The Case Against Socialism, Part IV

February 28, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Building on Part I, Part II, and Part III of this series, here’s a video debunking some online socialists who are inexplicably popular.

As you can see, the video cites real socialists – i.e., people who defend policies such as government ownership of the means of production.

What’s amusing – though predictable – is that none of those economic illiterates were willing to be interviewed by John Stossel.

I suspect their cowardice is mostly due to the fact that they are trying to defend the indefensible.

It’s easy to spout nonsense to a friendly audience of acolytes, but it’s entirely different to defend preposterous beliefs when being grilled by someone – like Stossel – who actually knows something.

As you can see in the video, all of the specific socialist talking points got debunked (such as socialists taking credit for advances in China and Vietnam that were only possible because of partial economic liberalization).

So my contribution to today’s discussion will be to cite data from the most-recent edition of Economic Freedom of the World.

I already wrote about that report, but primarily to bemoan the global decline in economic freedom and to highlight the world’s freest and more repressive economies.

But I did include this graph, which is (or at least should be) a slam-dunk argument for more economic liberty and less socialism.

And here are two more graphs from EFW that are worth sharing.

Figure 1.4 looks at average per-capita economic output by quartile. As you can see, the world’s freest economies have more than seven times as much per-capita GDP.

Socialists claim to be concerned about the poor.

Many of them, I’m sure, are very sincere.

But they also are very wrong about their preferred economic system. That’s because Figure 1.9 reveals that material deprivation is almost non-existent if free economies, but is very common in statist economies.

I’ll close by noting that there are different strains of statism, so not every lowly ranked country is socialist. But the flip side of that statement is that every socialist country is lowly ranked. Which is a statement that belongs in the not-surprising file.

Mine, Baby, Mine – Right Here in the USA!

For jobs, revenue, national security, defense and medical needs; to end child labor, pollution 

By Paul Driessen 

President Trump’s Executive Orders have ended US participation in the Green New Deal and Paris climate treaty. He’s also terminated mandates, programs and subsidies that would have changed our reliable, affordable energy systems to wind, solar and battery power for all-electric homes, schools, hospitals, businesses, factories, farms, transportation and shipping.

His actions will benefit wild, scenic and agricultural lands in America and worldwide. 

•  Wind, solar and transmission line installations would have sprawled across tens of millions of acres, impacting habitats, farmlands and scenic vistas, onshore and offshore; interfered with water flow, aviation, shipping and other activities; and killed whales, birds and other wildlife.

• These “clean, green” technologies require far more raw materials than the equipment they replace: electric cars need 4-6 times more metals and minerals than gasoline counterparts; onshore wind turbines require 9 times more raw materials than equivalent megawatts from combined-cycle natural gas turbines; offshore wind requires 14 times more materials than gas turbines; solar panels are just as resource-intensive. And we’d still need gas power plants or grid-scale batteries for windless/sunless periods.

• Those raw material needs would require mining at levels unprecedented in human history. Just meeting “green energy” plus “normal” needs for copper would require more than twice as much copper mining as occurred throughout human history up to now. That would mean mine shafts and open-pit mines; ore removal, crushing and processing; and land, air and water pollution – on unprecedented scales. 

• Converting those raw materials into finished technologies, and transporting, installing, maintaining and ultimately removing the turbines, panels, transformers, power lines, batteries and other equipment would require unfathomable quantities of materials, equipment and energy. 

• All this mining and processing, equipment damaged and destroyed under normal operations and from extreme weather, leaching from non-recyclable components in landfills, and huge infernos when batteries ignite would send massive quantities of toxic chemicals into air, soils and water worldwide.

• US mining, processing, manufacturing and waste disposal would be done under tough environmental, workplace safety and human rights standards. Not so in despotic regimes in the rest of the world.   

• A large portion of the cobalt, lithium, rare earth, graphite and other exotic and strategic materials still come from China, which has monopoly control over mining and processing them. That puts US and Western energy, transportation, communication, AI, defense systems and national security at great risk.

Simply put, humanity would have had to destroy the planet with green energy mining and systems, to save it from imaginary GIGO computer-modeled climate cataclysms.

President Trump’s actions have dramatically reduced all these mining needs, ecological impacts and dependence on adversarial nations. However, modern industrialized civilization still requires metals, minerals and energy in enormous quantities. We must still find and produce these materials, to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s emerging and still unknown needs. 

 Thankfully, the United States is blessed with mineral wealth. Plate tectonics and other geologic processes have created enormous deposits of metals and minerals throughout Alaska and the Lower 48 States. Most have yet to be found, much less mapped or developed, to serve strategic US needs.

By 1994, when I helped prepare what was likely the last land withdrawal summary, mineral exploration and development had been restricted or banned on federal lands equal to Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming combined. That’s 420 million acres – 19% of the USA; 66% of all federal/public lands. The situation has gotten “progressively” worse since then.

Today, mineral exploration is prohibited (or severely restricted) on almost 80% of all federally managed lands. And those 500,000,000+ acres of no-access lands likely contain many of the best metal and mineral prospects in the USA – again because of their unique geologic history.

Those lands were closed to mineral exploration to protect scenic and ecological values, but with little or no regard for their potential subsurface treasures, without which modern civilization cannot function. Many were deliberately placed off-limits by anti-mining activists, land managers and judges – to prevent access to prospects and even curtail America’s industries and economy.

Indeed, they were closed to exploration despite clear statutory language stating that gathering information about mineral resources via “planned, recurring” mineral exploration is required by law in designated wilderness areas, if the exploration is conducted in a way that preserves “the wilderness environment.” If that work is required in wilderness areas, there is no reason to prohibit it elsewhere – especially since today’s technologies ensure it can be done with minimal impacts.  National parks should be off-limits. In most cases, these other citizen-owned lands should not.

These lands and mineral treasures belong to all Americans, not just to hikers and anti-mining activists. And basic morality demands that we begin meeting US needs right here in the USA – not in foreign countries, where impoverished, powerless people have no say in the matter, and where the impacts are out of sight and mind for virtue-signaling activists, bureaucrats and politicians.  We must remove the roadblocks and start exploring for American mineral deposits immediately.

The process will begin with remote sensing technologies on satellites, airplanes and drones, to collect data on magnetic and other anomalies and trends over large areas, enabling geologists to identify potentially mineralized areas. Artificial intelligence will help evaluate results more quickly and in greater detail than was ever before possible, leading to better decisions about which areas merit closer examination.

Aerial and ground-based work will augment these initial gravitational, magnetic, electromagnetic and other surveys by mapping outcrops and showings of indicator minerals, to identify potential mineralized areas more precisely. This stage also includes rock and soil sampling, plus analyzing data from mining and exploration during previous decades and centuries, to pinpoint locations where core drilling may be warranted, using relatively small equipment brought in by truck or helicopter.

Three-inch-diameter cores extracted from hundreds or thousands of feet below the surface will be examined and assayed in labs to measure mineral content in multiple locations throughout a prospect. If results are positive, additional cores will be drilled and instruments may be sent down boreholes to gather more data. This will enable geologists and geophysicists to create 3-D computerized profiles of possible ore bodies deep beneath the surface – all with minimal ecological disturbance.

At some point, we will know enough about the subsurface resource potential – for metals and minerals for existing or brand-new technologies – that mining engineers, government specialists, financiers and voters can determine whether companies should spend billions of dollars to extract the ores … under stringent US land, air, water, wildlife habitat, endangered species, reclamation and other requirements. 

Relatively few Americans today have worked on farms or in mines, oilfields, refineries or factories. Few understand where their food, clothing, cell phones, cosmetics and other essential products actually come from. Most would be astonished to learn that nearly everything we touch or use ultimately comes from holes in the ground.  Always has; always will. 

That’s why we must “Mine, baby, mine” right here in the United States, to survive and prosper. 

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy, environment, climate change and human rights issues.

Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Part VII, Fake News

It the Pravda Media didn't have fake news, it wouldn't have any news at all, and America would have blessed silence.

By Rich Kozlovich, Tags: My Media Commentaries

On Tuesday, February 25, 2025, Daniel Greenfield published this article, Media Still Doesn’t Understand That Nobody Trusts It, saying: 

“The White House Correspondents Association says the public can no longer trust pool reports now”

And the AP thought we trusted what came out of their media pool before this?  That's what happens when people live in an echo chamber of nitwits.  He goes on to show just how out of touch the media is noting that even Democrats have little trust in the Pravda media and concludes saying, "The media has yet to grasp the fundamental fact that the public, with complete justice, distrusts it." 

The reason the media lacks trust is because they've been caught lying.  The list of fake news items by the Pravda media, both print and electronic, is legion!  This list is just the tip of the iceberg, and the media has much to answer for.

Let's start with their lies regarding covid.  The media spewed out totally irrational and unfounded fears over a drug that's been on the market for human use for decades, calling it a "horse" drug, Ivermectin.  But now it's been confirmed what many of us believed from the beginning that Ivermectin successfully treats covid in spite of all the media's lies.  Lies all in order to support the tyranny the left imposed on the nation in an attempt to force everyone to get these ineffective false vaccines, here, here, and here.  How many people died unnecessarily for being deprived of Ivermectin? How many have died from the adverse reactions as a result of getting these shots?  The number is massive and will continue to grow, and will dwarf the Thalidomide scandal that shocked the world.  How many more will die or suffer negative physical consequences over the coming years as a result of taking these shot?  

The California wildfires show blatant mainstream media failure, but it was in reality the same old tactic they've been using forever.  Blame someone else other than the nitwit leftists who are responsible, and of course, it was Trump's fault, after all, Democrats are incapable of doing anything wrong, incompetent, or just downright stupid.  If you live in an alternative universe.  Later when the hysteria dies down, maybe they'll report the facts, buried on page ten in the newspapers, and a ten second statement on television.  Maybe! Make no mistake, if this was a Republican administration the media would have been ranting and screaming for their scalps everyday.   Well, hello Hollywood, it's the Democrats fault, and since all there Trump Derangement Syndrome rants have fails, they can't find enough fingers to point at each other.   Newsome blamed Bass, Bass blamed her fire chief, and yet they all knew about those risks and not only did nothing to minimize those risks, they deliberately maximized those risks with their policies.  And the media never noticed.

L.A. Councilwoman on Bass Firing Chief: We All Knew About Fire Risks, Budget Cuts ‘Led to Operational Impacts’

When a black is fired for any reason we know.... absolutely know..... it's racism, competence notwithstanding.  Why?  Because Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was going to be fired because he was a committed racist who claims how hard his life was because he's black.  Yet he managed to become a four start general.  How many attain that rank?  Darned few.  How many whites or Asians attain that rank? Darned few.  Yet he managed to get there, so maybe being black is what got him promoted?  Waddayathink? 

 

The reason Brown was fired is because he was a racist. 

 

"Brown disgraced himself and his uniform during the Black Lives Matter race riots by releasing a video in which he “seemed to barely contain his rage” while ranting “that the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ‘that I’ve sworn my adult life to support and defend’ have not always delivered ‘liberty and equality’ to all.” More disturbingly, he had signed his name to a report proposing quotas to make white male officers a minority......

 

Then we come to immigration, and it's clear as a bell to the media any effort at mass deportation of illegal migrants a racist purge.  How about they're being deported because they're criminals?   And no, Trump did not cancel the Tuskegee Airmen.

There's no end to their fakery, as in deception, fraud, cheating, lying, dissimulation, and dissembling.   Illinois Governor Pritzker, a real loon with an amazing lack of credibility to any sane person, was in support of the false claim by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) that ICE agents raided a school.  Reality?  "It wasn’t ICE. 

 

It was agents from the Secret Service investigating a threat at the school."  But hey, C'mon man, what do facts have to do with news?  

 

And what was the reaction to an Afghan stabbing in Michigan? Welcome more of the same.  Not outrage over the growing violence Muslims are bringing to America, nooooooo, the answer is we need more Muslims who come from violent and irrational societies that hate America, Christians, Jews, Democracy, and western civilization as a whole.  What could possibly go wrong?  As long as we understand none of that causes Muslim terrorism.   No sir, the real answer is it's being caused by MAGA induced toxic masculinity!   It's Trump's fault.  

Besides, it appears the media likes criminals.  Why else would they claim that Mexican drug cartels who are making billions selling illegal drugs, raping and killing women and children, things would be made worse if Trump uses special forces to go after them? What made it happen in the first place was Joe Biden's open borders policies, and the leftist Democrat prosecutors and judges who turned violent criminals loose. 

 

But the media knows it's really all Trump's fault.  Even though this has exploded over the last four years under Joe Biden, and Trump has only been back as President in a little over thirty days, it's still Trump's fault.  I mean....C'mon man, who can find fault with that kind logic?  

 

They went after Pete Hegseth like rabid dogs, repeating known lies, as GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty says, this isn't journalism, it's propaganda.  But why is anyone shocked?  The leftist media has been the stenographers for the Democrat party for over 100 years, but now the alternative media is ascendant, and it's all changing. The Pravda media with it's propaganda is in trouble.

 

Fear mongering is now, and has always been, the rule for the press.  If it bleeds it leads, and the New York Times, the, "all the news that's fit to print", newspaper oozes with fear mongering.  I really love the media's take on economics, and big government.  Did you know that if Trump dumps thousands of needless, expensive and incompetent government bureaucrats it will hurt the economy?  Interesting take from a group of people who because of implementation of the tyrannical schemes by the government regarding covid, over 20 million jobs were lost.  And they thought that was just fine and dandy.  

1.  Media disseminates fear porn over Trump’s federal downsizing February 24, 2025 by Jack Hellner Here is an absolutely unbelievable (yet humorous) story being spread by the media to scare the public.
2.  Trump restores oversight, and media decries ‘wrecking ball’ politics February 21, 2025 by Olivia Murray Yet, they were conspicuously silent as Biden and his cronies went nuclear.

Part and parcel of all the lies, obfuscation, logical fallacies, and misdirection by the media has been the fact checkers, who are upset that fact checkers are being being dumped by Zuckerberg.  As Roger Pielke Jr. states, Goodbye and Good Riddance to Meta Fact-Checking.  Of course not all feel that way.  PolitiFact, "a disgraced, fake, far-left, unofficial propaganda arm of the Democrat party, is already melting down over the bombshell news Tuesday that Facebook will no longer allow them or any of the media’s fake fact-checkers to censor and blacklist conservative opinions."

 

Trump has kicked out of his first cabinet meeting Reuters and HuffPost. Why? I have no idea, but I think this just an object lesson letting these big ego media types know who's in charge, but I wonder why any of the media is allowed in cabinet meetings.  To hear the whining from them you would think Trump is destroying the freedom of speech by sidelining the press how, where, who, and when he sees fit.   Yet he's answered seven times more questions than addle brained Joe Biden. And they could be understood.  

Imagine that!

We Do Need to Return to the Past

By Rich Kozlovich 

Editor's Note: I originally published this on Sep 30, 2022, and it's been hit lately so given what's happening, I thought it worthwhile to republish it now with some updated points.  RK

On September 29, 2022 Steven Hayward posted this article and video, Thought for the Day: Populism Galls Galston saying:

William Galston, the liberal columnist for the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page (they always like to have one around) writing every so gently yesterday on the need for Democrats to pay attention to the legitimate grievances of populism lest they get buried in a populist electoral tide:

“Powerful forces in the Democratic coalition oppose crafting the sort of moderate policies that could win back these [working class] voters. But if Democrats refuse to compromise, the alternative may be something like the recent right-wing populist surges in Europe.”

Good luck with that compromising, Bill. The progressives own the Democratic Party now, and are in no mood to compromise.  (start video at the 25 second mark):

His argument about returning government back to 1920 levels is a logical fallacy. No one is suggesting that so it's a non sequitur, simply a distraction to avoid attacking the outrageous size of large government and it's abuses of the Constitution, which have been massive, corrupt, and so often fraudulent in nature. 

But the fact is there's no reason why the federal government should have over two million employees, and that doesn't include all the contractors or grant recipients, especially in the scientific community where government grant money has made scientific integrity an oxymoron. 

If the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation and especially the Department of Education were totally eliminated that would only amount to about 52,500 employees.   So, please don't tell me the remaining 1,947,463 employees are really all that necessary, especially since the vast majority work in the defense/intelligence community, and we're seeing the consequences of that, as noted in this piece by Dan Mitchell of an out of control FBI and Department of Justice.   

We're now finding the FBI is deliberately hiding documents the new AG Pam Bondi has ordered released, and whistle blowers are claiming the FBI is destroying evidence!   Not to mention the abuses of the and , all of which has led to a massive levels of

That doesn't count those actually serving in the military, about another million and a half, along with another eight hundred thousand reservists.

Maybe we should be demanding 1920 levels of government, and those reductions should include local and state governments, which currently employs another 16 million people, then maybe we can return to the past and get a 1950 level of government as a compromise.

AI: How to Teach Critical Thinking

By John Droz, Jr., February 27, 2025 @ Critically Thinking on Select Societal Issues 

We are in agreement that Critically Thinking citizens would be a MAJOR benefit to themselves (e.g., see here) and to America.

Now that we have dismissed the specious argument that Critical Thinking is not teachable (and IS transferable from one subject area to another), the question is: how do we teach it in K-12?

I made a stab at this exceptionally important question here. My argument was: to break down the common attributes a Critically Thinking person has and teach each of those separately. When done it stands to reason that you will almost certainly end up with a Critically Thinking person.

I decided to pose this question to ChatGPT:  “What is the best way to teach Critical Thinking to K-12 students?” *

I thought that the ChatGPT answer was decent, so am republishing it:

“Teaching critical thinking to K-12 students is essential for helping them develop the skills to analyze information, make informed decisions, and solve problems effectively. Here are some effective strategies for teaching critical thinking to students of various age groups: 

1. Encourage Questioning

• Foster curiosity: Encourage students to ask questions about everything they learn. Promote an environment where they feel comfortable exploring ideas and expressing their thoughts.
• Model question-asking: Teachers can ask open-ended questions that stimulate thinking, such as "Why do you think that?" or "What evidence supports your view?"

2. Use Problem-Based Learning

• Real-world problems: Present students with real-world problems or scenarios where they must analyze information, evaluate options, and create solutions.
• Collaboration: Let students work together in groups to solve these problems. This fosters critical thinking through dialogue and the exchange of ideas.

3. Teach Logical Reasoning

• Deductive and inductive reasoning: Introduce the basic concepts of logical reasoning, such as distinguishing between generalizations and specific conclusions.
• Argument construction: Teach students how to make a valid argument by supporting their ideas with evidence and reasoning, as well as how to recognize weak arguments.

4. Encourage Reflection

• Self-assessment: Have students reflect on their thinking process, asking themselves questions like, "What was my reasoning?" or "Did I consider all the information?"
• Think-pair-share: This strategy encourages students to first think about a question on their own, then discuss it with a partner, and finally share ideas with the class.

5. Use Socratic Seminars

• Open-ended discussions: Hold class discussions where students are encouraged to think critically, listen to others' perspectives, and respond with thoughtful arguments. Use open-ended questions to guide the conversation.
• Respect differing viewpoints: Teach students how to respectfully disagree and build on others' ideas.

6. Use Media and Technology

• Evaluate sources: Teach students to analyze and question information found online, especially with the rise of misinformation.
• Media literacy: Provide exercises that require students to critically evaluate advertisements, news articles, and social media content.

7. Teach Cognitive Biases and Fallacies

• Awareness of bias: Help students understand common cognitive biases and logical fallacies so they can recognize them in their own thinking and in others' arguments.
• Fallacy detection exercises: Use examples from real life (such as media articles or debates) to identify fallacies and biases.

8. Provide Opportunities for Debate

• Structured debates: Let students engage in structured debates on various topics, encouraging them to argue from different perspectives. This improves their ability to think critically and argue persuasively.
• Classroom discussions: In addition to formal debates, give students time to voice their opinions and challenge each other's ideas in a constructive way.

9. Encourage Creative Problem Solving

• Brainstorming: Teach students to generate multiple solutions to a problem, emphasizing the importance of creativity in thinking.
• Scenario-based activities: Create hypothetical scenarios where students must think outside the box to find solutions.

10. Use Thinking Maps

• Graphic organizers: Tools like Venn diagrams, mind maps, and flowcharts can help students visualize their thinking process and organize ideas clearly.
• Visual learning: These visual aids can help students structure their critical thinking process, making complex ideas easier to understand and analyze.

11. Foster a Growth Mindset

• Emphasize effort over ability: Teach students that intelligence and critical thinking skills can be developed through hard work and persistence. Encourage them to view challenges as opportunities to grow.

12. Scaffold Critical Thinking Skills

• Gradual complexity: Start with simple tasks and gradually introduce more complex problems that require deeper analysis. This approach helps students build their skills over time.
• Step-by-step instruction: Break down critical thinking skills into smaller, manageable steps, like gathering evidence, making inferences, and drawing conclusions.

By integrating these strategies into teaching, K-12 students develop the critical thinking skills that are essential not only for academic success but also for navigating the world as informed and thoughtful individuals.”

———————————————————

So, what do you think?

A profoundly significant question is: which of the fifty States formally teach these concepts (preferably in Science curriculum), and then formally incorporate these ideas into the rest of their curricula?

To my knowledge, the answer is: None. Zero. Nada.

This is one of many reasons why eliminating the federal Department of Education (DOEd) and leaving the K-12 education system to the fifty States would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

On the other hand, if DOEd buys into the extreme importance of teaching Critical Thinking to K-12 students, they could publicly state that as part of their Mission Statement.

Then they could say to States: “If you want any of our $100B± discretionary money, we need satisfactory proof that you are formally teaching your K-12 students to be Critical Thinkers.”

That simple DOEd change would arguably be the most beneficial improvement to US K-12 education in the last 50+ years.

For newer subscribers, here are some of my prior relevant commentaries on this exceptionally significant topic:

1. Teaching Children to Think Critically
2. Teaching Us All How to Think Critically
3. K-12 Education: Knowledge vs Skills
4. Explaining the Importance of Critical Thinking
5. Why the US K-12 Education System is Failing
6. A Subscriber's Perspective on US K-12 Education
7. A Teacher's View about Teaching Children to Think Critically
8. Critically Thinking About Our Education System - Part 2

* If Critical Thinking was unteachable, that would have been the answer provided by ChatGPT — but it was not. Therefore, the logical deduction is that ChatGPT agrees that Critical Thinking is teachable. That said, I specifically asked ChatGPT the questions:   

1. ) is Critical Thinking teachable?  
2. ) Is Critical Thinking transferable from one subject area (domain) to another? I will publish the AI answers in a future column. 

---

 Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?

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The Process Of Rescinding The Endangerment Finding Has Begun

February 26, 2025/ Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

As discussed in a couple of recent posts here and here, the so-called Endangerment Finding (EF) was an EPA regulatory action early in the Obama Administration (December 2009) that now provides the foundation for all government efforts to restrict and suppress the use of hydrocarbons in our economy. In one of his first day Executive Orders (“Unleashing American Energy”), President Trump directed the incoming EPA Administrator to submit, within 30 days, “recommendations to the Director of OMB on the legality and continuing applicability of the Administrator’s findings.” Lee Zeldin was then confirmed and sworn in as EPA Administrator on January 29; but the 30th day after the EO, February 19, passed without any public news about a recommendation on the EF.

Today there is news. Apparently The Washington Post was the first outlet to break the story; but that piece is behind their paywall, so I won’t link to it. Fortunately, multiple outlets not behind paywall promptly posted slightly rewritten versions of the WaPo story. Here is a version from Politico, and here is a version from the Associated Press as it appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

To no one’s surprise, the news is that Zeldin has recommended reconsideration of the EF. Apparently the recommendation was made a few days ago in a private memorandum. Here is the AP/AJC version:

In a potential landmark action, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency has privately urged the Trump administration to reconsider a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against climate change. In a report to the White House, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called for a rewrite of the agency's finding that determined planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

If this was a private memorandum, how did the story turn up in The Washington Post and other outlets? The answer is, of course, anonymous leaks. The AP/AJC article says there were “four people who were briefed on the matter but spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.” No surprise there — I would expect that 90% or more of the holdover staff at EPA are hostile to the new administration and happy to do whatever they can to undermine it. But note this from a little further down in the same story:

Trump, at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, said Zeldin told him he is moving to eliminate about 65% of the EPA's workforce. “A lot of people that weren’t doing their job, they were just obstructionist," Trump said.

Trump’s EPA Administrators should have done that in his first four year term. But it’s never too late.

Perhaps most notable about the news stories is the haughty and dismissive reaction of the usual suspects on the left. For example, Politico gets quotes from David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Vickie Patton of the Environmental Defense Fund:

“This decision ignores science and the law,” David Doniger, senior strategist and attorney for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “Abdicating EPA’s clear legal duty to curb climate-changing pollution only makes sense if you consider who would benefit: the oil, coal, and gas magnates who handed the president millions of dollars in campaign contributions.” . . . Vickie Patton, the Environmental Defense Fund’s general counsel, said any move to undo the finding “would be reckless, unlawful, and ignore EPA’s fundamental responsibility to protect Americans from destructive climate pollution. We will vigorously oppose it.”

Clearly, the environmental groups and Democrat-led states will do everything they can to oppose the roll-back of the EF; and they have essentially infinite funds to litigate. So will the rescission be a difficult thing to do, and/or likely to fail in court? Much of the discussion in the two linked pieces, and in others I have read, dwells on the heavy lift necessary to undo a regulation that has gone through the “notice and comment” rule-making process. For example, a Bloomberg piece here (behind paywall) presents rescission of the EF as an enormous challenge:

It could take years for the EPA to go through a required rulemaking process to unwind the endangerment finding, and even then, it might not survive inevitable legal challenges.

They’re trying to scare the administration off, but I don’t think they are right, or that it will work. First, the idea that the rule-making process will “take years” is ridiculous. Yes, it is a cumbersome process. But the Obama people took office on January 20, 2009, went through the full rule-making process, and published the EF in final form on December 15, 2009 — less than 11 months later. I don’t know any reason why the Trump people can’t meet the same schedule, or even improve on it by a few months.

Second, the scientific papers to use to support the rescission are all easily at hand. A couple of junior people with access to the internet and Google can easily come up with several hundred papers published since 2009 and supporting the no-danger position. As I laid out in my January 26 post, most important are papers showing no increasing trends in severe weather events (hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, floods, wildfires, etc.). There are very many of these.

Lacking any convincing evidence of increases in severe weather, the enviros are left with only a claim that gradual warming over the course of the next century will be some kind of big problem. But EPA can respond that the costs and risks of a forced energy transition to an untested system pose far, far greater dangers to human health and welfare: blackouts in the dead of winter when all heat is mandated to be electric; massive fires at huge grid scale battery installations used to back up wind and solar electricity; toxic gases from such fires imperiling large urban populations; leaks and explosions impacting hydrogen infrastructure; electric cars and buses running out of charge on freezing cold days and stranding the occupants; and so on and on. How about the risk of large numbers of people losing access to electricity or to home heat or to automobile transportation because they can’t afford the cost?

The point of all these things is that they are not a question of the “science” of global warming. They are a question of making a judgment call trading off one set of dangers and risks against another. No amount of appeals to the authority of “scientists” preaching global warming alarm can even address the question of the risks from the forced adoption of the unproven new energy technologies.

So get to work, EPA! I want to see the EF gone by Thanksgiving. Then we’ll have something to really be thankful for.

Are We Entering a Golden Age?

By Rich Kozlovich

 

I subscribed to Joe Lonsdale's substack blog because I was told what a genius he is, and it's probably true, but mostly he bored me. However, I remained a subscriber because you never know when someone smart will say something really smart. This was the second piece I found worthy, the first was the interview with former Senator Phil Gramm, and I liked it so much I linked to an article of my own.

There's one thing I really found interesting, and that was his view we are on the verge of a "Golden Age", providing we can escape the swamp.  Well, it appears that's going to happen, and much faster than anyone ever hoped for or expected.  Crushing the deep state and the leftist fever swamps will make a huge difference admittedly, but I seriously doubt that will lead to a “golden age”.

I've always believed in historical cycles, and read three books on the subject, and if there ever was a historical endeavor that was in serious need of an organized academic discipline, that's it, because the writers all have their own terminology and odd ways of creating coherence through connectives.  However, if you can plow your way through you find they've all come to the same conclusion. We’re in an end cycle, and all end cycles involve massive economic downturns, and violence.

The world’s governments are in debt to the tune of almost 310 trillion dollars, and many of these nations are in capable of repaying that debt.   The debt holders are incapable of collecting it, and that includes China.  China won't be able to collect on defaulted loans, their Road and Belt is a failure, and they're broke.  

There are six things a nation needs to be self-sufficient. The ability to feed itself, fuel itself, arm itself, defend itself, create its own internal market, and pay off their national debt. There’s only one nation on Earth that can do all six, and that’s the United States. The international debt will destroy the world’s economy, except for America.  Canada, Mexico, and the Northern tier South American states will become economic supplicants just to stay alive.  They need us, we don't need them, and that's true for the entire international economic story.  This isn't 1930 and the Smoot Hawley tariff story is meaningless to America's economy.  We don't need them, they need us.

While international trade is an important economic factor, it’s not life saving for the United States. But there will be no golden age, just national survival!  While the rest of the world breaks up into semi to totally autonomous states, which is Europe’s foundational social paradigm, that's also true as well for China.  

The foundational social paradigm for both the Middle East and Africa are tribal based societies, and if the world's economy collapses, so too will they break up into tribal states, violent tribal states, preceded by massively violent civil wars, such as has been going on in Libya.  The idea of Islamic and/or Arab unity is a myth.   South America will mostly remain as it is because the geography is so difficult, which is why there have been few wars between South American nations, but they will all be broke. 

The world is not going to be entering a new golden age.  Get over it. 

Extra! Extra! Changes Coming to The Washington Post Opinion Page

Jeff Bezos’ Damascene conversion is ruffling feathers. 

By Leesa K. Donner | Feb 27, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Media, Opinion

Just try to wrap your brain around what’s happened this week in the left-wing media: MSNBC canceled Joy Reid’s show and laid off a number of people working on the Rachel Maddow program for good measure. Just yesterday (Feb. 26), the owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, announced a change in the direction of the newspaper’s opinion page. Henceforth, the most influential newspaper in the nation’s capital will write “in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” according to Bezos. Opposing views “will be left to be published by others.”

The billionaire owner of the historic newspaper that defines the term “legacy media” and boasts the dystopian message “Democracy Dies in Darkness” on its masthead went on to say, “I am of America and for America, and proud to be so.”

The new edict, along with such rah-rah language, sent readers’ heads spinning: “Bezos has hired a new opinion editor, and we can expect more tripe in days to come. His explanation is such a transparent attempt at trying to save face under the banners of defending personal freedom and the free markets — or some such rubbish,” remarked one WaPo regular amid a bevy of unsubscribers. “Free market? I honestly thought I could hold out another couple of months with my subscription, silly me,” wrote another.

But that’s the nice thing about billionaires owning a newspaper. They can do what they want with it. The Post already lost an estimated 250,000 subscribers when it failed to endorse Kamala Harris for president – a controversial decision, to say the least. What’s a few more to Bezos? The Post has been drowning in red ink anyway.

Washington Post – Darkness on the Horizon?

It didn’t take long for The New York Times to dance on the grave of its archrival: “The new direction envisioned for The Post’s opinion section appears to be a rightward shift for the paper. Mr. Bezos’ new focus echoes what has long been the informal tagline of The Wall Street Journal’s conservative opinion pages: ‘Free markets, free people.’”

Kick Back and Ditch the Matrix

As Washington Post Opinion Editor David Shipley exits stage left, Chief Executive Will Lewis made an effort to stanch the bleeding. He wrote in a memo that The Post was “not about siding with any political party.” Other Post staffers took to Bluesky, the leftist alternative to X, to say they would be carefully watching whether Bezos sticks his nose into their respective fiefdoms.

There is no doubt the leftist media and its legacy partners are under siege. This week, a federal judge refused to force the White House to restore The Associated Press’ access to presidential events. The White House Correspondents’ Association has had a lengthy stranglehold on which news outlets are permitted access to the chief executive and a coveted seat in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. Their salad days are over as the White House communications team took the reins of power and opened the venue to new media outlets. Still, the AP says it will continue its fight. Another hearing on the matter is scheduled for March 20.

As American news consumers continue to broaden their information consumption to the many offerings on the web, it becomes more difficult for the old guard to maintain its once lofty perch. And as they flee to other sources, the left-wing media must either adapt or wither away to insignificance. This move by Bezos signals he believes the best course of action for The Washington Post is to adapt. And he just may be right.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Leesa K. Donner Executive Editor

The President, the Special Counsel and his Lawyers

By Daniel Greenfield, @ Sultan Knish Blog

New disclosures reveal that Special Counsel Jack Smith, tasked with taking down Trump at any cost, received $140,000 in pro bono legal services from Covington & Burling.

Covington & Burling, the prominent D.C. law firm, was Biden’s campaign counsel.

While six figures in free legal aid might seem like a lot of money, C & B’s lawyers had contributed $657,924 to the Kamala campaign and $262,171 to the DNC. But that was a drop in the bucket compared to the $737,000 that it was paid for its services by the Biden campaign and the $4.5 million that the law firm had been paid by the DNC.

The $140,000 was easily ‘paid for’ by the lucrative economic relationship that Covington & Burling enjoyed with the Biden campaign and the Democratic party during the 2024 election.

The six figure support for Smith can be viewed as part of C & B’s work for the campaign.

And Jack Smith’s campaign to take down Trump, like the Steele dossier and the Mueller investigation, should be seen as the work of a political campaign using political operatives with experience in the Justice Department to corruptly prosecute a political opponent.

What’s even more revealing is that Smith’s attorneys are Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski.

Peter Koski, a former Obama Justice Department official, serving as Smith’s lawyer also served as the attorney for Biden’s counsel Dana Remus and Biden’s 2020 deputy counsel Pat Moore during the congressional impeachment inquiry into Biden’s mishandling of classified documents Remus is also a partner at C & B so that he was actually protecting both Biden and the firm.

Koski is the lawyer you call to represent your lawyers when you’re under investigation. And that’s appropriate since Jack Smith was arguably one of Biden’s lawyers all along playing the role of prosecutor in order to take down Biden’s leading political rivals before the election.

Smith’s meeting with Koski would have been a reunion with his old colleague, having served as the chief of the Public Integrity Section in the DOJ’s Criminal Division while Koski had been his Deputy Chief. Smith’s other lawyer was his former boss, the head of the Criminal Division.

Lanny Breuer, Smith’s other lawyer, is a much better known name for his role in Clinton’s impeachment and the Fast and Furious scandal. As Bill Clinton’s counsel, Breuer had defended him during the various investigations, including his impeachment, and then stepped in to aid former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger when he was caught smuggling documents out of the National Archives in his socks and pants to cover-up Clinton’s actions before 9/11.

With that kind of resume, it was no surprise that Obama appointed Breuer as the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Criminal Division where he worked under former Attorney General Eric Holder who now occupies the position of senior counsel at Covington & Burling.

Holder, who like Smith and Koski, had come out of the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, then brought in Covington & Burlin to vet Kamala’s vice presidential picks.

Covington & Burling is such a revolving door for Clinton, Obama and Biden DOJers that its offices are close to the Justice Department to make the move even easier.

When Breuer’s successor, Mythili Raman, left to join C&B, she told the New York Times that “reuniting with my former Justice Department colleagues was one of the biggest draws of Covington.” Much of her old Obama DOJ team was already there. Or soon would be.

There’s been a longtime revolving door from C&B to the DOJ. And back.

Rather than viewing the Justice Department and the powerful D.C. law firm as two separate entities, it may be more useful to see them as two resting places for the same network. That network encompassed the legal talent, in the DOJ’s political investigations arm, counsels in the White House and its defense operation of DOJ vets working at Covington & Burling.

The network had the same fundamental agendas. Its employment was purely strategic.

At the DOJ, members of the network targeted and prosecuted political opponents, at the White House, they defended their team and in private practice, they protected them.

When the law firm that acted as counsel to the Biden campaign, helped pick Kamala’s VP and is staffed by former Attorney General Eric Holder and a roster of DOJ ‘PINers’ who worked with Holder and Smith, stepped forward to offer six figures of pro bono legal work for Smith, they made it all too obvious that the prosecution campaign against Trump melded the two worlds.

Prosecuting Trump was never about the law. We know this because of multiple media leaks of Biden grousing at Attorney General Merrick Garland, for not working harder to lock Trump up. There was never anything independent about Jack Smith’s status as a special counsel. And now that the people behind the investigation are out of office when, despite their best efforts, Trump won, their partners in private practice are stepping in to offer Smith legal protection.

The only difference is that Smith is no longer being funded by taxpayers but indirectly by the former Biden campaign and the DNC which paid millions to the law firm defending him for ‘free’.

The revolving door between the Justice Department and private law firms reveal an ethical divide far vaster than the federalist palatial architecture of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building and the slick glass and steel modernism of CityCenter’s glass and steel towers where Covington & Burling occupies the office space above the luxury goods stores like

Louis Vuitton downstairs. It’s a chasm that makes Americans question the integrity of the Department of Justice and its political prosecutions.

And the Biden campaign’s favorite lawyers, bringing together the former heads of the Criminal Division and Public Integrity Section to defend one of their own who had been tasked with taking down Trump from within the government is only going to widen that chasm into an abyss of guilt.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading. 

 

Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Part VI

Corrupt, collusionary, censorial, complicit, incompetent, unethical, liars, historically ignorant, and clearly not the brightest pebbles in the brook, all of whom are parties to treason.

By Rich Kozlovich,  Tags:

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Repentance is mandatory

The Democrats totally embrace the the philosophy of leftism.  As Atheists they don't believe in God, but if there was a God, he would want them to rule, without his interference.   They destroy and create chaos because that's what leftists to, and have always done.  Often wrong, but never in doubt, therefore there's no reason to change anything they're doing.  They failed to report about the California wildfires accurately in an attempt to blame Trump in some way.  They inaccurately defamed Pete Hegseth, and I'll have more on their fake news from my files this week.

 

Others see all this more clearly and state if they continue to cling to "this odd attachment to woke nonsense, pronoun antics, and other activities that make them wholly unrelatable to voters, they’re never going to win another election again."  ESPN personnel are sports specialists, so there can be no excuse to claim transgirls pose no danger to female athletics, and in some sports real physical danger. 

 

In their unending desire to destroy Trump's administration they give the impression of insanity.  Instead of covering the massive levels of government corruption, incompetence, fraud and waste, they're doing everything they can to attack and destroy all those uncovering all that corruption.  

 

What do we find?   Trump is more trusted by Americans than the media, and the reason why is the internet.  

 

The question the Democrats and legacy media should be asking themselves: If the 2024 election was held again this Tuesday with the public fully informed of President Trump’s actions and personnel selections from his first month, how much bigger would his very big win become? I suspect at least NJ would have been added to the pile. Perhaps more.  Hugh Hewitt

 

America has been lied to, and it's been going on for decades and we now have polls showing they've turned to the alternative media, such a great publications like Breitbart in order to find out what's really going on.   I start my searches every morning with American Thinker, Townhall,  Breitbart, and followed by fifteen others, and while most aren't going to do that many searches, it's clear they're relying far more on the alternative media. And now..... all of a sudden..... the media and other Democrats are worried about job losses.  Well, they have a right to worry, and we have the right to be pleased.   

 

Agonizing Death of Lamestream Media - Media power doesn’t disappear—it flows to those who respect its power and beauty and those few who fulfill their divine privilege as the purveyors of truth........The media wielded a deadly influence, capable of swaying the world and controlling minds..

 

The Pravda media no longer can sway the world. It's doomed, and no one cares any longer, no one respects them any longer, and no one fears them any longer, and the Trump administration exemplifies that attitude.

 

The Pentagon has kicked out CNN and others to make room of conservative publications.  What we're seeing now is the demise of the Pravda media.  Where Trump can make an impact directly, he's doing so.  A real conservative, Brent Bozell,  has been named the head of US Global Media, Including VOA, Radio Free Europe.   Steve Bannon predicted within days of Trump's inauguration media heads were going to explode, and he was right, and something Trump does really drives them crazy.  He challenges what they do and what they say.  Something Republicans have been averse to doing fearing offending them.  How can you possibly offend those who hate you to the core?  And if you did, who cares?  

 

And now some of them are being sued to the tune of millions of dollars, and in one case,  billions of dollars, and they're trying to settle rather than have to turn over all their internal communications, which would, in my opinion, expose them to further massively damaging lawsuits.  "Repackaging the news is becoming expensive". 

 

Judicial Boundaries Need to be Imposed

By Rich Kozlovich

The Supreme Soviet of Minnesota, aka, the Minnesota Supreme Court, has decided the interior of your car is a “public place if it is driven on public roads."  Okay, if that's a valid interpretation of the Fourth Amendment against "unreasonable search and seizures by the government", then perhaps the government should be allowed to search any private property without a warrant that borders on public streets, calling that property "public space"?  Or perhaps your wallet, a suitcase, a briefcase, or anything you're carrying on while walking on a public sidewalk next to a public street should also be considered "public space"?  Right?

How does this kind of insanity become policy?  How can any American jurist believe such nonsense?  How does judicial corruption such as this infest the thinking of America's judiciary? 

I’ve been organizing my draft files and came across this piece written by Andrea Widburg in 2023, America’s top law schools are openly abandoning the Constitution.  While academia has become a festering sore on the body America, academia’s law schools are a cancer. These institutions have abandoned the rule of law and openly support rule by judicial tyranny, and this is the time for a constitutional confrontation with the judiciary.

The Constitution says it’s the Congress who decides the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, and it’s time they exercised that power. Furthermore, there needs to be sanctions on jurists who exceeded their authority and twist logic and reality like a pretzel to fit their vision of how the world should work. And that sanction should be the ability to fire them, and not with things like a two thirds vote (67 Senators) in support of impeachment, which is now unattainable in the Senate. 

It's time Congress stops sitting with the thumbs and pass legislation that creates punishments for radical out of control judges.  They may have lifetime appointments, but I don't see anything in the Constitution that prevents the Congress from imposing penalties for conduct where the judiciary exceeds their jurisdiction.  And again....it's the Congress that determines their jurisdiction, not the judiciary.

The English Barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta saying there had to be limits to his power. Congress needs a Magna Carta for the judiciary, i.e., a Constitutional Amendment for term limits, and that amendment needs to define the boundaries of the federal judiciary's authority. Term limits and the definition of the power of SCOTUS was a failure on the part of the Founding Fathers which needs fixing.

Minnesota is just a symptom of a national chronic infection in the judiciary, but not only in the United States.  When it comes to making judgements against Trump's policies, it seems to be an international infection.

Remarkable, perhaps he didn't get the memo.  Joe Biden isn't President any longer, and this judge has no say in the matter, just like so many of these judges in the United States that think they are going to determine policy for the federal government.  And that includes this foreign born Muslim who Biden appointed as a Federal District judge, says Trump has not complied with his ruling on Trump's suspension of foreign aid saying:

“The Court was not inviting Defendants to continue the suspension while they reviewed contracts and legal authorities to come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension.........” 

This judge has ordered the resumption of hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid all over the world, way beyond his judicial authority, and the administration has appealed his ruling.  It seems to me that alone should obviate his decisions until the case has run it's course.  

It appears an Egyptian judge has decided he will determine American policy, and has ordered Trump to unfreeze aid to Egypt!    The latest good news is SCOTUS has temporarily blocked this lunatic's order, and it's time for SCOTUS to stop sitting on their hands and bring this to a screeching halt.... permanently!  

All these leftist Anti-American judge's rulings are a part of a national effort by leftists to handcuff the President, and those he appoints from doing their Constitutionally mandated jobs, forcing the administration to waste money, and preventing the administration from seeing where that money is going and to whom.  These arrogant misfit judges need to be told to shove it where the sun doesn't shine.  

Perhaps the President needs to send an official letter, signed by as many members of Congress as are willing, telling SCOTUS and each and every federal judge these rulings are out of bounds, they're out of control, and any further rulings inappropriately interfering with Executive privileges and responsibilities will be considered a seditious effort to undermine the boundaries created in the Constitution between the three branches of government, and action will be taken.  

It's time for a Constitutional confrontation.