Justice Jackson

Today President Biden announced the nomination of Black female Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the Supreme Court.  I mention her color and gender not because I think it has any relevance whatsoever to her ability to be a good justice, but because color and gender were the overarching criteria for her selection.

Unlike other presidents who have desired to select a woman or a Black or a person of color for the Court but who opened the pool from which the nominee would be selected to persons of all color and sex, President Biden limited his selection pool to Black women.  This is not only a rejection of the Constitutional and legal guarantees of equality for all, but this denial of equal opportunity specifically based on race and sex is also blatant and illegal discrimination. 

Further, it is demeaning to this woman and to all Black women as it suggests that she and others of her race and sex could not have competed in an open selection pool; rather, that they needed a limited and less competitive pool in order to succeed.  Judge Jackson’s resume is strong educationally and experientially and I don’t understand why the President would not let her fully compete.  Nor do I fully understand why she would allow herself to be a part of this demeaning process designed more than anything to give the President the right to say he appointed the first Black woman to the Court.

In his announcement speech Biden said, “Our courts haven’t looked like America.”  Well, so what?  Since when is justice cosmetic?  (Answer: since the woke took over and everything becomes based on external identity characteristics). 

The law, and especially Constitutional law at its highest level, should not be based on superficial characteristics.  Those who decide the law need to be able to put aside their personal biases and backgrounds so as to objectively analyze the law and facts relevant to a particular case.  As more than one justice has stated, a good justice does not always like the outcome of his or her decisions.  That is because the law, when fully reasoned and applied objectively, sometimes does not give us an outcome that we personally like. 

Those who think it is important to have judges and justices who “look like America” assume that people who look a certain way will also decide a certain way.  They assume that judges/justices allow personal feelings and political biases to control their legal analysis.  Yet that is the very opposite of what a good judge/justice does.  The good judge/justice must and will remove such personal premises from their legal reasoning and decision making.

Which leads me to a troubling aspect of this specific nominee.  It has nothing to do with her color or gender but with the number of her opinions that have been overturned on appeal.  “Judge Jackson’s record of reversals by the left-leaning DC. Circuit is troubling for anyone concerned about the rule of law” said Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino.

For example, in one case a D.C. Circuit panel composed of majority Democratic appointees concluded that that Judge Jackson had set aside a Trump administration rule when there was no legal basis to do so.   Another overturned case involved an ordered expansion of DHS’s definition regarding which non-citizens could be deported.  Another involved orders that related to the collective bargaining power of federal employees.  She also decided a 2019 battle in which she rejected Trump’s White House Counsel’s arguments that he held immunity from testifying to the House Judiciary Committee.  She wrote, in clear anti-Trump fashion, that “The primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings.” 

“Cases like these suggest that Jackson might be willing in politically charged cases to ignore the law to deliver a particular policy outcome, and that’s not what we want to see from a Supreme Court Justice,” Severino stated. 

While there are different schools of thought on how to interpret law, the Constitution, and precedent, those different approaches all ground themselves fully in legal reasoning that does not ignore the law in order to reach a desired conclusion.  Legitimate legal reasoning demands that conclusions be supported by the law, not by a rejection of it.

The Justices of the Supreme Court need to accept that they must be guided by the law.  Their role is not to institute popular opinions or to decide based on emotion rather than law.  Those whose desire is to rewrite and change the law should be running for Congress.  It is the legislature that makes the law.  While the Court’s decisions interpreting the law become a part of our legal system, this judicial law comes about via interpretation of existing law.  It is not about creation of new law.

I hope that during her confirmation hearings Judge Jackson will be fully and aggressively questioned about her ability to follow the law and to put her personal and political feelings and biases aside as she hears and decides cases.  Her answers to those questions should be the justification for her confirmation or failure to be confirmed.  Her color and gender should have nothing to do with it.

 

Ukraine, NATO, Putin, Biden – No heroes, no diplomacy

I, like most, condemn the military aggression of Putin in Ukraine.   My heart aches for the Ukrainian people.  However, I do not blame Putin alone for the Ukraine crisis. 

In my opinion, a large part of the fault for the long-term existence of this problem falls on NATO; I put much of the blame for inciting that problem to its current level of violence on President Biden.  The following explains why.

The long term problem – NATO

Much of the information in this section of this post is derived from Foreign Affairs magazine (digitally available at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/) which has contained several articles on Ukraine, Russia, and NATO over the past few years. 

Current Russian concerns with NATO originate with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.  The post-Cold War setup in Europe’s east left Russia without much say in European security, which was centered on NATO. 

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO has aggressively moved eastward, encouraging central and eastern European countries to join NATO.   The U.S. argued this was necessary to pursue a policy of containment after the Cold War.  NATO determined that there should be no hard line beyond which NATO should not move east and no restrictions on new members.

Article 5 of NATO guarantees that members will treat an attack on one as an attack against all.  The closer that NATO moved to Russia the more that cooperation between Russia and the US deteriorated since the NATO expansion essentially placed the availability of U.S. military at Russia’s border.

A 1990 agreement suggests some limitations on expansion.  That agreement specifically deals with the reunification of Germany since at that time “few gave the possibility of a broader NATO enlargement to the east any serious thought.”  Russia however interpreted the agreement as a broader promise that NATO will not threaten Russia’s border.  In January of this year Secretary of State Blinken asserted that “NATO never promised not to admit new members” arguing that it has an “open door policy.”

As more eastern states joined NATO, Ukraine gained more and more importance to both the West and to Russia.  The NATO expansion could have been done in such a way as to avoid drawing a new line across Europe, but that was opposed by Washington.  “Washington’s error was not to enlarge the [NATO] alliance but to do so in a way that maximized Moscow’s aggravation and gave fuel to Russian reactionaries.” 

In 1994 Ukraine, along with other states that held nuclear weapons, signed an agreement with Russia and the U.S. that resulted in those prior Soviet states giving up their nuclear weapons so that all the USSR’s nuclear arsenal would now be held by one country - Russia.  As part of the agreement Russia and the U.S. essentially agreed to respect the boundaries of these new independent countries and to not influence them politically or economically. 

In 2004 the U.S. backed the pro-Western Orange Revolution in the Ukraine.  Putin, watching it unfold, stated his anger and disbelief to those with him at the time: “They [the U.S.] lied to me.  I will never trust them again.”

The West extended the prospect of NATO membership including article 5 protections to Ukraine in 2008.  In 2014 Russia took over Crimea from Ukraine and began supporting pro-Russian militants in the Donbas region.  Putin justified this takeover as a necessary response to NATO’s “deployment of military infrastructure at our borders.”

The Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015 proposed to bring peace to the region, but Ukraine would strike no deals; it would not even accept a compromise that would have allowed for elections in the Donbas region.  Diplomatic correspondence between France, Germany, and Russia shows that Western powers fully sided with Ukraine.

While the focus of the West has been on the Russian troop buildup near the Ukrainian border, at the same time NATO countries have expanded their military activities in the Black Sea region and in Ukraine.  Tensions have clearly been rising. 

In 2021 Ukrainian President Zelensky made a decision to use armed drones in Donbas. Western military advisers, instructors, arms, and ammunition have poured into Ukraine.  Russians also suspect that a training center the United Kingdom is constructing in Ukraine is in fact a foreign military base. Putin is particularly adamant that deploying U.S. missiles in Ukraine that can reach Moscow in five to seven minutes cannot and will not be tolerated.   

At the end of 2021, Russia presented the U.S. with a list of demands.  These included a formal halt to NATO’s eastern enlargement, a freeze on further expansion of NATO’s military infrastructure, and end to Western military assistance to Ukraine and a ban on intermediate-range missiles in Europe.  Its message was clear that it sought to address the Ukraine conflict diplomatically, but if that was not possible that Russia would resort to military action.

A clear Russian redline is Ukraine’s accession to NATO or the placement of Western military bases and long-range weapons in its territory.  Putin has made it clear that he will not yield on this point.    His threat and now use of force comes from his frustration with a stalled diplomatic process and a legitimate concern about hostile forces at his country’s border.   

In a December 2021 article Dmitri Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote:

Putin’s actions suggest that his true goal is not to conquer Ukraine and absorb it into Russia but to change the post-Cold War setup in Europe’s east.  If he manages to keep NATO out of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, and U.S. intermediate-range missiles out of Europe, he thinks he could repair part of the damage Russia’s security sustained after the Cold War ended.

We cannot simply look at NATO-Russia or US-Russian relations as good vs bad; to do so has put us in the position we are in now.  Historical evidence reveals that US leaders were so focused on enlarging NATO that they did not consider the perils of the way in which they were doing it.

The immediate problem – Biden

In his speech on 2/24, Biden began with the statement that “The Russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of Ukraine, without provocation, without justification, without necessity.” 

Herein lies one key problem:  Biden refuses to hear or understand Russia’s concerns which actually provide Russia with reasonable justification for its current actions (even if in addition they provide an excuse for goals of expansion).  Biden’s position is simply that we are right, they are wrong.  He has attacked Russia’s expressions of their NATO concerns as unfounded lies.  The unwillingness to listen essentially leaves Russia with only one other course of action which they have now taken. 

But beyond his failure to listen, thus making invasion essentially a necessity as the only way for Russia to air its grievances, Biden has also almost goaded Putin into taking action.  For weeks Biden asserted an imminent invasion but refused to impose new sanctions against Russia or even re-impose those which he had suspended such as those against the Nordstream 2 pipeline.  At the same time, his actions limiting energy production in this country increased our dependence on Russian oil, hence giving Russia a strategic advantage. 

Biden assured us that sanctions would be imposed at the appropriate time in order to deter Russia from taking action against Ukraine.  Thursday, as he actually imposed some (though not the strongest available) sanctions, Biden essentially acknowledged the uselessness of such sanctions. 

In answering questions, Biden stated it would take a month or more to see if the sanctions were even working and ultimately stated that “No one expected sanctions to prevent anything.”  CBS News' Margaret Brennan pointed out the contradiction; Biden, his VP and members of his foreign policy team, and his press secretary have all been insisting for the past weeks that sanctions would work.  That Biden appeared to laugh when stating the sanctions were no deterrent was especially chilling.

Biden continues to tell us he knows what Putin is planning, but he is apparently helpless to stop anything.  As noted in my last post, a large part of this is the result of incompetent diplomacy from Biden’s team.  They would rather simply see Putin as the evil pinup for an evil Russia whom they have no interest in working with to find peaceful and reasonable solutions to concerns that each country might have.

But beyond that, I see Biden as totally clueless and incompetent.  I am not sure he has any understanding of what he has gotten us into; he certainly has no understanding of how to get us out of it.  He continues to send troops to the area while promising they will not engage.  It is clear he hates Putin and wants to destroy him, and I am not sure that he would hesitate even if he had to destroy everyone and everything in this country in the process.  I believe that for Biden it is all about himself and right now he is trying to show the world how great he is.  In my view he is not great at all, simply selfish and, with the nuclear codes in his pocket, extremely dangerous.

 

Biden and Ukraine

Today President Biden gave a speech on Ukraine.  He called Russia’s recognition of two separatist republics a part of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, despite the fact that both these republics had requested recognition from Russia. He declared sanctions and additional defensive moves and support for Ukraine, authorizing U.S. forces and equipment already stationed in Europe to strengthen Baltic allies.  He declared he wanted to send an “unmistakable” message, one which included the promise to defend NATO territory.  (We should note that Ukraine is not part of NATO, nor is it NATO territory).  He also declared this would result in yet higher gas prices.  The conference began over an hour late, lasted only about 10 minutes and the President took no questions.

The passage below is translated from Russian news source Известия.

Earlier in the day, Biden signed a decree imposing sanctions on Donbas after Russia recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DNR and LNR). In addition to restrictions on investments in the regions, the American leader also banned the import of any technologies, services and goods from the Donbass republics into the United States. Also, persons who are involved in various activities in the DPR and LPR may be subject to sanctions, follows from the document.

In turn, in Donetsk , they reacted with sarcasm to the US statement on sanctions against the DPR. Vladislav Berdichevsky, a deputy of the People's Council of the Republic, joked that in this way the American president recognized the existence of the republic.

The second paragraph makes a logical point:  by sanctioning the new republics recognized by Russia but which we assert are still part of Ukraine, we are recognizing those areas as holding some form of independence.  This amusing irony reflects something far less amusing: that the President’s foreign policy is going blindly forward with what he wants but with no understanding of what he is doing or of the underlying history and people of the region.

While one view is certainly that Russia is setting up justifications for taking over Ukraine, the way to stop this is not just to accuse Russia but to understand not only what its goal may be, but why.  That requires some grasp of the Russian mind and Russian history.

Key Ukraine/Russia historical facts

Ukraine and Russia have a shared history for over 1,000 years.   Kiev, now the capitol of Ukraine, was the center of Kyivan Rus, the first Slavic state and the birthplace of both Ukraine and Russia.  Over the centuries, Ukraine was often fought over by competing powers.  After the communist revolution of 1917, Ukraine was, after a brutal battle, absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1922.

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Ukraine became an independent nation; however, the country has not been united.  Eastern Ukraine came under Russian rule much earlier than western Ukraine.  Thus, people in the east have stronger ties to Russia and have been more likely to support Russia and Russian-leaning leaders.  “The sense of Ukrainian nationalism is not as deep in the east as it is in west,” says former ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer.

The transition to democracy and capitalism was painful and chaotic, and many Ukrainians, especially in the east, longed for the relative stability of earlier eras and a return to Russian rule.  According to Ukraine expert Adrian Karatnycky, the biggest divide in Ukraine is between “those who view the Russian imperial and Soviet rule more sympathetically versus those who see them as a tragedy."

During the 2004 Orange Revolution thousands of Ukrainians marched to support greater integration with Europe.  In 2005 Russian President Vladimir Putin called the collapse of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”  It is no secret that he would like to regain control of Ukraine and that many Russians believe that Ukraine is rightfully a part of Russia.

Crimea fought for autonomy from Ukraine and ultimately declared its independence.  It was then invaded, occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014, followed shortly after by a separatist uprising in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas that resulted in the declaration of the Russian-backed People’s Republics of Luhansk and Donetsk.  These are the two republics recognized Monday by the Russian Federation and on which Biden has now imposed sanctions.

Donetsk, Lugansk Celebrate Russian Recognition

The inhabitants of the separatist regions and now republics celebrated in the streets following their recognition by Russia.  Their leaders have agreed to host Russian troops within their borders, thus enabling Russian forces to move closer to Ukraine.

Today, Ukrainian, the official language of Ukraine, is the native language of about two thirds of Ukraine's population. Russian is the native language of about one third of Ukraine's population.  The two languages are closely related.

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded shortly after WW2 to deter expansion of the then Soviet Union.  Since that time it has expanded eastward, bringing central and eastern European states into its ranks after the USSR collapsed.  Most recently there has been a push for Ukraine to be allowed to join NATO, a push to which Russia is firmly opposed at least in part because that would place NATO at Russia’s border.  NATO countries agree to support and protect one another and to support emerging democracies.

Because Ukraine is not currently a NATO member, NATO nations, including the U.S., have no obligation to protect or defend Ukraine. 

Facts & Narratives

Russia views the facts above one way, the US views them differently.   But what we must realize is that if we are going to successfully be involved in this situation, while we do not need to agree with the Russian interpretation, we must understand it. 

Russia interprets NATO and its push of eastward expansion as aggression and a threat to Russian sovereignty.  NATO, the West, and Biden assert they are simply supporting Ukraine as an emerging democracy.  Both interpretations are reasonable.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov asserts that they have a legitimate right to have their troops where they want on Russian territory or where they have been invited to be.  He analogizes to the US bases in numerous European and other countries and to NATO troops stationed in various regions.  Russia calls these a threat while the US and NATO see them as protective.   That the troops are stationed is fact, but the interpretation of the fact differs and results in different narratives being fed to each nation's people.  Ukraine, meanwhile, appears to accept Russian intimidation as a tolerable fact of life.

Diplomacy

Culture, geography, and history affect the way people think and approach life.  Russians think differently than Americans.

True diplomats have the ability to understand the views and thinking of those with whom they conduct diplomacy.  They must be able to assess the facts and distinguish those from different interpretations of those facts and also understand how those with different goals will use the same facts to support different ends.

While neither side will, nor should they, accept the other’s narrative, they need to be aware of it.  Diplomacy and peace, not unlike a chess game, require each side to understand the other’s thinking and how it differs from their own, so as to predict not only what they are likely to do but why – why it is important to them.  For the more important, the more aggressive they will be about achieving their goals.  The areas of less importance are where negotiation must begin.

Watching events in Ukraine unfold along with our government’s reactions it seems that this administration is either unwilling or unable to understand the Russian perspective.   I am not arguing that they should or must agree with that perspective, but it is imperative that they understand it.

According to Pavel Palazhchenko, the former interpreter to Gorbachev, the West has too long ignored Russia's security concerns, and hence failed to understand the mindset or the psychology of Russia.  "That does have an effect," he said. "We are all human beings. Russian leaders are human beings, and so when they, time and again, raise the NATO enlargement and the process relentlessly continues, it does cause resentment." 

He further stated “But the United States, for its part, having been caught flat-footed when Russia snatched Crimea in 2014, has made a strategic decision to try to call Russia out on transgressions before they happen. Time will tell if that has its intended effect or causes Russia to dig further in.”

Biden’s dangerous, erratic, and emotional policy

Biden told us today that he has known what Russia was planning to do every step of the way.  Yet, he has failed to do anything that has in any way stopped what he claims should have been stopped.  So now he imposes sanctions against the newly recognized republics.  Would anyone be surprised if Putin, evaluating Biden’s ongoing performance, would determine that he has nothing to fear from the U.S.?

It appears that Biden is going to dig us deeper into Ukraine.  Perhaps Biden’s hysteria about the Ukraine situation is, as I have previously suggested, part of a “wag the dog” strategy to divert attention from, and provide excuses for, the many disastrous crises, most of his own making, in this country.  Indeed, in his speech today he made it clear that gas prices would continue to rise due to the Ukraine situation (not mentioning that he has destroyed the U.S. energy independence that existed prior to his taking office and  that his own policies are responsible for our current record high inflation).

Perhaps Biden intends to get us into some sort of proxy war with Russia set in Ukraine (think Korean and Vietnam wars) believing that this will somehow prove his strength.  Biden does seem to think he has something to prove here.  MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell yesterday said that President Biden believes that he is going to emerge victorious from the facedown with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that he has "confidence" and "ego" in his foreign policy abilities, while adding that Biden feels "defensive" about criticism of his foreign policy performance.

That is not the context in which one wants to see foreign policy decisions being made, especially when they can potentially lead to serious loss to our own country.  It is not the sort of context that encourages listening and understanding.  It is a frightening place for our country to be. 

Biden’s hysteria for the past several weeks, daily telling us the Russian invasion is imminent, became quickly tiresome.  When the President of Ukraine repeatedly told Biden to stop the hysteria, that he is only making matters worse, one has to wonder why Biden kept it up.  He began looking like the kid on the playground goading the other to make a first move just so he could hit him.  Again, I point to “wag the dog” strategy.

Personally, I think that while we can lend advice, speak out against aggression, impose sanctions, even sell weaponry, we have no business as actual participants in the sense of boots on the ground in this conflict.  This is not a NATO obligation.  NATO may want Ukraine and Putin may be opposed to such NATO expansion, but Ukraine currently is not a part of NATO.   And ultimately this is Ukraine’s decision.

We have a crisis on our southern border.  Our Canadian neighbor to the north is, in dictator fashion, stomping out Canadian freedoms.  Rather than address the southern border or speak out against our northern neighbor’s threat to democracy (Canada is a NATO member and thus loss of their democracy and freedom is a legitimate NATO concern), Biden is choosing to involve us in a border dispute that is really better left to Ukraine, Russia, and their European neighbors. 

We have our own problems here, and it would be nice if our President would have the same level of hysterical concern about such things as our economy, crime, education, etc., as he does for Ukraine’s border.  But then, maybe he just wants a war.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t get us into WW3.

 

Silently Slipping Away

You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

Did you ever criticize the government?  Maybe the President, maybe a Congressperson, maybe the local dog catcher.  Maybe when you did some folks agreed with you, maybe most folks thought you were nuts.  But you were able to speak your mind.

People in authoritarian regimes do not have that right. There could be no impassioned speeches against wars or for the right to vote, against child abuse and for child labor laws.  In authoritarian regimes one is told what to think and that is the only opinion that is allowed expression.

Prohibitions on Free Speech

In the USSR, Stalin created a law “against terrorist groups and terrorist actions” that was used to prosecute, imprison, execute not just “terrorists” but artists and writers and dissidents – virtually anyone who spoke a word against Stalin and the party power structure.  Section 10 of Article 58 made "propaganda and agitation against the Soviet Union" a triable offence, while section 12 allowed for onlookers to be prosecuted for not reporting instances of section 10. In effect, Article 58 was carte blanche for the secret police to arrest and imprison anyone deemed suspicious, making it useful as a political weapon.

The current Communist Chinese government also has a law that silences speech against the government narrative.  Article 105, paragraph 2 of the 1997 revision of the People's Republic of China's Penal Code states:  "Anyone who uses rumor, slander or other means to encourage subversion of the political power of the State or to overthrow the socialist system, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years. However, the ringleaders and anyone whose crime is monstrous shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than five years."

In the United States

We, of course, have the First Amendment which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  These words give us the right to form our own opinions and to speak them, even if they are not in line with the government’s narrative.

But, as of February 7, 2022, we also have the National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin issued by our Department of Homeland Security.  While spending much of its time discussing the possibility of violent threats it also includes significant language against speech that counters the government narrative.

The “Summary of Terrorism Threat to the U.S. Homeland” begins by stating that “The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors. These threat actors seek to exacerbate societal friction to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions to encourage unrest, which could potentially inspire acts of violence.”

The document continues with “Key factors contributing to the current heightened threat environment include: 1. The proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions:  For example, there is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19. Grievances associated with these themes inspired violent extremist attacks during 2021.”

Losing Free Speech; Easing into Authoritarianism

I don’t know about you, but to me this sounds eerily similar to the USSR and Chinese documents (see my highlighted language in each).  Its focus is on areas in which the narrative of the Right counters and is often a thorn in the side of the Left’s narrative certainly seems a political weapon.  And we have seen this terrorism before in the collaboration between the White House and Teachers’ Unions to weaponize the DOJ against parents speaking out at school board meetings.

Perhaps the controversy over Joe Rogan on Spotify sparked this HHS document. (FYI, Joe Rogan has a pod cast in which he brings on speakers with a variety of views.  When he had two scientists, including one involved in invention of mRNA technology on and they differed in opinion from the narrative of the White House, attempts were made to cancel Rogan from Spotify, including statement by the White House that Spotify should do so, but Spotify declined, instead taking a stand for Free Speech.) Perhaps more generally the many assertions against Leftist narratives brought this on.

Whatever prompted this latest attempt to silence free speech, it is clear that the position of our current administration, spoken here by DHS, is not that different from the authoritarian rules summarized above.  Speak out in contradiction of the government, even simply disagree, and you are a terrorist.  Indeed, under a broad reading of the above, as I write these words I am acting as a terrorist.  Many of my blog posts would be considered terrorism.

But America is not the USSR and is not Communist China (even if we are told not to speak out against China and our government does not stand against its atrocities including genocide against the Uyghur people). 

America holds faith in the free marketplace of ideas (or at least it did until the Leftists took power).  The marketplace of ideas holds that the truth will emerge from the competition of ideas in free, transparent public discourse and concludes that ideas and ideologies will be culled according to their superiority or inferiority and widespread acceptance among the population.  It is the basis of free speech and of our Constitutional right to that speech.

Free speech can be uncomfortable.  People disagree; people contradict one another; people point out fallacies in one another’s arguments and positions; passion sometimes leads to less than kind language.  But this lively debate also inspires new thought and betterment of existing policies.  It is what allows improvement and forward movement, whether it is in a science lab leading to a new discovery or in the world of politics leading to societal improvement, improved laws, and a better world.

Only narrow-minded autocrats try to silence oppositional speech.  Those who believe they are somehow superior and therefore deserve power over others also think that they should be able to control every aspect of your life, including your thoughts.

The Soviet government made propaganda and agitation against the Soviet Union a triable offense.  The Communist Chinese require imprisonment for “slander or encouragement of subversion of the political power of the State or to overthrow the socialist system.” 

Our government finds our right to free speech to be terroristic and the exercise of that right to be terrorism when it contradicts the administration’s narrative.  And our freedom to speak against that view will slip away if we continue in silence to ignore our rights and this administration’s attempts to silence them. 

But, hey, those of you that are upset by the discord within this country can rest assured that under an authoritarian regime, all such discord will be silenced.  And you won’t realize what you had until it’s gone.

 

Tails a-Wagging

“Wagging the Dog” is an expression, made popular during the Clinton administration. Generally it is “the act of creating a diversion from a damaging issue.”  In politics it means “to distract attention away from a political scandal, often through military action.”

A 1997 movie “Wag the Dog” involved a fictional political spin doctor (Robert De Niro) who distracted the electorate from a fictional presidential sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) to create a fake war.  Less than a month after the movie was released, the Clinton-Lewinsky affair became headline news. Clinton, seeming to follow the movie script, then engaged the country in three military actions:  Operation Desert Fox, a three-day bombing campaign in Iraq, which took place at the time when the House of Representatives debated articles of impeachment against Clinton; Operation Infinite Reach, a pair of missile strikes against suspected terrorist targets in Sudan and Afghanistan, just three days after Clinton admitted in a nationally televised address that he had indeed had an inappropriate relationship with Lewinsky; Operation Allied Force, a months-long NATO bombing campaign against Serbia that began just weeks after Clinton was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.  These events distracted somewhat from the ongoing and politically damaging Clinton sex scandal.

Fast forward to 2022 and the multi-front incompetency of President Biden. That incompetence itself is a scandal, but from it evolve more problems and scandals in nearly every area.  

So, what do you do when you find the economy in tatters, supply chain disasters, border issues and illegal immigrations at record levels, the Afghanistan debacle still destroying lives, crime at all time highs and murders of police rising, Covid never-ending, record high inflation effectively reducing income and significantly harming low and middle class families, race relations and general animosity getting worse by the day, lack of energy independence, poll numbers plummeting to all-time lows, international presence and respect questionable at best, your party losing important voting groups including Black and Hispanic voters, a general malaise of dissatisfaction throughout the country?  You wag the dog.

When you have ruined everything you can touch and people are beginning to realize that you really are destroying America, what do you do?  Wag the Dog.  Wag and wag and wag and hopefully the people will all be sufficiently distracted to forget about what you are really doing and have done.  Wag, and wag, and wag, and wag.  The good thing is that the mainstream media will follow the lead and divert attention from the damaging stories to the new diversions.

So, wag number 1:  Leak the story that Justice Breyer is retiring, forcing him to announce now rather than at the end of the current term.  Announce that you will have a nomination by the end of February and that all males and all women who are not Black need not apply, for the President will appoint a Black Female.  This should (you think) please the Black voters (perhaps brings them back into the fold),  and the news should focus on the nomination and confirmation process instead of America’s problems.

That backfires.  Most of the country notices that this limitation of consideration to Black Females is racist and sexist and goes against everything this country stands for.  Too many questions.  You need another distraction.

Wag number 2:  Russia and the Ukraine.  Russia is rattling its swords on the Ukrainian border.  Let’s just get all hysterical about that (even though the president of Ukraine suggests that war is not imminent, and that the U.S. hysteria is most likely to cause a war rather than prevent one).  Nonetheless, continue the hysterics, leak negotiations and letters sent to Vladimir Putin in an attempt to show how tough you are, and send troops to the area.

It becomes more and more credible and evident that you want a war – that would certainly fill the news, distracting from failure after failure  Meanwhile you make it clear that Americans cannot count on their country to assist them should conflict develop (shades of Afghanistan!). 

This isn’t working.  Putin is perhaps more patient than you thought and has not invaded.  Send more troops.  Beat your chest a little more and try to raise hysteria about this conflict.  Not working.

Wag number 3:  Kill a Syrian terrorist.  This in itself is not bad, but what hurts is that along with the terrorist you kill at least 13 civilians, many of whom are children.  The description of the event does not show our execution of such assassinations at their skillful best and the death of innocents recalls the botched drone strike during the last days of Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of America-friendly civilians and children. 

News of this morning’s strike  in Syria is still coming out, and as usual Biden makes a statement but refuses to answer questions.  But some early reports from the area include the following:

• “Omar Saleh, a resident of a nearby house, told the Associated Press he was asleep when his doors and windows started to rattle to the sound of low-flying aircraft at 1:10 a.m. local time. He ran to open the windows with the lights off and saw three helicopters. He then heard a man, speaking Arabic with an Iraqi or Saudi accent through a loudspeaker, urging women to surrender or leave the area. This went on for 45 minutes. There was no response. Then the machine gun fire erupted.”
•  “Residents and activists told the AP that there were multiple deaths near the home that was raided, which included civilians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine people were killed, including two children. The White Helmets, a civil defense group in the country, tweeted that 13 people, including six children and four women, were killed. Our teams rushed an injured child to the hospital. The child's entire family was killed in the operation. The teams also rushed another person to the hospital who was injured in the clashes when he approached the scene to witness what was happening."
• “The suicide vest detonation caused some civilian casualties, but the number of civilian deaths reported on the ground do "not correspond with what U.S. officials say occurred on the ground last night," two U.S. officials stated.

This should be a distraction for awhile at least, but probably not long enough.  So, just in case, we have potential Wag number 4:  the cancer cure.  Wednesday Biden announced his renewed launch of the “Cancer Moonshot” which he promises will end cancer (unlike his promises to end Covid and perhaps a distraction from that failed promise).  His plans include “mobilizing the entire government” against cancer and forming a “Cancer Cabinet.”

Just more show to distract us from the real news, the news that, if heard, will make it undeniable that this President is a total failure who is driving this country full speed ahead toward its destruction. 

This can get dangerous.  Let’s not forget that about a year ago Biden broke his foot while playing with his dog. 

If this were the movie sequel to Wag the Dog, we would be rolling in the aisles with laughter wondering how the author came up with such an incompetent president with so many damaging issues needing so many distractions.  We’d think it a great story.  But this is real, and it is not very funny.