What Is A Bill Of Attainder And Why Is It Important?

Our Founding Fathers understood what it was like to live under a king. They also understood what it was like to live under a government that not only did not represent you, but could target you at any time. They wanted the new government they founded to represent the people and protect the people from the government.

On Tuesday, The American Spectator posted an article that points out that the continued lawfare against President Trump violates the law against a bill of attainder.

The article reports:

Yet so common was the bill of attainder in British history in pre-modern times that it was a fairly normal way of dealing with the rebellious — or, indeed, just those whom the authorities found uncongenial. And so much did the Founding Fathers dislike its use that they deemed it important enough to have its own mention in the Constitution, which expressly forbids it under Article I, Section 9, Clause 3: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”

But what is this strange creature?

The word “attainder” derives from the adjective “attainted,” which was used to define individuals whose legal rights had been removed. All of them. They lost the right to own property and bear titles; they could not enter into legal agreements, nor could their heirs inherit from them. They were often summarily executed, and they forfeited all their possessions to the state, in this case the Crown, or as much of it as the rulers could get their hands on. What makes bills of attainder unique in legislation — and insupportable — is that they imposed draconian penalties on specific individuals without the need to find them guilty in a court, for they had lost their right to a jury trial or, indeed, any trial at all.

Now, if this sounds hauntingly familiar in modern America, that’s because it should. Bills of attainder may be unconstitutional, but acting in ways essentially equivalent apparently is not.

Consider the lawfare being directed at Trump. Only the naïve or the prejudiced could seriously believe that the indictments leveled at him would be directed at anyone else. They’re aimed at one man, and his first name is Donald, his last name Trump.

Enter Judge Arthur Engoron, and the indictment for fraud brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

This case is astonishing on so many levels. First, no one is claiming injury here: Banks loaned money to Trump based on the value of his assets. Trump repaid the loan, with interest. The banks had not the least inclination to sue him, since they had suffered no injury.

The article notes:

If one were of a suspicious mind, one might surmise that Engoron imposed the most massive fines he could in order to make it as hard as possible for Trump to appeal his ruling.

Surely not!

Now consider how similar this is to a bill of attainder. First, such a bill removes the legal rights of the target. Engoron has made an appeal against his ruling as difficult as possible. Further, draconian penalties have been imposed on Trump without the need to find him guilty of anything in court. As with a bill of attainder, the target’s ability to hold offices and function is withdrawn. His property is seized and removed from his control. Finally, since there is no aggrieved party claiming redress, the Crown — the state, in this case — takes the wealth forfeited. His heirs are punished — not for what they did but because they are his sons.

This is a bill of attainder in fact, if not in name. It differs only in that it comes from a court rather than a legislature.

Obviously the wrong people are on trial.

A Good News Story

Life goes on in America. Good things happen. On July 9th, The American Spectator posted an article about a wedding the author of the article had recently attended.

The article provides some biographical information on the rabbi who was officiating at the wedding:

After the war (WWII), Coughlin (Father Coughlin who hosted a popular radio show blaming Jews for much of the evil in the world) was off the air and America opened its gates to thousands of survivors. America also became a powerful champion of the cause for honoring the mandate given by Britain to allow Jews to have a homeland again in the land promised their ancestors by God millennia before. President Harry Truman made sure that within minutes of Israel’s declaration of independence, America offered it recognition.

Among those let in during the post-war years was a young man from Czechoslovakia who had lost most of his family. As a teenager, he had been swept into Auschwitz, which he survived until the camp was closed. Eventually, he was forced to walk on a death march. In an abnormally cold winter, the lightly clad prisoners had to walk hundreds of miles westward into German territory away from the advancing Russian troops. He miraculously survived and was liberated. Without family in Europe, he came first to Canada and then to the U.S.

Here in America, he was taken under the sheltering wings of a great rabbi who took close care of him, taking a deep personal interest in his life. He supervised a program of studies that led the young survivor to the highest achievements in the literary and oral traditions of rabbinic law and theology and he also guided him through a doctoral program at New York University. He went on to become a community leader, a teacher, and a brilliant translator while raising a family in which all the children became community leaders themselves.

It was that one-time inmate in a death camp who was the officiating rabbi at the wedding that I went to last week. The groom was his grandson. The occasion was joyous and happy.

The article notes:

American men and women sacrificed themselves to beat the Nazi evil and paid a steep price in blood and suffering. We agonize over our mistakes, yet we have turned again and again to correct our own wrongs and have given of ourselves to stop rampant evil, time and again.

Just as it took proof to understand that such an evil as the Holocaust could be real, so it takes vision to understand how great a good is possible.

American has been a force for good in the world. Those who criticize America for its involvement in slavery need to understand that slavery was part of the acceptable social structure of the time. I wonder if our descendants will view abortion the same way we view slavery.

A Puzzling Move

On Saturday, The American Spectator reported that last month Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed Nigeria from the State Department’s list of countries hostile to religious freedom. In April, the U.S. government’s own Commission on International Religious Freedom had urged Secretary of State Blinken to keep Nigeria on the list.

The articled reports:

In 2020, the Trump administration designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) on religious freedom. In a letter, the Family Research Council and host of other organizations committed to religious freedom have asked Biden: “How can it be, less than a year after that significant designation, that Nigeria’s CPC designation has been dropped without a public explanation?”

The groups note in the letter that anti-Christian persecution in the country has grown even more intense since 2020: “The ongoing violence, killing, and displacement against Christians and others have only increased. In fact, during 2021, massacres happen almost nightly, while by day, young boys are killed in the fields. Pregnant women are brutally dismembered, their babies mutilated before their eyes. And now, an entire church congregation has been abducted and held captive.”

Armed Islamic terrorists and radicals “have become even more brazen, torching entire villages and farms, ambushing, and killing innocent people in gory, unspeakable ways,” they write. “Mass killings—the kind that used to be sporadic—are now a national emergency. Catholic News Agency reported in July, ‘an estimated 3,462 Christians have been killed in Nigeria in the first 200 days of 2021, according to a new study. This equates to 17 Christians being murdered every day in Africa’s most populous country.”

The article concludes:

Biden has declared the promotion of transgenderism abroad a “priority” of American foreign policy. That apparently stands at the apex of his hierarchy of rights.  “[The State] Department has committed to increasing U.S. engagement on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) human rights issues abroad,” says Blinken. “As we do so, we work with partners around the world who bring to bear expertise on their unique challenges and innovative solutions. We recognize that, through these partnerships, we will be able to build a safer, more inclusive global society for all LGBTQI+ persons.”

This is what preoccupied Blinken in the months preceding the collapse of Afghanistan. Then after it fell, he told Congress that he was “focused on” the plight of the “LGBTQI+ in Afghanistan” under the Taliban.

Talk about an “unbalanced” agenda. Blinken can strain at the gnat and swallow the camel. As he trivializes human rights abuses, monstrous ones are occurring in a country that he claims is no longer a foe of religious freedom. Never mind that an organization called Genocide Watch says “Nigeria has become a killing field of defenseless Christians.” The group says that “between 11,500 and 12,000 Christians have been massacred since June 2015 when the Buhari Government of Nigeria came to power. These statistics are based on careful records kept by church groups that include the names of victims and dates of their murders.”

That Biden can overlook this while prattling on about the supposed glories of transgenderism and chastising Russia for its insufficient enlightenment (Blinken said that Biden rebuked Putin at their summer meeting for not supporting the LGBTQ agenda) reveals much about this administration’s bankrupt agenda. Only a president that prizes religious freedom at home will care about its loss abroad.

I believe that our President has mixed up his priorities.

Numbers Don’t Lie

The coronavirus has probably been with us for about two years now. We have shut down, we have vaccinated, we have socially distanced, and we have masked, and the virus is still with us. The hospitalization and death rates seem to be decreasing, but the virus is still with us. Is is because 100 percent of the people are not vaccinated? Evidently not.

On Saturday, The American Spectator posted an article titled, “Irish Quandary: Who to Blame When Everyone’s Vaxxed?” That is a really good question.

The article reports:

During his Thursday town hall meeting with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, President Joe Biden blithely dismissed the most basic assertion of those who have chosen to resist a COVID-19 vaccination. “Freedom? I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID,” scoffed Biden. “No, I mean come on — freedom.”

In his literally mindless way, Biden said out loud what health officials everywhere have been implying since the vaccines became widely available. Those who are not vaccinated are killing their more responsible peers.

In the Republic of Ireland, however, health officials are running out of people to blame. This has becoming embarrassingly obvious in County Waterford. As reported in the Irish Times, the nation’s establishment newspaper, two of the three most COVID-infected electoral areas in Ireland are located in the county “with the highest rate of vaccination in the country.” In Waterford, a remarkable 99.7 percent of adults over the age of 18 is fully vaccinated.

The Waterford news caught my attention because the first American “Cashills” hail from County Waterford. My great-great-grandfather came to America in 1847, “Black 47” as they called it, the mid-point of a potato famine that saw more than one million Irish die from starvation or disease and another million flee the country. For all their travails, the Irish were a hardy, freedom-loving people then. With some notable exceptions, they are neither anymore.

I suspect that is also about the time my Irish ancestors came to America.

The article reports some startling numbers:

The arbitrary evolution of Irish COVID policy over the past 18 months has made it clear that public health officials and government policy makers have no idea what they are doing. If proof were needed, County Waterford provides it. According to data published on October 21, Waterford City South has the nation’s highest 14-day incidence rate at 1,486 cases per 100,000 and Tramore-Waterford City West has the third highest at 1,122 cases per 100,000. This is despite internal travel bans and the county’s more than 90 percent vaccination rate.

Although Waterford is running three times the rate of the nation writ large, Ireland as a whole is not faring particularly well, especially given its draconian restrictions. In the seven days preceding October 21, Ireland reported 2,026 new cases. To put that number in perspective, wide-open Florida had 2,262 cases during that same period with a population more than four times greater than the Irish Republic’s.

The article concludes:

Indeed, to dissent on just about any COVID-related issue comes at a price. The case of former University College–Dublin professor and Irish Freedom Party chair, Dolores Cahill, is instructive. Prior to her emergence in the anti-vaccination movement, Cahill had been considered “superstar” of Irish scientific research.

Cahill’s standing in polite society began to unravel in March 2021 when she was induced to resign her Freedom Party chairmanship after “making unsubstantiated claims at an anti-lockdown rally.”

In August 2021, readers of the Irish Times learned that a bench warrant had been issued in London for the arrest of the “prominent Covid sceptic and anti-vaccination campaigner.” Among other offenses Cahill was charged with holding “a gathering of more than six people in any place.”

By October 2021, the same month that the Waterford numbers were making a hash out of all official vaccination claims, the Irish Times was trashing the now “former” UCD professor as a “conspiracy theorist” and “one of the main purveyors of anti-vaccination misinformation.”

As the County Waterford numbers make clear, Irish health officials and policymakers do not know what “misinformation” is. They do, however, know what power is, and they will do what they must to hang on to it, freedom be damned.

Maybe vaccines are not the answer?

Will The Tenth Amendment Stand?

The American Spectator posted an article today about the recently passed coronavirus relief bill.

The article reports:

Well, that didn’t take long. The first major bill passed by the new Democratic congressional majority and signed into law by our new president on March 11 had already provoked a constitutional challenge by March 17. The attorney general of Ohio filed suit against the Biden administration last Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, alleging that the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) unconstitutionally and coercively limits the right of states to manage their internal fiscal policies: “This suit challenges an unconstitutional provision in the American Rescue Plan Act — a provision that allows the federal government to commandeer state taxing authority.”

If the use of “commandeer” in this context seems vaguely familiar, it’s probably a vestigial memory of the Obama administration’s failed attempt to exert equally questionable control over state budgets using the mandatory Medicaid provision of Obamacare. Fortunately, in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that such coercion is unconstitutional. Ohio’s ARPA challenge involves a provision whereby $195.3 billion in fiscal recovery aid will be distributed among the states and the District of Columbia. Beyond its effect on the federal budget deficit, this doesn’t seem particularly pernicious. The real problem arises from the restrictions the provision imposes on the power of the states to reduce taxes:

A State or territory shall not use the funds provided under this section or transferred pursuant to section 603(c)(4) to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue of such State or territory resulting from a change in law, regulation or administrative interpretation during the covered period that reduces any tax (by providing for a reduction in a rate, a rebate, a deduction, a credit or otherwise) or delays the imposition of any tax or tax increase.

This constitutionally dubious language was inserted into the legislation by the Democrats at the last minute, the New York Times reports, for the express purpose of interfering with the ability of the states to make changes in their tax codes. It is a deliberate and insolent attack by the federal government on state sovereignty and the doctrine of federalism. As Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost puts it in his Motion for Preliminary Injunction, “The Tax Mandate thus gives the States a choice: they can have either the badly needed federal funds or their sovereign authority to set state tax policy. But they cannot have both. In our current economic crisis, that is no choice at all. It is a metaphorical ‘gun to the head.’ ”

The coronavirus relief bill actually punishes fiscally responsible states and rewards fiscally irresponsible states, so it is no surprise that the law would actually limit the ability of states to improve their economies by lowering taxes. In the world envisioned by the current Democrat party, we would all pay more taxes and government would have more control over our lives. Never in the history of America have Americans been given government guidelines as to their activities in their own backyards on Independence Day. I fear that this is only the beginning of the power grab by those currently in control of Washington.

How Long Will The Flynn Saga Continue?

The American Spectator posted an article today about the ongoing case of General Flynn.

The article includes a very good lawyer joke:

Sigmund Freud dies and goes to Heaven, where he’s met at the Pearly Gates by Saint Peter.

“Dr. Freud, thank goodness you’ve come! We have a crisis and need your professional help!”

“How so?” asks Freud.

“It’s God. He’s having delusions of grandeur.”

“What are His symptoms?” asks Freud.

“He thinks He’s a federal judge!”
 — Old trial lawyer joke

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan seems to have forgotten that he is not god in handling the Flynn case. Judge Sullivan had been ordered by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to dismiss the case.

The article explains what happened next:

In filings before the circuit court, Sullivan explained that he plans to “question the bona fides of the government’s [dismissal] motion,” “inquire about the government’s motions and representations,” “illuminat[e] the full circumstances surrounding the proposed dismissal,” and probe “whether the presumption of government regularity for prosecutorial decisions is overcome” in “the unusual facts of this case.”

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the petition and ordered Sullivan to grant the motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn.

Noting that, although Rule 48 requires “leave of court” before dismissing charges, under well-founded legal precedent “decisions to dismiss pending criminal charges — no less than decisions to initiate charges and to identify which charges to bring — lie squarely within the ken of prosecutorial discretion”  and that “the principal object” of the “leave of court” requirement is “to protect a defendant against prosecutorial harassment … when the Government moves to dismiss an indictment over the defendant’s objection.”

The article concludes:

And, when Sidney Powell took over Flynn’s representation, Sullivan accused her of some kind of purportedly unethical and previously unknown crypto-plagiarism because she had not, in his estimation, properly attributed the source of the legal precedents cited in her pleadings. I’ll give it to Sullivan. That was a first in my book since every legal filing I’ve ever seen used case citations indistinguishable in format from those used by Powell.

So, what’s the chance that Sullivan will seek a rehearing en banc? Seven of the 12 circuit court judges were appointed by Democrat presidents. Combine those favorable odds with Sullivan’s demonstrated hostility to Flynn, his grandiose concept of his judicial powers, his undoubted humiliation at being subjected to a writ of mandamus for committing, in the words of the panel, “clear legal error,” and the answer begins to come into focus.

Given those factors, why wouldn’t Judge Sullivan seek a rehearing before the full circuit court? And, even if he should fail in that regard, why wouldn’t he then take his cause to the U.S. Supreme Court? It’s a no-lose situation for him. Given the political composition of the D.C. Circuit, he may win. But, even if he doesn’t, by pursuing the litigation he will continue to provide ammunition to the anti-Trump forces that pervade the D.C. swamp and, at the very least, gain a permanent open invitation to all the right Georgetown cocktail parties.

I hope I’m wrong. But five decades of closely observing pampered, egocentric federal judges tells me that I’m not.

I hope he is wrong; I fear he is not.

 

 

The Right To Work

The American Spectator posted an article today about a recent decision by the West Virginia Supreme  Court.

The article reports:

This spring, the West Virginia high court upheld the state’s right-to-work law. That part of the ruling was no surprise, as courts for over 70 years have said right-to-work laws are constitutional.

Perhaps the more significant part of the ruling, which garnered less attention, is that the court essentially said the entire country should be right-to-work.

Right-to-work simply means that a union cannot get a worker fired for not paying the union. A right-to-work law gives workers the freedom to support a union if they are doing a good job, and refrain from supporting a union if they wish.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Janus v. AFSCME  that everything government unions do is political and that public employees have a First Amendment right to decide to support their union or not. The Janus case brought right-to-work to public employees across the country.

The article concludes:

Even West Virginia Justice Margaret Workman, who was critical of right-to-work, agreed in part and disagreed in part with the decision, writing, “I also believe that although Janus was a decision involving only public employees’ unions, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows; there is no principled basis on which to conclude that under the legal analysis upon which Janus is based, a prohibition on the collection of agency fees is constitutional for public employees’ unions but unconstitutional for private employees’ unions.”

Currently, 23 states can force private sector employees to pay unions. Similarly, airline and railroad employees, who are governed by a separate federal law, are also forced to support unions whether they want to or not.

If the U.S. Supreme Court does eventually decide the question with the same reasoning as the West Virginia Supreme Court, then all employees, public and private, will have the right to choose whether or not the union at their workplace is doing a good job and if they want to support it.

After all, freedom is blowing in the wind.

If a union is necessary in a company, the employees will support it. If it is not, the employees will not support it. That is called freedom.

An Update On “WOTUS”

The American Spectator posted an article today updating the progress President Trump has made in undoing the “Waters of the United States (WOTUS)” rule put in place by the Obama administration. Under the guise of protecting the environment, the rule essentially gives the government control of your property if you have a mud puddle that shows up every Spring. The article notes that undoing something put in place by a federal bureaucracy is harder than reversing the direction of an aircraft carrier.

The article reports:

WOTUS represented one of the great power grabs in government history. By redefining “waters of the U.S.,” Obama-era officials asserted federal authority (virtual ownership) over almost all water in the country — not only large lakes, rivers, and oceans, but also streams, creeks, wetlands, ponds, parking lot puddles, and irrigation ditches. Nothing in the law justified such a broad sweep.

The new rule, released this week, is unfortunately still much broader than the law justifies. The Clean Water Act, which sought to control pollution of the nation’s major waterways, contains the phrase “waters of the U.S.” in 12 places. Of those, nine use the phrase “navigable waters of the U.S.,” and the other three refer specifically to barges and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. “Navigable waters” were defined as “waters of the U.S.,” meaning the terms are synonymous. There are no waters of the U.S. that are not navigable. Not in the law.

Nevertheless, the new rule continues to assert federal jurisdiction over waters never intended by Congress. On the plus side, it includes a final definition of what are, and are not, waters of the United States. It specifically disclaims federal jurisdiction over farms, ranches, irrigation ditches, stock ponds, wastewater treatment systems, and rainwater runoff. But in addition to “territorial seas and navigable waters,” the definition still includes “perennial and intermittent tributaries to those waters,” “certain lakes, ponds, and impoundments,” and “wetlands adjacent to jurisdictional waters.”

The article concludes:

Vague definitions lead to abuses, which are far too common in recent years. Most recently, the prosecution of Jack LaPant, whose decision to plant wheat on his California farm — with full approval of the Agriculture Department — resulted in over $5 million in fines. It seems the Corps of Engineers considers topsoil a pollutant. That’s about as nonsensical as an attempt by the EPA a few years ago to declare sunlight a pollutant. In LaPlant’s case, the Corps missed a vitally important detail: Congress specifically exempted “normal farming activities” from federal “jurisdiction.” That clearly includes planting wheat, especially on existing farms where wheat has been grown before.

We understand the natural instinct of all bureaucracies to seek more power. But like most farms, that one has no floating boats, and it is not “navigable water.” The Trump administration inherited the case but has not dismissed it or stopped the prosecution. It turns out that turning the bureaucracy, despite orders from the admiral, is actually much harder than turning an aircraft carrier.

The above story illustrates why we need to re-elect President Trump. Hopefully the WOTUS rule can be revisited so that America’s ability to grow food to feed its people is not impacted.

A Story You Have To Look Hard To Find

There was a certain amount of hysteria when Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was escorted from the White House last week and when his twin, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, was also dismissed from the NSC. But there is a part of the story that the media seems to conveniently have overlooked.

The American Spectator posted the rest of the story today.

The article reports:

Within hours of the Vindmans being put out the door, Gordon Sondland, who testified about Trump’s Ukraine dealings during the House impeachment hearings, announced that “the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States ambassador to the European Union.”

Sondland testified to his assumption that Trump had engaged in a quid pro quo exchange of U.S. military aid to Ukraine in return for that country’s assistance in investigating the corrupt Ukrainian dealings of Vice President Joe Biden and his wastrel son. Only after being pinned down on cross examination did Sondland finally admit that, contrary to Sondland’s assumptions, Trump had explicitly told him that he wanted nothing from the Ukraine other than for Zelensky to clean up that country’s culture of corruption.

As described by the hysterical media, you would think that President Trump had “settled all family business” in the manner portrayed in The Godfather’s climactic scene when Michael Corleone has the heads of New York’s five Mafia families whacked.

The article then reports:

But the truth is altogether to the contrary. In May of this year, Alexander Vindman will enroll in the Army War College. This is a highly sought and selective program and a singular opportunity to advance one’s military career. It is open only to the favored few who are being groomed for top leadership positions in the military.

Similarly, Yevgeny Vindman is set to work in the Office of General Counsel of the Army at the Pentagon. Neither this assignment nor the slot at the Army War College can be considered as punitive. Put another way, neither qualifies as the equivalent of being reduced in rank and placed in charge of the PX at Camp Frostbite, Alaska.

As for Sondland, he is a hotel magnate who was a big contributor to Trump’s 2016 campaign. Recalling him is not the equivalent of terminating the livelihood of a career State Department official. Sondland can go back to his day job of running his hotel empire. And, since the Obama regime is no longer in charge, he can do so without fear of the IRS auditing his company, OSHA inspecting his hotels, and ICE vetting his employees.

As retaliation goes, removing the Vindmans from the National Security Council and stripping Sondland of his ambassadorship is pretty weak stuff. Which raises the troubling question as to whether such pallid measures will be enough to deter others who may wish to emulate Sondland and the Vindman twins in any future coup attempt.

There are now reports that the House Democrats are gearing up for another impeachment. Given the positive effect that the last impeachment had on Trump’s approval rating and campaign fund raising, you might think that the House Democrats would be disinclined to do it again. But then such a conclusion would be premised on the belief that these people are rational. They are not. When it comes to Trump, they are bat-guano crazy and consumed by the kind of frustration and uncontrolled rage that drove Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to publicly debase and embarrass herself by tearing up the President’s State of the Union address.

The article concludes:

That is why President Trump should seriously consider taking firm and decisive punitive action to discourage all deep state partisans from promoting yet another impeachment hoax. In that regard, he has a positive obligation to the nation to make clear to one and all that they will pay a heavy price if they meretriciously participate in any future attempted coup.

The Vindmans and Sondland got off relatively unscathed. But, if other deep state denizens remain to be called to account, the President needs to take off the gloves.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media is hysterical because the twins have been moved. Somehow they failed to note that the moves were not disciplinary.

A Serious Mistake

U.S. officials are stating that they are confident that the Iranian airline that crashed in Tehran, Iran, on Tuesday night was hit by an Iranian missile.

Scott Johnson posted the following at Power Line Blog today:

Taking into account the Iranian regime’s obvious lying about the cause of the downing of the Ukrainian jetliner leaving Tehran this past Tuesday combined with the regime’s subsequent refusal to turn over the aircraft’s black boxes, and a reasonable person — say, the American Spectator’s Scott McKay — would infer that the regime shot it down one way or another.

Now comes word that “U.S. officials said Thursday it was ‘highly likely’ that an Iranian anti-aircraft missile downed a Ukrainian jetliner late Tuesday, killing all 176 people on board….The crash came just a few hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack against Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops amid a confrontation with Washington over the U.S. drone strike that killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general last week. Two U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said they had no certain knowledge of Iranian intent. But they said the airliner could have been mistaken for a threat.”

The Gateway Pundit reported the following today:

Al Hadath Dubai News reported a missile took down the Ukrainian flight after the crash on Wednesday.

(Tweets were translated)

Al Hadath: Preliminary images of the Ukrainian plane suspected of being hit by an Iranian missile

The majority of the passengers on the plane were Canadians and Iranians. It will be interesting to see if Canada responds to this at all.

Fighting Back Legally

The American Spectator posted an article today about the ongoing legal case of General Flynn. As you know, General Flynn’s new lawyer, Sidney Powell, is the author of the book Licensed to Lie, which details government abuses in cases against Enron and Ted Stevens among others. Ms. Powell has a very clear understanding of prosecutorial misconduct and how to deal with it.

The article at The American Spectator details a case in which a policeman charged with rape was able to get the charges dropped by shedding light on the actions of the prosecutors regarding the witnesses. The article refers to this as ‘graymail’ and suggests that this tactic will be used by Ms. Powell to defend General Flynn.

The article reports:

As you may recall, there are many disturbing questions surrounding the federal government’s investigation, arrest, and prosecution of Flynn. Although he has pled guilty to a flimsy and corruptly contrived charge of lying to the FBI, that plea came about after he had — according to media reports — bankrupted himself by paying $4 million in legal fees to the Washington law firm that represented him prior to Powell. In short, it appears that Flynn pled guilty because he couldn’t afford any more justice.

In addition to the law firm’s impressive professional achievement of turning a mere guilty plea proceeding into a reported $4 million payday, the known facts and circumstances surrounding the Flynn case are equally remarkable. We know that the charges arise out of an ambush interview orchestrated by former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe regarding contacts that Flynn, the incoming Trump administration’s National Security Adviser, had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. According to Powell’s thorough, broadly worded, and aggressive discovery motion, recently produced (and previously withheld) government documents disclosed that “Flynn passed his polygraph test in 2016 and his security clearance was renewed. This was at the same time the FBI seems to have been investigating him under the pretext that he was an ‘agent of Russia’ and/or of Turkey. Interestingly, the new production also shows that [former Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper refused to assist in the investigation for Mr. Flynn’s security clearance, which Mr. Flynn received after a full investigation despite Mr. Clapper’s actions.” In addition, at the bar of the Court, Powell advised U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan that the recently disclosed documents showed the government had concluded that Flynn was neither a Russian nor a Turkish agent.

The article notes:

So why and how was Flynn targeted for destruction by the FBI and Justice Department? Powell’s discovery motion seeks answers to these questions by demanding the production of evidence exposing the links between the investigation and prosecution of Flynn to the Obama administration’s efforts to target, spy on, and frame Donald Trump.

The article goes on to list the documents requested.

The article concludes:

Moreover, if Judge Sullivan grants the defense even partial relief, the prosecutors will then be faced with a bitter choice, to wit:

(a) They can produce the damning evidence of the government’s corrupt activities in order to continue the prosecution of their ludicrous and petty false statements case against Flynn. Or (b) the prosecutors can do the smart thing by dropping the charges and quietly disappearing into the witness protection program.

If the prosecutors want my advice, in the event Judge Sullivan grants any part of Powell’s lethal motion, they should pick option (b) and ask the U.S. Marshal’s Service to relocate them to Arizona. I hear it’s nice there in the winter, and retirees can live comfortably on even a modest government pension.

I really like Plan B.

What The Democrats Are Really Afraid Of

You can dismiss the turnout at Trump rallies versus the turnout for Democrat candidates. You can dismiss the tweets you may not like, but you can’t dismiss what is happening to the President’s approval numbers in minority communities.

The American Spectator posted an article today with the following headline, “Why Trump’s Approval Ratings Are Up Among Minorities.”

The article notes:

A mounting number of voter polls show that, despite shrill denunciations of the President by the Democrats for his alleged racism, Trump is enjoying a dramatic increase in his approval ratings among minorities. This isn’t, as some liberal news outlets and pundits have suggested, wishful thinking based on outlier polls. The trend began showing up in surveys early this year and appears to be gaining momentum. Some polls now show his approval numbers at 25 percent among African-American voters and 50 percent among Hispanic voters. If those figures hold for the next 15 months, they will render Trump unbeatable in November of 2020.

The article notes a number of reasons for the rising approval ratings. Among the Hispanic community, two reasons are the President’s stand on immigration and the economy. Those in the Hispanic community who followed the rules to become Americans do not support endless illegal immigration. Those in the Hispanic community have also seen a dramatic increase in employment opportunities and a decrease in unemployment. In the black community, people are asking why cities that have been controlled by Democrats for decades and given massive amounts of money by the government still look worse than cities in other countries that were totally destroyed during World War II. In other words, after voting Democrat for decades with no visible improvement in their situation, minorities are seeing positive change. Minorities have the lowest unemployment numbers in history. They are seeing employment opportunities they have not seen before. Pocketbook issues are having an impact on the way they view President Trump.

The article concludes:

The main reason for the surge in Trump’s Hispanic support, however, is the economy. As Steve Cortes, a member of the President’s Hispanic Advisory Council, points out:

Hispanics neither desire nor expect a laundry list of deliverables from government, but rather seek the conditions to advance and prosper independently.  As the most statistically entrepreneurial demographic in America, Hispanics have thrived amid the Trump boom as regulatory and tax relief unleashes a small business surge. Every American benefits from this new dynamism, but Hispanics most of all.

Hispanic voters, mind you, will be the largest ethnic minority in the electorate by 2020. They, combined with African Americans, may very well decide who will live in the White House after the next election. Moreover, the days when Democrats could win all of their votes by screeching “racism,” encouraging illegal immigration, and offering massive giveaway programs are probably over. President Trump appears to be building real support among minorities by providing genuine opportunity in a thriving economy. If he receives their support in anywhere near the percentages suggested above, he will win in 2020 no matter who runs against him.

The presidential election of 2020 will be very interesting.

Some Common-Sense Questions

Yesterday Ben Stein posted an article at The American Spectator which discussed some of the issues dealing with the idea of reparations. He points out a few basic facts that need to be considered in discussing the idea.

The article notes:

Slavery was so hideous a crime and caused so much pain and suffering that something should be done about it. But we face a lot of problems in the concept of reparations. For one thing, there were a fair number of black people who emancipated themselves through superhumanly hard work, then used their savings to buy slaves. How do we assess their liability?

For another, the conditions of slaves varied wildly. Some were house servants and lived halfway decent lives. Others worked like myrmidons in sugar cane fields and were literally whipped to death if they faltered. How do we account for this kind of difference in degree of suffering?

For yet another, some moved north immediately and led barely normal lives as did their children and grandchildren. Others stayed in the deep south and were subject to every kind of humiliation. How do we compare how much these two different groups are owed? If a black person voluntarily stayed in a horrible Jim Crow environment, what should be his progeny’s measure of damages as compared with that of the offspring of black people who moved to Des Moines?

Also, there is a chain of causation in many cases. One black tribe attacked and captured others then the captors sold their slaves to Arab slave traders who then sold the slaves to New England slave brokers.

…Also, who would be taxed for the reparations? The great majority of white Americans never owned any slaves. Why should they be taxed? The present population of America is by a wide margin the scions of Poles and Czechs and Italians and Chinese and Jews who never owned any slaves at all. Why should they be taxed at all for reparations?

Reparations sounds good to those who believe they might receive money, but the idea bears a strong resemblance to George McGovern’s campaign promise in 1972 that if elected he would give every American $1,000 (in 1972 that was real money). We all know how that campaign promise worked out–he lost forty-nine states. At any rate, the promise of free money to those who feel they are entitled to what other people earn has long been a staple of some politicians. What all Americans need to realize is that the government has no money of its own–any money it gives away is taken from someone who earned it.

Protecting American Women (Even When They May Not Want To Be Protected)

Planned Parenthood goes ballistic any time any changes are made to abortion laws in America. First of all, I need to mention that abortion should be a matter left to individual states. The U.S. Constitution (Tenth Amendment) states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” Since abortion is not specifically delegated to the federal government, it should be left to the individual states. However, since Roe v. Wade. the federal government has pretty much taken charge on the issue. With that in mind, a recent Supreme Court case has allowed a change to abortion law that will protect women to stay in place. However, not everyone will see it that way.

The American Spectator posted an article today about the recent change.

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition by Planned Parenthood to review an Arkansas statute requiring a provider of abortion-inducing drugs to have a contractual relationship with a doctor who has admitting privileges at a hospital. The point of the law is to assure that, if a patient has an adverse reaction to some abortifacient, there will be a physician and a hospital available to provide appropriate medical treatment.

No doctor was crazy enough to clean up behind Planned Parenthood, however, so the abortion mill sued. A district court did enjoin the statute, but that injunction was vacated by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Inevitably, SCOTUS found Planned Parenthood of Arkansas & Eastern Oklahoma v. Jegley lying on its doorstep. But the justices declined to take this legal orphan in, rejecting it without comment.

Abortion is a serious medical procedure. All medical procedures have risks. I had a friend who had a mole removed and died in the recovery room. The unexpected is always a possibility. Having a doctor with admitting privileges at a hospital on call when an abortion is taking place–whether it is drug induced or surgical–is a good idea. It protects women.

Not Really A Surprise

The American Spectator posted an article today that tells us everything we already knew about ObamaCare. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has just released a report about uninsured Americans.

The article reports:

Anyone with the intestinal fortitude to subject themselves to the legacy media will have seen countless “news” stories about the devastation wrought by President Trump’s “sabotage” of Obamacare. A typical headline appeared a couple of weeks ago in the Washington Post: “Americans are starting to suffer from Trump’s health-care sabotage.” This work of fiction claimed that the number of working-ageAmericans without health insurance had risen to 15.5 percent, a 3 point increase since 2016. But a report just released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), says the real number is 12.8 percent — exactly what it was in 2015.

…NBC recently reported that the total number of uninsured Americans rose by a preposterous 3.2 million in 2017. According to the CDC, however, “There was no significant change from the 2016 uninsured rate.” The percentage is, like the working age statistic, precisely what it was in 2015. NBC, parroting the Post, based its uninsured propaganda on an unreliable source.

There are a few things to keep in mind when evaluating ObamaCare. The first is that is was never about health insurance–it was about giving government control of a major sector of the American economy and a major sector of people’s lives. We have seeen how well socialized medicine works in Britain when a child isn’t even given a chance to leave the country to receive alternative medical care that could possibly save his life. ObamaCare was a planned failure that would lead to socialized medicine in America during the presidency of Hillary Clinton. We have dodged that bullet (at least temporarily).

The major change that occurred to ObamaCare this year was the end of government subsidies to insurance companies and changing rules for insurance pools to make it easier for people to get health insurance in various groups. The real answer to health insurance is the free market–let companies compete without being over-regulated and let people know how much they are actually paying for healthcare services. It would also help to end ObamaCare completely. In order to end ObamaCare completely, the Republicans would have to learn how to get their message out over the din of the mainstream media. They would also have to develop a spine.

The article concludes:

A multi-year study dubbed the “Oregon Health Experiment,” whose results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in May of 2014, has demonstrated that health outcomes for Medicaid patients are no better than those enjoyed by the uninsured. Scott Gottlieb, the current Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, summarized various Medicaid studies in the Wall Street Journal and also concluded that being covered by Medicaid is demonstrably worse for your health than having no coverage at all.

The CDC report doesn’t weigh in on this issue, of course. It just attempts to show us where the uninsured rate was and where it is now. But that is damning enough. It not only shows that the projections originally touted for Obamacare were wildly off the mark — it was supposed to have brought the non-elderly uninsured rate down to 7.6 percent by 2016 — it demonstrates that the Democrats and their media co-conspirators have been lying about what the real uninsured numbers are as well as President Trump’s role in their mythical increase. Not that this is new. The Democrats and the media have been lying about Obamacare from day one.

As more Americans realize that the media has been lying to them from the beginning, we may have a chance to get rid of ObamaCare. Until then, we are stuck with it.

A Law Went Quietly Into Effect January 1

The American Spectator posted an article today about a law that quietly went into effect on January 1, 2016.

The article reports:

One of the worst of Obamacare’s ill-conceived provisions went quietly into effect on January 1. The employer mandate, previously inflicted only on businesses with 100 or more employees, will now be imposed on those with as few as 50. This mandate will prevent countless small employers from hiring workers they would otherwise have hired and incentivize many others to replace full-time employees with part-timers. It is such an obvious job killer that the Obama administration delayed enforcement until after the 2014 midterms, the liberal Urban Institute has called for its repeal, and it has even been obliquely criticized by Hillary Clinton.

The employer mandate requires all businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health coverage to at least 95 percent of these employees as well as any dependents they may have under age 26 — or pay crippling fines. But not all small employers can afford to offer insurance. Those which lack the resources to do so will avoid the mandate by assuring that the number of full-time workers they employ remains below 50. And, because Obamacare has arbitrarily redefined “full-time” to mean 30 or more hours per week, the employer mandate effectively caps both the number of workers many businesses can hire and how many hours they will work.

As someone who spent most of my working career working for small businesses, I can state from personal experience that small companies are very aware of government regulations and how to avoid them. One way to get around this rule is to keep the size of a company under 50 employees–this impacts unemployment–companies that might want to hire additional people will not hire them because they want to avoid coming under the employer mandate. The other way to get around this is to use contract workers that are self-employed and do not receive any company benefits, but there are very strict rules governing contract workers, and they are not practical for every business. Either way, the employer mandate is going to have a chilling impact on hiring. The labor force participation rate has been dropping consistently during the Obama Administration. The employer mandate will cause it to drop further. Bringing companies of more than 50 employees under the employer mandate will not be a good thing for the economy.

The article further reports:

Ironically, considering that the question came from an obvious audience plant, Mrs. Clinton got it wrong on the Family and Medical Leave Act. FMLA eligibility isn’t based on full time or part time status. And she also seems unaware that an employee can work fewer than 40 hours per week and still be considered full-time in the brave new world of Obamacare. But the most telling part of her answer was her use of the word “believe.” Playing off the questioner’s placement of the FMLA issue in the realm of “discrimination,” she implied that employers who are simply following federal law are in reality just crooks who want to deny benefits to their workers.

She was clearly waiting for that question and the opportunity to suggest that, as President, she would work to fix the “unfortunate incentives” created by Obamacare. However, considering that Hillarycare included an employer mandate, and that it was an integral part of the health care reform plan she offered the last time she ran for President, it’s extremely unlikely that she would follow the eminently sensible policy recommended by the authors of the Urban Institute report: “In summary, eliminating the employer mandate would eliminate labor market distortions in law, lessen opposition to the law from employers, and have little effect on coverage.”

Is there anyone in the Obama Administration that understands basic economics and business?

About The Claim That Women Are Paid Less Than Men Who Do The Same Job

First of all, if there were real wage equality, mothers would be the highest paid workers ever–they are on call 24/7, often act as family CEO’s, peacemakers, custodial staff, grounds keepers, in charge of grocery logistics, family nurse, and often hold a job outside the home as well. If there were true wage equality, mothers would make more than most company presidents.

However, in regard to President Obama’s statement on Tuesday night that “You know, today, women make up about half our workforce, but they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.” This is simply not true.

The argument against this statement comes from three articles from people with very different political persuasions. On November 5,2012, Real Clear Politics posted an article by Dean Kalahar, on January 29, 2014, the American Spectator posted an article by Natalie deMacedo, and on January 30, 2014, Power Line posted an article by Scott Johnson.

All three articles said essentially the same thing–the figure of 77 cents on the dollar does not represent equal work–it represents the overall workplace and does not take into consideration the fact that many women work part time or that men tend to go into the higher paying professions–engineering, medicine (as doctors), etc.

What should be considered here is that women don’t always have the luxury of dedicating themselves to the high-paying corporate fast track. Women have to make a choice of priorities–motherhood versus career. While many women in lucrative careers can afford good child care, women in jobs in industries that do not pay as well often have difficult choices to make. That is not the government’s fault or the government’s responsibility–it is simply the way that things are.

Many years ago, I spent a few years working as a temporary employee. I learned a few things along the way. One of the things I learned was that pay scales in various industries vary a great deal. I have no idea why this is, but it was very obvious during the early 90’s in New England. I definitely considered that fact when I finally accepted a full-time job. It is also good to remember that a good statistician can make any given set of statistics say anything he wants them to say. The 77 cents on the dollar quote is a good example of that.

Just for the record, this is the statistic that was not cited (from the American Spectator):

Women congregate in different professions than men do, and the largely male professions tend to be higher-paying. If you account for those differences, and then compare a woman and a man doing the same job, the pay gap narrows to 91 percent. So, you could accurately say in that Obama ad that, “women get paid 91 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men.”

Many men tend to go into science and engineering fields which generally pay more. Women who stay at home with children are factored in as earning nothing. Therefore, the 77 cent stat is a misleading one.

Rosin adds that the reason women are making less could largely depend on more complicated issues, such as maternity leave, marriage, and a lack of childcare options. Debates on those topics can be saved for another day.

Remember, any good statistician can make any given set of statistics say anything he wants them to say!

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