Lawless Border Catastrophe by Kamala Harris

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Machiavelli’s Lessons for America

 

Machiavelli’s Lessons for America

David Lewis Schaefer, The American Mind 

Advice from Old Nick on how to strengthen our republic.

While Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince is commonly dismissed as a guidebook that teaches how purely self-interested rulers can attain or secure power through amoral means, such an interpretation is difficult to reconcile with a statement Machiavelli makes in his other major political work, the Discourses on Livy. There, he writes of his “natural desire to work” for the “common benefit”—not merely that of the rulers. And although the Discourses are explicitly devoted to the advancement of republicanism as distinguished from princely government, the modern philosopher most fully identified with the cause of democracy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, called The Prince “the book of republicans.” As Machiavelli explains in Chapter 15 of The Prince, his intent is “to write something useful to whoever understands it”—which means his advice is not solely, or perhaps primarily, for princes.

An attentive reading of The Prince will confirm not only Rousseau’s general claim, but the work’s relevance to understanding and remedying some of the major problems that confront the American republic today.

In the first paragraph of Chapter 3, Machiavelli identifies a fundamental problem rooted in human nature: the people’s natural utopianism, or their incapacity or unwillingness to accept the harsh facts of political life. In Chapter 2, he had maintained that unless a hereditary prince possesses “extraordinary vices” that make him hateful, a “reasonable” people should support him. Since they would be accustomed to his family’s rule, he would have less need to “offend” than a usurper would to maintain their obedience.

But at the start of Chapter 3, Machiavelli observes that contrary to this counsel of reason, the people are always disposed to “change their masters in the belief that they will fare better”—even though in this belief “they are deceived, because they see later by experience that they have done worse.” This is so because a prince who overthrows the existing order by violent means will find himself compelled to deal harshly with his subjects—even including his erstwhile supporters—in order to secure his power. But Machiavelli implies that the people never learn from this experience, since there are always aspects of being governed (no less under republics than principalities) such as paying taxes, enduring wars, or having freedoms restricted that the people will resent. Hence, they will continue to blame their problems on the folly or vice of whoever rules them at a given time, rather than seeing the prince as the product of the inherent necessities of political life.

This is by no means to say that Machiavelli is an archconservative who denies that any political changes can be for the better. But he points to the need for government to be founded explicitly on recognizing the harsh realities of political life, and making the people aware of these realities, lest they continue to be deceived by would-be rulers (republicans no less than monarchs) who take advantage of their gullibility. James Madison echoes this point in Federalist 51, where he explains why the Founders instituted a system of checks and balances in the Constitution, despite the claim of some Anti-Federalists that they amount to a needless complication, based on an unfairly low view of popular behavior.

Central to Machiavelli’s argument, and its contemporary relevance, is the distinction he draws between “nominal” virtue—that is, actions that appear on the surface to be good—and its “effectual” form, that is, those that are genuinely beneficial. After introducing this distinction at the end of Chapter 16, he illustrates it in the following chapter by distinguishing between the nominal “mercy” practiced by the people of Florence (then a republic) toward a city they ruled, Pistoia, and the nominal “cruelty” practiced by the notorious prince Cesare Borgia over the province of Romagna. In order “to escape a name for cruelty,” Machiavelli observes, the Florentines avoided cracking down harshly on the city’s factional disputes, crime, and riots, with the result that Pistoia was “destroyed.” Thus, their nominal mercy toward lawbreakers was really effectual cruelty. (The parallel to the de-policing movement of recent years in the United States is obvious.)

By contrast, the cruel tyrant Cesare Borgia (in Machiavelli’s highly fictionalized portrait) “restored the Romagna, united it, and reduced it to peace and to faith.” He did so, as Machiavelli explains in Chapter 7, by hiring Remirro d’Orco, a “cruel and efficient” governor, to terrify the populace into law-abidingness through meting out harsh punishments for criminals. In other words, Cesare’s nominal cruelty was really effectual mercy.

Given the people’s natural aversion to the appearance of cruelty, Cesare had to mitigate any resultant hatred by blaming d’Orco for the nominal cruelty in a manner that might be difficult to replicate. Machiavelli thus recommends establishing an independent judiciary in Chapter 19, as was done by an unnamed founder of the French kingdom, as a “third judge” to resolve disputes between the aristocrats and the multitude by “favor[ing] the lesser side” without the king himself being blamed. Here one finds another anticipation of The Federalist’s account of the Constitution, specifically that the independent federal judiciary as outlined in Federalist 78 is a potential arbiter between the legislative and executive branches, as well as between the federal and state governments.

In the chapter preceding his treatment of nominal versus effectual mercy, Machiavelli makes another important distinction—this time between nominal and effectual “liberality,” or generosity on a prince’s part. As Aristotle had already observed in the Nicomachean Ethics, liberality is the most beloved of all the moral virtues because of the benefits that the donor’s recipients derive from it.

Pretending, however, that a ruler should practice this virtue in its literal or nominal sense is another matter. Machiavelli observes that while “it would be good to be held liberal,” nonetheless a ruler who practices liberality may not only fail to be recognized for it, but will ultimately incur “the infamy of its contrary.” The reason is that for a prince to acquire “a name for liberality,” he must ultimately “consume all his resources” and “burden the people extraordinarily” with taxes of all sorts. That will cause his subjects to hate him, offending the many who will have to pay higher taxes while “the few” benefit from his largesse. But when the prince finally recognizes this problem “and wants to draw back” from it, he immediately “incurs the infamy” of being a miser.

Machiavelli recommends a “solution” to this problem: a prince who wants to procure a popular reputation for liberality while avoiding its downside should rely on foreign conquests to finance it, as was done by rulers like “Cyrus, Caesar, and Alexander.” In other words, the “effectual truth” of liberality turns out, as political theorist Clifford Orwin has pointed out, to be a kind of collective theft.

Machiavelli’s warning about the danger of government seeking a reputation for liberality has an obvious resonance in America today, beset by ever-growing deficits as the result of ever-growing government spending, especially in the form of the outrageously misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act.”

Indeed, during the current presidential campaign, both candidates have been competing to win votes through further costly government giveaways, ranging from the forgiveness of student loans and mortgage interest payments to subsidies for child care and home purchases and eliminating taxes on tips. While the Democratic candidate promises, unrealistically, to finance all her increased spending from taxes imposed only on people earning over $400,000 or on corporations, it is noteworthy that neither she nor her opponent mention America’s desperate need, in the face of growing threats from China, Iran, and Russia, for a substantial increase in the defense budget, another harsh reality that few voters are willing to face. Additionally, true reform of the country’s budget-busting entitlement programs remains an untouchable “third rail” of American politics, as President George W. Bush learned during his second term in office.

Even as the deficit increases due to the ever-growing gap between domestic spending and tax revenues, the real value of people’s earnings and savings continues to be taxed away, less visibly or “nominally,” but no less “effectually,” through inflation. But here it is relevant to consider the alternative that political philosophers inspired by Machiavelli—most notably, Locke, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith—proposed as a way to enable people to enjoy a continually increasing standard of living that does not depend on either foreign conquest or endless government handouts: emancipate the economy from governmental restrictions on people’s opportunity to improve their standard of living by abolishing regulations of prices, wages, and interest rates, along with high tariffs, as well as eliminating unnecessary regulations that obstruct business startups and erect high barriers to entry for various professions (such as what some states have imposed on hair braiding and interior decorating). With the liberation of peaceful, honest labor and investment motivated by acquisitiveness that’s not cabined by undue legal restraint and moral and religious opprobrium or envy—in other words, free enterprise—politics is no longer a zero-sum game, as it would be if based on conquest.

As economic historian Deirdre McCloskey has documented in the remarkable Bourgeois trilogy, the system of economic freedom indirectly encouraged by Machiavelli has engendered a monumental improvement in ordinary people’s standard of living in much of the world beginning in the early nineteenth century. Its benefits were made manifest more recently in the United States thanks to the economic booms that the country enjoyed under the tax reductions and reforms that Presidents Reagan and Trump enacted with the support of Congress.

Alas, there are growing signs of a retreat from the policies of economic freedom in both parties: advocacy of tariff increases, taxing non-realized assets as “capital gains,” and government guarantees of “fair” prices and prosecution of “price gougers”—the latter two particularly reminiscent of the policies that kept medieval Europe poor (with the exception of kings and aristocrats) and added to the oppressive power of governments. As has often been observed, in modern-day politics the extremes tend to meet—witness the growing agreement between “NatCons” like J.D. Vance and admirers of socialism like his Democratic counterpart Tim Walz as well as Bernie Sanders.

Machiavelli is the rarely-recognized originator of the revolution in political philosophy that brought about the modern liberal, commercial republic, as Harvey Mansfield argues in Machiavelli’s Effectual Truth: Creating the Modern World. But the sometimes harsh lessons he taught—for example, reducing crime requires effective law enforcement rather than de-policing; preserving a nation’s freedom requires making military preparedness its top priority; excessive governmental “liberality” ultimately impoverishes a country (except for “the few” insiders); understanding that the “morality” of a policy goes beyond outward appearances (soaking the rich out of envy)—are ones that continually need to be relearned, since they sometimes go against people’s “instinctive” feelings, as well as the ambitions of demagogic leaders. The authors of the Constitution well understood these lessons, albeit through the medium of the Florentine’s more rhetorically restrained successors.

David Lewis Schaefer is Professor of Political Science at College of the Holy Cross

The American Mind is a publication of the Claremont Institute, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to restoring the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. Interested in supporting our work? Gifts to the Claremont Institute are tax-deductible.

Blanket Of Darkness Is Falling

 

A Blanket Of Darkness Is Falling Over The West

Armando Simón, Issues and Insights 

From Sweden and Germany, to Australia and New Zealand, to France and Finland, to America and Canada, to Armenia and Italy, to Britain and Ireland, a network of censorship has been developing and steadily solidifying. Censorship has even been imposed on scientists. Ironically, this blanket of darkness has occurred in those countries with the longest tradition of freedom, specifically of freedom of speech, assembly and of writing. Soon, the peoples of those countries will have to resort to samizdat.

When Musk took over Twitter and exposed the systematic censorship apparatus within the organization, he also revealed that part of the censorship was being carried out at the request of the Biden regime (Facebook likewise agreed to impose censorship). By doing so, he opened the window to what was, in fact, a governmental conspiracy to establish censorship, thereby ironically putting an end to the automatic dismissal of “conspiracy theories” for those persons who could not, or would not, connect the dots.

He also fired the vermin who were carrying out the censorship.

Leftists in the Biden regime were not happy. The White House is “keeping an eye” on Musk and X, and pseudo-President Biden has spoken out against Musk. In retaliation, the FTC was ordered to harass Musk. One would expect that the American media would support Musk, but the reverse is the case. Except for one.

By exposing to the light of day the existence this conspiratorial censorship and allowing X to become a truly free speech zone, he infuriated the totalitarian elites. He further infuriated the overseas elites that relied on censorship over their own countries in order to suppress views and facts anathema to their ideology. Recently, the EU bureaucrats demanded Elon Musk not to broadcast a simple conversation between him and Donald Trump. This was followed by the Brazilian regime going after X for revealing a conspiracy to institute censorship by the Supreme Court in that country and its demand to impose censorship of views and facts.

On top of that, Musk condemned the imposition of censorship in Canada.

And he continues to give the middle finger to the elites.

And leftists continue to argue that Musk be arrested for promoting free speech.

But this is not about Elon Musk. He is simply the most visible example of a sickening pattern of suppression occurring around the world. Musk is noteworthy because he is one of the few well-known individuals who consistently spits in the eye of the totalitarians and has the means to resist them.

But most inoffensive persons are not famous, nor do they have the substantial resources to prevent being crushed under the heel of these totalitarians, though many are brave and defiant while others grovel and apologize for having offended. And though I would dearly like to detail the victims’ plight (partly because their ordeal has been censored), I will instead shine the light on the politicians who demand censorship, using either euphemisms or obfuscating language.

I must momentarily digress. Coming from a scientific background, I retain an incurable habit of collecting data, and I am herewith presenting facts, aka, data. Now, data by its very nature is tedious, but absolutely vital in any endeavor. Why do so here? Because writing or speaking in sympathetic outlets, leftists have shamelessly denied that conspiracies exist, that further proclaimed electoral fraud is misinformation,that there is no racial discrimination against whites or Asians through affirmative action, illegal aliens don’t vote in elections, there is no media bias, that schools are not engaged in indoctrination or perversions, that Donald Trump was not shot but was staged, etc. My writing an equally grandiose essay disputing their denial can only lead to back and forth. But facts are facts. Data is data. And here is the data. It is a long, admittedly tedious, list of politicians urging the dictatorial suppression of free speech in one way or another.

American Politicians Advocating Censorship

It is an undeniable fact that all politicians brazenly demanding censorship, or imposing it, have been liberals (aka, Democrats, leftists, etc.). None has been conservative or libertarian. The data speaks for itself. In America, the Democratic Party is the party of censorship (among other things). And it is important to note that the Democratic Party of today is radically different from what it once was; it now champions totalitarianism, and the change has resulted in several traditional Democrats leaving the party.

It is also a fact that condemnation of these demands, or acts, of censorship has not taken place in the mainstream media, which I refer to as the hivemind.

• In 1974, Joe Biden boasted that politicians could do away with the First Amendment if they wanted to do so.

• Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren demanded that internet social media platforms impose censorship on criticism of presidential candidate Kamala Harris. She also demanded Amazon suppress the book “The Truth About COVID-19” by Drs. Mercola and Cummins.

• Rep. Frederica Wilson expressed her desire to censor and prosecute anyone who makes fun of Congress.

• Rep.  John Yarmuth called for banning teens from wearing MAGA caps.

• Adam Schiff with other Democrats introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the “Citizens United” decision, which was a historical free-speech victory. On a different occasion in a hearing in the Capitol, testimony was heard about the Biden administration’s extensive censorship via surrogates. Schiff and other Democrats claimed there was no censorship, then tried to remove from the record testimony given, i.e., censorship. A report was finalized and published on the weaponization of the government against its citizens. The mainstream media ignored it.

• And not content with that, Schiff wants Google to suppress “misogynistic” content.

• David Chipman was Biden’s pick to head the ATF. In 2019, he stated, “The frustration is in the United States the freedom of speech and to say things is [sic] largely cannot be regulated.” Republicans blocked his nomination.

• The Biden administration told Facebook to suppress conservatives on its website, and Facebook complied. It also told the agency to suppress COVID memes, especially funny ones, and Tucker Carlson. Jokes were suppressed (historically speaking, in all totalitarian regimes comedy/humor is taboo). COCID “misinformation” was likewise suppressed — though in the end, the “misinformation” was correct. Prior to the above, the Biden campaign asked Facebook to take down ads from the Trump re-election campaign of 2020. Later in 2024, Zuckerberg expressed regret in participating in suppressing information.

• Closely related to the topic at hand, Rep. Sean Maloney stated that religious liberty is a “bogus term” that serves as a “pretext for discrimination.”

• Apparently taking a page from the UK censorship, Michigan Democrats passed a law that punishes anyone using “hate speech.”

• Minnesota’s and Tim Walz’s prosecutor, Keith Ellison, applauded Brazil’s censorship of X. He also demanded that Amazon stop selling books from politically incorrect organizations and individuals.

• NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher complained the First Amendment makes it “tricky” to censor “disinformation” and “the influence peddlers” who spread it.

• A Democrat in the White House came up with the idea of a Disinformation Ministry within the Department of Homeland Security, which was so obvious in-your-face-1984 it was immediately canceled.

• Hillary Clinton wants everyone who voted for Trump to be put in re-education camps where they will be trained to censor their minds. The CNN reporter interviewing her nodded in approval. In another interview, she condemned Facebook for not censoring more effectively. She appeared on MSNBC right after the second attempted assassination of Trump to spread the vile hate that led indirectly to the attempt. She also insisted that Americans who voice different views and facts from hers (aka, disinformation) should be put in jail.

• Huffington Post fired David Seaman for writing two articles questioning Hillary Clinton’s health. The articles were deleted.

• Congressional Democrats, particularly California Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, attempted to eliminate the weakest of the few conservative news outlets, One America News, for covering forbidden topics. But they did not stop there, they also went after Fox News. They wrote letters demanding advertisers stop funding these outlets with ads, thereby economically strangulating them out of existence.

• -Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., has expressed a desire to “regulate” (the euphemism liberals use for “censor”) all speech.

• Back to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg admitted the FBI pressured him to suppress any news of the pervert/traitor/drug addict Hunter Biden and his infamous laptop.

• Kamala Harris stated that Elon Musk should lose the privilege of free speech for allowing free speech.

• Al Gore complained that the fact people can choose of their own free will to get views and information from sources other than the approved ones is a threat to democracy.

• A Louisiana court case has shown that there is a consistent pattern of attempts by the Democratic administration to suppress viewpoints and facts.

• AOC took a break from condemning cows for farting long enough to imply in an interview that conservative speech should be banned because anything conservatives say is incitement to violence (which violence, mind you, has not occurred, unlike with Antifa, BLM, Act Up, etc.).

• Democratic mayors got together to compose an anti-free speech manifesto covered with syrupy sweet verbiage to disguise its intent. It specifically highlighted San Antonio Chick-fil-A hater Ron Nirenberg who passed laws against referring to COVID-19 as the Wuhan virus, ordering the local police to harass anyone who said those words. Anyway, Democrat states are passing laws attempting to hamstring internet communication.

• Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro — not Fidel Castro — introduced legislation in Congress forbidding anyone to refer to illegal aliens as “illegal aliens.” Which is what the Democrat city of New York did.

• Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, suggested banning Fox News from troops overseas. In other words, the troops should be subjected to censorship. Swalwell, meantime, was having a fling with a Chinese spy named, appropriately enough, Fang Fang.

• When Tucker Carlson obtained video footage of the January 6 intrusion of Congress and aired said footage (which contradicted part of the narrative) Sen. Schumer and others demanded Fox News to suppress it and/or fire Carlson. Carlson and Fox soon thereafter parted ways.

• CNN host Jake Tapper asked why doesn’t Facebook hire enough people to weed out the “Nazis” ahead of the 2024 election (in this context, “Nazis” refers to people trying to stop the onrushing totalitarian train and those who believe in freedom).

• Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee introduced a bill that makes it a federal offense for white people to criticize blacks.

• “Rachel” Levine, a man pretending to be a woman, wants to eliminate any information that discourages children from sexual mutilation, preferring to instead promote it.

• Sen. Hirono wanted censorship of conservative outlets while claiming that there is no censorship of conservatives.

• Failed Democratic U.S. House candidate Pam Keith called the First Amendment, which protects freedom of assembly, worship, speech and press as a “cancer” in America.

• Vermont has seen several instances of suppressing messages, usually revolving around the sacred BLM and LGTBLMAO mob.

• House Democrats have expressed a desire to have “oversight” over Fox News editorials.

• Clinton’s former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, has written a book attacking free speech wrote an article for “The Guardian” damning Elon Musk for allowing free speech on X, and simultaneously called for Musk’s arrest.

• Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, well-known for putting tampons in schoolboys’ bathrooms, recently stated on this very issue, “There’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, especially in our democracy.”

• Perpetual failure Beto O’Rourke referred to Breitbart News, Fox News, and Sinclair News as terrorist organizations for broadcasting or publishing news and views he did not approve of. At one time, there was a lot of hype over the man during his many runs for office, but as one sign pointed out, he was “A fake Mexican, but a real pendejo.” No matter. As consolation, he was immediately given a teaching job at Texas State University.

There are many, many more instances of liberals in America demanding censorship in one way or another while giving ample justifications for their desired oppression, whether the subject of contention is electoral fraud, the COVID farce, sexual mutilation, or illegal immigration. The most frequent acts of censorship are, ironically, in universities. I have collected hundreds and hundreds of such instances to perhaps be listed another time. Intellectuals have given convoluted arguments as to why voting is a danger to democracy.

As can be seen, the totalitarian virus has spread unchecked. It has spread to such a degree that some Americans are demanding the Constitution should be trashed, the Supreme Court has got to be purged, and, that elections are a threat to democracy. And, yes, they are Democrats.

Twenty years ago, if anyone had voiced a desire for dictatorial powers as the above, the repercussions would have been debilitating for the would-be commissar, but we have now been desensitized to such obscenities.

Fortunately, the Constitution was engineered to protect the public from people like the Democrats.

Armando Simón is a trilingual native of Cuba with degrees in history and psychology. He is the author of “When Evolution Stops,” “The U,” and “Goodbye America. It Was Great While it Lasted.”

Progressives Thrive on Deceit

 

Progressives Thrive on Deceit

Kenin M. Spivak, The American Mind 

Conservatives must know their enemy and respond accordingly.

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” – George Orwell, 1984

To remake America, progressives have centered on a strategy of rewriting history, distorting current events, changing language, and using false allegations of disinformation, malinformation (facts progressives believe are presented out of context), and racism to censor and suppress centrists and conservatives.

By undermining confidence in American values, progressives have considerably advanced their efforts. They have controlled the White House and at least one house of Congress for 12 of the last 16 years, and the Supreme Court for nearly all of the last 70 years. Almost all major media outlets and reporters are in lockstep with progressive goals, lies, and omissions. Most report only about events and views that benefit the progressive agenda, and mischaracterize or suppress news, information, and opinions that may impede it. Progressives also control most federal agencies, many state agencies, leading universities, school boards, professional organizations such as the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association, most leading think tanks, and many corporate boards.

As the COVID pandemic raged, progressives spoke hopefully of a new world order in which experts would tell us how to live. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, often refer to this chaos as the “rules-based international order.” They and other progressives, including Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, see the U.S. as just one among many countries. That is why they oppose immigration controls, support global compacts, subordinate the United States to the United Nations, and believe the U.S. can use economic or military power only when supported by an international coalition.

In a recent article for RealClearPolicy about progressives’ crude ad hominem attacks on conservatives, I explained that progressive dogma is a fierce, culturally Marxist philosophy that: (1) demands all policies, resources, and opportunities be allocated in accordance with a benighted view of oppressors and victims centered on race, sex, and sexual orientation; (2) believes children are wards of the state to be indoctrinated by educators, while physically cared for by parents; (3) represses religion for being what Karl Marx described as “the opium of the people;” and (4) places a green agenda, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and the rights of criminals above free speech and assembly, the judicial process, and rights of petition. Progressives deny that ISIS and Hamas are terrorists, oppose Israel’s right of defense because Jews are “oppressors,” and believe children may select irreversible gender reassignment surgery without parental consent.

To achieve their goals, progressives must overcome deeply held American beliefs in individual freedom, merit, hard work, and pride in their country.

Curricula based on The 1619 Project, which “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery…at the very center of the United States’ national narrative,” Critical Race Theory (CRT), which teaches that all whites are guilty of bias, and Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria (ESG), which features progressive doctrine on DEI, climate change, and workers’ rights, has been infused into K-12 schools through action civics.

The National Association of Scholars has identified at least 45 state-level education standards in 25 states that incorporate these radical expressions of anti-American animus. Departments of education, accreditation agencies, university administrations, professional licensing organizations, and teachers unions mandate ideological training and DEI goals, and then coerce compliance as a condition of employment, promotion, and appointment to governing boards. Last year, the State Department announced that it will condition promotions and raises on an employee’s loyalty to DEI.

Eliminating or distorting teaching about Western civilization, American exceptionalism, and liberty leaves students uninformed about America’s unique story. An Echelon Insights poll highlights the cumulative impact of this indoctrination. Sixty-six percent of high schoolers viewed the U.S. as exceptional and unique, compared to 47% of college students; 63% of high-schoolers were proud of the U.S., compared to 40% of college students; and 58% of high-schoolers were patriotic, compared to just 35% of college students.

Concurrently, progressives are remaking the acceptable lexicon. They corrupt language and norms to deprive us of the ability to express nuance and understand distinctions.

Leading institutions, including government agencies, professional organizations, and universities, proclaim that our language is replete with hidden racism and genderism that must be cleansed with a new vocabulary featuring ideologically-laden phrases. Among the words that trouble the American Medical Association are “disadvantaged,” “equality,” and “disparities.” The politically acceptable terms are “historically and intentionally excluded,” “equity,” and “inequities.” Similarly, “ex-con” or “felon” are to be replaced with “returning citizen” or “persons with a history of incarceration,” and “fairness” with “social justice.”

“Illegal alien,” the term used in federal law for those who enter the U.S. without proper visas or overstay their visas, first became “undocumented alien” and then “non-citizens,” who somehow deserve all benefits to which citizens are entitled.

The American Dream of “equality” is replaced by “equity.” Instead of seeking fair opportunities, we are to seek outcomes in which so-called marginalized minorities receive benefits at least in proportion to their percentage of the relevant population. According to Ibram X. Kendi, if a person embraces DEI and allocates opportunities by race, he is “anti-racist;” otherwise, he is racist. Whites cannot be the victims of racism, because only members of marginalized minorities can be victims. Over the last several years, dictionary definitions of racism have been stealth edited to conform to this new paradigm.

“Infrastructure” has always meant roads, buildings, bridges, and the like. But progressives have implausibly expanded that term to include paid leave, child care, and caregiving. They falsely described the Biden-Harris $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan as an emergency COVID stimulus plan, even though 90% of the plan had nothing to do with COVID.

Contrary to the Associated Press’s adoption in 2015 of “they” as a singular pronoun, there are only two biological sexes, and an individual has never been a “they.” Just 0.6% of Americans identify as transgender. Yet, insisting there are only two sexes is now hate speech. Multiple professors have sued to retain the right to properly address their students. Columbia University threatens to terminate employees who don’t bow to the fiction that there are multiple genders, and the Biden-Harris Administration allows an “x” to be used as a gender on a passport.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s selection of three conservative Supreme Court justices, progressives advocated court packing by increasing the number of justices. They justified doing so by falsely asserting that Trump’s selection of justices based on their political leanings also was court packing. Dictionary.com changed its definition of court packing to “the practice of changing the number or composition of judges on a court, making it more favorable to particular goals or ideologies, and typically involving an increase in the number of seats on the court.” Here, “typically” supplants “always,” which is the threshold condition of court packing. Selecting justices based on their views is not court packing—it is what all presidents do. This is not mere semantics. This is a ploy intended to overcome the opposition of majorities of voters in both parties.

As progressives erase and change language, history, and values to create a foundation to change America’s way of life, they also corruptly fabricate, suppress, and misrepresent recent and current events to confuse voters, shield accountability for their failures, and disparage their opponents. The following is a list of recent political hoaxes promoted by progressive elected officials, bureaucrats, and major national media (my thanks to Breitbart News for identifying many of these):

• Russia Collusion Hoax
• Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is Russian Disinformation Hoax
• Biden Is Not Cognitively Impaired Hoax
• The Biden-Harris Administration Is Not Censoring Social Media Hoax
• Biden Is Not a Crook Hoax
• Project 2025 Hoax
• Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax
• Jussie Smollett Hoax
• Covington KKK Kids Hoax
• Very Fine People Hoax
• Drinking Bleach Hoax
• Seven-Hour Gap Hoax
• Russian Bounties to Taliban Hoax
• Trump Trashes Troops Hoax
• Policemen Killed on January 6 Protest Hoax
• Rittenhouse Hoax
• Eating While Black Hoax
• Border Agents Whipping Illegals Hoax
• NASCAR Noose Hoax
• The Georgia Jim Crow 2.0 Hoax
• COVID Lab Leak Theory Is Racist Hoax
• Biden Will Never Ban Gas Stoves Hoax
• COVID Deaths are Overcounted Is a Conspiracy Theory Hoax
• Mass Graves of Native Children in Canada Hoax
• Hamas Hospital Hoax
• The Alfa Bank Hoax

Hiding Biden’s cognitive impairment took dozens, if not hundreds, of staff, family, elected officials, and reporters. That hoax was revealed only when replacing Biden became imperative to defeat Trump. In lockstep, the progressive media complex abandoned its cover-up of Biden’s impairment and called for his replacement.

Harris’s and Tim Walz’s campaign became the second act of this hoax. With few exceptions, they refuse to discuss their records or beliefs, and falsely claim to have changed both. They willfully misstate Trump’s positions and falsely attribute to him sponsorship of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 (yet another hoax, as even USA Today and CNN have acknowledged).

A complicit media purports to fact check Trump, but seldom checks Harris or Walz. During the candidates’ debate last week, ABC’s moderators checked Trump in real time on six occasions (at least two of which were wrong), but never checked Harris, who repeatedly made false statements. Since then, a few mainstream media outlets have acknowledged some of Harris’s misstatements, though most give her the benefit of the doubt while blasting Trump for every imprecision or contentious assertion.

When the New Yorker’s fact checker, Susan Glasser, was caught pretending that Harris had never spoken in favor of taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgery for illegal aliens, rather than correct her article, she claimed that she intended to question “the political advisability of bringing up these things in a national debate.”

As Harris runs from her record, the media often scolds Republicans for pointing that out, or for tying her to the Biden-Harris Administration. That went too far even for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who explained that Harris has been a full partner in administration policies. And, last week, The New Republic reported that “much” of the new issues section on the Harris-Walz campaign website was lifted from Biden’s campaign website.

Though conservatives may win an occasional battle, there should be no illusions about the power and effectiveness of progressive deceptions, or the arc of recent history. After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College, and the strong consumer opposition to Bud Light’s woke capitalism, opponents of DEI won a few battles, but DEI is simply going underground with a name change. Some states have rolled back genital mutilation of children, men in girls’ sports, and CRT in schools, while other states and the Biden-Harris Administration have gone in the other direction.

More than 90 corporate leaders have endorsed Harris—who strongly supports DEI, reparations, increasing corporate taxes, taxing unearned income, censorship, and the full range of progressive policies. If she wins, the pendulum will swing strongly to progressive victories, as America moves ever-closer to an Orwellian dystopia.

Any conservative who believes that progressives have ethical limits is naive. If conservatives have any hope of changing course, Republicans will need to win the presidency, control of both houses of Congress, gubernatorial elections, and state legislatures. To do so in November, and then to keep winning, conservatives must understand the ruthlessness and entrenched power of progressives, and must respond with equal or superior tactics. Marquess of Queensberry rules won’t do.

Tim Walz: Mao’s Missionary

Tim Walz: Mao’s Missionary

Anyone who wanted to pass on copies of the Little Red Book is not intellectually fit to execute the office of vice president under the Constitution of the United States.

Stephen B. Young, American Greatness 

According to one of his students, during their 1995 trip to China, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz sought out copies of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book to give to American friends.

Anyone who, in 1995—two decades after the Great Helmsman’s death and the truth about his unconscionable tyranny over the Chinese people had become widely known—wanted to pass on copies of the Little Red Book is not intellectually fit to execute the office of vice president under the Constitution of the United States.

For those who did not live through Mao’s Cultural Revolution or who don’t remember his Little Red Book, let me fill you in.

I have a first edition of the Little Red Book from 1966 with Lin Biao’s introduction, purchased in Hong Kong. The book contains quotations from Chairman Mao’s many writings. The small book of 311 pages, each 3X5 inches, had a plastic red cover. Millions were printed and handed out. The purpose of the book was to indoctrinate all Chinese with correct Maoist thinking, to make them “Red,” as the saying was, in mind, heart, and spirit, dependent on the Chairman and his Chinese Communist Party as their thought leader.

As Lin Biao wrote in his introduction to the Little Red Book (before he turned against Mao and died when his airplane was shot out of the sky as he was trying to escape to Russia): “The most fundamental task … is at all times to hold high the great red banner of Mao Zedong thought and to arm the minds of the people throughout the country with it.”

A Chinese student of mine in the early 1980s described how the Little Red Book was used by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Liu Pei had been sent from Beijing to work as a field hand in a rural cooperative to learn how to be a model “Red” Chinese. A Red Guard would come up to him and verbally pounce with a number, say “36” or “114.” Liu Pei was expected to recite every word of the Chairman printed on that page.

If one word was forgotten or mispronounced, it was taken as evidence of not being sufficiently “Red” and patriotic. Therefore, discipline was administered and more right-thinking education imposed to help him self-correct and eradicate the non-proletarian tendencies of his personality.

The author of the book, by the way, is credited with causing the deaths of at least 30 million Chinese, which puts Mao way ahead of Adolph Hitler as a killer of people.

So, we might consider the Little Red Book as the Chinese counterpart to a mini Mein Kampf setting out the thinking of the leader—Fuhrer in German and Lingxiu in Chinese.

With this parallel to Hitler in mind, we might say that the key sentence in the Little Red Book is this: “Every Communist must grasp the truth, ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’”

Thus, the Little Red Book instructs us to impose our will, our ideology, on others through force, never taking “Let’s talk about it” for an answer.

Did Tim Walz really think we needed this in America back in 1995? Is this the socialism that Walz thinks of as just friendly and nice “neighborliness?”

The Little Red Book says too, “The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution.”

The Little Red Book was also famous on the American Left for passing on Mao’s dictum that “a revolution is not a dinner party.”

Other dicta of the Chairman quoted in the Little Red Book include:

“The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.”

(I wonder if Walz had this in mind when he spoke of the 2020 riots in Minneapolis as pardonable given past wrongs done to African Americans.)

“The masses have a potentially inexhaustible enthusiasm for socialism. … those who are utterly incapable of seeing this enthusiasm are blind and all is dark ahead of them.”

“In a class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.”

“Our present task is to strengthen the people’s state apparatus—mainly the people’s army, the people’s police, and the people’s courts—in order to consolidate national defense and protect the people’s interests.”

“The people’s democratic dictatorship is based on the alliance of the working class, the peasantry, and the urban petty bourgeoisie.”

“We must conscientiously get rid of every unhealthy manifestation in any link in our work that is detrimental to the unity between the Party and the people.”

“The Revolutionary War is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses.”

“Revolutionary culture is a powerful revolutionary weapon for the broad masses of the people. It prepares the ground ideologically before the revolution comes and is an important, indeed essential, fighting front in the general revolutionary front during the revolution.”

How could any of these dicta have been inspiring or relevant to Americans in 1995 (or to the Chinese for that matter)?

And in 2024, they don’t feel like the politics of Joy either.

Stephen B. Young is the author of Kissinger’s Betrayal: How America Lost the Vietnam War

Chaos in Aurora

Chaos in Aurora

How the federal government subsidized the migrant madness in suburban Colorado. 

Christina Buttons, Christopher F. Rufo, City Journal 

Aurora, Colorado, is normally a quiet, nondescript suburb 30 minutes outside Denver. In recent months, however, the city has been at the center of a national scandal.

Beginning last year, a large influx of Venezuelan migrants, some of them members of the notorious Tren de Aragua street gang, reportedly had “taken over” a series of apartment buildings in Aurora—and unleashed terror. Last month, Venezuelan migrants were allegedly implicated in an attempted homicide, an arrest of purported gang members, and shocking security footage that showed heavily armed men forcibly entering one of the apartments. In response to the chaos, police mobilized en masse and vacated one of the complexes after the city, alleging code violations, deemed it uninhabitable.

An obvious question: How did members of Venezuelan gangs suddenly find themselves in suburban Colorado? To answer this, we have conducted an exclusive investigation, which leads to a troubling conclusion: the Biden administration, in partnership with Denver authorities and publicly subsidized NGOs, provided the funding and logistics to place a large number of Venezuelan migrants in Aurora, creating a magnet for crime and gangs. And, worse, some of the nonprofits involved appear to be profiting handsomely from the situation.

The story begins in 2021, when the Biden administration signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) into law, allocating $3.8 billion in federal funds to Colorado. The City of Denver, which had declared itself a “welcoming city” to migrants, drew on this reservoir of money to launch its Emergency Migrant Response resettlement program, with the goal of housing and providing services to a massive flow of migrants.

Denver, in turn, signed multimillion-dollar contracts with two local NGOs, ViVe Wellness and Papagayo, to provide housing and services to more than 8,000 predominantly Venezuelan migrants. These NGOs are run, respectively, by Yoli Casas and Marielena Suarez, who, according to professional biographies, do not appear to have previous experience in large-scale migrant resettlement.

Nevertheless, the city flooded them with cash. According to public records, between 2023 and 2024, ViVe Wellness and Papagayo received $4.8 million and $774,000, respectively; much of this funding came from the Migrant Support Grant, which was funded by ARPA. Then, in 2024, ViVe secured an extra $10.4 million across three contracts, while Papagayo received $2.9 million from a single contract to serve migrants; two of those five contracts were awarded to implement the Denver Asylum Seekers Program, which promised six months of rental assistance to nearly 1,000 migrants.

With this funding in hand, the two NGOs began working with landlords to place migrants in housing units and to subsidize their rent. One of these organizations, Papagayo, worked with a landlord called CBZ Management, a property company that operates the three apartment buildings at the center of the current controversy: Edge of Lowry, Whispering Pines, and Fitzsimons Place, also known as Aspen Grove.

We spoke with a former CBZ Management employee, who, on condition of anonymity, explained how the process worked. Last summer, the employee said, representatives from Papagayo began working with CBZ Management to place Venezuelan migrants in the company’s Aurora apartment complexes. When a Venezuelan individual or family needed housing, the NGO would contact the regional property manager, who then matched them with available apartments.

It was a booming business. According to the employee, Papagayo arranged hundreds of contracts with the property manager. The NGO provided up to two months of rental assistance, as many migrants did not have, or were unable to open, bank accounts. Within six months, according to the employee, approximately 80 percent of the residents of these buildings were Venezuelan migrants. The employee also noted that the buildings saw gang activity and violence.

The employee, however, alleges that these agreements were made on false pretenses. To convince the hesitant employee to accept the migrants, Papagayo made assurances that the tenants had stable jobs and income. With limited English and facing a minimum six-month wait for work permits, though, many migrants were ineligible for legal employment, struggled to find stable jobs, and ultimately fell behind on rent.

This was only the beginning. As the Venezuelan migrants settled in the apartments, they caused lots of trouble. According to a confidential legal report we have obtained, based on witness reports, the apartments saw a string of crimes, including trespassing, assault, extortion, drug use, illegal firearm possession, human trafficking, and sexual abuse of minors. Each of the three apartment complexes has since shown a localized spike in crime.

Volunteers who spoke with us on condition of anonymity said they were initially eager to assist with migrant resettlement but grew disillusioned with the NGOs running it. “I am passionate about helping migrants and I have been honestly shocked at the way the city is sending funds to an organization that clearly is not equipped to handle it,” one volunteer said.

The City of Denver, for its part, appears to be charging ahead. It recently voted to provide additional funding for migrant programs and, according to the right-leaning Common Sense Institute, the total cost to Denver could be up to $340 million, factoring in new burdens on schools and the health-care system. And the city also appears to have no qualms about exporting the crisis to the surrounding suburbs, including Aurora, which, in 2017, had declared itself a non-sanctuary city.

The truth is that there is no sanctuary for a city, a county, or a country that welcomes—and, in fact, attracts—violent gang members from Venezuela. This is cruelty, not compassion. Unfortunately, it might take more than the seizure of an apartment building, a dramatic rise in crime, and a grisly murder for cities like Denver to change course.

Christina Buttons is an independent journalist. Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the author of America’s Cultural Revolution.

“Pre-Game Warm-Up - The Great Debate Tonite”

“Pre-Game Warm-Up - The Great Debate Tonite”

Joe Sullivan,Layers_Of_Truth

This morning, at the expense of dating myself, I‘m thinking about when I was a youngster back when John F. Kennedy ran against Richard M. Nixon leading up to the 1960 Presidential Election. Nixon was then the Vice President in Eisenhower’s administration. Kennedy was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.

Both men were respected for their past accomplishments. Both men had prevailed in winning their respective party’s nominations. The 3 major networks ABC, CBS and NBC had discussed their political differences in ways that were factually fair and correct - but (in those days) the networks didn’t engage in using language that minimized the character of the candidates. The networks reported the pre-debate “news” in generally neutral terms…

The Kennedy-Nixon Debate was the first Presidential Debate to be televised. However, most American families did not have televisions and the majority listened on the radio. After the debate, the majority who listened thought that Nixon had won - but the majority of those who watched thought that Kennedy had won…. The media commentators pointed out that while Kennedy looked “tanned and rested”, Nixon looked “pale and nervous”… 

In my opinion, this was the beginning of an unfortunate trend in American politics where the way candidates “look” on television became increasingly more important than what they actually “said” or “stood for”. Increasingly over time, “ISSUES” gradually became less important than “PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES” and “SOUND BYTES” - both of which are media inventions… just like selling “soap” in commercials.

Similarly, Presidential Debates have devolved since the “Age of Television” began. In 1960, the two candidates stood at podiums and answered questions from Howard K. Smith of ABC News. They listened quietly and respectfully while their opponent spoke and were then given an opportunity to respond. It was all appropriate and dignified…

Modern debates from recent elections have been characterized by occasional interruptions and sarcasm - as well as facial gestures while the opponent is speaking. These are strategies intended to intimidate the opponent and break their concentration while they’re speaking…. None of these strategies would work unless the debates were televised…. 

On that point - it is now the case that the journalists who conduct the questioning are now considered “media personalities” in their own right who have risen to national prominence over many years. Consequently, they conduct the questioning by instilling their own attitudes toward the candidates. In that way - they make themselves part of the coverage. Often, these same “personalities” have clashed with the candidates in previous interviews or otherwise revealed their own bias for the individual candidates. Some of these media “types” have previously served in government before joining the media. In one infamous case, such a person was Donna Brazille - who actually gave the list of questions to candidate Hillary Clinton before the debate!

Modern Presidential Debates are essentially a media-driven production where each campaign looks to install aspects of their appearance or their opponent’s persona to gain their own advantage on camera. The questions asked are often dodged as the candidates try to use “talking points” to send a separate message to the audience. When the opponent is given time to respond or rebut - they often use their time to underscore their own “talking points”…

Frankly, these “media events” are no longer “real debates” - and the public interest is now poorly served…

IN CONCLUSION… Don’t expect anything truly significant from tonite’s debate. Both candidates have a strategy going in and both of them will follow the “script” that they and their handlers have practiced. I expect that because of the extraordinary influence of media commentators the public perception of the candidates BEFORE the debate will be reinforced AFTERWARD.

WITH THAT SAID…. I believe that PRESIDENT TRUMP will surprise many tonite by focusing on his PLANS for how his administration will address the future. Those who expect him to attack Kamala Harris personally will be generally disappointed. Kamala Harris will try to avoid accounting for her record with Biden and try instead to engage in her plans to “tax the rich” to pay for the needs of the “under-served” in American society. In that way she will be running on ENVY and CLASS WARFARE…

President Trump will give undecided voters something to vote FOR while Harris will reveal that the future will largely be “MORE OF THE SAME” if she’s elected.

As President Lincoln said: “You can fool ALL of the people SOME of the time; you can fool SOME of the people ALL of the time - but you can’t fool ALL of the people ALL of the time.”

God Bless You  God Bless America

America is STILL the Hope of the World! 

VOTE!

The Biden-Harris World Is Afire

 

The Biden-Harris World Is Afire

Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness 

Somehow the United States ended up this summer with no engaged president and an absent vice president who avoids the missing president and is frantically repudiating everything she co-owned the last three years.

The world was already confused over how President Joe Biden was apparently declared by unnamed Democratic insiders and donors unfit and unable to continue as their presidential candidate—as if he were a dethroned Third-World usurper.

It further wondered how those who staged his removal had no problem allowing him, in his debilitated state, to continue as America’s commander-in-chief until January 20, 2025. They demonstrated their priorities that focus on retaining power, not the welfare of the nation or the will of over 14 million Biden primary voters.

Vice President Kamala Harris, until Biden’s forced abdication, was judged by these same backroom fixers as too incompetent to ever be commander-in-chief and thus for three years a good reason why Biden apparently was not forced out earlier.

Now nominal Vice President Harris is on the campaign trail nonstop, while Biden has taken the most vacation time off and worked the shortest workweek in presidential memory.

The world again wonders who is in charge, what they believe, who is a friend, and who is an enemy. Harris is busy trying to get elected on three premises: disowning her prior co-ownership of what was mostly a disastrous Biden term and certainly no recommendation for reelection; reinventing her affluent radical past and present as moderate and working-class; and keeping absolutely silent about any detailed agenda or policy plan for governance as president.

Our rivals and opponents abroad cannot decide which is better for their own anti-American agendas—a derelict and absent Biden-Harris or dealing with a cognitively challenged Biden and a linguistically loopy Harris?

So, again, who or what now governs America?

Is it Biden again at the beach or closing up shop at noon for his nap and early bedtime?

Or is it Vice President Harris, far from the White House, out campaigning and confused over who she really is or wants to be, what, if anything, she plans on doing if elected president, and how to avoid any unscripted moment?

Or are our real rulers the stealth cabal of Democratic grandees and billionaire donors who arranged the Biden presidency by forcing out his 2020 primary rivals, staged the conspiratorial silence about his real disabilities for well over three years, ambushed him, and forced him off the Democratic ticket, and are now frantically reinventing Kamala Harris as capable and centrist when just a few months ago they had written her off as incompetent and a hopeless wannabe California radical?

As a result, a confused but also encouraged world of enemies watches the listless United States and wonders whether to try something stupid.

In this widening vacuum, lots of foreign opportunists, outright enemies, and nihilists are seizing the day—on the assurance that Biden is not a lame duck, but a lame, lame duck, and Harris is a near functionary in search of an identity and an idea.

The Houthis, a ragtag cabal of terrorists who hijacked Yemen after shaking off a few prior Biden “precision” retaliatory strikes, now “own” the Red Sea. They just hit a Greek-flagged oil tanker that is now adrift and polluting the Red Sea. It serves as their warning for commercial ships to keep clear of their mare nostrum.

The Houthis expect neither a Western nor an American response to ensure safe transit in and out of the southern Mediterranean by the world’s commercial fleet. Apparently, they believe that they are so backward, and their drones are so cheap and simple that the top-heavy U.S. cannot afford to hit their ad hoc launches with sophisticated, multimillion-dollar, and often misapplied weapons. And they are probably right.

Indeed, under Biden-Harris, the world has now lost free and safe transit in the Red Sea, the Black Sea, the South China Sea, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Eastern Mediterranean. Will the Caribbean or mid-Atlantic be next? The military is short thousands of troops, the merchant marines idling ships.

Our NATO enemy/“ally” Turkey—when it is not threatening to send missiles against fellow NATO member Greece, bragging about once again ethnic cleansing Armenians, leveling more warnings to Cyprus, bombing the Kurds, colluding with the Russians and Chinese, trying to veto Finnish and Swedish NATO membership, or claiming US nuclear weapons based in Turkey are virtually its own—apparently has created such an anti-American climate that its pro-Erdogan street thugs feel they can beat up visiting American sailors, docking at Izmir to help aid the Turkish navy.

Not a peep follows from the White House. If it had, President Recep Erdogan would have leveled one of his accustomed unhinged responses.

Hamas just murdered more of its Israeli hostages, among them an American citizen.

Now non-candidate Biden is apparently still more worried about 250,000 Muslim voters in Michigan (who profess more solidarity with Hamas than lament the murder of a fellow citizen) than US interests in the Middle East. He customarily and matter-of-factly issued one of his empty editorials before returning to form by performance art blasting Israel.

In Biden’s world, our closest and only democratic ally in the Middle East is at fault because it will not, this election year, give constant concessions to the murderous Hamas clique. Biden-Harris forget that Hamas started the current war by butchering 1,200 Israelis at a time of peace, scrambled back to its subterranean labyrinth with over 250 hostages, hid their terrorist killers under schools, hospitals, and mosques, murdered any who were about to be rescued by Israeli forces, and promised to kill more if rescue attempts continue.

The Biden-Harris messaging seems simple: pro-Western, civilized, and consensually governed nations are rational and so listen to the U.S. and therefore should be leveraged and often punished for rationality; anti-American, medieval, and theocratic terrorist cabals do not and therefore should be appeased and exempted from criticism or retaliation given their lawlessness.

Normally, when asked about foreign threats to harm Americans or their interests, Biden gives one of his accustomed blowhard, one-word threats, “Don’t!” That empty and tired banality is now interpreted abroad as zero consequences will follow when you harm America. As a general rule, an animated Biden is far more likely to threaten to beat up or go after Trump than Hamas or Iran.

Harris has been mum—other than her usual on the one hand/on the other hand vacuity. Her vice presidential candidate running mate, the usually frenetic and loquacious Tim Walz, when asked directly about the murder of an American hostage, similarly goes mum—and simply waved off the question and turned away. Walz seems as terrified as Harris of any unrehearsed utterance, as if he knows only his silence masks his foolery.

Brazil, as was warned by many, is heading toward full-scale Latin American communism of the Venezuela/Nicaragua/Cuba sort. It is now waging a censorship war against Elon Musk with the tacit approval of the Biden-Harris consortium—for the crime of turning the former useful Twitter leftwing and censored megaphone into a global free speech pavilion.

Ukraine has now been inside Mother Russia for weeks, which is strategically understandable but geo-strategically dangerous against a nuclear hyperpower run by a ruthless dictator. Biden has no clue what the U.S. is doing other than supplying enough arms to Ukraine not to lose but more than enough to trigger a wider theater war. Ask Biden and Harris what the U.S. strategy is on Ukraine, and one will mumble incomprehensibly, the other, if unguarded, plunge into a circular word salad about the “art of diplomacy” or “democratic fragility.”

Iran is more afraid of an Israeli response than U.S. threats.

Or is it worse than that? Does the theocracy now rely on Biden-Harris to restrain any Israeli retaliation for the tens of thousands of rockets launched by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran against the Jewish state.?

All Biden-Harris had to do was continue the Trump protocol of warning Iran to stay out of the conflict. Instead, it de facto greenlighted the Iranian supply chain to Hamas and Hezbollah and turned all of them loose to murder.

In truth, US foreign policy toward Iran is the resumption of the Obama-era embrace of the supposed underdog Shiite/Persian counterweight to Gulf moderates and democratic Israel. Biden-Harris cares not a whit whether Iran goes nuclear and might even in their warped Ben-Rhodes/Barack Obama-era imbecility tacitly support such nuclearization to “rein in” the Jewish state.

Mexico’s outgoing “president,” Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has now unabashedly also gone full communist. As he preps the way for his even harder-left successor, Obrador is seeking to destroy what is left of Mexico’s democracy.

AMLO, remember, bragged of the tens of millions of illegal aliens that Mexico drove out and into the U.S.—especially given the $60 billion in remittances they send to prop up an otherwise failed narco-state. In retirement, he will brag that he was the first Mexican president to destroy the U.S. border.

He even urged all Mexican-American expatriates to vote anti-Republican. For the next few months, he will cooperate with the US to slow down the influx northward in order to allow Harris-Biden to claim they are for pre-November 5 election-cycle “border security.” And thereby help Harris get elected and welcome in another 10 million illegal aliens.

In his delusions, AMLO—who proved one of the truly dangerous anti-Americans on the world stage—thinks he is winning phase two of the 19th-century Mexican War. In fact, all he is proving is that millions of Mexicans want out of his country and only romanticize it when they are safely and permanently distant from its numerous failed paradigms.

In sum, there really is no President Biden or Vice President Harris. The former is non compos mentis and failing ever more rapidly. The latter has no clue who she is or what she should do. The cabal that engineered their respective exits and entrances cares more about retaining power than using it for American interests.

So, we are in perilous times.

All of our enemies and even former neutrals are coming out of the woodwork. They are convinced that the next two months offer one-time advantages—unless Harris is elected and thus can extend their opportunities for four more years of what Americans see as a chaotic decline, but the world abroad views as a rare and ripe opportunity.