, reflects “an angry unyielding viewpoint that has crept into our politics.”

This is “treacherous,” warns the Post, “given that many Democrats remain upset over what they view as the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton, the party’s last nominee.”

The Democratic Party today defines itself as an inclusive party of women, gays, Hispanics, African Americans and other people of color.

Yet three months out from the decisive early contests of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, the party is going into the semifinals of its contest for a leader and future president without a single person of color in the final four.

Moreover, the three white males are denigrating and piling on the woman who is the front-runner with attacks on her personality for which conservatives, if they used such tactics, would be charged with “dog-whistling” the white working class.

When one looks at the approval-disapproval rating of the president, re-election appears problematic. When one looks at the Democrats’ agenda and field of candidates, the odds of Trump’s re-election seem a good deal better.

This thing is by no means over.[3]

Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren is going nowhere fast.  She has lied and lied again.  This is her “M.O.” or Modus Operandi, a Latin phrase that refers to a pattern of behavior.  She is a wacko, which is how she has defined herself from the very beginning when she claimed that she was a Native American (or Indian), yet refused to take a DNA test to prove it.  After all, she had made such claims for much of her life, and used them to her advantage to gain advancement in academia and elsewhere.[4]

In the fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen, two make-believe weavers purport to spin a fine suit of clothes for the emperor, which is made of beautiful material that possesses the wonderful quality of being invisible to any man who is unfit for his office or unpardonably stupid. The potentate and his subjects acknowledge that the garments are very fine indeed. That is, until one little child sees the emperor marching in a procession, and says at last: “But he has nothing on at all”—and the grand swindle is exposed for all to see.[5]

Like the potentate in the fable, Elizabeth Warren is a fraud, pure and simple.  It is who she is, and it has defined her and continues to do so.  It is her “M.O.” that she cannot shake.  Like her fellow Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis, she is destined for the dustheap of history, as a footnote if that much.[6] 

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7666233/The-best-come-pledges-Donald-Trump-Blacks-Trump-event.html (“‘The best is yet to come’ pledges Donald Trump at ‘Blacks for Trump’ event as he says African-Americans have the ‘worst schools than anybody’ and Democrats care more about illegal aliens than them”)

[3]  See https://buchanan.org/blog/will-sexist-white-males-derail-warren-137724 (“Will ‘Sexist’ White Males Derail Warren?”)

[4]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/americas-newest-civil-war-2017-and-beyond/#comment-12509 (“LYING POCAHONTAS REFUSES TO BE TESTED”)

[5]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor’s_New_Clothes (“The Emperor’s New Clothes“)

[6]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dukakis (“Michael Dukakis”—”Dukakis was criticized during the campaign for a perceived softness on defense issues, particularly the controversial ‘Star Wars’ program, which he promised to weaken.  In response to this, Dukakis orchestrated what would become the key image of his campaign, although it turned out quite differently from what he intended.  On September 13, 1988 Dukakis visited the General Dynamics Land Systems plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, to take part in a photo op in an M1 Abrams tank.  The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, had been photographed in a similar situation in 1986, riding in a Challenger tank while wearing a scarf.  Compared with Dukakis’ results, Thatcher’s picture was very successful and helped her reelection prospects.  Footage of Dukakis was used in television ads by the [George H.W.] Bush campaign, as evidence that Dukakis would not make a good commander-in-chief, and ‘Dukakis in the tank’ remains shorthand for backfired public relations outings”); see also http://www.dickmorris.com/how-the-dem-primary-is-shaping-up-2020-election-alert/ (“How The Dem Primary Is Shaping Up – 2020 Election Alert!”)

Bring It On!

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

Some of us have lived through this period of time before.  Only the faces change.  

We were in Berkeley for the “Free Speech” and anti-Vietnam War riots.  We were in Washington, D.C. when the city was set ablaze after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in Memphis.  We were there when Watergate broke, and we lived through that too.  We lived with 9/11, and watched Iraq turn into a graveyard for so many Americans and their dreams, while still others were maimed for life, and trillions of dollars were wasted . . . for nothing.[2]

The title of this article is the rallying cry of Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—who has written:

Sunday morning, President Trump announced that the world’s worst terrorist, the head of the ISIS caliphate who had raped an American woman, had received justice.

About to be captured and carried off in a helicopter by U.S. special forces, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blew himself up with an explosive vest in a compound in northwest Syria. The long search for the sadist and fanatic had ended in triumph. No U.S. troops were lost.

That evening, Trump went out to the fifth game of the World Series between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros. As his face was flashed on the big screen, the stadium erupted with people booing and chanting, “Impeach Trump!” and “Lock him up!”

That Trump is not cheered at a D.C. baseball game is not odd, for the spectators are not working-class Trumpians. Series tickets cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars, and the spectators are drawn from a town that gave Donald Trump 4% of its votes in 2016.

The mutual distrust in this city was on display when Trump told the press yesterday morning that he had not alerted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the impending U.S. raid, because he was afraid of leaks.

“I wanted to make sure this kept secret,” said Trump. “I don’t want to have people lost. … We were going to notify them last night, but we decided not to do that because Washington leaks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. … A leak could have cost the death of all of them.”

The Russians, however, were alerted we were coming, as they control the airspace over the compound we were targeting. And Trump thanked the Russians for their cooperation.

Also left out of the loop was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, one of the “Gang of Eight” that is almost always given a heads-up about major military operations. Schiff is conducting secret hearings to drum up support for Trump’s impeachment and removal for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

It is imprecise to say this city is divided over Trump. It is rather almost solidly united behind what millions of Middle Americans believe to be a deep state-media conspiracy to overturn the 2016 election and effect a coup d’etat against a president whom this city detests but fears it cannot defeat in 2020.

A week ago, this writer noted the astonishing number of foreign capitals that were on fire with protests that go beyond marching and demonstrating — to riot, rebellion and even revolution. As with the “yellow vest” protests that shut down Paris on many weekends this past year, and the disorders in Hong Kong, the epidemic had spread to Beirut, Barcelona and Santiago, Chile.

In Iraq, over 200 have been killed and thousands injured in protests this month against the Baghdad regime. In Algeria, now six months after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to step down, rioters still battle the army.

The thread common to these uncivil, often-violent disruptions?

A conviction that the cause the protesters are advancing is so critical, noble and necessary that democratic rules may be dispensed with and law and order suspended in pursuit of the cause.

Saturday’s Washington Post describes the mindset that is taking hold in D.C. among militants, using as an example the Extinction Rebellion group’s dragging of a boat into the street at 16th & K to block traffic for hours to call attention to rising sea levels.

“Blocking traffic may only be the beginning,” wrote Marissa Lang. “As protests in the District continue at a rate of about two a day, activists looking to stand out from crowds that march near the White House or the Mall have resorted to more disruptive measures in recent weeks — a tactic that experts said will probably escalate.”

She cites sociology professor Dana Fisher: “There has been a lot of discussion among people on the left who use protests as a tactic that peaceful, traditional protests may not be enough. … That could mean … more people blocking traffic. … I think we’re going to see a lot more people coming into D.C. to get arrested.”

Fisher continues: “When activists don’t feel like their grievances are being heard or responded to … the natural progression is to get more confrontational and, sometimes, to get more violent. … I’m … surprised it’s taken so long.”

Who wins when leftists go lawless — in liberal citadels like D.C.?

This thinking echoes the famous “bodies upon the gears” speech of Mario Savio at the famous 1964 University of California, Berkeley campus riot: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that … you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop!”

After Berkeley came civil disobedience; the burning of ROTC buildings; and urban riots marked by looting, shooting and arson. Out of that came Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide, Ronald Reagan, and Republican triumphs in five of six presidential elections starting in 1968.

Bring it on.[3]

To those at the stadium in our nation’s capital who booed the President—and chanted, “Impeach Trump!” and “Lock him up!”—they are the dregs of society, without a purpose in life.  Pat Buchanan is right: they are not working-class Americans, but the privileged elite; and they occupy a town that gave Donald Trump only four percent of its votes in 2016.  They do not relate to you and me.  They are like the Hollywood-do-nothings who prance around spouting meaningless platitudes, and feeling entitled.

Trump is right not to trust any Democrats, or those on the far-Left, or their media lackeys—or the RINOs in the Republican Party such as the despicable Mitt Romney.  Yes, lots of us are ashamed that we voted for him and the equally-despicable Paul Ryan and others.[4]  And yes too, Russia’s killer and dictator-for-life Vladimir Putin whom I despise is more trustworthy than the un-American racist anti-Semite Barack Obama and his co-conspirators who have engaged in sedition, such as Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Jerry Nadler.[5] 

A rising number of Americans are understanding, finally, that we are in the midst of this great nation’s second Civil War: a fight for the soul of America, which will determine its destiny for years and generations to come.  Abraham Lincoln stood at a similar precipice, and stared into the abyss, and he destroyed the enemy.  While it took generations to heal, he saved our great Republic.  Had he failed, we might not be one nation today.[6]  Donald Trump is his worthy successor.

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/the-middle-east-is-not-americas-fight/ (“The Middle East Is Not America’s Fight”)

[3]  See https://buchanan.org/blog/is-democracy-a-dying-species-137638 (“Is Trump Facing a 1960s-Style Revolt?”)

[4]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/when-will-the-actual-shooting-begin-in-americas-second-civil-war/#comment-20531 (“The Despicable Mitt Romney Must Be Driven From The GOP”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/the-state-of-our-union-2019/#comment-19656 (“Echoes Of The Despicable John Bolton”)

[5]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ (“Is Barack Obama A Racist?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/should-barack-obama-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Should Barack Obama Be Executed For Treason?”) (see also the extensive comments beneath these three articles) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/the-death-of-putin-and-russia-the-final-chapter-of-the-cold-war/ (“The Death Of Putin And Russia: The Final Chapter Of The Cold War”); but see https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/edward-w-brooke-is-dead/ (“Edward W. Brooke Is Dead”)

[6]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/09/this-is-war-abraham-lincoln-and-ronald-reagan-understood-this-and-donald-trump-does-too/ (“This Is War—Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan Understood This, And Donald Trump Does Too”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/30/impeachment-may-become-the-singular-obsession-in-washington-and-dominate-news-coverage/ (“Impeachment May Become The Singular Obsession In Washington, And Dominate News Coverage”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/ulysses-s-grant-an-american-hero/ (“Ulysses S. Grant: An American Hero”)

 

 

Is Democracy A Dying Species?

  By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

The United States has the purest form of democracy in the world.  Does this mean that it is perfect, and without flaws?  Certainly not.  But we are blessed by our Founders’ inherent wisdom, which has stood the tests of time.  Years ago, I wrote:

I believe in this country, and I believe in Americans of all colors, faiths and backgrounds. The United States is the only true melting pot in the world, with its populace representing a United Nations of the world’s peoples. Yes, we fight and we even discriminate, but when times are tough—like after 9/11—we come together as one nation, which makes this country so great and special. Also, all of us or our ancestors came here from somewhere else. Even the American Indians are descended from those who crossed the Bering Strait—or the “Bering land bridge”—according to anthropologists.[2]

Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has asked the question that is the title of this article:

What happens when democracy fails to deliver? What happens when people give up on democracy?

What happens when a majority or militant minority decide that the constitutional rights of free speech, free elections, peaceful assembly and petition are inadequate and take to the streets to force democracy to submit to their demands?

Our world may be about to find out.

Chile is the most stable and prosperous country in Latin America.

Yet when its capital, Santiago, recently raised subway fares by 5%, thousands poured into the streets. Rioting, looting, arson followed. The Metro system was utterly trashed. Police were assaulted. People died. The rioting spread to six other cities. Troops were called out.

President a Sebastian Pinera repealed the fare hike and declared a national emergency, stating, “Chile is at war against a powerful, implacable enemy who does not respect anything or anyone and is willing to use violence and crime without any limits.”

How does a democracy that has spawned within itself a powerful and implacable enemy deal with it?

Last week, tens of thousands of Lebanese of all faiths and political associations rioted in Beirut and Tripoli to demand the overthrow of the regime and the ouster of its president, speaker of parliament and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. All must go, the masses demand.

In Barcelona, Friday, half a million people surged into the streets in protest after the sentencing in Madrid of the secessionists who sought to bring about the independence of Catalonia from Spain in 2017.

In all of China, few enjoy the freedoms of the 7 million in Hong Kong. Yet, for five months, these fortunate and free Chinese, to protest a proposal that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be extradited to China, stormed into the streets to defy the regime and denounce the conditions under which they live.

These protests have been marked by riots, vandalism, arson and clashes with police. “Hong Kong streets descended into chaos following an unauthorized pro-democracy rally Sunday,” writes the Associated Press. Protesters “set up roadblocks and torched businesses, and police responded with tear gas and a water cannon. Protesters tossed firebombs and took their anger out on shops with mainland Chinese ties.”

What are the Hong Kong residents denouncing and demanding?

They are protesting both present and future limitations on their freedom. The appearance of American flags in the protests suggests that what they seek is what the agitators behind the Boston Tea Party and the boys and men at Concord Bridge sought — independence, liberty and a severing of the ties to the mother country.

Yet, because the Communist regime of Xi Jinping could not survive such an amputation, the liberation of Hong Kong is not in the cards. The end to these months of protest will likely be frustration, futility and failure.

Perhaps it is that realization that explains the vehemence and violence. But the rage is also what kills the support they initially received.

In 1960s America, the first civil rights demonstrations attracted widespread sympathy. But the outburst of urban riots that followed in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and 100 cities after Martin Luther King’s assassination sent millions streaming to the banners of Gov. George Wallace in the campaigns of 1968 and 1972.

When the “yellow vest” protests broke out in 2018 in Paris, over a fuel tax, the demonstrators had the support of millions of Frenchmen.

But that support dissipated when protesters began smashing windows of boutique shops on the Champs-Elysee, assaulting police and desecrating monuments and memorials.

This reversion to violence, ransacking of stores and showering of police with bricks, bottles and debris, is costing the protesters much of the backing they enjoyed. In the trade-off between freedom and order, people will ultimately opt for order.

Yet, one wonders: Why are these outbursts of violent protests and rioting taking place in stable, free and prosperous societies?

Chile is the most stable and wealthy country in South America. Catalonia is the most prosperous part of Spain. Paris is hardly a hellhole of repression. And Hong Kong is the freest city of China.

If the beneficiaries of freedoms and democratic rights come to regard them as insufficient to produce the political, economic and social results they demand, what does that portend for democracy’s future?

For, despite the looting, arson and attacks on cops in Hong Kong, Xi Jinping is not going to order his satraps to yield to popular demands for autonomy or independence. Nor is Madrid going to accept the loss of Barcelona and secession of Catalonia. Nor is the conservative Chilean government going to yield to the street rebels and revolutionaries. Nor is Paris going to back down to the “yellow vests.”

Yet, one wonders: If the “end of history” and worldwide triumph of democratic capitalism thesis has, as most agree, been disproven, is it possible that the Age of Democracy is itself a passing phase in the history of the West and the world?[3]

Americans have not given up on democracy at all.  While many are at odds with their fellow citizens about the direction that our great nation should take, they are exercising their rights of free speech dramatically, for an often-troubled world to see.  Is it a pretty sight?  Is democracy in action an edifying experience?  Not always, but it is a sign that our great democracy is functioning.  

The rifts in our body politic cut across lots of fracture lines: Donald Trump or no Trump[4]; abortions or no abortions[5]; foreign wars or no foreign wars[6]; the admission of illegal immigrants or none[7]; man-made “global warming,” or one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated on Mankind by the “eco-Nazis”[8]; — . . . and the list goes on and on.

If one person could be said to have been at the very heart of the cleavages in our society today it is the racist and anti-Semite Barack Obama, who did more than any other president to resew the seeds of racism in America today, and to divide this country along fault lines that are “fragile” in the best of times.[9]  By leading the treasonous efforts to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump, there is no doubt that Obama engaged in sedition, which is consistent with his character.[10]

Pat Buchanan was correct when he observed that “the rage is . . . what kills the support they initially received”—and we have seen all of this before (e.g., during the Vietnam War era), and survived.  George Orwell warned about it in his prescient Animal Farm, where all of the animals were considered equal until the Pigs accreted power and control, and subjugated the other animals (or “disbelievers”) until they reigned supreme.[11]

Abraham Lincoln and his trusted generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, dealt with the harsh realities of divisions within our great nation that might have torn it asunder—and they prevailed.[12]  At times, the forces of division (and of evil and darkness) must be destroyed, not simply defeated.  Nothing less will suffice. This was certainly true of Adolph Hitler and his “Thousand-Year Reich.”

Lastly, Pat Buchanan was mistaken in the conclusion of his article above.  In the United States, the Left is being given enough rope to hang itself, like its alter egos did before.  And most Americans are myopic: they are focused on their own lives, and do not really care what goes on in the world outside—as long as it does not affect them—which is understandable.

 

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© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[1]  Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/america-a-rich-tapestry-of-life/ (“America: A Rich Tapestry Of Life”) (citing http://www.philstockworld.com/2009/10/11/greenspan’s-legacy-more-suffering-to-come/ and http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/2951-ilene/31177-interview-with-timothy-d-naegele)

[3]  See https://buchanan.org/blog/is-democracy-a-dying-species-137638

[4]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/09/this-is-war-abraham-lincoln-and-ronald-reagan-understood-this-and-donald-trump-does-too/ (“This Is War—Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan Understood This, And Donald Trump Does Too”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/30/impeachment-may-become-the-singular-obsession-in-washington-and-dominate-news-coverage/ (“Impeachment May Become The Singular Obsession In Washington, And Dominate News Coverage”)

[5]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/abortions-and-autos-kill-more-in-america-than-guns/#comment-3298 (“55 Million American Babies Killed Since Roe v. Wade“—”One can only conjecture as to the contributions they would have made, which are forever lost like the contributions of more than 60 million human beings who were killed by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and their thugs”)

[6]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/19/the-middle-east-is-not-americas-fight/ (“The Middle East Is Not America’s Fight”)

[7]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/illegal-immigration-the-solution-is-simple/ (“Illegal Immigration: The Solution Is Simple”) (see also the extensive comments beneath the article)

[8]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/a-34-trillion-swindle-the-shame-of-global-warming/ (“A $34 Trillion Swindle: The Shame Of Global Warming”) (see also the extensive comments beneath the article)

[9]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/is-barack-obama-a-racist/ (“Is Barack Obama A Racist?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”) (see also the extensive comments beneath the articles); but see https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/edward-w-brooke-is-dead/ (“Edward W. Brooke Is Dead”)

[10]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/should-barack-obama-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Should Barack Obama Be Executed For Treason?”)

[11]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm (“Animal Farm“)

[12]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/ulysses-s-grant-an-american-hero/ (“Ulysses S. Grant: An American Hero”)