One of the first known practitioners of the filibuster was the Roman senator Cato the Younger. He could obstruct passage of any legislation he opposed by speaking continuously until such time as the Senate would adjourn for the night. In the United States, the filibuster came into existence as the result of an interpretation of Senate rules that did not provide for any process to end debate. The first Senate filibuster occurred in 1837 to prevent allies of President Andrew Jackson from expunging a resolution of censure against him. Jackson had decided to dismantle the Bank of the United States. He claimed that the bank had too many foreign investors, favored the rich over the poor and resisted lending funds for development of America’s Western territories.

The filibuster was used in 1843 when two senators opposed a bill to deregulate the natural gas sector and tried, unsuccessfully, to kill it. It was used in 1917 as twelve anti-war senators drafted a law against armed merchant ships after Germany declared a full submarine war. And, it was invoked again in 1919 by senators trying to stop the Treaty of Versailles, thus ending World War I.

Today, the filibuster is best remembered for the way it has been used to obstruct any meaningful progress towards building a more perfect union. The 1964 civil rights Act filibuster lasted 57 days and it was just one of many ways the rule has been used to sustain a truly abhorrent set of values based upon race. In the past, one would have to stand up and talk thereby casting light on their soul. But recently, the most cowardly specimens within the Senate can simply send an email to filibuster.

The reason that legislation wanted by a majority of the people in the United States does not come about is due to the sophistries of a bigoted minority. Their clear contempt for any multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-racial democracy is now on full display with no plausible deniability. I recently had one person write to me saying “The word democracy does not appear in the Constitution.” I responded by pointing out that, lest there be any ambiguity, the framers instead chose to advance a definition of democracy in the first three words of that document.

The term democracy stems from the word demos which is defined, in most English dictionaries, as the common people; the populace. The words “We the People” map precisely and with fidelity to that concept. Of course certain members of the Senate still cling to the most racist compromise, the constitutional formula that treats every non-white man or woman as three-fifths of a person. And, those Supreme Court justices masquerading as constitutional originalists and textualists, while setting aside the Preamble, have also defined themselves as, to put it charitably, well afoul of their constitutional oath as jurists.

As for the legislation of our day, any rookie salesperson can tell you that the best way to minimize sticker shock is to list a product’s benefits before revealing the price. The reason this country’s social infrastructure initiatives got labeled up front as seven trillion, three point five trillion, and one point seven-five trillion dollar packages is a direct result of the morphing filibuster. This is because when the filibuster is used to quash open debate, and legislation must take the reconciliation route, the price tag can then be used by the wined, dined, and pocket lined to eclipse the benefits. And, at this juncture we must ask, just who benefits from such sophistries?

The United States legislative, executive, and judicial branches are clearly operating in a cash for trash modality. The dark money that secures judicial nominations, confirmations, and accommodations has elevated the most sociopathic members of the Supreme Court. It has produced a fictitious corporate personhood where foreign potentates enjoy superior free speech rights. It has resulted in the idiotic findings that money is speech that can be used routinely to drown out the voices of We the People.

Were it not for the filibuster, the case could be made in full throated support for the welfare of children. Support that extends beyond the conception to birth fetishism that counterfeit conservatives feed to those who are likely to parrot such oversimplified talking points. Were it not for the filibuster, our common definition of socialism would include the three dollars that Kentucky gets back for every one dollar that state contributes to the public treasury. Were it not for the filibuster, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and fossil fuel companies would be exposed as the animating force behind prevaricating senators.

The Electoral College made perfect sense while the country depended on the Pony Express for communications. The filibuster is also sustained in the interest of so-called minority rights. However, the framers had already provided for each state to be represented by two senators, regardless of its geographic size or population. This triple redundancy, in the interest of minority rights, only obscures the gamesmanship that has resulted in our democracy being seen, throughout the world, as something less than authentic.

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I don’t mean to burst your filter bubble, but we’re now more vulnerable than ever. In the spring of 2017, the virulent WannaCry outbreak afflicted over 200,000 computers in over 150 countries. Since then, high profile ransomware attacks have caused extensive damage to a wide variety of tech-savvy organizations including motion picture companies, police departments, municipalities, automobile manufacturers, oil and gas distribution systems, logistics enterprises, the financial services industry, and healthcare providers throughout our world.

When government organizations and some of the most affluent companies on the planet are unable to protect themselves, what are weto do? Recently, I got a new phone. And, after transferring all the apps, photos, and information from my old one, I got a rather disturbing message. I was enabling facial recognition arguably a highly convenient feature unique to the most recent devices. Once your face is recognized, your login and password are then automatically provided for access to your wi-fi; together with your social media, email, and banking apps. To do this your phone, tablet, or other computer must have access to your password list. During this particular setup, I received notice on my phone that I had one hundred and forty-four compromised passwords.

Now many of these are in the category of who cares. I mean, am I really all that concerned if someone else get access to my news feed? But then I remembered that I recently got an email from my sister that said she needed help. When I reached out to her, she said she was ok but that her email had been hacked. Now in my case, if someone gets into my bank account, they may be able to buy enough gas to roll ten miles down the road or a bucket of fried chicken, but probably not both.

I built my first desktop computer, from a kit, two years before the IBM PC was introduced to the market in 1981. My computer smoked when I first turned it on, and not in a good way. I had learned, the hard way, that you really need to put the right little resistor in the right place before soldering it to the circuit board. A few years later I learned about the value of backing up your work. I had spent several hours word-crafting an important letter. And, when I got up from my desk I tripped over an extension cord, the screen went dark, and I had to rewrite the letter from scratch.

The point is, ignoring little things can cause really big problems. The first time I had a friend named Debbie was in elementary school. From that time as I was immersed in various schools and businesses, I’ve probably known a half dozen people named Debbie. So, the first time I ever received an email with “Hey! It’s Debbie” in the subject line, I opened it only to find out this particular Debbie did Dallas.

I can’t count the number of times my personal computer has been infected with various forms of malware. When you type a word and it seems to take an eternity to appear on the screen. – When you come back to your desk after making a sandwich and your computer is doing stuff as though there’s a ghost sitting in your chair, using your mouse and keyboard. – When you weren’t given the option of choosing where to save a downloaded file and then you look in your downloads folder only to find it’s not there. – When you think you’re downloading a zip file only to find out later, you really downloaded two.

The adware, spyware, trojans, worms, and viruses that are collectively known as malware can have their way with you. Made any enemies lately? What’s to prevent them from parking incriminating material on your network attached storage? How’s that patent application coming? Did you really mean to share it with a complete stranger? – And, just how did someone else beat you to the punch with a business plan that seems way too similar to be mere coincidence?

Anyone that can hijack your computer can exploit the information you have on it, add whatever they want to it, and either blackmail you or hold your professional life for ransom. If you’re living on or just adjacent to the web, you’re not in the kind of neighborhood where it’s ok to leave your doors unlocked.

In June of 1941, John Mauchly visited John Atanasoff in Ames, Iowa. During that time Atanasoff and Mauchly discussed the prototype Atanasoff Berry Computer also known as the ABC. Mauchly enjoyed unfettered access to it and also reviewed Atanasoff’s design manuscript. Just a few years later J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly were awarded electronic computing patents for the ENIAC that included elements from Atanasoff’s prior art.

If you want your career to smoke, in a good way, then you need to put all the little resistors in the right places. It’s one thing to share your ideas. It’s quite another to have them taken from you. Perhaps it’s time to think about using your personal untapped potential for your own purposes.

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Joe Manchin is not fooling anyone. There was no reason to wait for him to get specific about his objections to the Build Back Better initiatives because the motivations of his donor / owners have always been clear. We knew the truth would eventually come to light.

1 Big Finance doesn’t want dental, hearing, and vision benefits built into basic Medicare because insurance companies would no longer be able to profit from those services through Medicare Advantage, a program specifically designed to support hollowing out and privatizing Medicare.

2 Big Oil wants to sustain the last gasp of an outmoded economy. They don’t want a nationwide deployment of climate friendly charging stations subsidized by the federal government precisely because it would serve to decrease our dependency on fossil fuels. Manchin likes to say that it makes no sense to incentivize companies to use cleaner sources of energy because they are moving in that direction anyway.

What he doesn’t say is how reasonable incentives tend to accelerate any transition. And since 2017, Manchin received $138,500 from electric utilities, $107,500 from Oil and Gas, plus $78,500 from the Railroads that haul coal. To suggest there is no self-interest behind Manchin’s assertions defies credibility.

No one is suggesting that fossil fuels won’t be a part of the mix for topping off vehicle batteries. However, any nudge that helps us to shear away from continued dependence on environmentally destructive feedstocks will help us to deliver a healthier planet for our grandchildren.

3 Big Pharma wants to continue price gouging for prescription drugs that were, in many cases, originally developed at taxpayer expense. Pharma doesn’t want the government negotiating prescription drug prices for Medicare because they are intent on fleecing the public in perpetuity. Need an example? Heather Bresch, Manchin’s daughter, worked with Pfizer Inc. in 2016 to monopolize and raise the price of the EpiPen.

As President and CEO for Mylan Inc. The company, specializing in generic drugs. raised the price of a two-pack of EpiPen from about $124 dollars in 2009 to $609 in 2016. Mylan was one of the largest campaign contributors to Manchin’s campaigns in five election cycles, donating around $211,000 to his campaigns since 2009 through PACs and employees. In 2010, the company’s PAC and its employees were the largest donors to Manchin’s first Senate run. Mylan, now operating as Viatris is the number one career donor to Manchin. 

Any politician that prostitutes his or her office, thus defiling positions of honor and trust, is not serving the highest and best interests of our nation. When all is said and done, their exaggerated sense of self importance does not mean that they must win re-election for, as James Freeman Clarke said in 1870, “A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation.” The focus of elder statesmen must be on the next generation for, after all, their future and this world are their rightful inheritance. 

n May of 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken ordered attorneys for both the 21 Juliana plaintiffs and for the federal government to convene for a settlement conference. On the 29^th day of October the talks ended without resolution. In 2015, twenty-one children filed Juliana versus The United States. The plaintiffs asserted a right to life and a planet capable of supporting it. The lawsuit alleged the government violated their constitutional right to life, liberty, and property through “affirmative action” that allowed climate change.

The Manchin intransigence is just the latest evidence of a venal conspiracy of men against humanity. The disloyal opposition, to any effort putting evolution back on track, is centered in the United States Senate. We must ask ourselves, is Manchin’s bipartisan fetish sincere or is he just aligned with those retardant forces that seek to kill any effort that would put the ship of state on an even keel?

His feigned reverence for the best interests of West Virginians would be somewhat believable if it was simply centered on the troubled coal industry within that state. But his gamesmanship with respect to early childhood education, and the care of seniors betrays his “if I can’t explain it” schtick. To be fair, Joe Manchin is clearly not the only self-interested politician. But his obsession, to always be at the center of attention, makes him an enduring symbol for dark money politics.

As Manchin rails against socialism in clever code, his state is one most dependent on federal funding. Of those states getting back more than they contribute to the federal treasury, West Virginia finished fifth behind Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico and Alabama. Even so, the rest of the country is sympathetic to the people of West Virginia precisely because they are so poorly represented by Manchin. The people of that state deserve more.

They are industrious, intelligent, and poised to embrace the challenges of a new economy. They have a growing interest in entrepreneurship. They are building incubators, and strategically located tech parks. Campus activity has yielded major innovations in manufacturing with the new high-tech tools needed to usher in the “Third Industrial Revolution.

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The “Build Back Better” initiatives are designed to benefit We the People. Conversely, they the few would find it far more difficult to sustain the last gasp of an outmoded economy by which they have been steadily and unjustly enriched. Consider what it would mean to Exxon Mobile if charging stations for electric cars are more available and easier to find. How would the financial services industry continue to profit from Medicare Advantage plans if vision services, dental services and hearing aids were to be provided through basic Medicare? And, what if the pharmaceutical industry were suddenly prevented from price gouging as Medicare renegotiates prescription drug prices?

Fleecing the people became common practice once the United States Supreme Court insured that the consent of the governed would never be an informed consent. The dark money that secures the justice’s nominations, confirmations, and accommodations constitutes a direct assault on the integrity of the Court. When Samuel Alito told a Notre Dame Law School audience that the court has been wrongly cast as “a dangerous cabal,” he was railing against what is now a common understanding by a citizenry that finally perceives the court for precisely what it is.

The hidden wealth, the dark money politics, and the coddling of kleptocrats defines the justices that have set aside the mission statement, the overarching principles, and the spirit of the law as embodied in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States. While masquerading as originalists and textualists, certain counterfeit conservatives have now taken center stage as the most cowardly scofflaws. Alito’s effort to dumb-down the plain text understanding of a shadow docket and an unsigned order is not resonating with the demos.

The Supreme Court has, over the course of recent history, legalized the bribery of public officials. It has embraced the most sociopathic interpretation of corporate personhood whereby such legal fictions can have free speech rights while the executives running them can hide behind the corporate veil for harmful policies. This is true even when such policies are designed to deprive people of their most basic civil liberties up to and including life itself.

The Supreme Court is a product of political process. Senator Mitch McConnell, having blocked then-President Barack Obama’s 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland, said the presidential election year precluded Senate action on a Supreme Court nominee. Then, four years later, after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, McConnell ensured that Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed just days before the 2020 election. Barrett was introduced by McConnell, at the University of Louisville’s McConnell Center in early September of 2021. In what was her first major appearance since her confirmation, she had the gall to say the Supreme Court is ‘not a bunch of partisan hacks.’

It is big-oil, big-finance, and big-pharma that are actively corroding the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic. They have done this by corrupting our executives, our legislators, and our justices. The lack of intellectual rigor, the moral relativism, and the deceptive practices are what we get when we elect prevaricating politicians motivated by self-aggrandizement. They are beholden to big money because money can always sway public opinion.

The Supreme Court was, and is, the greatest enabler of deceptive practices. It is the entity most responsible for ushering in, what has been described as, the post-truth era. It has, through judicial ineptitude, effectively converted what Marshall McLuhan once described as a whirlpool of information, into a cesspool of disinformation. Today, this is evident through the way our elected representatives can deliberately mislead the public, with impunity, on initiatives that could finally produce a beneficial return on our taxpayer investments.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. did not get the popular vote for President based upon his record as a United States Senator. People have not forgotten how he helped the credit card companies push usurious interest rates into the realm of political acceptability. He didn’t get the vote based upon any possible metanoia resulting from tragedy within his personal life. No, Biden got the popular vote because of the other guy’s self-serving antics and the way a “build back better” initiative might help recapture the country from control by foreign potentates. 

The current administration didn’t just represent the lesser of two evils. It offered hope for those who still cling to the vision of a more perfect Union, whereby equal justice under law could become a reality, and where domestic tranquility is possible. They voted for someone who would provide for the common defense against microscopic foes, someone who would promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

The United States has very real enemies both foreign and domestic. It is teetering on the precipice. And, the only thing that will restore our nation’s health and vitality is a full embrace of the principle whereby sunlight is the best disinfectant and where full transparency, in every transaction, is part of this country’s unique value proposition. When a coherent value proposition informs our strategic architecture, we will again become this world’s most competitive engine of true benevolence.

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The full faith and credit of the United States is only held to be of value by those who are actually loyal to these United States. Foreign potentates, that want to retard our progress, don’t care about this country’s future viability. True conservatives know how to invest wisely while, to the penny-wise – pound foolish faux conservative, ‘investment’ is a dirty word. Those masquerading in conservative garb are redefining conservatism in ways that are thoroughly selfish. If, for example, the United States were to default, even for a short time, the money lenders would have an excuse to raise interest rates in perpetuity. The gamesmanship, with respect to the debt limit, is clearly designed to further enrich the grifters that effectively own and operate about half of the U.S. legislature.

Such dampers on our entrepreneurial enthusiasm operate through the Senate filibuster, the debt ceiling, and subservient politicians. Feigning concern for the family farm is just one recent example of the way the unrepresentative head fake the electorate. Consider the grain embargo upon the Soviet Union in January of 1980. American farmers were the ones that felt the brunt of the sanctions, while it had a much lesser effect on the USSR. While that embargo may have yielded unforeseen and unintended consequences as the Soviets sourced grain from Brazil, the 2019 trade war represents a failure to learn from history. Customers can always find another willing supplier and, considering the decades of work American farmers put into cultivating relationships with Chinese consumers, it is heartbreaking to see the fruits of such labor go up in smoke.

We would do well to remember that sometimes, when the Amazon is on fire, the American farmer is toast! On August 19, 2019, the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a natural-color image that revealed fires burning in the vicinity of Novo Progresso in the Brazilian state of Pará. The town is located along BR-163, a straight north-south running highway that connects farmers in the southern Amazon with a port for ocean-going vessels located on the Amazon river in Santarém. Pasture and croplands are clustered around the highway in ordered, rectangular plots.

Douglas Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, described the snapshot in this way: “Fire activity in the Amazon varies considerably from year-to-year and month-to-month, driven by changes in economic conditions and climate. August 2019 stands out because it has brought a noticeable increase in large, intense, and persistent fires burning along major roads in the central Brazilian Amazon. While drought has played a large role in exacerbating fires in the past, the timing and location of fire detections early in the 2019 dry season are more consistent with land clearing than with regional drought.”

The oligarchy is motivated by only one thing and that is profit margin. The closer they can get to the cost of slave labor in producing whatever they sell, the happier they are. I once attended a party that was hosted by someone who enjoyed a position of prominence at the commanding heights of the world’s economy. I was enjoying a glass of fine wine and, as I was setting my glass down, I happened to notice the advice on the napkin. It read: “Remember, first you pillage then you plunder.”

In what American business leaders once referred to as “Corporate Japan,” there is a deeply held tradition that could be of value, informing people of good will as we move forward to rebuild our economy. Although Japan’s businesses are known for being fiercely competitive, there is an undergirding question that explains a certain cohesiveness. In addition to the profit motivation, Japanese corporations all operate within the context of one common question, “What is good for the country?”

That particular country also has its fair share of lobbyists and special interest groups including guilds, clubs, economic federations, industry and trade associations, and professional societies. These too lead with a value proposition wherein all deliberations are conditioned by the national interests and those of their countrymen. Self-sacrifice is viewed as unnatural in light of Japan’s Confucian tradition. Even so, self-interest must dovetail within the nation’s commonly held framework of values as conditioned by its needs, goals, and aspirations.

In Germany,a so called conservative government has insured that no one is without health insurance. The country has one of the best public transportation systems in the world. The Constitution requires all citizens live with dignity and this includes government action to ensure all citizens have a home, food, clothing, toiletries, furniture, transportation, and enough money to cover the minimal expenses of life. They have a basic allowance to helps all poor people to meet their most basic needs. And, to insure their competitiveness throughout future time, the country provides free education up to the PHD and MD level.

In the USA there are certain “leaders” who take great pride in the avoidance of any tax while being the first to complain when their shiny new car hits a pothole on a poorly maintained road.

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Ours is an entrepreneurial country. It has attracted a diverse complement of people, from around the world, some of whom possessed little more than a dream and some pocket change. They sought what matters most, that unique form of spiritual idealism that can move a great humanity from one level of attainment to the next. Once here, they often encountered retardant forces that held them back due to a penny wise, pound foolish, counterfeit conservatism that lacks any serviceable vision for the future.

Democracy by itself is definitely not a panacea, for without the constitutional overlay, an unbridled democracy may be accurately portrayed as three wolves and a sheep deciding on dinner. Even so, democracy done right, dovetailed with a properly crafted constitution, has tremendous implications for the good of humanity. If we believe, as the Declaration of Independence states, that we are each endowed with certain “unalienable rights” and a spiritual status that is truly “equal,” then just how can we go about making it real for everyone?

To create a more equitable community engagement, we must begin with situational awareness, by contrasting and comparing the aspirational statements contained in our country’s founding documents, with our actual conduct as a nation. Accordingly, the first thing we should realize is that we’re currently situated on a rudderless ship of state. We can certainly build a new rudder. But, once we regain control of the ship, just where are we to be headed? Will it be to a fathomless orgy of darkness and death, or ever upward into an era of light and life?

Our ship of state needs what poet laureate John Masefield called “a star to steer her by.” And this is best seen through eyes of sincerity. We each have powers of discernment that could be greatly enhanced through a real appreciation for the enduring value of individual advancement. That rising tide that lifts all boats has the potential to either submerge human-kind or benefit a great humanity. Much of the outcome depends upon how we power the so-called ship of state. Will we continue to row in such an uncoordinated way, to pull in opposite directions? Or, will we finally leverage the volitional horsepower of a unified nation to build a truly authentic culture of benevolence?

Dwight David Eisenhower, during his Farewell Address in January of 1961, gave a prophetic glimpse into our challenges as they will persist well into the future: (INSERT AUDIO) “Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we – you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”

In the commencement address at American University in June of 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy said: (INSERT AUDIO) “So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”

Conservative columnist George Will, in his book Statecraft as Soulcraft examined how the power of the state can create conditions that either foster the growth of blessed souls or the imprisonment of seriously stunted intellects and tortured souls. He admits that his vision may appear to share some traits with totalitarianism. However, like Edmond Burke, Will places great emphasis on the voluntary associations and values that are seen as essential to an informed consent of the governed and a functioning free society.

Burke, in his 1775 speech on Conciliation with the Colonies, described our countrymen as “able to snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” He said “. . . here they anticipate the evil, and judge the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle.” In his book The Soul of America, biographer John Meacham wrote: “in the battle between the impulses of good and of evil in the American soul, what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” have prevailed just often enough to keep the national enterprise alive.” 

The founders of these United States were, like the rest of us, greatly flawed individuals. Because of this they understood that moral depravity was a factor to be considered while framing our Constitution. Today, we find ourselves immersed in a world of competing ideas and we need to understand it if we are ever to be truly free. Unlike the self-interested politician, a strategist is always focused upon the over-riding principle as derived from the Unique Value Proposition.

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Incentivizing innovation involves risk. Entrepreneurs typically set up corporations or limited liability companies to insure they are not personally liable for debts should the venture fail. In 2019, the failure rate for startups was about 90%. At that time research indicated that 21.5% of startups fail within the first year, 50% fail before they are five years old, and a whopping 70% fail by their 10th year.

If the company is unable to pay its creditors, unpaid creditors can seek payment by a variety of means. Under certain circumstances, a court can ignore the form of a company and hold executives, directors, shareholders and members personally liable for fraudulent conduct. When courts lift or pierce what is referred to as the corporate veil, individuals within the company can be held criminally liable for its debt.

It should be noted that the corporate veil is seldom lifted in the absence of fraud. And such fraud is almost always limited to questions about money. In June of 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported how PG&E Corporation became one of the few U.S. corporations to be convicted of homicide-related charges. In the Superior Court of California’s Butte County, where the 2018 Camp Fire razed the town of Paradise. The utility plead guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter.

The deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history claimed more than 18,800 structures, including 13,696 single-family homes and 528 businesses. Judge Michael Deems did not lift the corporate veil to incarcerate executives or officers of the company for what was widely held to be criminal negligence. The hearing, which was streamed across the Internet, was meant to serve as public chastisement of a company derided for its greed and stockholder-first corporate culture.

A grand jury report berated PG&E accusing it of a “callous disregard” for public safety, failure to heed warnings about its aging power lines and refusal to learn from previous mistakes. The 92-page report also said, and I quote: “Through a corporate culture of elevating profits over safety by taking shortcuts in the safe delivery of an extremely dangerous product – high-voltage electricity – PG&E certainly led otherwise good people down an ultimately destructive path,”

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said at a news conference that he hoped the guilty pleas would send a message to other companies in the United States. Unfortunately, the message it sends reinforces the United States Supreme Court’s sociopathic notion of corporate personhood, one in which the actual persons making life and death decisions with depraved indifference, are shielded from the kind of criminal penalties non-privileged citizens often face. While Ramsey described the culture of negligence that included badly overlooking maintenance and training, he said that during the investigation “it became clear that profit was a driving force.”

This was nothing new. In 2010, a high-pressure PG&E natural gas transmission pipeline segment in San Bruno ruptured. The explosion, in a residential neighborhood called Crestmoor, claimed eight lives while an entire block was destroyed. Authorities blamed the explosion on the company’s failure to properly maintain its gas lines. California regulators determined that in the years before that fire, PG&E had taken in revenue of hundreds of millions more dollars than what was authorized by the state while it had significantly underspent on maintenance and infrastructure needs.

According to Subsidy Tracker, PG&E Corporation also received state and local subsidies of $1,513,416 since 2012. It has received federal grants and allocated tax credits of $216,946,462 since fiscal year 2000. Notably, PG&E spent $5.3 million on state and local political campaigns in 2017 and 2018.

The recent Perdue Pharma opioid case demonstrates that individual corporate policy makers are routinely shielded from the consequence for their reckless indifference to the plight of those adversely affected. The Constitution of the United States, in its Preamble, requires our legislators, executives and judges to “provide for the common defense.” By any reasonable interpretation, this should include protections from the criminally insane, the deaths and injuries that are the result and due to the fault of the person wielding the knife, shooting the gun, driving the car, or implementing the policy.

Shielding an individual bad actor behind the corporate veil is routine in American jurisprudence. Certain Justices, masquerading as originalists and textualists, are fond of saying that the authorities of the government are limited to the powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. Such pretenders give themselves a pass on the obligations conferred by the Overarching Principles, the Mission Statement, and the Cardinal Precepts as articulated and delineated in the constitution’s Preamble. The contempt they have habitually shown for the most fundamental rights of We the People, is hard to ignore.

There is an engraving over the doors to the Supreme Court building. It reads: Equal Justice Under Law. When the justices began their flirtation with a corporate personhood, they conferred superior rights upon corporate executives. Most of the distortions within our constitutionally grounded democratic republic are directly traceable to the Court’s consistent failure to hold the man behind the curtain accountable.

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In Doha, Qatar on February the 29^th in 2020, the United States entered into an agreement with the Taliban. The four part “comprehensive peace agreement included the following two provisions concerning the security of the United States and its allies:

1. [It] Guarantees and enforcement mechanisms that will prevent the use of the soil of Afghanistan by any group or individual against the security of the United States and its allies.
2. [It] Guarantees, enforcement mechanisms, and announcement of a timeline for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan.

Just above the signing declaration at the conclusion of the agreement is one final operative paragraph that states:

The United States will seek economic cooperation for reconstruction with the new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government as determined by the intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations, and will not intervene in its internal affairs.

Now if, despite all the ambiguity, the guarantees concerning the security of the United States and its allies somehow covered the withdrawal operations, why did they not commence immediately upon the execution of the agreement, in February of 2020? At that time, if indeed the withdrawal was covered, special squads could have moved throughout the countryside with minimal risk. They could have moved vulnerable individuals allied with the “freedom forces” to evacuation points where the aircraft could have also operated with minimal risk. 

Stephen Miller, then a top adviser to President Donald Trump, was incredulous during a fall Cabinet meeting in 2018. According to one person in the room Miller asked: “What do you guys want? A bunch of Iraqs and ‘Stans across the country?” According to CNN, several sources claimed the Trump administration was purposefully slow-walking the entry of all refugees – including allies who aided American soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Special Immigrant Visa program was created in 2008 It issues visas that are sometimes referred to as SIVs. The program was later expanded to offer visas to any Afghan who was able to demonstrate “at least one year of faithful and valuable service” to or on behalf of the U.S. government. Military interpreters – whose lives were in danger because of their work for U.S. forces in Afghanistan have sometimes had to wait years to obtain a visa through the SIV program.

According to data from the U.S. State Department, from the beginning of Fiscal Year 2008 through June of 2021, more than 76,000 Afghans, including visa recipients and their families, have been allowed into the country under the SIV program. The U.S. Congress amends the legislation every year, to make sure enough visas are available. It wasn’t until July of 2021, that lawmakers authorized an additional 8,000 visa slots and more than $1 billion to fund the Afghanistan evacuation.

The quarterly reports that are published on the State Department website show that between March and June of 2020, only 3 SIVs were approved. Between July and September of 2020, an additional 283 were approved.. And, from October to December of 2020, only 237 additional visas were approved. In all three of the quarterly reports, the number of people interviewed for the visas in Kabul was listed as zero. The reports do show that two Afghans were scheduled to be interviewed during the July to September period and nine were scheduled to be interviewed from October through December. According to the reports these interviews were to be conducted outside of Afghanistan.

According to the International Rescue Committee, “Only 16,000 Afghan SIVs have been issued since 2014 despite the availability of 26,500 total authorized visas during that time.” They said “There are more than 18,000 applications in the current pipeline, impacting a potential total of 53,000 individuals including family members.” The Congressional Research Service reported that 2,134 Afghan interpreters and family members were admitted in 2017. Then, in 2018, the number dropped to 524. In 2019 we saw that number cut by more than half to 248. And in 2020 it dropped to 98. Although some point to the Pandemic as one cause for the decline, the downward trend was well underway prior to the time CoVid even became a factor.

At this juncture we must consider the extent to which the outgoing administration was engaging in deliberate obfuscation during the 2020-2021 transition. The State Department’s slowdown, with respect to visa processing, didn’t became clearly evident until Biden took office and Antony Blinken was sworn-in as the new Secretary of State.

The desperation and bottle-necked evacuation we witnessed at the airport in Kabul, indicates a failure on the part of prevaricating politicians that refused to act on a timely basis in accordance with their prior agreements. No amount of blame shifting is going to resonate with those citizens that are cognizant of the agreement together with the timeline.

It should also be noted that the willingness of the Afghan Army to lay down their weapons was clearly foreseeable in light of the failure to adopt a coherent strategy going into the country twenty years ago. Ask yourself, why would any army stand and fight when their leadership had already fled. 

Full Transcript:

In the United States, during 1933, there was a conspiracy to violently overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install a dictator. In the so-called Business Plot, the oligarchy had attempted to recruit a popular Marine General, Smedley Butler, to orchestrate a march of five-hundred thousand men with the goal of capturing, kidnapping, and killing Roosevelt. Butler testified under oath in 1934, before the United States House of Representatives Special Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as the McCormack–Dickstein Committee. He said that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans’ organization with Butler as its leader.

There is little agreement among historians as to whether the coup was actually close to execution. However, most do agree that a “wild scheme” was very much in the works. Butler had supported FDR in the 1932 US presidential election, he started denouncing capitalism and bankers in 1934. He said that, for 33 years, he had been a “high-class muscle man” for Wall Street, the bankers and big business. He labeled himself as a “racketeer for capitalism.” The bankers labeled Roosevelt as a socialist out to destroy private enterprise, by sapping the gold backing of wealth in order to subsidize the poor.

Butler supported Roosevelt in the election and became a strong critic of capitalism. Even so, the plotters felt his popularity and his good reputation would attract wide support. Butler said that, according to the plan, he would have held near-absolute power in the newly created position as “Secretary of General Affairs. “Those implicated in the plot by Butler all denied any involvement and no one was ever prosecuted.

At the close of the committee hearings in January of 1935, John L. Spivak published two articles in the communist magazine New Masses. The articles included portions of testimony to the committee that had been redacted as hearsay. Spivak held that the plot was part of a plan by J.P. Morgan and other financiers who were coordinating with fascist groups to overthrow Roosevelt.

The struggle between We the People and they the few has always been centered on the highest and best interests of the masses as opposed to the unmitigated selfishness of those with an exaggerated sense of self-importance. The inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth have long held a cynical view of the electorate while the politicians prostituting positions of honor and trust have had to pay no significant penalty with a constituency they regard as having the attention span of a fruit fly.

The economic royalists of our day have not only bought the politician, the opposition, and the watchdog; they have accumulated such vast wealth as to insure their outsized influence will effectively govern well in to the future. The only thing that will convert the vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle is a wide spread awakening on the scale of what took place during the 17^th and 18^th century Age of Enlightenment.

The illogical extremes, of those that cater to every whim of the most parasitic financiers, can be exposed for precisely what it is. However, our media is caught up in a faddish “advocacy journalism” that is not journalism any more than agenda science is somehow science. Even our churches have become bifurcated along Jesusonian versus Luciferian lines. And, a reckless indifference to the truth, has only served to eclipse “the way, the truth, and the life.”

Our politicians often put a wet finger to any political wind to determine which way it is blowing, to know where they must run so they can appear to be leading. To these prevaricators, actual statesmanship is an arcane, banished idea. Meanwhile, their addled constituencies amplify political talking points with no particular depth of understanding and no real interest in developing one. For every hour of each and every day they prove the axiom that a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek.

James Freeman Clarke got it exactly right one hundred and fifty years ago when he said: “A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.” A politician that is more concerned about a primary challenge than the health of our nation is not just putting party over country. That common type of cowardly vacillator is governed exclusively by self-interest, and they have no plausible deniability on that.

The threat of a violent overthrow was very real during the Business Plot of 1933. It was real on January 6^th in 2021. And it will be real during the election cycle of 2022. There are people who are addicted to Luciferian sophistry and they have been mainlining deception. They represent a system of values that sentient beings find abhorrent. And, because of this fact, the only way they can win elections is by cheating.

To pretend you care about our constitutionally grounded democratic republic while tolerating voter suppression, voter intimidation, election subversion, and dark money politics, is to perpetrate a fraud on your friends, your family, your countrymen, and your God. There are, however, people of good will among us. And, their religion is not a fashion statement.

Full Transcript:

It was the 90s, a new decade. The cold war had ended and the highly contentious relationship, between the United States and the Soviet Union, was no longer being played out in a high profile way, on the United Nations Security Council. Even China was behaving well, as it was dabbling in the global market economy. It appeared, for a time, that the world had become a more friendly place for people reclaiming their right to be the arbiters of their own destiny while expressing themselves through their fledgeling democracies.

Mikhail Gorbachev had relaxed restrictions on private property and introduced initial market reforms. The privatization of Russia’s state-owned assets had begun as Boris Yeltsin, the first President of post-Soviet Russia set a goal to sell state controlled assets to the Russian public. To facilitate wide participation, vouchers were issued so all Russian citizens, including minors could buy shares.

Vladimir Putin had commanded the FSB, a successor to the KGB, as Director. He was later appointed as Prime Minister and uniquely positioned, early on, to manipulate markets and benefit personally from the rise of the oligarchs that had by then captured most of the equities intended for Russian citizens. Putin attached himself to the Russian oligarchy in such a way as to receive a piece of their action that, according to some, amounted to as much as fifty percent.

The oligarchs and Putin had not only redirected the new equities, they also stole the emergent democracy out from under that country’s citizenry. Putin became president in 2012. It would appear that he could hold that position for as long as he wants it. In 2018, China also removed the term limit on their presidency giving Xi Jinping that power for life. These factors, coupled with the diminishing authenticity of democracy within the United States, makes the five member United Nation’s Security Council about equally divided between the forces of Autocracy versus Democracy.

The United Nations was never a federation of democracies nor was it ever intended to be. It was formed and informed by experience gained; from a failure of the League of Nations to the hard fought victories of World War Two. The primary consideration for the Allies then, was to insure there would be no backsliding into the conditions that fomented that devastating war. And so, they gave themselves veto power over any UN initiative.

It is that veto power that stands in the way of humanity’s greatness, of self government, of world peace. The people of Russia, of China, and of other so-called rogue nations are not the enemies of representative government. It is, rather, their egomaniacal leaders, together with others who possess an exaggerated sense of self-importance. 

Why is it that the most animalistic savages continue to terrorize the people of Afghanistan? Why do developed nations have immigration problems? Why are there no safe-havens in Central America where people from strife-torn countries can gather to strategize on how best to regain control of their respective homelands? The United Nations, as presently constituted, is largely impotent.

On April 5^th in 2000, The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations published a report titled United Nations Peacekeeping Missions and Their Proliferation. In that report it was revealed that “since 1995 U.S. participation globally in U.N. peacekeeping missions has generally numbered 500 to 1,000 troops, less than 5% of the total, and today’s total includes primarily U.S. civilians (not soldiers) at that.”

Even when it does mount peacekeeping missions, it is so internally conflicted as to render those missions ineffective. Why else would UN Peacekeepers be on standby in Rwanda while the Hutu slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis? In May of 2019, The American Foreign Service Association published an article titled Why Peacekeeping Fails. That article included the statement: “. . . U.N. peacekeeping has become a way for rich countries to send the soldiers of poor countries to deal with conflicts the rich countries do not care all that much about.”

It is clear, that the International governing body that our world looks up to, is a politically stymied debating society first and foremost. That having been said, there have been positive developments within the World Court. But, even in that venue, the Security Council members have given themselves the kind of absolute immunity that stems from the supposed infallibility of popes and kings. 

The world needs a true federation of democracies with all that implies including most favored nation status for the most authentic of the democracies. For that to occur, the UN must be re-chartered to protect the world from the tyranny of the most self-serving minority. What would incentivize the authoritarian members of the Security Council to agree to such an arrangement? Money!

If the UN fails to evolve into a world federation of democracies, one of the regional federations will undoubtedly succeed. If most favored nation status is then keyed to the authenticity of each constitutionally grounded democratic republic, the business community and the consumers will notice, while the three flows of commerce; capitol, goods, and information will be directed to the most deserving of those entrepreneurial nations.