The XYZ Factors of Organizations

By Rich Kozlovich

So, what exactly are the XYZ factors of organizations?  Here's the breakdown, followed by the explanations for both conservatives and leftists. 

1. The philosophy of the organization is represented by (X).  
2. The group makeup is represented by (Y). 
3. The practices of that group are represented by (Z).

On the right:

On the Right it's really not all that complicated as (X) is defined as less government in all of its forms, less taxes, less intrusion in our private lives, less regulations, more attention to personal rights, especially property rights, while still maintaining a civil organization that can protect society from the criminals and those who would attack the nation, foreign and domestic.  

On the Right, (Y) is represented by a wide diversity of groups. However, they are united in their philosophy, especially involving traditional and conservative values, and act accordingly. Perhaps not in all the details, which must be expected in any organized group, but philosophically they are united irrespective of all of the divergent groups. As a group they preach and live conservative, traditional lives and preach those values to others! They represent and promote a civil and stable society. The Tea Party was a clear representation of the Right, who is largely religious in their personal view of the universe, and believe that if there is no God there is no purpose.

On the Right (Z) is the easiest thing to understand among them. They have either been raised with traditional conservative values, or have adopted them through observation. The Right’s divergent groups come together as a marriage of commitment and affection for the values they share, values they will loyally defend, and will practice that which promotes those values.   On the right their philosophy is solidly outlined, the groups are diverse yet solidly united in their values, and they work diligently to loyally practice what they believe.

On the Left:

Defining (X) among the left isn’t easy. It is impossible! It isn’t even defined by leftists. Even in the 1930’s Will Rogers noted:

“I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.” 

The real problem is that since they really have no philosophy other than whatever populist view works at the time they are completely willing to turn 180 degrees on any issue if it means gaining power. 

Margaret Sanger is a perfect example of the shifting values of the left. Sanger was the founder of the American Birth Control League, now Planned Parenthood. She was as one of the most famous promoters of eugenics of her day, eugenics being a concept that promotes the elimination of the “unfit” from society to prevent deterioration of the species by preventing the breeding of lesser human beings with those of higher quality.

She even had a major impact on Hitler’s thinking before WWII regarding eugenics. Although she personally was against abortion, for which Planned Parenthood is solely recognized, and execution of those she considered unfit, i.e. the “colored” races, the imbeciles and those born defective.  She did want to rid the world of blacks though forced sterilization. She also favored strict immigration to prevent the “unfit” from entering the country. She also favored the use of religious leaders to disguise and promote her true intentions. At the beginning of the 20th century the “Progressive” movement’s binding force was religion.

Now the left has turned completely around claiming credit for the anti discriminatory laws passed by those who are part of the right today, condemning them as racists because they won't support their destructive liberal policies and demanding almost complete open immigration, the murder of the innocent unborn, and inclusion legislation irrespective of fitness based on race and gender.

Structurally, the left is more representative by the complete disorganization of the  because it has no structure.  It is irrational, disloyal, disorganized, no stable philosophy, no workable solutions, selfish, self serving, jealous, envious, hateful, violent, destructive of a stable society, distrustful of their own and typically atheistic or agnostic in its view of the universe.

Diversity among the Left is no greater or less than the Right. Yet those represented by the (Y) factor on the left have nothing in common except the need to promote their own needs and the desire to make laws that destroy those they hate and give them power to control everyone else’s life. These are the only things the leftist groups have in common. There is no marriage of commitment on the left. It is only a marriage of convenience.

On the left they have no loyalty to (X) because they cannot agree on the concept of “truth”. There is no truth to them because they don’t believe there is any real ‘truth’, there is no absolute right and wrong. As a result the diversity represented by (Y) remains completely divided with no sense of loyalty to a common commitment.

Defining (Z) on the left, unlike defining (X), is easy. Since they don’t have a thing in common with each other except for their hate and contempt of a stable society, their actions bear no resemblance to any defined philosophy because they have none. Since the left is based on selfishness, hate and jealousy, all of their actions will be nonspecific to any philosophy. They will abandon anyone or anything for political gain. They have no sense of loyalty to anything except their own desires and their need for power.

It is impossible for the Left to act with any restraint within any philosophical framework because the left has no value system in which it will remain loyal. The actions of left represents unending disharmony.

The Left isn’t an organization; it is a nightmarish mob of destructive self promoters that would destroy everything to gain nothing. They were called anarchists in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The Occupy Wall Street Movement truly is a true representation of "The Left”; misery, squalor and violence, ignorance and disharmony.

All throughout history the Left screamed about the imperfections of those they opposed in order to gain power. Once they overthrew the opposition they imperfections were massive beyond belief performing atrocities beyond belief. 

• They represent instability over stability. 
• They represent destruction over creation.
•  They represent insanity over sanity. 
• They represent irrationality over logic and facts. 

Any group, whether secular or religious that promotes these things are representations of the anti-humanity Left.   We really need to get this! The Left has no solid philosophy. They only have transient philosophies that they will promptly abandon as soon as it seems prudent to do so. Loyalty, just as historical facts and consistency of logic, are totally alien concepts to them.  

Their diverse groups have no affection for each other or anyone else since there is no binding philosophy to guide their practices, which are disingenuous and self serving. They would as happily turn and rend one of their own as they would anyone on the right. 

It’s been my lifelong observation that liberals are a mostly conflicted, tormented group suffering from mass psychosis. They wrap themselves up in do-good, virtue-signaling knots and then attempt to rationalize positions even they know are indefensible by putting forth the most tortured, illogical explanations imaginable. Merely calling those positions “lies” doesn’t go anywhere near far enough. Liberals have mastered the art of wanting to believe in a false reality, constructing a Bizarro Universe, while at the same time, excusing themselves for committing the very same transgressions against society and nature that they accuse others of doing. - Steve Feinstein

In short, the left is full of people suffering from a serious case of weird compounded by a massive infection of hubris. Universally deluged with big egos, bad attitudes, uncontrolled pettiness, unparalleled incompetence, unbounded arrogance, ignorance without parameters, intrepid stupidity beyond measure.  Irrational, misanthropic and morally defective, demanding perfection and utopia from any adversary, and yet never failing to deliver massive imperfections that impose dystopia.  

That's history, and that history is incontestable. 

Is the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” Worth Supporting?

July 2, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

When I first started writing these columns, I envisioned two regular features.

• A “Question of the Week” that would give me an opportunity to address thorny issues such as immigration amnesty and monetary policy.
• “Weekly Political Humor” that would give me a chance to mock politicians, either generically or specifically.

I stopped those weekly features more than 10 years ago because I didn’t want a rigid structure.

But if I still did a Question of the Week, I would feel obliged to respond to readers who have asked my opinion of the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, it is grotesquely disappointing. This chart from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget tells you everything you need to know.

We have a federal budget that is far too big and growing far too fast, yet the Senate version of the bill barely alters the “current law” trend line.

Even worse, if some provisions are made permanent (as is likely), the overall spending burden might actually be higher than the do-nothing trend line.

Since Republicans control Washington and claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility, why are they kicking the can down the road?

The answer is simple. The GOP is not the party of fiscal responsibility. The Reaganites (explained here) are outnumbered by the Trumpies and the conventional big-government Republicans.

I wrote about what’s happening in Washington for the U.K.-based Telegraph. Here are some highlights.

 

…the challenge for the Republican leadership is that their party is now profoundly divided, bordering on ideologically incoherent. Some conservative Republicans believe in Reagan-style fiscal restraint, for instance. They want a smaller government and declining deficits. But this puts them at odds with Trump-style Republicans who are explicitly opposed to reforming entitlements and seemingly don’t care about ever-increasing levels of red ink. … 

To make matters more interesting, the division between Reaganites and Trumpies is not the only relevant split. There are other blocs of Republican lawmakers who might throw sand in the gears. …a few Republicans from high-tax states claim they won’t vote for any bill unless there is a big increase in the federal deduction for state and local taxes. …special subsidies for wind and solar energy…go to projects in Republican states and districts, leading some Republicans to assert they will oppose the Big Beautiful Bill if the green-energy gravy train gets derailed. …Medicaid money laundering…shift ever-greater shares of the cost on to the federal taxpayers. …Most Republicans want to end this farce, but a few GOP lawmakers want to curry favour with hospital lobbyists.

I explain in the column that Republicans have very narrow majorities in both the House and Senate.

As such, so the combination of Trump populism (don’t try to fix Social Security or Medicare) and congressional Republicans who sell their votes to the highest bidder (supporters of green-energy pork, Medicaid fraud, etc) means that it is impossible to save the country from a fiscal crisis.

Here’s another chart from CRFB to underscore why I am so pessimistic.

By the way, I conclude my Telegraph column with a prediction that Trump will get the votes to pass a final version of the One Big Beautiful Bill.

…the safest prediction is that all these conflicts and divisions somehow will be resolved and Trump will have a victory. But it may be a Pyrrhic Victory in that America is probably stumbling toward some sort of fiscal crisis. Simply stated, it is unsustainable to have the burden of government spending grow faster than the private sector for an extended period of time. Even if a crisis can be avoided, that type of fiscal irresponsibility eventually will mean higher taxes, ruinous debt, or inflation. Perhaps all three. Unless, by some miracle, there’s a Javier Milei in America’s future.

As you can see, though, the legislation will not save the country from a fiscal crisis. The headline of my column says that bill means an economic crash. But we’re also heading to a crash if the bill isn’t enacted.

The bottom line is that we’re in deep trouble unless we get a Milei-style leader at some point.

Now that I’ve given all this analysis, it’s time to give my two cents on whether it will be good for the country or bad for the country.

I hope it gets enacted for one reason and one reason only. As I wrote last month, “…the bill prevents a massive automatic tax increase starting on January 1 of 2026.”

I’ve been an advocate of the “starve the beast” theory, though I admit pervasive profligacy in Washington makes it harder to defend that theory.

That being said, I definitely don’t want to “feed the beast.”

Now, Back to the House

By Rich Kozlovich

 

There was an article that described three Republican Senators as traitors who voted with the Democrats forcing the Vice President to break a 50/50 vote tie over Trump's Big Beautiful Bill.

I don't think traitor is appropriate for all three.  Tom Tillis, Susan Collins, and Ron Paul.  Ron Paul has been consistent in his position forever so that's not an act of treason.   Susan Collins and Tom Tellis fall in that category in my view.  Collins positions have been at best strange over the years, and Thom Tillis clearly has issues.  The only thing that's really surprises me is Murkowski didn't join them, which would have sent the bill crashing to the floor.

1. Senate Dems, RINO Susan Collins Reject BBB Amendment Cutting Medicaid for Illegal Aliens
2. BBB Update: 44 Democrats Vote to Allow Criminal Illegals on Medicaid

But here we are, and the bill passed.  Now it has to go back to the House, where all tax bills must originate.  So, what do we have in this complex, nearly 900-page bill involving taxes, energy, and healthcare?

There's a $5 trillion debt ceiling increase in the package, and the price tag will most likely cause the national debt to surge to another four trillion dollars, with an accounting gimmick to hide much of that red ink.

Medicaid will be increased. Government support for EVs and solar companies are set to be eliminated as tax credits phase out, and we're heading back to sanity on so-called "fossil fuels".  Alternative energy, net zero, and global warming schemes have wasted trillions of dollars, and that's going to be brought to a screeching halt.  Trump just boosted support for Republicans in coal producing states saying, "We're doing coal!"   It warms my heart in watching the the global warming movement collapsing, and I like to believe I played a small part in exposing their corruption.

The one size fits all rule preventing states from passing regulations regarding AI has been ditched.  That will not be an issue that will go away, and in fact, by the next budget it's my view it will be a major issue.  AI is still mostly an unknown factor, and research has shown there are dangerous implication with AI, including lying to protect itself.  All that needs to be challenged and fought over in the states in order to find our way, and not controlled by a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington. 

There will be increased funding for border control, and will make the tax cuts of 2017 permanent with the highest rate remaining at 37%.  Trump’s tax cuts spurred economic growth. Big Beautiful Bill will do it again. 

That was followed by a number of tax changes, some small, such as no taxes of tips and Social Security, but some very impactful for business. The bill will "reinstate credits for corporations for things like property depreciation, capital investments, new factory construction, interest expenses, and research and development costs" in an effort to stimulate growth.  

There will also be a tax credit of "$1,700 tax credit for individuals who contribute to nonprofit organizations that offer scholarships to elementary and secondary students, a move supporters describe as advancing “school choice,” akin to voucher programs" which the Democrats opposed entirely. 

Then there's the $40,000 SALT deduction, which is a bone of contention as that is in effect forcing small population states with sound economic practices to subsidize large population states with radical spending practices, like California and New York.  And the sale of public lands has been ditched, which I think is insane, along with the reasoning behind it, and work requirements non-disabled adults without dependents...but there are caveats in that also.  I see that as an unending bone of contention as there are too many caveats.  

Planned Parenthood, "which received $792 million in government grants and reimbursements"  will no longer get the American taxpayer to fund the murder of the innocent unborn, and gender transitions will not be covered in Medicaid.  Some funding for food stamps will be transferred to the states,

If you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, I don't, here's their take on the BBB. Tax cuts and Medicaid spending reductions head to House, with the July 4 deadline reachable – 

Then there's this econ-babble from Real Clear Markets: Deficit Hawks Should Look In the Mirror.  That's why I have economists.  As for being a deficit hawk, I would fall into that category.  Would I have voted for this bill?  In my heart the answer would be a resounding no as I believe the national debt is toxic to the point of national suicide.  

However, in my mind I would recognize this Republican "controlled" Congress isn't a Republican controlled Congress and don't have all that much control over what's passed and what's not since the "loyal opposition" is in point of fact the "disloyal opposition" that votes in lock step fighting tooth and nail to disrupt any reductions in taxes and spending,  doing all it can to destroy the only thing standing between freedom and socialist tyranny in the world, the American Constitution.

So, in my mind I would have to rationalize voting for it in order to get what was worthwhile passed, and then prepare for the next budget battle, and embrace an incrementalist mentality.  The left believes in incrementalism, one step at a time to reach their goals,  and conservatives in the Congress are forced to implement that same strategy.  

But time is running out.  

The world's nations, including the U.S., have a debt load of almost 310 trillion dollars, and much of that cannot be repaid.  The consequences for that are soon to be felt, including Europe and China.  We're looking at a worldwide economic crisis that will be, at least in my opinion, massively destructive to much of the world's population, and the structure of many nations. 

Now... back to the House, and that's going to be another screaming match.  As for the Fourth of July deadline.... that's not a matter of law, it's a line in the sand drawn by the President, and it seems likely it's going to be crossed.     

Here's more give and take on the economy and this bill, especially this post by Ned Barnett - BBB: Congressional Democrats Turn On Blue-Collar Workers and Retirees

1. Powell confirms that the Fed would have cut by now were it not for tariffs
2. The Market Crash That Wasn’t Yet 
3. WSJ: Say, Remember the Great Stock Market Crash of 2025? Well 
4. For The First Time In Four Years, Americans Aren’t Paying More For Their July 4 Cookouts 
5. Income up 8 times inflation  

Ohio Joins the Flat Tax Club

July 1, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

In 1972, Ohio politicians made the mistake of imposing a state income tax.

That first tax had a top rate of 3.5 percent, but politicians quickly became addicted to this new source of tax revenue. By 1984, the top rate had jumped to 9.5 percent.

 

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that Ohio has been moving in the right direction over the past two decades.

The top tax rate was over 7 percent in 2005. This year, it’s less than half that level.

But the even-better news is that Ohio is shifting to a low-rate flat tax.

Here are some excerpts from a report by Mike Gaunter for WFMJ.

 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Monday approved the state’s new two-year spending plan, which includes a major shift in how Ohioans pay state income taxes. This change, pushed by Republican lawmakers, aims to make the tax system simpler and reduce the amount of money people owe. The thrust of the tax plan is a move towards a 2.75% flat income tax rate… 

This flat rate is set to be fully in place by the 2026 tax year. Before the flat rate officially starts, the budget also lowers the highest income tax rate immediately. For the 2025 tax year, the top rate, which currently stands at 3.5%, will go down to 3.125%. A benefit for many Ohio residents is that if their income, after certain deductions and exemptions, is $26,050 or less, they will not pay any state income tax at all.

Kudos to Buckeye State lawmakers.

They have joined the tax cut/tax reform revolution that has led to better tax policy over the past few years.

As such, it’s time to update my table showing the type of income taxes that exist (or don’t exist!) in the 50 states.

As you can see, this table is much better than the first one I created back in 2018.

What Ohio now needs is to copy Mississippi and begin the process of totally repealing the income tax. It’s very feasible if lawmakers follow one simple rule.

Treasury Must Protect American Companies

By Paul Driessen

Continuing instability in the Middle East makes it imperative that America protect its domestic energy suppliers.  Under President Donald Trump, US energy companies that were nationalized or had assets seized by Venezuela’s government now have a chance for restitution – unless European bondholders get priority.

One such company is Houston-based Citgo Petroleum, the seventh-largest refiner in the United States. The company is actually owned through subsidiaries by Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, SA (PdVSA), which is essentially an arm of President Nicolas Maduro’s dictatorial regime. 

Citgo is currently embroiled in a court-ordered auction. It’s being sold to repay debts incurred by Maduro and previous dictator Hugo Chavez, both of whom expropriated American companies and assets.

Until now, victims of these dictators’ thefts – more than a dozen companies – were unable to recoup their losses, because the Biden administration protected the company from being sold as part of a strategy to prop up Venezuela’s opposition. That could change now.

The auction has been scheduled, and various companies, including some that lost assets, have submitted bids. The fly in the ointment is that European bondholders are trying to jump the line – and claim proceeds from the auction ahead of American companies that the regime robbed. 

In 2020, those PdVSA bondholders helped bail out the collapsing Maduro dictatorship, betting that they would reap big payouts under a contract that collateralized their bonds with 50.1% of Citgo shares.

By late August 2023, the bonds had already surged 160% and “investors that scooped up one oil company’s bonds appear to be headed for a massive payout,” Bloomberg Linea reported.

The bondholders had to know they were dealing with a corrupt government and that Venezuela’s National Assembly had publicly announced it had never approved the Citgo bond, as required by the Venezuelan Constitution. That could make the collateralized contract for Citgo invalid.

However, the bondholders were clearly trying to profit from a nation in crisis. They had to have been betting they would profit from selling the collateral if Venezuela defaulted. In the meantime, their money helped Maduro cling to power, suppress dissent, and delay the economic reckoning that Maduro's own policies ensured. 

Now, those bondholders want to acquire Citgo as payment, thereby cashing in on the misery they helped prolong. (The PdVSA bondholders are not private citizens, but large corporations, including London-based Ashmore Group PLC, Madrid-based Auriga Global Investors, and UK- and Morocco-based Altana Credit Opportunities Fund.) The question is whether they should take priority over the actual victims of Maduro’s expropriations. 

Thankfully, under President Trump, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has already refrained from issuing licenses to take over Citgo through December 20, thereby denying an acquisition by the bondholders that would have helped prolong Maduro’s regime.

However, OFAC must go further – and clarify that it will never permit speculating bondholders to profit before defrauded American companies are repaid.

This clarification is sorely needed, and just this week, one of the defrauded companies filed an emergency request with the Delaware District Court that is overseeing the Citgo auction. Citgo’s lawyers asked the court to seek guidance from the OFAC as to whether the Office will continue to prevent the bondholders from taking over Citgo past the deadline for the auction.

This uncertainty – whether a new owner is purchasing an asset or incurring a liability – must be resolved, hopefully with the result that swindled American companies can recoup some of their losses.

With the final auction deadline set for July 2, OFAC has a short window in which to act.

By issuing this clarification, OFAC can score another win for President Trump’s impressive record of championing American justice and prioritizing American companies.

Paul Driessen is a senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of many articles on the environment. He has degrees in geology, ecology and environmental law.

 

Settler-Colonialist Zohran Mamdani Calls For "Seizing The Means Of Production"

June 30, 2025 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian 28 Comments

Last week I invited readers to get a good laugh out of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to avert impending energy disaster by green-lighting one nuclear power plant that optimistically might solve 5% of the problem when it is ready to operate in the 2050s. Now this week brings an even superior farce: A video clip has emerged of our settler-colonialist Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calling for “seizing the means of production.”

Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary has led researchers to dredge up a treasure trove of his old tweets and video clips, each one more ridiculous than the next. An excellent roundup can be found here at Legal Insurrection. Some choice examples include: 

“Violence is an artificial construct"; “Under capitalism, housing is a commodity from which landlords & developers extract huge profits while our communities suffer eviction, foreclosure & displacement.”; “We need to dramatically curtail the power & presence of the NYPD.”; and “[A] statue of Columbus remains in Astoria, in defiance of the values of humanity, empathy & justice that we stand for.”

But my favorite is a clip from a speech Mamdani gave at a Democratic Socialists of America conference in 2021. The New York Post today quotes some excerpts from the speech, among them Mamdani’s statements that issues socialists “firmly believe in,” include “boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel” and “the end goal of seizing the means of production.”

“Seizing the means of production” — now there’s a retro concept. The “means of production” was good commie talk back in the 19th century, when Karl Marx and his followers looked around and saw things like steel mills, railroad engine factories, iron foundries, coal mines, textile mills, and other such big facilities to make lots of stuff. It seemed obvious that those facilitie were where the greedy capitalists got their wealth.

But has Mamdani even looked around the New York City of today? What even exists today that you could call a “means of production”?

In New York City today, we produce almost nothing that is tangible. I wonder if Mamdani has noticed that.

In May 2016 I did a big post with lots of research titled “The Devastation Of New York City’s Economy.” The post documented the complete transformation of New York City’s economy from the 1950s to the time of the post, and in particular the almost complete disappearance of manufacturing. As noted in the post, in the aftermath of World War II, New York City’s economy had over 1 million manufacturing jobs, distributed among some 37,000 different companies. 

Those companies and people made a huge variety of products, most famously women’s clothing, where New York City was completely dominant and supported about 231,000 jobs. By the time of the post in 2016, the total number of manufacturing jobs in New York City in all industries was down to about 80,000. According to the most recent statistics from the New York State Department of Labor, the current number of manufacturing jobs in the City (May 2025) is only 57,700. That’s out of total private-sector employment of some 4,248,300.

Such manufacturing as continues to exist in New York City is reduced to a few specialized niches. For example, there continue to be specialized clothing manufacturers to make things like costumes for Broadway shows and samples for runway fashion shows. Are their sewing machines what Mamdani means by the “means of production”?

In the way of mass production of physical goods for human consumption, almost none of it occurs in New York City. Food? Obviously, we don’t grow that here. Clothing? Almost certainly, nothing in your wardrobe or mine was manufactured in New York City. Housing or other buildings? They are put together on site, but the materials almost all come from elsewhere (structural concrete is one exception). Automobiles? There are no assembly plants in the five boroughs; and if you know of a manufacturer of some kind of parts for the auto industry in New York City, I would like to learn of it.

But aren’t there some kind of “means of production” to make all the wealth that gets generated in the hundreds of big office buildings in Manhattan? I would love to see Mamdani’s plans to seize whatever this may be. When he sends in his shock troops to make the seizures, all he’s going to find are a bunch of laptops no different from what you could get at the Apple store.

How about the investment bankers and traders and hedge funders who make millions of dollars per year dealing in the capital markets? I suppose that their “means of production” mainly consists of the proprietary software that they use in their businesses. The bankers may know how to make big money using this software, but seized and distributed among the masses, it would be almost completely useless. It’s really quite funny to contemplate.

Anyway, these are the levels of ignorance and foolishness that we are dealing with.

The 2030 Census and Making America Great Again

By Robin Itzler 

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors.  Any cartoons will have been added by me. If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free.

 

Our nation’s first census was conducted in 1790. At that time and through today, citizens and residents were counted to determine representation and government funding. During President Donald Trump’s first term he tried to stop the Census Bureau from counting illegal aliens. After all, it makes no sense counting people who should not be in our country and using that number to appropriate House representatives, but that is what the U.S. Census does every 10 years.

Every 760,000 or so ILLEGAL ALIENS who are deported equals one congressional seat. Plus, the number of congressional seats is how the number of Electoral College electors per state are chosen. Those numbers are also used in determining government funding. This is why Joe “Autopen” Biden opened the borders during his four-year reign of terror.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller (don’t you love this guy?!?) said that the Trump administration is determined “to clean up the census and make sure that illegal aliens are not counted.”

The House reintroduced the Equal Representation Act by North Carolina Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards. The bill would only have the Census include citizens and those legally in the United States. It now moves through the Oversight Committee, chaired by Kentucky Republican Representative James Comer. Assuming the House passes the Act, it then goes to the Senate.

Five years will pass quickly, and the nation will face the consequences of failing to pass legislation that stops the U.S. Census from counting ILLEGAL ALIENS, stopping automatic birthright citizenship (partially stopped by the Supreme Court, although its decision was on federal judge’s ruling on national issues without proper standing), along with legislation for election integrity will go a long way to cementing President Trump’s promise to Make America Great Again.

Feds Fail to Offset Wind Turbine Eagle Kill

By Craig Rucker

CFACT just released a troubling report by Senior Advisor David Wojick about the dramatic threat wind turbines pose to bald and golden eagles.

Federal regulators concluded that the golden eagle population cannot survive increased kills from human activity and also determined that wind turbines substantially increase eagle deaths.

The feds then offered a solution only a bureaucrat could love: Don't protect the eagles from turbine strikes, but “offset their deaths by reducing electrocutions from power poles.

Government being as efficient as it is, they then underestimated the number of power poles that would need to be made safe by a factor of as much as 241 and failed to save any meaningful number of eagles.

As the report concludes, the Fish and Wildlife Service should issue no new wind power eagle-kill permits until the glaring issues uncovered in this study are resolved

Time for FWS to Stop Wind Power Eagle-Kill Permits.  

 

 

Who Raises A Banner That Says: I Stand For Consensus!

Definition leads to clarity, clarity leads to understanding, understanding leads to good decision making.

By Rich Kozlovich

Prologue:  In years gone by before I started Paradigms and Demographics I published a weekly e-newsletter called Green Notes that was sent out to people all over the nation who were involved in the pest control industry, and then others asked to be on the list, even some from England, Canada, and one from Germany. 

In 2007 I decided to go with this blog instead.  However, in most of my old Green Notes newsletters I had a section called, “Quotes of the Week”.  So, a number of years go as I was going through all of the quotes I couldn’t help thinking how insightful some of them were.  Then.... all of a sudden ..... I had a SHAZAM moment.   I thought why not create a readable article out of nothing but these quotes even if they have to be paraphrased?

Well, those "SHAZAM" moments can turn into a lot of darn work.  I said then:

"I am going to have to watch those SHAZAM moments! I keep forgetting that I have a job that interferes with my life; if I had known how much work this was going to turn out to be I wouldn’t have undertaken this task in the first place".  

But I'm now retired and I came across this once again, and I like it, and as I re-read this I thought it's more profound now that it was then.  Besides, all the work has already been done, and it seems a shame to waste it, so, once again,  here it is, and I think it's an excellent history lesson to for our time.   I originally published this in 2011.  

For me, pragmatism is not enough, nor is that fashionable word consensus. To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects—the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. 

What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"? Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.

Opposing this new authoritarian collectivist green offensive is "The Battle of Our Times”. For me, the laws of physics are not subject to change by virtue of a public consensus or declarations of highly placed politicians and government science bureaucrats. We're under attack by a lot of alarmists. We must learn and remember that the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. 

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false. I have said more than once that history never repeats itself: what happens is that people keep forgetting it. Show me someone who does not read books and I will show you someone lost in the fog of propaganda, manipulation, and the lies that pass for the news of the day. Books can tell you who you are, what you believe, and why. They always leave you changed in some fashion.

Fortunate is the person who can look back at his or her life and say, "I would do it all again, and in the same way.” Most of us mortals have made mistakes, sometimes too many to count. Some mistakes have to do with career; some have to do with money; some have to do with other poor decisions and poor choices – of course reconsidered with the benefit of hindsight. 

But the ones that cause the most regret and the most pain have to do with our treatment of other people – especially those who have loved and trusted us. We finally discover the value and worth of what we once had and failed to appreciate. Let all who are here remember that we are on the stage of history, and that whatever our station may be, and whatever part we have to play, great or small, our conduct is liable to be scrutinized, not only by history, but by our own descendants.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. Losing liberty over a theoretical threat is the main concern here (no one has ever been killed by manmade global warming. because there is no way to distinguish manmade warming from natural). 

We have all been lied to by a shameless confederation of scientists, their professional publications, their formal organizations, and politicians seeking to use this big scare to advance their careers and agendas. The problem for all of them is that the real science does not support green views and never did. Real scientists (branded as dissenters, skeptics, and deniers) held true to the principles of science, knowing that it would eventually end this vast and terrible hoax.

We keep hearing outrageous statements from the greenies claiming that modern living is killing us and they repeat things they know are false over and over again. The Bolsheviks discovered that truth does not matter so long as there is reiteration. The greenies have no difficulty whatever in countering a fact by a lie which, if repeated often enough and loudly enough, becomes accepted by the people. It ain’t what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's the things you know for sure that just ain't so. Think about the things that have improved our lives the most over the past century – medical advances, the transportation revolution, huge increases in consumer goods, dramatic improvements in housing, the computer revolution. 

The people who created these things – the doers – are not popular heroes. Society’s heroes are the activist talkers who complain about the doers. Almost no one knows who Norman Borlaug was, and yet he may have saved a billion lives from starvation and prevented malnutrition on a massive scale worldwide. Most everyone knows who Rachel Carson was and it can be reasonably claimed that she is responsible for the unnecessary deaths of tens of millions and the illness of billions since the ban on DDT.

In 1900, the world supported 56 billion human life years, notes climatologist John Christy: 1.6 billion people times a 35-year average life span. Today it supports 429 billion life years: that's 6.5 billion (2011 figures) people times a 66-year average life span – and they live far better than anyone in history. Then ask yourself….do I really want to abandon what we have to live in squalor and dystopia? Because that is the alternative!

Greenies don't like tidal power, it might upset the fish you know! And coal, nuclear and hydroelectric are positively EVIL! Windmills are no good because they kill birds and bats and tidal power is also a no no. These are all things they supported and then they turned against, just like bio-fuels. There's just no such thing as a happy Greenie. What is the alternative? What will make the greenies happy?  We all commit suicide. 

Make no mistake: Living green is really about someone else micro-regulating you -- downsizing your dreams and plugging each one of us into a brand new social order for which we never bargained. Journalists have generally given up on seeking to understand science, but instead look for the next scientist who will say something strange so that they have a “story”. 

Credibility has to be earned, and once it’s squandered may never be recovered, and with the internet we have discovered that the media squandered any credibility they had many years ago.

Let’s just take Global Warming scares promoted by the media. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate. As far as I can see the IPCC 'Global Temperature' is wrong. Temperature is fluctuating but it is still most places cooler than in the 1930s and 1940s. It will take about 800 years before the water level has increased by one meter". 

Changes in solar irradiation have been the dominant causes of changes in climate. Volcanic eruptions can have caused some cooling events and greenhouse gases may have contributed to the increase in temperature over the last decades. However, the influence of solar variability has been the major forcing factor and will probably also remain so in the future. Every totalitarian regime needs its defining myth. With the Nazis, it was the “Aryan” fantasy of racial purity. With the USSR, it was the dictatorship of the proletariat. With secularized, semi-pagan Western societies in historic decline, it is global warming. 

Environmentalists-even mainstream environmentalists, are less concerned about any crisis posed by global warming than they are eager to command human behavior and restrict economic activity. Their true plans and ambitions?  Stop economic development and return mankind centuries back. They are interested in their businesses and their profits made with the help of politicians. Take away the grant money and they will go away.

Why are economic conditions chaotic? The reason is simple. Americans no longer possess the freedom to produce the goods and services required to maintain their former standard of living. Taxation – both direct and indirect through currency inflation – runaway government regulation and government-sponsored-and-encouraged litigation have reduced the productivity of Americans below that required to maintain their way of life. This tyranny – this economic slavery – has been produced entirely by the federal and state governments of the United States.

Science has traditionally been held in high esteem. That clearly is no longer the case. What has changed? The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some belief in global warming? In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy, yet those who dared question the “consensus science” of the warmers were declared, skeptics and deniers such as the holocaust deniers.   In short…they were called heretics. 

What is the mission of the environmentalists? To spread their truth, no matter how many lies it takes. Green activists will always be outraged about something. What outrages them on any given day will depend on the emotions they are feeling on any given day. This is where I really have a problem with modern-day environmentalism; it confuses opinion with what we know to be true, and disguises what are really political agendas with environmental rhetoric. Those who talk about climate change are the same ones who occupy the tenth circle of Hell for in the eyes of many Americans: Politicians, the Media, Scientists, Educators, Hippies, and Showbiz types, making it a moral imperative to be against whatever it is they’re for.

The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity. The pain and suffering it is inflicting on families in developing countries must no longer be tolerated. Eco-Imperialism is the first book I’ve seen that tells the truth and lays it on the line. It’s a must-read for anyone who cares about people, progress and our planet.” – Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder

It’s bad enough that politicians and scientists have been drinking the Kool-Aid, what is truly amazing is how many corporate types have been imbibing and buying into these anti-business Corporate Social Responsibility scenarios. When the corporate Neville Chamberlains ultimately forfeit their salaries, bonuses and their jobs thanks to their spineless leadership and the anti-capitalism cabal that now inhabits wine and cheese bars in the District of Columbia, I hope to be around to ask this simple question: “So, how’s that hope and change working out for you ?

Climate change is not a scientific problem that found political support; this is about eco-activists and politicians who found a scientific issue they feel can leverage them into power and control. The environment is a great way to advance a political agenda that favors central planning and an intrusive government. What better way to control someone’s property than to subordinate one’s private property rights to environmental concerns. 

If the congressional, administration. and activist conspirators behind this massive deceit were in the private sector – peddling bogus drugs, rather than bogus science – they’d quickly become convicts. Instead of jail time, though, they’ll probably get bonus checks. It is time to clean out the climate cesspool, and bring integrity, transparency and accountability back to science, law and public policy.

There is one good thing about the lunatic "global warming" catechism now taught our youth in the mandatory government youth propaganda camps: When they are finally forced to admit that the globe has been cooling again, not warming, for the past decade, yet proceed to demand precisely the same remedies for "global cooling" (which they will cleverly dub "climate change") as they did for "global warming" -- that is to say higher electric bills, more government controls, taxes sufficient to cripple our industrial economy and generally lower our standard of living in keeping with the world socialist doctrine that America and particularly the "capitalist rich" must be "punished" and "made to sacrifice" in penitence for our former prosperity -- there is finally a decent chance they'll simply be laughed out of town .

Recently I was foolish enough to try to reason with an environmentalist. But it became obvious that he had his mind made up and didn't want to hear any evidence to the contrary. The Pope is more likely to have read Karl Marx than an environmentalist is to have read even a single book that criticized environmentalism. The EPA's muddled machinations should not come as a surprise, because the agency long has been a haven for scientifically insupportable policies perpetrated by anti-technology ideologues in career and appointed positions, pouring out a lava flow of scientifically dubious regulations.

It has a sordid history of incompetence, duplicity, and pandering to the most extreme factions of the environmental movement, all of which appears to be accelerating. The environmental movement has become so radical as to be an easily identified hazard to American life, and the EPA is not on my list of favorite agencies. There is no dealing with the greenies. They will never be satisfied and as for those who wish to define green and adopt it as a business model and make the green movement partners of some sort; let me help you.  Green is a mixture of blue and yellow. That is the only factual definition of green that will stand the test of time. After that; any other definition is a corruption of a perfectly nice color. 

Remember, when you dance with the Devil you won’t call the tune, you won’t choose the dance, you won’t lead, you can’t change partners and you may not be allowed to leave the dance floor.

Quotes by: Alan Caruba, Arthur Robinson, Bob Parks, Dan Miller Dr. Jay Lehr, Dr. Roy Spenser. Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, Gerard Jackson, H. L. Mencken, Henry Miller, Gilbert Ross, James A. Peden, James Lewis, Jon Ray, Larry, Ludwig von Mises, Larry Elder, Margaret Thatcher, Mark Twain, Nancy Brown, Nick Nichols, Patrick Moore, Paul Driessen, Paul Johnson, Peter Mullen, Rich Kozlovich, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Stephen Murgatroyd, Steve Milloy, Thomas Sowell, Vaclav Klaus, Vin Suprynowicz, Viv Forbes, Winston Churchill

Is Aphorism Another Name For Humor and Snarkiness?

By Rich Kozlovich

I have huge files on everything, and I will occasionally go back to see what I've left forgotten. This has been sitting in my files since 2007, and I have no idea who originated it, but I thought it was worth publishing anyway.  We need a bit of humor, satire, and down right snarkiness occasionally.     

1. It's not whether you win or lose, but how you place the blame.
2. You are not drunk  if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
3. We have enough "youth". How about a fountain of "smart"?
4. The original point and click interface was a Smith & Wesson.
5. A Fool and his money can throw one heck of a party.
6.  Five days a week my body is a temple. The other two it's an amusement park.
7. Learn from your parents mistakes.  Use birth control.
8.  Money isn't everything, but it sure keeps the kids in touch.
9. Don't drink and drive you might hit a bump and spill something.
10.  If at first you don't succeed skydiving is not for you. 
11. Reality is only an illusion.
12. We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.
13. Red meat is not bad for you  Fuzzy green meat is bad for you.
14. Ninety-nine percent of all lawyers give the rest a bad name.
15. Alabama state motto:  At least we're not Mississippi.
16. Xerox and Wurlitzer will merge to produce reproductive organs
17. Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
18. The latest survey shows three out of four people make up 75% of the population.
19. "You know why a banana is like a politician? He comes in and first he is green,then he turns yellow and then he's rotten."
20.  "I think Congressmen should wear uniforms, you know, like NASCAR drivers, so we could identify their corporate sponsors."
21. The reason Politicians try so hard to get re-elected is that they would 'hate' to have to make a living under the laws they've passed.

I hope you got a chuckle or two out of that, and perhaps a repeatable insight or two.  

Trump, the Federal Judiciary, and The Government of the United States

By Rich Kozlovich

Since there's all this foofaraw about the federal courts setting themselves up as mini Presidents, and the recent SCOTUS ruling telling them they're not, I think this chart is important.  

 

As Jeffrey Tucker notes in his article The Curbing of the Administrative State regarding the SCOTUS ruling: 

The opinion could not be plainer: “Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” That principle applies not only to this case but to the whole panoply of cases that have tethered the ability of the president to manage executive branch operations. The courts have presumed authority over the president that the Constitution plainly does not grant.

He goes on to state the government as it's been configured is in effect contrary to the intent of the Constitution.  The elected officials are supposed to be in charge, not unelected bureaucrats saying: 

The answer has been hiding in plain sight all this time. It took a dramatic and domestic exercise of administrative power, one that hit us all our lives personally, to reveal the extent of the problem. It comes down to the approximately 425 agencies with millions of permanent employees that are the real government in the United States........In 2014, just two years before Trump’s first term, the scholar Philip Hamburger wrote “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” His argument was that this machinery does not exist in the Constitution. There is no such thing as an agency that is independent of presidential control................

All these court issues are predicated on the fact Trump is exposing to the America people how corrupt it all has become,  which is the lesson he learned after his first term after being stabbed in the back by people who were disloyal, and bureaucrats who undermined everything he was attempting to do.  So he issued executive orders and triggered a fight that was long overdue.  

The chart shows who in charge of the federal government, and it's not the legislature, and it's not the judiciary.  It's the Chief Executive, and that's the President of the United States. 

Harry Truman flew to Wake Island to confront Douglas MacArthur over their differences regarding the Korean War, and protocol demanded MacArthur stand at the stairs to greet the President of the United State.  He didn't, and that went on for 45 minutes.  Finally when they were alone he told MacArthur, and I'm paraphrasing here, "I don't care what you think about Harry Truman, but don't you ever disrespect the President of the United States that way again. "

Well, that's Trump's view of reality.  He doesn't much care what you think about Donald Trump, but they're not gong to get away with disrespecting and disregarding the President of the United States.  

Unfortunately, the battle is far from over, just as one district judge Brian Murphy openly defied the court refusing to follow the ruling of the Supreme Court, there are two other ways these radical leftist judges and attorneys can subvert the ruling an the obvious intent of the Constitution.  Class action lawsuits, which normally aren't so easy to bring into being, but if the jurists are corrupt, and we already know a bunch of them are, that will not be a deterrent, since like Ketanji Brown Jackson, they could care less about the rule of law.  However, the  Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 will clearly be problematic, as the wording is an open ended invitation for abuse by district courts, and is an issue either the Congress, SCOTUS, or both will be forced to address.  Make no mistake, this is far from over.  

•  Attorneys Push for Class Action in Birthright Citizenship Case After Supreme Court Ruling
• Two Harvard law grads issue ludicrous analyses about the Supreme Court’s limits on nationwide injunctions
• The battle of ‘Lawless Lawfare’
• Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Thunderclap Heard Around the Republic

Elon is Just Being Elon. So, Who Cares?

By Rich Kozlovich, Tags: Mars and Elon Musk Are Both Out There

Elon Musk is threatening to launch a third party if the Congress dares to ignore him and pass Trump's Big Beautiful Bill!  And we're shocked why?  There were many, including me, who believed the day would come when he would be a serious problem for Trump.  Why? Because he's Elon Musk, and unlike Sir Thomas More, "A man for all Seasons", Elon Musk is a "man for no seasons", and a man for whom I've had little respect.  

I consider him to be a massively self serving con artist, feeding at the government's subsidy trough on electric cars, and even promoting global warming.  Elon Musk has been touting this Mars expedition for some time, and it just ain't gonna happen, and while I don't know where the funding would come from, I'm betting it's just another opportunity to feed at the government subsidy trough.  As my friend John Ray noted, "he is a brilliant fundraiser off governments, State and Federal."  As for me, I think he's a strange man, and I think he's a bit nuts.  A man who thrives on and lusts for attention. 

As for a third party headed up by Elon Musk, I don't think it's going to happen.  Who exactly does he think he's going to attract? 

• MAGA voters? That just ain't gonna happen as they're almost universal in their contempt for Musk, many of whom predicted this kind of backstabbing from him.
• Disgruntled Democrats?  That could happen, but just how many are left in the Democrat party who've not already turned to Trump?  A party with it's core solidly Marxist.  You can almost hear those remaining disgruntles saying:  That's it, I've had it, I'm voting for a different Democrat!  How many of them were going to vote for Trump? Few to none, so there's no loss there, but they're never voting for Musk.
• Far left voters.  Not in a million years, they hate Musk.   
• Green party?  Maybe, but if every Green party member joined him they would be just as ineffective and meaningless as they are now. 
• Libertarians?  Maybe, but Libertarian members are mostly ideologues, and I think a bit strange. Their impact on American elections has been meaningless.  Joining Musk won't make them meaningful, and they know it.  
• Never Trumpers?  They're numbers are also meaningless, and their influence is non existent, like John Kasich, Liz Chaney, George Will, and Bill Kristol.  No one listens to them, and no one cares what they have to say.  Just like their fellow RINO's, as in disgusted Republicans who are false conservatives versus real conservatives, they already weren't voting for Trump or any other real conservative anyway, so there would be no lost votes there or for that matter, in any of these categories.  

History, and the cultures they're departing are against them and the American culture won't support them!  You have to have the numbers to be a politically important movement,  even if some of those numbers are offensive to the touch.  He doesn't have the skills necessary to bring diverse groups together, and since the left is treating this as a war of conquest and destruction of American capitalism and democracy, that makes it a real war, and we need to understand they are the enemy of the American identity, the American culture, the American economy and the U.S. Constitution, and any attempt by Musk to undermine Trump and the MAGA movement will be viewed as supporting a movement that wants to destroy the nation.  

Finally, recruitment and strategic thinking requires goals, and Elon Musk has no determinable goals, nor does he have definable policies that he would install in place of Trump's.  So, Elon is just being Elon, and as my mother used to say, "this falls under the category of who gives a crap", only she didn't say crap.  

A Radical Company is Paying Supreme Court Justices Millions

By Daniel Greenfield, @ Sultan Knish Blog

Last year, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, despite being in her early 50s and having an undistinguished career before her affirmative action appointment, published a memoir.

You might be forgiven for having missed it when “Lovely One” came out. As the media politely notes, it was “briefly” on the New York Times bestseller list and is now going for half price on Amazon. That is mostly to be expected of the ghostwritten memoir of an obscure judge.

Except that Jackson received a $893,750 advance for her memoir and is now reporting $2 million in profits last year. These would be record numbers for a Supreme Court Justice’s biography from a book that hardly anyone had noticed when it came out. And while books can become unexpected successes once released, there was little sign of that happening.

The actual sales figures have not been made public and perhaps ‘Lovely One’ sold millions of copies even while hardly anyone noticed before ending up in the remainder bin a year later. Certainly no one in the same media that pursued every living member of the Thomas family to find if anyone had ever done them a favor actually bothered obtaining the sales figure.

Even when the money was coming from an avaricious foreign publisher which has deluged Supreme Court justices with millions of dollars in generous publishing deals.

After Jackson’s memoir, Penguin Random House will be publishing Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s book for which she received a $2 million advance. That’s money the publisher seems even less likely to recoup considering that Barrett is hated among leftists and has a mixed approval rating among conservatives. Past polls show that the majority of the country can’t even name a single Supreme Court justice, yet they are receiving celebrity level advances for books no one cares about.

Penguin’s payouts previously made headlines when five Supreme Court justices, including Jackson and Barrett, had to recuse themselves from a case involving allegations of plagiarism by racist Hamas supporter Ta-Nehisi Coates whose works, including a book describing 9/11 firefighters as “not human to me”, were widely backed and promoted by Penguin.

The ‘Penguin’ recusals successfully allowed Coates to triumph in that latest court case.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had been previously criticized for not recusing herself in cases involving Penguin which had paid her over $3 million. And the current Supreme Court is so badly conflicted over its Penguin cash that it can no longer decide cases involving it.

And that’s a problem because Penguin is actually Bertelsmann: a German ex-Nazi publishing giant that has waged war on American parents, promoted racism and is trying to monopolistically gobble up all of American publishing. Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist”, Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility”, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me”, and, during WWII, “The Christmas Book of the Hitler Youth” all came out of Bertelsmann.

While the ex-Nazi foreign corporation operates under familiar names like Penguin, Random House, Doubleday, Ballantine, Knopf,Viking, Putnam, Bantam, Del Rey, Golden Books and many others, it’s actually a foreign company pushing deeply destructive products. Even as parents tried to stop their children from being exposed to sexually inappropriate content, former CEO Markus Dohle went to war against them with a $500,000 legal fund.

Any corporation moving millions of dollars to Supreme Court justices in a way that has already successfully advantaged it in the Ta-Nehisi Coates plagiarism case would be suspect, but a foreign company that has tried to completely monopolize American publishing by seizing control of Simon and Schuster, and has intervened in American politics, is even more deeply troubling.

Yet the Bertelsmann millions have gone mostly unexamined even as ProPublica, a leftist advocacy group, launched a smear campaign against Justice Thomas. The Thomas smears were repeated by every media outlet in the country which pursued the 76-year-old justice’s 96-year-old mother to find out where exactly she lives and who paid the tuition for his grandnephew, yet shrug when the Supreme Court can’t even form a quorum over millions from a multinational giant that has business before the court being directed to justices.

No one in the media seems to have even bothered examining the sales figures for ‘Lovely One’ to determine how many copies were sold and which venues actually sold them. Sotomayor had become notorious for high-pressure sales tactics aimed at compelling venues to buy her books.

Supreme Court justices used to write on mainly legal matters (with notable exceptions such as Taft and Douglas) and reserved their memoirs toward the end of their lives. Newly minted justices like Jackson signing memoir deals is an obvious cash-in and Justice Sotomayor, after publishing a memoir no one was asking for ‘My Beloved World’, began writing children’s books.

Would Penguin really be publishing Sotomayor’s feeble efforts at writing children’s books, ‘Just Help!: How to Build a Better World’, ‘Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You’ and (coming soon) ‘Just Shine!: How to Be a Better You’ if she weren’t a Supreme Court justice?

And Justice Jackson making millions for a ghostwritten memoir after spending less time on the bench than most dustcloths is an equally obvious exercise in cashing in, not literary inspiration.

Judges putting their names on things to make money is not illegal, and maybe after this, Justice Jackson will have her own line of dish towels, sneakers or crypto coins, but Bertelsmann has not only monopolized the American publishing market, but has monopolized the market for justices. And considering its radical politics and vast ambitions, that is a major problem.

What happens when Bertelsmann triggers a court case with major legal implications and once again a quorum of justices can’t be found to sit on it?

Then the woke mega-publisher will have officially bought America’s legal system.

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.

 

Slinging Sammy Baugh

By Rich Kozlovich

Except on rare occasions P&D doesn't feature sports or entertainment, but there are times when I choose to disregard that rule.   My movie review on The Battle of Midway was one, Let Me Tell You About José Alberto Pujols Alcántara was another, and recently Guts, Glory, and Yogi Berra, which I especially enjoyed doing.  As you read those posts I think you can see why I made those exceptions.  They weren't about sports, or movies, they were all about character. 

This commentary is another exception as I really tire of all these arrogant spoiled athletes who are grossly overpaid, over pampered, and over catered to, most of whom are not too bright, telling the world what to think.   So, let's get to it.  

 

Who do I think was the greatest quarterback to ever play the game? Slinging Sammy Baugh! 

 

I'm betting most of you never heard of him.  Here's the Wikipedia page on his accomplishments, and they were impressive, and he played both sides of the ball.  Many years ago I saw a documentary on him with film showing him playing, and when he threw a football he reared back just like a modern quarterback and let loose.  Okay....so what?  Well, the footballs were bigger around in those days and quarterbacks pushed it as much as threw it, and from pictures it appears he had huge hands.  

 

He said in an interview he loved throwing the ball, and in every situation no matter how difficult, and he played before the big money started rolling in.  I would loved to have seen what he could have accomplished in modern football.  

 

Every once in a while an athlete comes along that can do everything playing every sport at a higher level than anyone else.   Jim Thorpe was probably the most distinguished in my opinion, and in recent times I think we can say Bo Jackson was one, but most assuredly, so too was "Slinging Sammy Baugh". 

 

His son said his father "derived far more pleasure from ranching than he ever had from football, saying that he enjoyed the game, but if he could live his life over again, he probably wouldn't play sports at all."  A down to earth man well rounded man of character who married his childhood sweetheart, and stayed married for 52 years.  That's a successful life!

Revolutionary War Secrets And July 4th Trivia

“The endlessly repeated argument that most Americans are the descendants of immigrants ignores the fact most Americans are NOT descendants of ILLEGAL immigrants.”— Thomas Sowell

By Robin Itzler 

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors.  Any cartoons will have been added by me. If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free.

It took just over seven years for America to win our freedom. Although there were skirmishes before, it’s commonly thought that the American Revolution started on April 19, 1775, with the battles of Lexington and Concord. There was still some fighting, but basically the war is considered to have officially ended on September 3, 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

At the beginning, we fought alone with little to no money. In time, Spain, the Netherlands and France helped America to win our freedom. But throughout the war, Patriots led the charge to freedom. Here are some interesting facts:

• Thomas Hickey was General George Washington’s personal bodyguard so you would think he might like the man he was protecting. Yet, Hickey was involved in a plot to assassinate Washington prior to the Declaration of Independence being signed. Others were involved, but only Hickey was executed for the plot.
• Support for the colonies breaking away from Great Britain never exceeded 45 percent. Unlike the Civil War, where the north fought south, in this fight neighbors fought neighbors.
• One day Great Britain was winning. The next day colonists were winning. Many people changed allegiance based on who they thought would eventually win.
• Some women fought in the Continental Army disguised as men.
• Invisible ink was used to send secret messages between General Washington and other Patriot leaders. The ink (ferrous sulfate mixed with water) was developed by Dr. James Jay, brother of Founding Father John Jay. Once the ink dried, you couldn’t see anything. Only when covered in a specific chemical or placed near heat did the message appear.
• George Washington did NOT have wooden teeth. His false teeth were made from cow’s teeth and ivory held together by springs.
• Lack of records makes confirmation impossible, but it’s believed that for every troop killed on the battlefield, two more died of disease.
• The National Archives in Washington, D.C. displays the Declaration of Independence, which many people believe is the one and only original. This copy has all 56 signatures of the Second Continental Congress. There were 200 copies of the original printed. The other 199 copies were officially signed by John Hancock and Charles Thompson. Of those 199 copies, 26 survived and the rest lost to history.

Sources: Genealogy Bank, Rochester University, The Archive, State of No. Carolina 

 July 4th Trivia

As you wait for the food to cook on the barbecue or the fireworks to start, amaze your family and friends with some interesting trivia about July Fourth: 

• Founding Fathers John Adams (2nd president) and Thomas Jefferson (3rd president) died on July 4, 1826—our nation’s 50th birthday. Adams was 91 and Jefferson was 83. 
• James Monroe (5th president) passed away on July 4, 1831.
• Calvin Coolidge (30th president) was born on July 4, 1872.
• The number 83 (Thomas Jefferson’s age when he died) is very interesting. If anyone in your group is 83 years old, that means they were born in 1942. Someone born 83 years before 1942 was born 1859. Someone born 83 years before 1859 was born in 1776. 
• The average age of the 56 Declaration of Independence signers was 44. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest at 70 years. He lived to age 84. 
• Thomas Jefferson was 33 years old.
• George Washington was 44 years old when the Declaration was signed. 
• King George of England was 38 years old.

BONUS: The height of the new World Trade Center in New York City is 1,776 feet high.