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There is nothing uglier than a lack of appreciation. And American news viewers can see it every day in the faces of Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, and Jim Jordan. In contrast, the police officers that put their lives on the line to protect these scoundrels would do it again because, unlike their ungrateful protectees, the officers sworn to protect the capitol and its inhabitants are principled. January the 6^th in 2021 revealed the extent to which almost a third of our national adult population has been snookered.

Most of us can see the difference between an elected representative acting in ways true to their oath, and one that would sink our constitutionally grounded democratic republic to hold on to their form-fitting seats. The participants in the racist riot were chanting many of the right words, while also failing to recognize just how far afoul they had strayed from the principles to which they payed lip service. Their emotion driven pastors believe in their own supposed subject matter expertise within each and every discipline.

Many of these are the same people that railed against moral relativism just a few short years ago. Now they champion it. They thump the King James Bible while justifying their attitudes of white supremacy. They traded their Christian witness for a masquerade long ago. Atheists and secularists point to the pseudo-religious hucksterism together with the way its practitioners parade hypocrisy as a point of pride.

The Trumpeters shouted “Jesus is Lord” while dishonoring almost everything about his exemplary life and teachings. The Jesusonian observation that “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword” is altogether ignored by the fearful hoards that place their faith in kinetic weapons. Love your enemies is hardly apparent in the videos of police being beaten with flagpoles on the capitol steps.

While counterfeit Christians would likely agree, on some cosmetic level, with a Top-40 playlist within the about Jesus genre, they exhibit a reckless indifference to the truth as exemplified by The Way, The Truth, and The Life. And, it appears to those secularists, who would minimize the Jesusonian influence, that people chanting his name have very little regard for the religion of Jesus. A couple of decades ago people within the churches were asking themselves “What would Jesus do.” Now, it seems, such questions are avoided as if they are masks and vaccines.

Modern day deceivers work by selectively amplifying, filtering, and contextualizing facts. And it’s much easier for those intent on building a religion about Jesus to place emphasis on whatever suits them. The militant Jesus is depicted as an out-of-control maniac, ranting in the temple courtyard, while flipping over the money tables. The true Jesus was exhibiting a fatherly affection and was protecting his children from those who made a habit of exploiting the poor while turning the Father’s temple into a den of thieves.

The religion of Jesus is not quite so malleable as the religion about Jesus. Jesus is motivated by true love, not a lust for power. As the Creator Son, he placed high value on our right to be the true arbiters of our own destiny. When he said “I stand at the door and knock,” he also made it clear that he would honor our individual decisions with respect to whether or not we open that door to let him come in.

In contrast, the whited sepulchers of today would usurp the authority of each of us as individuals and our collective will as a great humanity. They have no intention of delivering anything close to fidelity of representation as they prostitute themselves for the inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth. And they have put their peculiar form of blasphemy center stage as they make a mockery of all things sacred. They have sullied the name of Jesus, as well as The Way, The Truth, and The Light.

The Goebbelian doctrine holds that the truth is the enemy of the big lie and is, therefore, the enemy of the state. Of course our state is not fully persuaded that it should wholeheartedly embrace the lie. There are still sentient beings walking among us. There are those who still hope for a glimmer of statesmanship as they try to see past the political sophistries.

The problem for McConnell, McCarthy, Graham, and Jordan is that the truth never suffers from close examination whereas the lie always gets exposed eventually. While their boisterous constituencies are addicted to the self aggrandizement that always accompanies an exaggerated sense of self importance, there are still people of good will working quietly to improve the human condition. There are two kinds of churches, the ones that lean Luciferian and the ones that are decidedly Jesusonian.

There are also two kinds of democratic republics. There are the ones that are inauthentic and there are the ones that are decidedly authentic. The authentic ones don’t like the kind of politics where “poli” means many and “tics”: means blood sucking parasites. Authentic democracies place a premium on true statesmanship.

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When they arrived on the scene, Adolf Hitler wasted no time in making the pronouncement: “This is a God-given signal.” He continued: “If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.” The scene was the parliamentary building in Berlin, the Reichstag, that went up in flames from an arson attack. The date was February 27^th in 1933.

It was a flashpoint event that made it possible for Adolf Hitler to play upon public and political fears and thereby consolidate power, setting the stage for the rise of Nazi Germany. The competing narratives and revisionist history only added to the national chaos, while also facilitating power grabs. To some, it was a Communist plot, to others the staging of Antifascism. It is certain that Hitler played upon the FIBS of Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear to consolidate power, thus setting the stage for the rise of Nazi Germany. Today, the “Reichstag Fire” is a powerful political metaphor that serves as a cautionary tale.

Germany’s liberal democracy was first established at the conclusion of World War I. The 1919 Weimar Constitution called for the president to be elected by direct ballot. The legislators that comprised the Reichstag were also elected by popular vote, while the president would appoint a chancellor to introduce legislation. The president held the power to dismiss his cabinet, the chancellor, and even to dissolve an ineffective Reichstag. In cases of national emergency, the president could invoke Article 48, which gave him dictatorial powers and the right to intervene directly in the governance of Germany’s 19 territorial states.

The economic and political unrest of the early 1930s meant that no single political party had a majority in the Reichstag, so the nation was held together by fragile coalitions. The political chaos prompted President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag over and over again. With each dissolution came new elections. Hitler rose to the head of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the Nazis. By 1928 the group’s membership exceeded 100,000. The Nazis denounced the Weimar Republic and what they called the “November criminals,” that had signed the Treaty of Versailles. That treaty had forced Germany to accept responsibility for World War I, pay reparations, transfer territory to their neighbors, and limit the size of the military.

When the Great Depression hit, sending the U.S. and Europe into an economic tailspin, the number of unemployed in Germany rose to about 30 percent of the adult population. As one might imagine, with 6 million unemployed, there was massive social upheaval. This the Nazis exploited. By 1930, they won 18.3 percent of the Reichstag vote and became the second largest party after the Social Democrats. The Communist party gained about ten percent of the vote.

The Nazis, by attracting voters from other right-leaning factions, then garnered 33 percent of the vote. In January of 1933, Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler as chancellor in the desperate hope that the other conservative parties would join with the Nazis to keep the Communists out of power. The Nazis infiltrated the police. Hitler also used his powers as chancellor to enroll 50,000 Nazi SA men, known as the brown shirts, as auxiliary police.

On February 28, Hindenburg invoked Article 48. The cabinet drew up the “Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State.” The act abolished freedom of speech, assembly, privacy and the press. It legalized phone tapping and interception of correspondence. And, it suspended the autonomy of federated states. That night around 4,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured by the SA.

The SA was founded out of various emotionally charged and intellectually stunted elements that had attached themselves to the fledgling Nazi movement. Its early membership was drawn largely from armed freebooter groups. These were mainly ex-soldiers, that battled leftists in the streets in the early days of the Weimar Republic. Outfitted in brown uniforms after the fashion of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Blackshirts in Italy, the SA men protected party meetings, marched in Nazi rallies, and physically assaulted political opponents. 

In the United States today, the former president has repeatedly characterized those protesting the systemic murder of black citizens as “thugs,” “terrorists,” and “anarchists.” He has also praised individuals who participated in the insurrection of January 6^th in 2021 as “great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” Trump empathized with those who had violently stormed the Capitol, saying, “I know your pain, I know your hurt.” He then said, “We love you.” 

Former White House chief of staff General John Kelly recently wrote that, during a 2018 visit to Europe to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, then president Donald J. Trump said: “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.” Many have since compared the Reichstag’s Fire to the White House deceptions that were architected by Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen Miller, a protege of Joseph Goebbels. During his stint as the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Goebbels the defined truth as “The enemy of the state.”

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The death cult, that is working so hard to misinform people about the CoVid Vaccine, has promoted a variety of novel conspiracy theories. Among them is the notion that what gets injected is some sort of interface that interacts with all of the 5G towers. Of course, just about any technology can be perverted into a dreadful weapon. Really, if Vladimir wanted to broil your brain with a directed energy weapon mounted on a cell tower, triangulating on the cell phone you’re holding next to your ear would probably get him close enough.

One alleged doctor, continuing in the tradition of Dr. Strangelove, testified in 2021 before the Ohio legislature saying this: “I’m sure you’ve seen these pictures all over the Internet, of people who have had these shots and now they’re magnetized. You can put a key on their forehead and it sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick, because now we think there’s a metal piece to that.”

Maybe this so-called doctor thinks it’s better to have iron poor blood. We oxygenate our tissues by the action of iron within the red blood cells. These carry oxygen to our living cells while also removing the carbon dioxide. Those that insist on thinking like a sea squirts anyway, could probably use an alternative like vanadium to oxygenate and deoxygenate themselves. In any event, most keys are made out of nickel and silver, or brass. Sooo, even if you’re a bit slow due to your iron-deficiency anemia, the chances of someone turning you into a magnetic key rack are pretty low.

One thing is certain. There are excessively prominent politicians that have made the calculation that their constituency is composed mostly of simpletons. These emotionally charged – intellectually stunted hoards are dangerous to any civilized society. But, when their anger and grievance are stoked, while prevaricating politicians cater to their every indulgence, their out of proportion sense of entitlement metastasizes. 

There will always be some part of the general population that remains unteachable. They embrace a counterfeit liberty that is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled. Most of us began to balance freedom with responsibility as toddlers. Else we confuse fundamental liberty with taking license. Some never outgrow the childish notion that the rules don’t apply to them. In the context of a pandemic, they are the anti-mask / anti-vax factions that are thwarting any effort to contain a deadly virus. They will not inconvenience themselves to protect the children, their parents, or their grandparents.

Early in the CoVid pandemic, the decision criteria used by public officials to prioritize services spoke volumes. On May 3^rd in 2020, Newsweek reported that a California official was ousted after lauding the coronavirus, saying ‘it allows the sick, the old, the injured to die naturally.” According to the Washington Times, this Antioch planning commission member, Ken Tournage II, wrote on his Facebook page that “the World has been introduced to a new phrase “Herd Immunity” which is a good one.” He wrote “In my opinion we need to adopt a Herd Mentality. A herd gathers its ranks, it allows the sick, the old, the injured to meet their natural course in nature.”

In this unguarded moment, Tournage had revealed the values of those sharing his affinity for selective depopulation. He went on to write “Coronovirus is like a forest fire – Burns old trees, fallen brush, shrub sucklings.” According to Fox News, he went on to add, the “homeless and other people who just defile themselves by either choice or mental issues” should also be allowed to perish. This, he said, “would fix what is a significant burden on our society and resources.”

Tournage characterized people with weak immune systems as a drain on society saying they too should be left to meet their “natural course in nature.” The San Francisco Chronicle quoted him as suggesting “we as a species need to move forward with our place on Earth, by reopening society and accepting that the coronavirus will run its course, killing the older and weak.” He added that the deaths would “reduce burdens” on Social Security, health care, jobs and housing

Although Tournage later deleted the post, he refused to resign or back down from his comments. He said “targeting me with repercussion for this is a direct violation of my First Amendment rights. He lamented “It’s not like it used to be, when you could have an opinion, talk about it and then sit down and have a beer together and talk about football.”

The natural world has always achieved its balance through war, famine, and pestilence. But we are not limited to a nature that is, at times beautiful, and at other times brutal. A great humanity should aspire to something higher. Some have proposed renaming the Delta Variant, calling it the Darwin Variant. Perhaps, if people are to slow to reach for life saving vaccines and too selfish to protect others, they should be allowed to reach for some sort of Darwin award. The problem is, they’re taking some of our best and brightest out with them.

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An act of charity is traditionally defined as generosity that would include donations to aid those in physical or financial distress. It is usually characterized by leniency in judging the acts of others, and forbearance when such others fail to act on a timely basis. It might be the benevolent feeling that wells up inside of us, especially toward those in desperate need or in societal disfavor. The Greco-Christian term Agape refers to an unconditional, even selfless love that, while sometimes seen as synonymous with charity, looks beyond any dysfunction to the highest and best interests of all.

The term welfare is generally understood as referring to the greatest good for a person, group, or organization. Etymologically the word was derived from the middle english phrase composed of the terms wel and fare while expressing the sentiment that others would fare well. It is in this sense that the Preamble to the United States Constitution includes the phrase “promote the general Welfare.”

Some would argue, and have argued, that the adoption of any social program constitutes “socialism.” By such an overly simplistic definition, if you carry a Social Security card, you are a card carrying socialist. Other people are simply perplexed asking: “Why would anyone want to kill Social Security and Medicare when we see payroll deductions, throughout our entire working lives, for these so-called entitlements?” After a little research, we are reminded that employers are required to make matching contributions of 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare. Upon further investigation, we learn that, for employees making $200k or more, employers have to kick in an additional .9% for Medicare.”

In light of these numbers, the motivations of those wanting to kill Social Security and MediCare are clear. Others, fearing a loss of choice while stressing the value and security of employer provided private insurance, should also acknowledge how quickly high seniority Walgreen’s employees lost theirs. In early 2019, Walgreens employees, many with almost a quarter century of service received a letter. It read, in part, as follows:

“According to our records, you do not meet these requirements because you will be under age 64 and/or have less than 24 years of service as of March 31, 2019. Therefore, you will not be eligible for retiree healthcare benefits described above for yourself or your family members.”

Any elected representative, advancing the fiction that employer based health insurance is the answer, is either deliberately misleading their constituency or exhibiting a reckless indifference to the truth. It is fundamentally dishonest to claim that single payer will inevitability result in a reduction in the quality of care. There will undoubtedly be a market response to any single payer proposal, one that is likely to include numerous competing wrap-a-round plans from the private sector, similar to the current Medicare Supplement offerings.

The Internal Revenue Service treats donations to Nonprofit 501(c) 4 Social Welfare Organizations as charitable tax deductions. Such organizations are often referred to as Super PACs and, while some would deny they are actually Political Action Committees, Crossroads GPS qualifies as a Social Welfare Organization according to the IRS. On its website, Crossroads GPS consistently refers to the Affordable Care Act as ObamaCare precisely because anything associated with former president Obama is likely to be hated by the PAC’s supporters.

The CrossRoads GPS website asserts the following: “Obamacare has set in motion a government takeover of American health care. Among other things, the federal government will decide: what is and is not covered by insurance; where people must go to get their insurance; the prices insurers can charge for coverage; how doctors and hospitals should be organized for delivering services to patients; and what kind of care is “effective” and therefore should be paid for by insurance.”

Crossroads fails to show how any insurance industry run healthcare is better. They continue: “Inevitably, the federal government will set up large and unresponsive bureaucracies to make these decisions, which is already happening, and the decisions will be made for budgetary reasons, not based on the needs of patients. How can anyone believe the “budgetary” considerations behind a for-profit financial services business do not serve the shareholders first and foremost? 

CrossRoads also claimed: “There a better way forward on health care.” They said: “Once Obamacare is fully repealed, Congress can begin work on reforms. . . “ Begin work ??? Begin work ??? The Insurance Industry has thwarted every effort for meaningful reform since President Truman proposed a “universal” national health insurance program. Politicians wholly owned and operated by the health insurance industry defeated the universal health care package proposed in 1993 by assuring the public they would come up with their own plan. Where is it? We are still waiting! Where is it? They’ve had plenty of time to produce something. The fact is the financial services industry caters only to the indulgence of its shareholders. Politicians prostituting their offices for dark money contributions from the insurance industry have zero credibility on healthcare.

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The first companies were comprised of people working in company with one another, corporations were originally defined as people associating for a common purpose and acting corporately. In our day we must come to grips with certain oxymorons and especially any hop-skippety-jump logic behind certain concepts, like that of a “shell corporation.” Of course the morphing definitions don’t end there. Our business landscape is replete with so-called corporations that are comprised of what investors view as “low level functionaries.” Their senior managers are also controlled by outside string pullers.

A shell corporation is defined as one without active business operations or significant assets. And our courts have displayed such a lack of intellectual rigor in dealing with such fraudulent corporate entities they have thereby corroded the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic. Shell corporations are often used by large well-known public companies, shady business dealers, and private individuals alike. Faux corporations act as tax avoidance vehicles for otherwise legitimate businesses, that are intent on privatizing gains while socializing losses.

Tax avoidance is seen, by integrity challenged individuals, as a loophole facilitating tax evasion. A variety of other conceptual and legal sophistries are often brought to bear in distorting the public discourse. The “Harry and Louise” advertising campaign was one clear example that ran in opposition to executive and legislative health care reform proposals in 1993 and 1994. It was a fourteen to twenty million dollar year-long television advertising campaign that was funded by the Health Insurance Association of America, the predecessor to a health insurance industry lobby group now known as America’s Health Insurance Plans or AHIP.

The industry then bludgeoned the public’s collective intellect with messaging that highlighted potential problems with government run healthcare. The dollar skewed media ignored the fact that a financial services industry run healthcare system would prove to be far worse. They created so much confusion that, during a pivotal interview, one CNN anchor mischaracterized the group’s executive director as representing the insured.

Special purpose entities are often used by large business groups to achieve a specific goal, such as to create anonymity. The Supreme Court, in a series of anti-democracy decisions has bolstered the use of such dark money to insure that the consent of the governed is never a fully informed consent. In accordance with the most dumbed down legal definition, a Political Action Committee or PAC is considered a charity of all things, even though it may exist solely to support politicians that prostitute their offices in tilting the playing table for business interests. This involves intentional obfuscation affecting all three of the primary flows of commerce. These flows traditionally include the goods, the capital, and the information.

Tax havens make it possible to move profits to shell companies. For example, a United States company buying products from overseas would legally have to pay US taxes on the profits. Strategies to offload the ever increasing tax burden to the working poor include schemes to buy importable products through a non-resident shell company based in a tax haven. The US company is then described as an offshore company. That shell company would purchase the products in its name, mark up the products and sell them to the US company, thereby transferring the profit to the tax haven. Such products may not even physically pass through that tax haven, but are instead “drop-shipped” directly to the US based business.

Shell companies have also been used by broadcasting groups to circumvent FCC limits on television station ownership. The Sinclair Broadcasting Group forms local marketing agreements with stations owned by Cunningham Broadcasting and Deerfield Media. Cunningham Broadcasting stock is controlled by trusts in the name of the owner’s children. The Nexstar Media Group controls television stations owned by Mission Broadcasting and Vaughan Media.

Even though most younger voters get their news at their convenience via on-demand streaming services and podcasts, over the air television stations still exert tremendous influence among older cord cutters. However, since the Supreme Court has so recently and clearly demonstrated its contempt for any informed consent of the governed, the assaults on net-neutrality would ultimately allow the dark monied interests to advance or retard the information flow within any and all channels of essential communication. Right now, about seven hundred billionaires control the information flow to over three hundred and thirty million US citizens. And, while alternative currencies and networks are being built, the most self-serving are constantly scheming for ways to control those as well.

The definition of black and gray market activities needs to be expanded. It is important to be suspicious of any inauthentic corporation. While the addled Supremes remain aloof, and while the US Department of Justice obsesses over the activities of unregistered foreign lobbyists, it’s important to understand the various ways in which foreign potentates effectively control our elected representatives through unbridled corporate influence. As long as anonymous groups can funnel money to politicians, and as long as those politicians have the power to defang any regulating authority, our democratic republic is also inauthentic.

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In ancient Greece, secret ballots were used to hide votes from people seeking favors. Certain special votes, such as one to ostracize and thereby expel a citizen from Athens were also cast in private. In ancient Rome, the secret ballot was introduced to all popular assemblies in 139 BC. The constitution in France required that “All elections are to be held by secret ballot” since 1795. The secret ballot was also established generally in the British Ballot Act 1872. The individual states within the USA had completed their move to secret ballots when Kentucky adopted them in 1891. 

Internationally, the right to hold elections by secret ballot is included in a variety of treaties and international agreements affecting their signatory states. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “The will of the people…shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which…shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.” The American Convention on Human Rights grants to every citizen of member states, of the Organization of American States, the right and opportunity “to vote and to be elected in genuine periodic elections, which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and by secret ballot that guarantees the free expression of the will of the voters”.

The Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension, obligates the member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to “ensure that votes are cast by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedure, and that they are counted and reported honestly with the official results made public.” The Convention on the Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights and Freedoms in the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States obligates electoral bodies not to perform “any action violating the principle of voter’s secret will expression.”

Within any authentic democratic republic, the votes of elected representatives are cast in public while the votes of individual citizens as they elect their representatives are cast in secret. Today, the authenticity of our democracy and the secrecy of ballots cast within the United States are increasingly undermined by partisan operatives due to a combination of executive malfeasance, legislative ineptitude, and judicial buffoonery. On the 13^th of July in 2021, an Oklahoma lawmaker requested that the state election board call for a forensic and independent audit of the 2020 General Election results. The Republican candidate for president won the state by a margin of over 33% in the 2020 election. One must wonder about the motivation behind such a request, especially since the legislator’s favored candidate won every county within the state.

The audit requested by the Republican lawmaker would consist of a registration and votes cast audit, a vote count and tally audit, an election voting systems audit and a reported results audit. Could it be that the fraudit fanaticism, that has so many states in its grip, is not really about proving corruption? Could it be that the efforts to examine ballots and registrations is more about data scraping, compiling lists of voters and profiling them in accordance with their votes? Could it be that the election subversion efforts of malevolent anti-democracy forces are really about winning a voter-deception, voter-suppression, and voter intimidation trifecta?

Mo Brooks told the people gathering to protest the Trump loss, to “kick ass and take names.” We all witnessed the ass kicking as they stormed the Capital. Now we are confronted with the taking of names. They’re not fooling anybody except for those who are committed to being fools. If the emotionally charged and intellectually stunted hoards that stormed the United States Capitol, can turn their attention to harassing individual voters on the phone or at their door, they will be even more of a threat if they also appear at your home armed with your voting history.

Feigning reverence for our constitutionally grounded democratic republic and election integrity is a flawed tactic, for the truth eventually comes to light. Prevaricators will tell you that the Preamble to the United States Constitution was to have no operating effect while the founders clearly intended it to operate as a careful delineation of overarching principle. Those occupying positions of honor and trust that have, on oath, sworn to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, are duty bound to do just that.

There will always be shifty politicians masquerading as statesmen. But the voters have the ultimate responsibility for oversight in a participatory democracy. Democracy rests with the voters! When politicians are committed to corroding the democracy underpinnings of our constitutionally framed republic, it is up to us to expel them. When they are not sincere leaders, not guiding us into that more perfect union, they should be ousted.

Supreme Court Justices have given a wink and a nod to dark money contributions. They should be ostracized. When politicians receive dark money money contributions to misinform the consent of the governed, they should be forever barred from holding high office. When dark money corporate donors are distorting the public discourse in the name of free speech, there should be a rebuttable presumption that they too are bad actors.

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Most Boomers remember the educational technology of the 1960s as one comprised mostly of flash cards. Today, I’m reminded of one such card in particular. On the front side it read “McCarthyism.” On the flip side it read “A brand of vitriolic, fear-mongering.” 

Future generations will likely ask: “Which McCarthyism? Joe’s or Kevin’ s?” Joe McCarthy is often credited with developing what dirty tricksters have dubbed the FIBS tactic. It leverages Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear. Kevin will be seen as having reprised what Margaret Chase Smith appropriately described as the Four Horsemen of Calumny. This Luciferian legacy was also seen throughout the career of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and, more recently, in the prevarications of his protege Stephen Miller.

Joseph Goebbels said:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Both McCarthy’s exhibited a reckless indifference to the truth. They have each brought shame to the United States Legislature. Thanks to Kevin, the traditional republican emphasis on representative government is now widely considered to be an arcane banished idea. Not only has he betrayed the constitutionally framed representative form of government, he and his supporters have also worked to corrode its democracy underpinnings. The PUS that now oozes from such mortally wounded principle should also understood as an acronym for the Party of Unmitigated Selfishness. The only way such an abhorrent system of values can somehow emerge victorious is through acts of intentional deception, voter suppression, and election subversion.

If “the truth is the greatest enemy of the state,” then we must ask, What vision does Kevin McCarthy hold for the future of the United States other than a dystopian one? Do we want our grandchildren growing up in a world where lies, ugliness, and evil are the governing principle? Or, do we favor the truth, beauty, and goodness that authentic statesmen exemplify? One thing is certain, whatever Kevin McCarthy is leading his fan base to, is not good.

Like Miller, McCarthy is attempting to place the value proposition for our country’s future squarely on a plane of unreality. They are actively engaging in deceptive practices. After the January 6^th Insurrection of 2021, McCarthy said: ““It was the saddest day I’ve ever had in serving as a member of this institution.” Since that day he has become one of the saddest examples of human-kind to ever serve in that institution. The prevarications of such cowards are not new to the American experience. The truth is clearly not in them and they are now attempting to squelch anyone that might stand for what is right. 

The Supreme Court of the United States has also abandoned any pretense of being non-partisan, now that it has brought so much dishonor to itself, and now that they have shown their contempt for our democratic republic by ruling in favor of dark money politics, together with more sinister under the table transactions, McCarthy and other unprincipled politicians can run that table. Democracy is on the ropes precisely because statesmanship is in such short supply.

Those vested in deceptive practices have made the calculation that their constituency lacks the type of intellectual discipline that would consider both sides, within any given controversy, before making judgement. They even tried to install a couple of poo flinging monkeys on the January 6^th Commission. They see their most ardent supporters as mere simpletons who get all their news and analysis from the White Power Hour.

Such voters represent a diminishing minority and so their favored politicians can only win by cheating. The dollar skew in media and in politics is brought brought to you courtesy of seven hundred billionaires that control the information flow to more than three hundred and thirty million voters. The misinformation is parroted from the pulpit and on social media. The good news is the Intentional Consumer does not have to play Mother-May-I with any corrupt legislature or governor to vote with their dollars. And, as the corporatocracy found out after the racist riot of January 6^th in 2021, the free speech rights it gained by subterfuge carry severe consequences when they are abused. And, there should be ever increasing consequences for installing con men in high government positions. 

Any corporation making dark money contributions is presumed to be a bad actor. Information warfare has the power to destroy the world’s chance for government of, by, and for the people. Remember, to the practitioners of Geobbelianism, the lie must be maintained and “the truth is the greatest enemy of the state.” To those sentient beings, that can differentiate between politics and statesmanship, the truth is all that really matters.

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Two days before the United States celebrated Independence Day in 2021, a pathetic majority of justices on the Supreme Court published an opinion that exhibits, not only their reckless indifference to the truth, but also their contempt for the Mission Statement, the Value Proposition, and the Cardinal Precepts of the United States Constitution. Certain justices have, throughout their tenure, been perpetrating a fraud upon We the People of the United States. They have clearly set-aside what is arguably The Spirit of the Law. They are compulsively straining at gnats while also swallowing camels. 

In the 1290s another Scotus, Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar Dun Scotus Ordinatio, penned the phrase consent of the governed. The principle influenced Declaration of Arbroath in 1320. The idea was mentioned in 1433 by Nicholas of Cusa in De Concordantia Catholica. Vindiciae contra tyrannos stated “…the power of the ruler is delegated by the people and continues only with their consent.” In England, the Levellers also embraced this principle of government.

John Milton wrote about the power of kings and magistrates saying it “is nothing else, but what is only derivative, transferred and committed to them in trust from the people, to the common good of them all, in whom the power yet remains fundamentally, and cannot be taken from them, without a violation of their natural birthright.” The quintessential conservative, Edmond Burke, wrote that rulers are only “trustees for the people” and, in describing the character of an effective leader he said: “the temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought therefore to be the first study of a Statesman.” 

Contrast this with the prevarications of those pretenders that occupy positions of honor and trust on the United States Supreme Court. To characterize the Americans For Prosperity Foundation as a “charity,” as if it is engaged in charitable service is to advance a thoroughly dumbed down legal definition to the point of absurdity. Like so many faux corporations, that the Supremes have elevated to the status of persons, AFP is primarily engaged in distorting the public discourse on behalf of the inheritors, skimmers, and hoarders of wealth in ways that work to the detriment of everyone else.

Justice Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Alito, and Gorsuch are each beholden to such dark money contributors. Their nominations, confirmations, and accommodations are undergirded by players such as the Kochs, that have secured an outsized political influence by means of the dollar skew. The justice’s corrosive influence, on the democracy underpinnings of our constitutionally grounded democratic republic is no longer deniable.

The modern day deceiver has traded his witness for a masquerade, steadily refining his craft through selective amplification, filtration, and contextualization. About seven hundred billionaires control the information flow for a country of three-hundred and thirty-one million citizens within the United States. Recent SCOTUS decisions concerning the concentration of media power also serve to enable those lacking the courage of their own convictions so they can express themselves through anonymous donations to political action committees.

There was a time, when sending an unsigned letter was widely considered an act of cowardice. The honest of heart would express an opinion over their own signature. But the Justices have converted what was once described as a whirlpool of information into a cesspool of disinformation through their complicity with the most cowardly actors among us. Feigning reverence for the Constitution of the United States, while actively working to undermine it, is the means by which the Supreme Court has placed the value proposition for our country squarely on a plane of unreality. Such judicial malfeasance serves to demotivate those who are the enthusiastic raisers, builders, and producers that have been more than willing to take our enterprises, our country and our entire planet from one level of attainment to the next.

The most integrity challenged justices on the court are addicted to the dark money by which they secured their form-fitting seats. Their strangely sociopathic form of corporate personhood is pure fiction. Their assertions of equal justice under law is also fiction. Their subterfuge, with respect to maintaining the system, whereby a black man or woman will never amount to more that three fifths of a person, is abhorrent. But it is their masquerade as originalists and textualists, while discarding the Preamble to the United States Constitution that is most problematic; for it is the way they skirt their obligations as conferred through the judicial oath. Such justices are unworthy to hold any position of honor and trust. 

The “Consent of the Governed” as advanced through the Declaration of Independence, presupposes an informed consent. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights put forth by the United Nations in Article 21 states that “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government”. In the final analysis, government of, by, and for the people is the only design that is truly sustainable. It is the only one that is spiritually serviceable; as it alone has the power to elicit the fully informed and enthusiastic consent of the governed.

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I recall an episode of The Odd Couple where Felix was in court representing his roomie; much to Oscar’s dismay. As Felix was questioning a witness about his interpretation of events, the witness said: “Well I assumed. . .” Felix cut him off saying “Ah-ha! You assumed! You should never assume because when you assume;” Turning to the white board Felix spelled out the word and then pointing to the individual syllables he said: “You make an ASS of U and ME.”

Throughout May and June of 2021, we heard governors around the country make asses of themselves as they assumed the only reason people aren’t scrambling for dead-end jobs is because of the enhanced unemployment benefits. Actual fact-finders are learning that, even when such assistance is blocked, many of the people that were unceremoniously and abruptly terminated from what were poverty-wage jobs, are starting their own businesses. They’re tired of working for employers that are intent on getting the people out of the loop through reductions in force. Intentional consumers are on the side of the workers and don’t want to help smooth any return to an outmoded economy.

McDonalds is now implementing artificial intelligence to take your order in the drive-thru. Uber is making huge investments in developing driverless cars. Walgreens has informed employees, with almost a quarter century of service with the company, that they will no longer pay insurance premiums upon that employee’s retirement. And, the most dishonest politicians, are still pushing the obvious lie that employer based health insurance is the way to go for comprehensive health care.

It’s hard to maintain a work-life balance when you’re swing shifted or having to work multiple piddly-ass jobs just to make ends meet. Some employees object to wearing a silly looking uniform that advertises to the world that the employee’s will has been completely subjugated at the whim of company marketeers. And, then there are those employees that simply don’t respect a company managed by executives too incompetent to maintain a rainy day fund.

So-called non-essential employees have had a year to think about mapping out a better life. They’ve concluded that any business person, that is unable or unwilling to pay a living wage, should move over and let someone more competent run the business. In 1997, the federal minimum wage was $5.15 an hour. It remained at that rate for ten years. In 2009 the minimum reached $7.25 per hour where it has remained for twelve years. This means the minimum wage increased by less than half the rate of inflation, about 29%, while the cumulative cost of living increased over 66% during the same period.

The Economic Policy Institute reported that, over the course of about forty years, corporate CEO pay increased 940% while the typical worker’s pay increased only 12% during the same period. Employees are often forced into conditions of peonage where they must seek nutrition, energy, housing, and other forms of public assistance while the employers are avoiding taxes and otherwise operating in parasitic fashion. The employees, as actual taxpayers, don’t want to support that business model. And what person of conscience can blame them?

The 1920s are remembered as an era of mass consumerism. The 2020s will be about Intentional Consumerism and what we choose to support. The shareholder rights movement has been led to expect every indulgence while buying low, selling high, skimming the cream and effectively sucking the life plasm out of a company for which they are holding any stock. Unlike the entrepreneurs that built the company, those on the take are not going to contribute anything that might help a company through tough times? 

Employee owned companies will undoubtedly emerge post-pandemic to challenge the parasitic business practices whereby some of the most integrity challenged among us exert an outsized influence on our public discourse and our national life. This will be a healthy thing, even though the professional backbiters employed by faux news organizations will characterize the movement as something other than healthy.

Certain justices on the United States Supreme Court have displayed an abysmal ignorance whenever they have held that corporations should have speech rights over and above those employees that have associated for a common purpose to act corporately. Whenever SCOTUS defines a company as something other than the group of people working in company with one another, the Court corrodes the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic.

While some justices may have minds too atrophied to learn anything new, responsible consumers can hold fake corporations accountable for the dark money contributions they make to advance public policy that actual citizens find abhorrent. While most of us are held accountable for our speech, companies should not be able to skirt accountability through court sanctioned subterfuge. It may be a big mistake to assume; but we can actively engage in a disciplined form of forensic investigation. Suppose a company is not accounting for significant expenditures. It could be an indication of engagement in corrupt political influence. We should not be giving them the benefit of any doubt. We should also not be throwing any of our hard earned dollars their way.

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In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev was promoting glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) in an attempt to overcome the Soviet Union’s economic stagnation and stunted growth. These initiatives promised the “utmost respect for the individual citizen and favorable consideration for protecting one’s personal dignity.” By creating a dependable and effective mechanism for accelerating economic and social progress, Gorbachev hoped to encourage initiative and creative endeavor.

As General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and as that country’s de-facto head of state from 1988 until 1991, Gorbachov gained authority to create joint-stock companies out of state enterprises. The shares became available on stock exchanges. Gorbachev was instrumental in diminishing the role of the Communist Party in governing the state. The party’s official role was ultimately removed from the constitution, in a way that enraged some and inadvertently led to crisis-level political instability with a surge of regional nationalist and anti-communist activism. A failed coup attempt in August of 1991 was followed by an acute food shortage. On December 26, the Soviet Union was dissolved.

There were then fifteen new countries, of which the Russian Federation was only one. Roughly 45,000 state enterprises had been controlled by the Soviet Union. Upon its dissolution the planned economy was displaced by a market economy. The large scale privatization of state owned assets flowed primarily to form the financial, energy, and industrial sectors.

Opposing forces insured that Perestroika had more than one unintended consequence. As Russia’s planned economy transitioned from one in which the means of production was held by the state, to one in which work collectives gained a greater role in running enterprises, the country stumbled. It experienced what The Guardian newspaper described, on August 16th 2001, as “the most cataclysmic peacetime economic collapse of an industrial country in history.

Gorbachov’s benevolent vision for the country had been thwarted at almost every turn as the country became divided by winners and losers. The well positioned were able to leverage conditions that were not readily understood by the rank and file. Although Russia’s citizens were generally well educated, most were overly specialized. The university system, while rigorous, provided certifications that were not all that portable as most regions within the USSR were dominated by a single industry or employer, the equivalent of company towns. No national provision was made for basic social services and few employees or front-line managers had any firsthand experience with decision making in a market economy.

Self-centered forces wasted no time in turning Mikhail Gorbachev’s, and Boris Yeltsin’s shared vision into a variety of schemes to exploit the poor. What was intended as an equal distribution of national wealth became concentrated within the ranks of upper management as the starving masses were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Cash strapped workers relinquished whatever they may have held of any value, including personal shares, settling for fire-sale prices just so they could buy foodstuffs. When they did scrape up a little cash, they faced the bleak reality of purchasing power that was dramatically reduced.

In 1995 a Loans for Shares program was adopted by the government of Boris Yeltsin to address a severe fiscal deficit. The auctions were largely controlled by favored insiders and were, therefore, devoid of competition. The same banks that were retained by the government to conduct the auctions ended up winning them and the assets were leased at prices just slightly over the minimum starting bid. Voters in Russia described the process using a term that translates to what our urban dictionaries have coined as grabification.

From Vladimir Putin’s perspective, Russia had lost its national wealth and 2 million square miles of territory under humiliating circumstances. Although thoroughly pissed, he was perceived by Yeltsin as loyal. He commanded the FSB, a successor to the KGB, as Director. He was later appointed as Prime Minister with Yeltsin declaring “There will be no vacuum.” Vladimir Putin was uniquely positioned, early on, to benefit personally from the rise of the oligarchs.

As the gamesmanship over vouchers and loans for shares played out, one such grabber, an oil oligarch, ran afoul of Putin and was put on trial. Putin had then arranged for the oily Defendant to be seated in a cage at the center of the courtroom. According to the prevailing legend, one by one the other oligarchs came to Putin and asked: “How do we stay out of cages?” Putin’s answer: “Fifty percent.”

With all the ink in the water, no one, except Vladimir Putin, knows exactly how he acquired his vast wealth or whether he is, in fact, the richest person in the world. We do know that between 1993 and 1997, as Deputy Chief of the Presidential Property Management Division, Putin organized a transfer of the assets of the former Soviet Union and Communist Party to the Russian Federation. Accordingly, he knew where all the real value was and, as a former Lieutenant Colonel of the KGB, he also knew where the bodies were buried. Consider that in light of the way he works the levers today.