No Way Out but War

Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.

The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.

We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.

Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d'état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of “national security.” The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide.

There were three restraints to the avarice and bloodlust of the permanent war economy that no longer exist. The first was the old liberal wing of the Democratic Party, led by politicians such as Senator George McGovern, Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Senator J. William Fulbright, who wrote The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. The self-identified progressives, a pitiful minority, in Congress today, from Barbara Lee, who was the single vote in the House and the Senate opposing a broad, open-ended authorization allowing the president to wage war in Afghanistan or anywhere else, to Ilhan Omar now dutifully line up to fund the latest proxy war. The second restraint was an independent media and academia, including journalists such as I.F Stone and Neil Sheehan along with scholars such as Seymour Melman, author of The Permanent War Economy and Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War. Third, and perhaps most important, was an organized anti-war movement, led by religious leaders such as Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr. and Phil and Dan Berrigan as well as groups such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). They understood that unchecked militarism was a fatal disease.

None of these opposition forces, which did not reverse the permanent war economy but curbed its excesses, now exist. The two ruling parties have been bought by corporations, especially military contractors. The press is anemic and obsequious to the war industry. Propagandists for permanent war, largely from right-wing think tanks lavishly funded by the war industry, along with former military and intelligence officials, are exclusively quoted or interviewed as military experts. NBC’s “Meet the Press” aired a segment May 13 where officials from Center for a New American Security (CNAS) simulated what a war with China over Taiwan might look like. The co-founder of CNAS, Michèle Flournoy, who appeared in the “Meet the Press” war games segment and was considered by Biden to run the Pentagon, wrote in 2020 in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. needs to develop “the capability to credibly threaten to sink all of China’s military vessels, submarines and merchant ships in the South China Sea within 72 hours.” 

The handful of anti-militarists and critics of empire from the left, such as Noam Chomsky, and the right, such as Ron Paul, have been declared persona non grata by a compliant media. The liberal class has retreated into boutique activism where issues of class, capitalism and militarism are jettisoned for “cancel culture,” multiculturalism and identity politics. Liberals are cheerleading the war in Ukraine. At least the inception of the war with Iraq saw them join significant street protests. Ukraine is embraced as the latest crusade for freedom and democracy against the new Hitler. There is little hope, I fear, of rolling back or restraining the disasters being orchestrated on a national and global level. The neoconservatives and liberal interventionists chant in unison for war. Biden has appointed these war mongers, whose attitude to nuclear war is terrifyingly cavalier, to run the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and the State Department.

Since all we do is war, all proposed solutions are military. This military adventurism accelerates the decline, as the defeat in Vietnam and the squandering of $8 trillion in the futile wars in the Middle East illustrate. War and sanctions, it is believed, will cripple Russia, rich in gas and natural resources. War, or the threat of war, will curb the growing economic and military clout of China.

These are demented and dangerous fantasies, perpetrated by a ruling class that has severed itself from reality. No longer able to salvage their own society and economy, they seek to destroy those of their global competitors, especially Russia and China. Once the militarists cripple Russia, the plan goes, they will focus military aggression on the Indo-Pacific, dominating what Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, referring to the Pacific, called “the American Sea.” 

You cannot talk about war without talking about markets. The U.S., whose growth rate has fallen to below 2 percent, while China’s growth rate is 8.1 percent, has turned to military aggression to bolster its sagging economy. If the U.S. can sever Russian gas supplies to Europe, it will force Europeans to buy from the United States. U.S. firms, at the same time, would be happy to replace the Chinese Communist Party, even if they must do it through the threat of war, to open unfettered access to Chinese markets. War, if it did break out with China, would devastate the Chinese, American, and global economies, destroying free trade between countries as in World War I. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Washington is desperately trying to build military and economic alliances to ward off a rising China, whose economy is expected by 2028 to overtake that of the United States, according to the UK’s Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). The White House has said Biden’s current visit to Asia is about sending a “powerful message” to Beijing and others about what the world could look like if democracies “stand together to shape the rules of the road.” The Biden administration has invited South Korea and Japan to attend the NATO summit in Madrid.

But fewer and fewer nations, even among European allies, are willing to be dominated by the United States. Washington’s veneer of democracy and supposed respect for human rights and civil liberties is so badly tarnished as to be irrecoverable. Its economic decline, with China’s manufacturing 70 percent higher than that of the U.S., is irreversible. War is a desperate Hail Mary, one employed by dying empires throughout history with catastrophic consequences. “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable,” Thucydides noted in the History of the Peloponnesian War. 

A key component to the sustenance of the permanent war state was the creation of the All-Volunteer Force. Without conscripts, the burden of fighting wars falls to the poor, the working class, and military families. This All-Volunteer Force allows the children of the middle class, who led the Vietnam anti-war movement, to avoid service. It protects the military from internal revolts, carried out by troops during the Vietnam War, which jeopardized the cohesion of the armed forces.

The All-Volunteer Force, by limiting the pool of available troops, also makes the global ambitions of the militarists impossible. Desperate to maintain or increase troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military instituted the stop-loss policy that arbitrarily extended active-duty contracts. Its slang term was the backdoor draft. The effort to bolster the number of troops by hiring private military contractors, as well, had a negligible effect. Increased troop levels would not have won the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but the tiny percentage of those willing to serve in the military (only 7 percent of the U.S. population are veterans) is an unacknowledged Achilles heel for the militarists.

“As a consequence, the problem of too much war and too few soldiers eludes serious scrutiny,” writes historian and retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich in After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed. “Expectations of technology bridging that gap provide an excuse to avoid asking the most fundamental questions: Does the United States possess the military wherewithal to oblige adversaries to endorse its claim of being history’s indispensable nation? And if the answer is no, as the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq suggest, wouldn’t it make sense for Washington to temper its ambitions accordingly?”

This question, as Bacevich points out, is “anathema.” The military strategists work from the supposition that the coming wars won’t look anything like past wars. They invest in imaginary theories of future wars that ignore the lessons of the past, ensuring more fiascos. 

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The political class is as self-deluded as the generals. It refuses to accept the emergence of a multi-polar world and the palpable decline of American power. It speaks in the outdated language of American exceptionalism and triumphalism, believing it has the right to impose its will as the leader of the “free world.” In his 1992 Defense Planning Guidance memorandum, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argued that the U.S. must ensure no rival superpower again arises. The U.S. should project its military strength to dominate a unipolar world in perpetuity. On February 19, 1998, on NBC’s “Today Show”, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the Democratic version of this doctrine of unipolarity. “If we have to use force it is because we are Americans; we are the indispensable nation,” she said. “We stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future.”

This demented vision of unrivaled U.S. global supremacy, not to mention unrivaled goodness and virtue, blinds the establishment Republicans and Democrats. The military strikes they casually used to assert the doctrine of unipolarity, especially in the Middle East, swiftly spawned jihadist terror and prolonged warfare. None of them saw it coming until the hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center twin towers. That they cling to this absurd hallucination is the triumph of hope over experience.

There is a deep loathing among the public for these elitist Ivy League architects of American imperialism. Imperialism was tolerated when it was able to project power abroad and produce rising living standards at home. It was tolerated when it restrained itself to covert interventions in countries such as Iran, Guatemala, and Indonesia. It went off the rails in Vietnam. The military defeats that followed accompanied a steady decline in living standards, wage stagnation, a crumbling infrastructure and eventually a series of economic policies and trade deals, orchestrated by the same ruling class, which deindustrialized and impoverished the country.

The establishment oligarchs, now united in the Democratic Party, distrust Donald Trump. He commits the heresy of questioning the sanctity of the American empire. Trump derided the invasion of Iraq as a “big, fat mistake.” He promised “to keep us out of endless war.” Trump was repeatedly questioned about his relationship with Vladimir Putin. Putin was “a killer,” one interviewer told him. “There are a lot of killers,” Trump retorted. “You think our country’s so innocent?” Trump dared to speak a truth that was to be forever unspoken, the militarists had sold out the American people.

Noam Chomsky took some heat for pointing out, correctly, that Trump is the “one statesman” who has laid out a “sensible” proposition to resolve the Russia-Ukraine crisis. The proposed solution included “facilitating negotiations instead of undermining them and moving toward establishing some kind of accommodation in Europe…in which there are no military alliances but just mutual accommodation.”

Trump is too unfocused and mercurial to offer serious policy solutions. He did set a timetable to withdraw from Afghanistan, but he also ratcheted up the economic war against Venezuela and reinstituted crushing sanctions against Cuba and Iran, which the Obama administration had ended. He increased the military budget. He apparently flirted with carrying out a missile strike on Mexico to “destroy the drug labs.” But he acknowledges a distaste for imperial mismanagement that resonates with the public, one that has every right to loath the smug mandarins that plunge us into one war after another. Trump lies like he breathes. But so do they.

The 57 Republicans who refused to support the $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, along with many of the 19 bills that included an earlier $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, come out of the kooky conspiratorial world of Trump. They, like Trump, repeat this heresy. They too are attacked and censored. But the longer Biden and the ruling class continue to pour resources into war at our expense, the more these proto fascists, already set to wipe out Democratic gains in the House and the Senate this fall, will be ascendant. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during the debate on the aid package to Ukraine, which most members were not given time to closely examine, said: “$40 billion dollars but there’s no baby formula for American mothers and babies.”

“An unknown amount of money to the CIA and Ukraine supplemental bill but there’s no formula for American babies,” she added. “Stop funding regime change and money laundering scams. A US politician covers up their crimes in countries like Ukraine.”

Democrat Jamie Raskin immediately attacked Greene for parroting the propaganda of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Greene, like Trump, spoke a truth that resonates with a beleaguered public. The opposition to permanent war should have come from the tiny progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which unfortunately sold out to the craven Democratic Party leadership to save their political careers. Greene is demented, but Raskin and the Democrats peddle their own brand of lunacy. We are going to pay a very steep price for this burlesque. 

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS LIFE AND FOR LIFE TO LIVE

"Choose your leaders

with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward

is to be controlled

by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool

is to be led

by the opportunists

who control the fool.

To be led by a thief

is to offer up

your most precious treasures

to be stolen.

To be led by a liar

is to ask

to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant

is to sell yourself

and those you love

into slavery."

Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS LIFE

AND FOR LIFE TO LIVE

Over 17,000 Pilots, Medical Scientists & Physicians Release Statement On Jab Injuries & Mandates.

Coercion is not consent, especially when feeding your children is on the line...

An outfit dubbed the Global Aviation Advocacy Coalition released a statement, which reportedly hosted signatories from multiple countries, decrying how COVID shots were forced upon pilots.

On May 17th, the Global Aviation Advocacy Coalition released a statement regarding pilots who’d been injured by the COVID shots that were also compelled to undergo the inoculations in order to maintain their employment.

The statement referenced how pilots, by nature, are “careful analysts” but were robbed of being able to act upon their better judgment when weighing the risks associated with the COVID shots, as many had their careers on the line.

“Pilots are trained to be careful analysts of their environment, recognizing risks and actively mitigating. For many, their training and differential risk analysis led to concerns and negative conclusions regarding the compatibility of COVID-19 vaccination with health and flight safety.

“Not only did many pilots disagree with arbitrary requirements embodied in vaccination mandates, but they also saw risks in the unanswered questions and unjustified speed and pressure behind the vaccine rollouts. They lobbied their airlines and politicians, recommending caution and opposing mandates.”

Despite pilots who were opposed to the COVID shots voicing their concerns to any and all who would listen – including outfits and entities that should’ve ostensibly taken heed of their voices – their worries fell on deaf ears. When it came time for the mandates, some pilots were steadfast and avoided the jab at the cost of their job.

Others, however, conceded to the compelled shots and in certain cases reaped some unwanted adverse effects in return. This in turn created two conundrums in terms of airline staffing – unjabbed pilots were ousted, and some jabbed pilots have endured health complications.

“Once airlines mandated vaccination, many pilots steadfastly refused based on risk and were subsequently put on unpaid leave or outright terminated. Principled professionals were forced out of aviation and the industry lost hundreds of thousands of hours of experience.

“Now, the global airline industry is heading into a dire staffing crisis. Thousands of other pilots were coerced into vaccination to provide for their families. This has taken a toll on their mental health.”

Reportedly numerous pilots affiliated with the Global Aviation Advocacy Coalition “have lost medical certification to fly,” following medical episodes that include “cardiovascular issues, blood clots, neurological and auditory issues” and some of those affected “may not recover the same.”

What’s all the more worse, the Global Aviation Advocacy Coalition worries that some pilots may be experiencing adverse effects from the COVID shots who are keeping quiet about any conditions they may be enduring, worried that they’ll have their certification to fly stripped from them.

“Others are continuing to pilot aircraft while carrying symptoms that should be declared and investigated, creating a human factors hazard of unprecedented breadth. The very foundation of our just safety culture – non-punitive reporting – no longer exists.”

The group is calling for an end to all COVID shot mandates, a less punitive reporting method for those who’ve been injured by the shots, a series of “objective aviation medical screenings of pilots and cabin crew,” and to maintain a record of “sickness and medical certificate suspension, including symptoms and causal reasons.”

As reported from: https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2022/05/over-17000-pilots-medical-scientists-physicians-release-statement-on-jab-injuries-mandates/

Why You Should Assume Everyone Is Stupid, Lazy, and Possibly Insane (Including You)

Realizing everyone you meet is massively flawed isn’t cheery, but it explains a lot.

Since forever, philosophers, economists, and conspiracy theorists have devised any number of elaborate theories on the nature of society and the motivations of human behavior. From the ideas of Adam Smith to Karl Marx, most of these models depend (at least somewhat) on the idea of rational human actors working to achieve reasonable results for themselves, their community, or society. But they are wrong.

Similarly, there have been volumes written about how you should successfully relate to other people—but most assume that the person you’re talking to is a relatively intelligent, functional person, even though they probably aren’t. You probably aren’t, either.

In practice, people are stupid, lazy, and behave as if they’re insane, and all human endeavors are a result of that trio of near-universal traits. So we should see the world accordingly.

No one, even rich powerful people, is playing 3D chess. People are barely playing 2D checkers.

Everyone is stupid

When I think of smart people—like really smart people, not just the smartest guy on the bus, but theoretical-physicist-smart—I can only conclude I’m a damn idiot. But when I read the comment section on the New York Times, I feel like I might be the smartest person in the world. Thing is, there are many more New York Times commenters than theoretical physicists. In other words, forty-six percent of Americans believe ghosts exist, so we’re rarely dealing with the intellectual vanguard in our day-to-day lives.

Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter where anyone falls on the “smartness spectrum” because even the smartest person is stupid most of the time. This isn’t to say that people can’t be intelligent, but that what we define as “intelligence” is rarely the basis of decisions, opinions, and interactions, even among people who are able to score highly on IQ tests or show other outward trappings we’ve decided denote “intelligence.”

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize for economics and a presidential medal of freedom for his lifelong study of the psychology of decision-making. In his 2011 book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman proposes that we have two modes of processing information to make decisions. The first is automatic. It’s our first reaction, our mind’s formation of instant associations with no effort. It’s intuitive and impressionistic, the result of connections we’ve built though countless past experiences.

The second is slower thought—the part of our brain we use when we do an Algebra problem, where we go through careful, logical steps to arrive at a conclusion. This kind of thinking is a lot of work.

According to Kahneman, no matter how “smart” we are, our day-to-day mode of thinking involves an interaction between these two modes of thought, with Mode 2 lightly monitoring the unformed input of Mode 1 as we navigate the world, rarely piping up to offer input. Think of how thoughtlessly you can drive a car, for instance.

Most of time, this works out fine. We take our assumptions, impressions, and biases and base our decisions and opinions upon them with no static. Even something that challenges our basic assumptions can usually be explained away with some small effort from Mode 2 mind.

Everyone is lazy

The amount of effort it would take to always think with Mode 2 mind would be unsustainable and largely useless most of the time. Actually examining our assumptions and decisions with the care we give an algebra problem takes great effort, and who has the time? Most decisions don’t actually have a single “right” answer anyway, and there are a ton of great shows streaming right now.

This could be considered lazy. While laziness is often derided as a character flaw or one of the seven deadly sins, it actually offers great evolutionary advantages. Mollusks have been around for millions of years and they don’t do shit.

Many followers of evolutionary psychology (itself an often lazy discipline) contend that humans conserving energy by doing just enough to meet immediate needs was a preferable survival strategy to the effort it takes to engage in longer-term planning for some abstract goal—just go hunt a bear and don’t worry about building a city. In the 2021 world, immediate gratification isn’t an optimal success strategy either, but it’s tough for us to shake our ancient impulses, so it’s safe to assume that most people you meet are thinking and acting in the very short-term.

For an illustration of how “lazy” you are, ask yourself what percentage of your time is devoted to getting through the day, and what amount is involved in really striving for some kind of long-term, abstract gain.

Most of us behave insanely

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five Americans live with a mental illness, and according to the CDC, more than half of us will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some time in our life. And this doesn’t account for all of us who aren’t diagnosed but are often unreasonable.

You’re almost certainly worse at understanding your own biases than you are at recognizing them in others.

It also doesn’t account for many people with personality disorders, who are less likely to seek treatment but more likely to succeed (in business and politics) than others, even though their reduced empathy can negatively affect their decisions. Researchers call them “successful psychopaths,” and describe them thusly: “Completely lacking in conscience and feeling for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret.” Does that sound like anyone you’ve heard of?

Whether the prevalence of mental illness exists because mental illness provides some evolutionary advantage, is the result of a toxic society, or springs from greater awareness of mental health issues is debatable, but it’s safe to assume that many of us suffer to some extent, or at least behave insanely.

There’s often no outward sign of dumbness, laziness, or insanity

It’s easy to think that people are dumb and lazy when you’re in line at the Costco—you’re in “Mode 1 Mind” so your biases kick in—but the trick is realizing that everyone is just as flawed. The outward trappings we’ve come to associate with sanity and intelligence are as false as assuming that the guy next to you in line is a dope.

Many of us tend to think that rich and powerful people got that way because they’re smart, industriousness, and make sound decisions—rich people will tell you that—but the true “source” of wealth is unlikely to have anything to do with those things. Instead, it’s a complicated confluence of fate, culture, and sheer luck that adds up to wealth, like a lottery so exclusive you can’t even buy a ticket to play it.

“This rich jerk is just as flawed as I am” is an important thing to keep in mind when dealing with people with more authority or money than you have. No one, even rich powerful people, is playing 3D chess. People are barely playing 2D checkers.

You are as flawed as everyone else

It’d be nice to think that recognizing the flaws and potential pitfalls in other people’s internal worlds would make it easier to recognize them in yourself—to become more “mindful,” dedicated, and centered—but it doesn’t work that way. Feel free to try, of course, but you probably won’t succeed. You’re almost certainly worse at understanding your own biases than you are at recognizing them in others, and knowing that fact won’t help you escape the Chinese finger trap.

Neither will being “smart.” Researchers have long studied “bias blind-spots,” (our tendency to see the biases of other people over our own), but recent research suggests that “cognitive sophistication” more often leads to people having a larger bias blindspot—being “smarter” seems to makes it harder to understand your biases compared to seeing them in others.

You’d think Daniel Kahneman, who literally wrote the book (actually several books) on the nature of flawed decision-making, would be able to avoid the pitfalls, but nope. “My intuitive thinking is just as prone to overconfidence, extreme predictions, and the planning fallacy as it was before I made a study of these issues,” he writes in Thinking, Fast and Slow. 

How can you use this information to your advantage?

There’s nothing you can do to change the mental processes of others. You can only accept them. But that acceptance can help the world make more sense, whether it’s personal interactions or world politics. Realizing that political and social movements spring from the decisions of individuals working with incomplete information and a set of unknowable biases, instead of from a cabal of powerful people secretly plotting world domination, could mean you’re less likely to fall for conspiracy theories...and suddenly, the fact that hundreds of talented, intelligent people devoted their professional lives to producing the movie version of Cats makes sense.

It’s a great relief in interpersonal relations, as well. Knowing that your fantasy football rival and your co-workers at the batting cage are just bumbling along means you can stop obsessing over their motivations. No one knows what they’re doing, after all, and they’re probably just trying to make things easier for themselves in the short term.

You shouldn’t, however, mention any of this to loved ones. Just pretend it all makes sense. It’s how we get along.

FEMA - The Secret Government

FEMA - The Secret Government

By Harry V. Martin with research assistance from David Caul

Copyright FreeAmerica and Harry V. Martin, 1995

Some people have referred to it as the "secret government" of the United States. It is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. This government organization has more power than the President of the United States or the Congress, it has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution.

Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it was not even created under Constitutional law by the Congress. It was a product of a Presidential Executive Order. No, it is not the U.S. military nor the Central Intelligence Agency, they are subject to Congress. The organization is called FEMA, which stands for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Originally conceived in the Richard Nixon Administration, it was refined by President Jimmy Carter and given teeth in the Ronald Reagan and George Bush Administrations.

FEMA had one original concept when it was created, to assure the survivability of the United States government in the event of a nuclear attack on this nation. It was also provided with the task of being a federal coordinating body during times of domestic disasters, such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. Its awesome powers grow under the tutelage of people like Lt. Col. Oliver North and General Richard Secord, the architects on the Iran-Contra scandal and the looting of America's savings and loan institutions. FEMA has even been given control of the State Defense Forces, a rag-tag, often considered neo-Nazi, civilian army that will substitute for the National Guard, if the Guard is called to duty overseas.

THE MOST POWERFUL ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Though it may be the most powerful organization in the United States, few people know it even exists. But it has crept into our private lives. Even mortgage papers contain FEMA's name in small print if the property in question is near a flood plain. FEMA was deeply involved in the Los Angeles riots and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the black helicopter traffic reported throughout the United States, but mainly in the West, California, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, are flown by FEMA personnel. FEMA has been given responsibility for many new disasters including urban forest fires, home heating emergencies, refugee situations, urban riots, and emergency planning for nuclear and toxic incidents. In the West, it works in conjunction with the Sixth Army.

FEMA was created in a series of Executive Orders. A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress is by-passed. Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies, the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic. Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry.

Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

    EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis."

FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate:

    the National Security Act of 1947, which allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities;

    the 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy;

    the Act of August 29, 1916, which authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency; and

    the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. 

These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.

HURRICANE ANDREW FOCUSED ATTENTION ON FEMA

FEMA's deceptive role really did not come to light with much of the public until Hurricane Andrew smashed into the U.S. mainland. As Russell R. Dynes, director of the Disaster Research Center of the University of Delaware, wrote in The World and I, "...The eye of the political storm hovered over the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA became a convenient target for criticism." Because FEMA was accused of dropping the ball in Florida, the media and Congress commenced to study this agency. What came out of the critical look was that FEMA was spending 12 times more for "black operations" than for disaster relief. It spent $1.3 billion building secret bunkers throughout the United States in anticipation of government disruption by foreign or domestic upheaval. Yet fewer than 20 members of Congress , only members with top security clearance, know of the $1.3 billion expenditure by FEMA for non-natural disaster situations. These few Congressional leaders state that FEMA has a "black curtain" around its operations. FEMA has worked on National Security programs since 1979, and its predecessor, the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency, has secretly spent millions of dollars before being merged into FEMA by President Carter in 1979.

FEMA has developed 300 sophisticated mobile units that are capable of sustaining themselves for a month. The vehicles are located in five areas of the United States. They have tremendous communication systems and each contains a generator that would provide power to 120 homes each, but have never been used for disaster relief.

FEMA's enormous powers can be triggered easily. In any form of domestic or foreign problem, perceived and not always actual, emergency powers can be enacted. The President of the United States now has broader powers to declare martial law, which activates FEMA's extraordinary powers. Martial law can be declared during time of increased tension overseas, economic problems within the United States, such as a depression, civil unrest, such as demonstrations or scenes like the Los Angeles riots, and in a drug crisis. These Presidential powers have increased with successive Crime Bills, particularly the 1991 and 1993 Crime Bills, which increase the power to suspend the rights guaranteed under the Constitution and to seize property of those suspected of being drug dealers, to individuals who participate in a public protest or demonstration. Under emergency plans already in existence, the power exists to suspend the Constitution and turn over the reigns of government to FEMA and appointing military commanders to run state and local governments. FEMA then would have the right to order the detention of anyone whom there is reasonable ground to believe...will engage in, or probably conspire with others to engage in acts of espionage or sabotage. The plan also authorized the establishment of concentration camps for detaining the accused, but no trial.

Three times since 1984, FEMA stood on the threshold of taking control of the nation. Once under President Reagan in 1984, and twice under President Bush in 1990 and 1992. But under those three scenarios, there was not a sufficient crisis to warrant risking martial law. Most experts on the subject of FEMA and Martial Law insisted that a crisis has to appear dangerous enough for the people of the United States before they would tolerate or accept complete government takeover. The typical crisis needed would be threat of imminent nuclear war, rioting in several U.S. cites simultaneously, a series of national disasters that affect widespread danger to the populous, massive terrorist attacks, a depression in which tens of millions are unemployed and without financial resources, or a major environmental disaster.

THREE TIMES FEMA STOOD BY READY FOR EMERGENCY

In April 1984, President Reagan signed Presidential Director Number 54 that allowed FEMA to engage in a secret national "readiness exercise" under the code name of REX 84. The exercise was to test FEMA's readiness to assume military authority in the event of a "State of Domestic National Emergency" concurrent with the launching of a direct United States military operation in Central America. The plan called for the deputation of U.S. military and National Guard units so that they could legally be used for domestic law enforcement. These units would be assigned to conduct sweeps and take into custody an estimated 400,000 undocumented Central American immigrants in the United States. The immigrants would be interned at 10 detention centers to be set up at military bases throughout the country.

REX 84 was so highly guarded that special metal security doors were placed on the fifth floor of the FEMA building in Washington, D.C. Even long-standing employees of the Civil Defense of the Federal Executive Department possessing the highest possible security clearances were not being allowed through the newly installed metal security doors. Only personnel wearing a special red Christian cross or crucifix lapel pin were allowed into the premises. Lt. Col. North was responsible for drawing up the emergency plan, which U.S. Attorney General William French Smith opposed vehemently. The plan called for the suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to FEMA, appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and the declaration of Martial Law. The Presidential Executive Orders to support such a plan were already in place. The plan also advocated the rounding up and transfer to "assembly centers or relocation camps" of a least 21 million American Negroes in the event of massive rioting or disorder, not unlike the rounding up of the Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

The second known time that FEMA stood by was in 1990 when Desert Storm was enacted. Prior to President Bush's invasion of Iraq, FEMA began to draft new legislation to increase its already formidable powers. One of the elements incorporated into the plan was to set up operations within any state or locality without the prior permission of local or state authorities. Such prior permission has always been required in the past. Much of the mechanism being set into place was in anticipation of the economic collapse of the Western World. The war with Iraq may have been conceived as a ploy to boost the bankrupt economy, but it only pushed the West into deeper recession.

The third scenario for FEMA came with the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King brutality verdict. Had the rioting spread to other cities, FEMA would have been empowered to step in. As it was, major rioting only occurred in the Los Angeles area, thus preventing a pretext for a FEMA response.

On July 5, 1987, the Miami Herald published reports on FEMA's new goals. The goal was to suspend the Constitution in the event of a national crisis, such as nuclear war, violent and widespread internal dissent, or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad. Lt. Col. North was the architect. National Security Directive Number 52 issued in August 1982, pertains to the "Use of National Guard Troops to Quell Disturbances."

The crux of the problem is that FEMA has the power to turn the United States into a police state in time of a real crisis or a manufactured crisis. Lt. Col. North virtually established the apparatus for dictatorship. Only the criticism of the Attorney General prevented the plans from being adopted. But intelligence reports indicate that FEMA has a folder with 22 Executive Orders for the President to sign in case of an emergency. It is believed those Executive Orders contain the framework of North's concepts, delayed by criticism but never truly abandoned.

The crisis, as the government now see it, is civil unrest. For generations, the government was concerned with nuclear war, but the violent and disruptive demonstrations that surrounded the Vietnam War era prompted President Nixon to change the direction of emergency powers from war time to times of domestic unrest. Diana Raynolds, program director of the Edward R. Murrow Center, summed up the dangers of FEMA today and the public reaction to Martial Law in a drug crisis: "It was James Madison's worst nightmare that a righteous faction would someday be strong enough to sweep away the Constitutional restraints designed by the framers to prevent the tyranny of centralized power, excessive privilege, an arbitrary governmental authority over the individual. These restraints, the balancing and checking of powers among branches and layers of government, and the civil guarantees, would be the first casualties in a drug-induced national security state with Reagan's Civil Emergency Preparedness unleashed. Nevertheless, there would be those who would welcome NSC (National Security Council) into the drug fray, believing that increasing state police powers to emergency levels is the only way left to fight American's enemy within. In the short run, a national security state would probably be a relief to those whose personal security and quality of life has been diminished by drugs or drug related crime. And, as the general public watches the progression of institutional chaos and social decay, they too may be willing to pay the ultimate price, one drug free America for 200 years of democracy."

The first targets in any FEMA emergency would be Hispanics and Blacks, the FEMA orders call for them to be rounded up and detained. Tax protesters, demonstrators against government military intervention outside U.S. borders, and people who maintain weapons in their homes are also targets. Operation Trojan Horse is a program designed to learn the identity of potential opponents to martial law. The program lures potential protesters into public forums, conducted by a "hero" of the people who advocates survival training. The list of names gathered at such meetings and rallies are computerized and then targeted in case of an emergency.

The most shining example of America to the world has been its peaceful transition of government from one administration to another. Despite crises of great magnitude, the United States has maintained its freedom and liberty. This nation now stands on the threshold of rule by non-elected people asserting non-Constitutional powers. Even Congress cannot review a Martial Law action until six months after it has been declared. For the first time in American history, the reigns of government would not be transferred from one elected element to another, but the Constitution, itself, can be suspended.

The scenarios established to trigger FEMA into action are generally found in the society today, economic collapse, civil unrest, drug problems, terrorist attacks, and protests against American intervention in a foreign country. All these premises exist, it could only be a matter of time in which one of these triggers the entire emergency necessary to bring FEMA into action, and then it may be too late, because under the FEMA plan, there is no contingency by which Constitutional power is restored.

A message from President Vladimir Putin

A message from President Vladimir Putin

PART 1 Of 2

Dear citizens of our wonderful planet Earth!

I, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, have decided to address all of you directly, bypassing diplomats, your rulers and journalists. In Russia there is such a thing as "word of mouth", where you are not allowed to lie, deceive and play. Therefore, I will speak frankly so that everyone can verify the accuracy of my words.

Russia is a big and rich country. The main value is more than 150 peoples living in a territory where justice is above everything. We do not need new territories. We have energy and all other resources in abundance. Since the time of Great Tartaria and the Great Mogul, the peoples of Northern Eurasia have developed not because of robbery in the Crusades and colonization of America, Africa, India and drug addiction in China, but thanks to their hard work and peacefulness.

Those who know Russian understand that "Russian" is an adjective for all peoples of our country. Russian Slavs, Russian Tatars, Russian Jews, Russian Evenks, etc. are Russians in soul, although their culture, language and way of life may be different. We welcome this diversity of unity.

Once again, the Russian peoples of Russia are forced to sacrifice their lives to protect the world from Nazism and fascism. We exchanged 50 of our prisoners of war for 50 Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainian soldiers received medical treatment in our hospitals, ate three hearty meals a day and returned home. We received Russian soldiers with cut fingers and reproductive organs. Not even the Nazis did that in the last war. We will present this evidence in a future court. It will be a shame for all who support these bastards now.

Their rulers in the U.S., Europe, Japan, Australia and other countries have sided with these subhumans who put civilians, pregnant women and children before them in battle and deliberately mutilate prisoners of war. It is hard for me to imagine any sane, sane person supporting these monsters. And your Bidens, Scholzs, Macrons and other democrats of obscurantism not only protect criminals, but actively arm them, provide them with money, which is not enough to keep prices down in your countries.

Prices are rising, the world is collapsing, but not because the Russians are cleansing Europe of the evil spirits of the Nazis, but because you are silently watching and actually supporting the new wave of Nazism. This time we are not going to Berlin. We will stop at our historical borders, and all the evil Nazi spirits to whom your rulers open their doors wide will arrange a new "crystal" life for you, as the Nazis did, and add the circumcision of the reproductive organs.

I appeal to every person who wants to live and work in peace, raise children and be friends with the peoples of the whole world. Help Russia to cope with a new cancer - Ukrainian national socialism. Not Ukraine, where peaceful and hardworking people live, but Nazism, which is fed by hawks from the USA and NATO for your taxes. If your rulers support Nazism, drive them to the neck, take power into your own hands.

Ukrainian Nazis protect themselves from bullets with civilians, your rulers, under the pretext of terrible Russia, also decided to shift the burden of high prices and impending hardships to the population. Both in Ukraine and you Nazis live far behind the back of ordinary citizens, and ordinary people should suffer - these are identical crimes both in Ukraine and in the West.

PART 2 of 2

If we unite, in another week there will be no more Nazis in Ukraine, normal life will be restored in Europe, the U.S. and other countries, and together we will try Ukrainian Nazis and all rulers who support Nazism in a new tribunal.

Our cause is right. We will defeat Nazism. I want to share this victory with everyone together and as soon as possible.

WE STAND WITH THE GOOD SOULS OF RUSSIA, UKRAINE and the WORLDS

As more and more Americans—especially young Americans—push for a more socialist government here at home …

As more and more Americans—especially young Americans—push for a more socialist government here at home …

 

I think we’d better take a closer look at how socialism has impacted the citizens of countries like Venezuela, leaving them to wonder how they ended up where they are today.

 

Once one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations, Venezuela was rich with oil and natural resources just over 10 years ago. But now? 

 

Blackouts have become an everyday occurrence. Inflation is out of control. And a strongman enjoys autocratic power while 33% of Venezuelans can’t afford to feed themselves or their families. 

 

So how did they get there?

 

Get the answer to that question and more inside this free copy of our latest Teaching Freedom eBook, Socialism, Democratic Socialism, and the Failures of Central Planning, by world-renowned economist Matt Kibbe.

 

Learn how socialism has failed Venezuelans by getting the answers to questions like:

How did Venezuela go from one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations to suffering regular blackouts and starvation?

Why did Karl Marx say that the transition from capitalism to socialism is so brutal?

Why is it important to take the other side seriously, even if you disagree with their ideology?

What can America do to move forward as more young people embrace the false promise of socialism?

 

Arm yourself with knowledge by accessing your free eBook using this secure link:

 

https://resources.tfas.org/capitalism-socialism-and-the-arguments-for-liberty

Michelin stars were originally connected to an effort to boost tire sales.

Michelin stars were originally connected to an effort to boost tire sales.

In the restaurant business, there is no greater honor than the Michelin star. Awarded on a ranking from one to three, Michelin stars are the standard of greatness when it comes to fine dining. Chefs pin their reputations on them, and having (or not having) them can make or break a business. So it might seem strange to discover that this culinary accolade is intimately entwined with… car tires. The story starts back in 1900, when brothers Andre and Edouard Michelin, founders of the Michelin tire company, created the Michelin Guide — a booklet full of useful information for French motorists. The free Michelin Guide included maps, lists of nearby gas stations and amenities, basic tire maintenance information, and various road-ready adventures. The hope was that these guides would inspire longer journeys at a time when the automotive age was just beginning, which in turn would mean selling more tires.

The word “tire” is short for “attire.”

It's a Fact

In the early days of automobiles, tires were considered the dressing of a car’s wheel, so the name derives from the word “attire.” Originally, tires were made from solid rubber attached to a metal rim, but the result was a bumpy ride. The first air-filled tires were patented in 1845.

But the Michelin Guide might be a forgotten relic if not for two events — one big, one small. The first event was World War I, which ravaged France and forced the Michelin brothers to stop publishing for a few years. The other was when Andre Michelin visited a tire shop around the same time and saw his free Michelin Guides doing the undignified work of propping up a bench. To help raise the guide’s prestige (and also help motorists explore Europe again following the war), the brothers reintroduced the handbooks in 1920, featuring more in-depth hotel and restaurant information — and instead of being free, they now cost seven francs. Within a few years, Michelin also recruited “mystery diners” to improve its restaurant reviews (they still work undercover), and in 1926, they began handing out single Michelin stars to the very best restaurants. Five years later, Michelin upped the amount of possible stars to three, and they have continued searching for the world’s best food in the nearly a century since. Today, the guides — and stars — cover more than 30 territories across three continents.

Numbers Don’t Lie

Number of restaurants with three Michelin stars

136

Number of tires made by Lego (technically the world’s largest tire manufacturer) 306 million

Number of revolutions a tire makes traveling one mile 750

Weight (in tons) of the 80-foot-tall world’s largest tire in Michigan 12

The Michelin Man is known in France as _______.

The Michelin Man is known in France as Bibendum.

Michelin made a tire that never goes flat.

Tires haven’t changed much over the course of a century. Recommended PSI (pounds per square inch) and types of rubber have come and gone, but the basic equation has remained the same: air + rubber. Yet contrary to popular wisdom, Michelin and other tire brands are reinventing the wheel by making a tire that never goes flat. The idea, borrowed from designs used on smaller machines like riding lawn mowers, is an airless tire that uses flexible spokes rather than air to carry the load. Because these tires operate sans inflation, they’re impervious to punctures, uneven wear, and many other air-centric failures. Michelin estimates that these futuristic tires could save 20% (or about 200 million) tires from ending up in landfills each year. The biggest hurdle? They’re expensive — so it might be a while before everyone’s zipping around on these futuristic wheels. 

What Is Disinformation? Definition and Examples

Disinformation is the deliberate and purposeful distribution of false information. The term is generally used to describe an organized campaign to deceptively distribute untrue material intended to influence public opinion.

In recent years, the term has become especially associated with the spread of "fake news" on social media as a strategy of negative political campaigning.

Key Takeaways: Disinformation

    The terms disinformation and misinformation are often used interchangeably, but they are not synonymous. Disinformation requires that the message be false, distributed purposefully, and with the goal of altering public opinion.

    The strategic use of disinformation can be traced back to the Soviet Union in the 1920s, where it was known as dezinformatsiya.

    In English, the term was first used in the 1950s, referring to Cold War disinformation campaigns.

    Social media has exacerbated the impact of disinformation campaigns.

Definition of Disinformation

A key component of the definition of disinformation is the intention of the person or entity creating the message. Disinformation is distributed with the specific purpose of misleading the public. The false information is meant to impact society by swaying the opinions of the members of the audience.

The term disinformation is said to be derived from a Russian word, dezinformatsiya, with some accounts holding that Joseph Stalin coined it. It is generally accepted that the Soviet Union pioneered the deliberate use of false information as a weapon of influence in the 1920s. The word remained relatively obscure for decades and was used mainly by military or intelligence professionals, not the general public, until the 1950s.

Disinformation vs. Misinformation

An important distinction to make is that disinformation does not mean misinformation. Someone can spread misinformation innocently by saying or writing things that are untrue while believing them to be true. For example, a person sharing a news report on social media may commit an act of misinformation if the source turns out to unreliable and the information incorrect. The specific person who shared it acts as a result of misinformation if he or she believes it to be true.

On the other hand, deliberately distributing false material with the purpose of generating outrage or chaos in society, essentially as a political dirty trick, would rightfully be referred to as spreading disinformation. Following the same example, the agent who created the false information in the unreliable source is guilty of creating and spreading disinformation. The intention is to cause a reaction in the public opinion based on the false information that he or she created.

What Is a Disinformation Campaign?

Disinformation is often part of a larger effort, such as a campaign, plan, or agenda. It may take advantage of well-established facts while tweaking details, omitting context, blending falsehoods, or distorting circumstances. The goal is to make the disinformation believable in order to reach the target audience.

Multiple acts of disinformation may be carried out simultaneously in different outlets to achieve a goal. For example, different articles intended to discredit a political candidate may circulate at the same time, with each version tailored to the readership. A younger reader may see an article about the candidate treating a young person poorly, while an elderly reader may see the same article but the victim may be an elderly person. Targeting of this sort is especially prominent in social media sites.

In the modern era, the 2016 efforts waged by Russians targeting the U.S. elections is perhaps the best-known example of a disinformation campaign. In this case, the perpetrators used Facebook and Twitter to disseminate "fake news," as was revealed by the hearings on Capitol Hill which examined and exposed the scheme.

In May 2018, members of Congress ultimately revealed more than 3,000 Facebook ads which had been purchased by Russian agents during the 2016 election. The ads were full of deliberate falsehoods designed to stir outrage. The placement of the ads had been fairly sophisticated, targeting and reaching millions of Americans at very little cost.

On February 16, 2018, the Office of the Special Counsel, led by Robert Mueller, indicted the Russian government troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, along with 13 individuals and three companies. The highly detailed 37-page indictment described a sophisticated disinformation campaign designed to create discord and influence the 2016 election.

Russian Disinformation

Disinformation campaigns had been a standard tool during the Cold War and mentions of Russian disinformation would occasionally appear in the American press. In 1982, TV Guide, one of the most popular magazines in America at the time, even published a cover story warning about Russian disinformation.

Recent research has indicated that the Soviet Union spread disinformation about America and the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. A conspiracy theory that AIDS had been created in an American germ warfare lab was spread by the Soviet KGB, according to a 2018 NPR report.

The use of information as a potential weapon in the modern era was documented in a deeply reported article in the New York Times Magazine in June 2015. Writer Adrian Chen recounted remarkable stories of how Russian trolls, operating from an office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, had posted untrue information to wreak havoc in America. The Russian troll farm described in the article, the Internet Research Agency, was the same organization that would be indicted by Robert Mueller's office in February 2018.

Sources:

    Manning, Martin J. "Disinformation." Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security, edited by K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, vol. 1, Gale, 2004, pp. 331-335. Gale Virtual Reference Library.

    Chen, Adrian. "The Agency." New York Times Sunday Magazine, 7 June 2015. p. 57.

    Barnes, Julian E. "Cyber Command Operation Took Down Russian Troll Farm for Midterm Elections." New York Times, 26 February 2019. p. A9.

    "disinformation." Oxford Dictionary of English. Ed. Stevenson, Angus. Oxford University Press, January 01, 2010. Oxford Reference.

    

AFL INVESTIGATION: OUR SOVEREIGNTY UNDER ATTACK

We Exposed the Biden Administration’s Globalist Plans to "Strengthen" the World Health Organization & Weaken American Sovereignty... 

The Biden Administration is committed to collaborating with global elites and far-left domestic allies to “strengthen” the World Health Organization (WHO)—a corrupt and inept international institution—at the expense of the sovereignty of the United States and all American citizens. 

Global Leftists and their Leftwing American Allies Know: American Sovereignty Protects Americans from their Corrupt Schemes & Twisted Marxist Agenda!

Investigation Background:

• Because of substantial evidence demonstrating the WHO’s misfeasance and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the suppression of important public health information, and its complicity in spreading and normalizing Chinese Communist Party propaganda, on April 14, 2020, the United States suspended all contributions to the WHO, and on July 6, 2020, notified the UN Secretary General that we would be withdrawing the WHO effective July 6, 2021.

• However, on January 21, 2021, President Biden rejoined the WHO and directed his Administration to “engage with and strengthen” it. And President Biden appointed Dr. Anthony Fauci as the Head of Delegation.

What the Biden Administration Proposes:

• Through proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations of 2005 (IHR), delegating broad power to the WHO’s Director-General to declare “public health emergences” and make “recommendations” about what a member country should do without that nation’s consent. Also, through the IHR, establishing a “Compliance Committee” to work with “experts and advisors, including NGO representatives or members of the public” on matters “relating to compliance with obligations.”

• Most significantly, a new international agreement or constitution that addresses the international pandemic response—an agreement that the Biden Administration will be responsible for negotiating with global elites and the WHO. That agreement has not yet been created, but we have every reason to believe that it will further undermine our national sovereignty and the rights of American citizens. WHO’s Director-General shared his vision that “[s]uch an instrument will be a vital tool, … a generational agreement … a gamechanger.”

What the Biden Administration Means to Accomplish:

• Potentially delegating substantial control over American public health decision-making to the WHO, currently headed by Director-General Ghebreyesus, a former member of the Ethiopian Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and apologist for the Chinese Communist Party.

• Erode U.S. sovereignty over our borders, supply chain, treatment protocols, and public health decision making authority.

• Controlling information- Recall that the Biden Administration colluded with social media and technology companies to censor and de-platform persons who questioned or dissented from WHO recommendations, notwithstanding the evidence that the WHO hid information and spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

Constitutional Requirements:

• Executive Branch authority to make international agreements that affect the domestic rights or privileges of American States and citizens, whether in the form of a “treaty” or otherwise, is narrowly cabined.

• The Constitution provides, “[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” Even in the form of a full treaty, though, such a treaty will not have domestic effect without specific and otherwise lawful implementing legislation. While in some circumstances the executive has been recognized as having authority to enter into international agreements short of treaties on solely executive authority, these agreements will likewise lack domestic effect without implementing legislation.

The Biden Administration’s Record:

• The Biden Administration has repeatedly demonstrated willful disregard for the Constitution, laws, and sovereignty of the United States. It has no plans to submit its policies to Congress for Senate ratification or authorizing legislation. President Biden’s proposals threaten to subordinate our health-care decisions and our economy to the WHO and its compromised bureaucrats.

AFL’s Action to Date:

• AFL has taken swift action to protect the American people, the Constitution, and the rule of law. On Friday, AFL warned President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Becerra of legal consequences should the Administration fails to obtain congressional approval of its proposals.

• AFL put the Administration on notice that we act promptly to protect the rights and privileges of American citizens and of the several states to stop the erosion of our Nation’s sovereignty and independence, in partnership with courageous state attorneys general, members of Congress, other public officials, and the American people.

• AFL has also opened two oversight investigations into who and what is driving the Biden Administration’s agenda at the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Prosecuting Malicious Prosecution

 What rights do you have to defend your home against the illegal entry of law enforcement?

    When can you sue law enforcement officers for violating your rights?

    A recent case before the Supreme Court takes a step toward helping you sue when law enforcement and the justice system maliciously prosecutes you for defending your rights.

What can you do when government actors abuse their powers? I’ve talked before about the right to petition the government for a redress of grievance and how the judicial precedent of sovereign immunity violates that right. But what happens when law enforcement or the justice department abuses their prosecutorial powers? How do you seek redress for a malicious prosecution? For years it has been extremely hard to do so, but a recent Supreme Court opinion may balance the scales.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al.

The case we are looking at today is Thompson v. Clark, et. al. I want to look at this case from the point of view of all three sides: The parents, the emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and the police officers. The story starts with a misunderstanding.

On January 15, 2014, petitioner and Talleta (then his fiancée) were the proud parents of a one-week old daughter, Nala. That day, they brought Nala to her first check-up, where she received a clean bill of health. At around 10:00 p.m., the couple was at home and ready to sleep, dressed in only their underwear. Unbeknownst to the couple, Camille dialed 911. She stated that Nala often cries when petitioner changes her diaper and that she had seen “red rashes” on the Nala’s buttocks area (commonly known as, and later confirmed to be, diaper rash). Mistaking these for signs of abuse, Camille provided a description of petitioner and his address.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

As a parent, I have sympathy for Mr. Thomas and his then fiancee. They were preparing to go to bed when, unbeknownst to them, Talleta’s sister Camille calls 911, apparently mistaking crying and diaper rash as a signs of abuse.

In response, two Emergency Medical Technicians (“EMTs”) arrived to petitioner’s apartment building to investigate. The EMTs met Camille outside the building and she led them into petitioner’s apartment unit. Once inside, the EMTs saw Talleta sitting on the couch holding Nala safely. Petitioner entered the room and asked the EMTs why they were in his home. Unaware of Camille’s 911 call, petitioner informed the EMTs that no one in his home had called 911 and they must have the wrong address. Petitioner asked the EMTs to leave, and they did.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

A report of potential child abuse is taken very seriously, as it should be, so two EMTs were dispatched to investigate. At this point no one is aware of the misunderstanding, although the EMTs would later testify that, from their first encounter with Camille they noticed that she was not “all there upstairs.” Camille brings the EMTs into Thompson’s apartment where they do not see anything immediately wrong. To be fair to the EMTs, simply because they see the mother safely holding the child does not dismiss the possibility of child abuse.

When Mr. Thompson enters the room he is understandably confused. What are these two EMTs doing in his apartment? Not knowing that Camille had called 911, Mr. Thompson assumes they have the wrong address and asks them to leave. So far, no laws have been broken and the encounter has proceeded calmly, but that is about to change.

Respondents, four NYPD officers, arrived thereafter in response to the 911 call and met with the EMTs who had just been inside petitioner’s apartment. The EMTs reported that petitioner was upset to find them in his apartment and they left. They said they would “get in trouble” if they did not make contact with and examine the baby.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

This is where the tension begins to build. On the one hand, Mr. Thompson was understandably upset when he found two EMTs in his living room. He has a right to be secure in his own home. On the other hand, the EMTs have a report of possible child abuse that they need to investigate. Sadly, the four police officers escalate the situation unnecessarily.

Respondents went upstairs to petitioner’s apartment unit and petitioner answered the door. They told petitioner that they were investigating possible child abuse and wanted to examine his daughter. Petitioner asked to speak to respondents’ sergeant and, when they refused, asked respondents if they had a warrant to enter his home.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

At this point no laws have been broken. Mr. Thompson was well within his rights to require police to provide a warrant to enter his home, but look at the situation from the officers’ point of view. They have a report of possible child abuse, so we can assume they wanted to make sure the child was OK. With the power of law enforcement though, comes the responsibility of using it lawfully. It was still possible to resolve the issue calmly and peacefully. However, the police would rapidly escalate this from a report of possible child abuse to breaking and entering, assault, and unlawful detainment.

Respondents did not phone in a warrant; instead, they physically attempted to enter petitioner’s home. When petitioner stood his ground in the doorway, respondents tackled petitioner to the floor and handcuffed him.

Despite having restrained petitioner, respondents entered and searched petitioner’s apartment over his objection, without calling in a warrant. The EMTs then went back into petitioner’s apartment, examined his baby, and saw what they understood to be diaper rash, with no signs of abuse. The EMTs stated that the 911 call meant that they had to take petitioner’s baby to the hospital for evaluation, which later confirmed that it was only diaper rash.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

These four police officers committed crimes. While the report of possible child abuse gave them probable cause, it did not give them an exigent circumstance.

An exigent circumstance, in the criminal procedure law of the United States, allows law enforcement, under certain circumstances, to enter a structure without a search warrant … It must be a situation where people are in imminent danger, evidence faces imminent destruction, or a suspect’s escape is imminent.

Exigent Circumstance – The Free Legal Dictionary

The officers had no reason to believe the child was in imminent danger or that the parents were suspects who could escape. The officers had options that would allow the EMTs to check on the child without violating Mr. Thompson’s rights. They could have talked to Mr. Thompson, explained they had a 911 report, and were only concerned with the safety of the child. The officers could have contacted their sergeant for assistance. While they probably would have gotten their warrant if they had called for one, it would not be a valid one, since the probable cause for child abuse was not supported by oath or affirmation, as required by the Constitution.

… and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation…

U.S. Constitution, Amendment IV

So, in hindsight, the officers’ best options were to talk with Mr. Thompson or call their sergeant for assistance. Instead, they attacked Mr. Thompson without cause.

Although Mr. Thompson did refuse to grant the police entry into his apartment, he was well within his rights since they did not have a warrant. The fact that he challenged an illegal entry into his home does not give the police the authority to restrain him. Mr. Thompson was defending the law, while the police were the ones violating it.

Once the EMTs examined the baby they saw it was nothing but diaper rash. I’m not sure if New York law requires a hospital examination after a report of child abuse, but such a law would violate due process since it assumes the guardian is guilty until proven innocent. This was another perfect opportunity to de-escalate the situation. Instead, the police once again escalated it.

Respondents escorted petitioner out of his building in handcuffs and put him in jail for two days. According to respondents, petitioner’s mere refusal to let them into his home without a warrant to examine his child was sufficient basis to arrest and pursue charges for resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration. 

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

According to these four policemen, you have no rights in their presence. If you stand your ground when they try to violate your rights, they claim that’s “obstructing governmental administration”. Remember, the police had no legal authority to enter Mr. Thompson’s apartment since they had neither warrant nor exigent circumstance. Therefore, they were not administering a governmental act, they were violating it.

During the criminal proceedings that followed, Mr. Thompson denied any wrongdoing and declined any plea deals offered by the prosecution. After three months, the prosecution simply dismissed the charges, without any plea or compromise. Mr. Thompson was free to go, but he didn’t stop there.

After obtaining dismissal of the charges, petitioner filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that respondents violated his Fourth Amendment rights through warrantless entry of his home and by unreasonably seizing him pursuant to legal process (often described as a “malicious prosecution” claim, referring to the analogous common-law tort). Both claims survived summary judgment and proceeded to trial.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

Mr. Thompson sued in federal court claiming that the officers had violated at least two of his rights protected by the Fourth Amendment. Specifically, that the police entered his home without a warrant and seized him unreasonably. This is where things get a bit more sticky.

Malicious Prosecution

At trial, one of the principal disputes was whether petitioner had shown “favorable termination” of the criminal proceedings against him, as required to bring his § 1983 malicious prosecution claim. Relying on Lanning v. City of Glens Falls,… respondents argued that criminal proceedings have not terminated favorably unless they “affirmatively indicated that the plaintiff was innocent of the crimes charged.” According to respondents, because the dismissal here did not affirmatively establish petitioner was innocent of the crime charged, he could not claim unreasonable seizure.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

According the the police officers’ attorney, since the judge did not specifically say that Mr. Thompson was innocent, he could not claim unreasonable seizure. If that sounds ridiculous to you, that’s not a surprise, since it sounded ridiculous to Mr. Thompson’s attorney as well.

Petitioner objected, arguing that dismissal of the charges was “sufficient to show that the plaintiff has had the case dismissed in his favor.” He pointed out that petitioner had rejected the prosecution’s offer for even an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal, causing the prosecutor to unconditionally dismiss the charges. Petitioner argued that “the judge is not required to say you are innocent,” something that “never happens.” Petitioner contended that respondent’s position would be absurd, requiring people who are wrongfully and unreasonably accused of crimes to object when the prosecution attempts to dismiss the charges against them and insist on going to trial.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Petition for Writ of Certiorari

The District Court, following precedent set by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, found for the officers. Although, in the court’s opinion, they stated that the Second Circuit was wrong and set the insane requirement that an innocent person object to the charges being dismissed in order to go to trial to get a verdict so they could sue for malicious prosecution. While the District Court also dealt with the question of who had the burden of proof, the police or the home owner, in a case where exigent circumstances are claimed to make entry, the Supreme Court dealt only with the question of innocence in a malicious prosecution case.

Supreme Court

Justice Kavanaugh, who wrote the opinion, went all the way back to he American tort-law consensus as of 1871 to justify his opinion:

Held: To demonstrate a favorable termination of a criminal prosecution for purposes of the Fourth Amendment claim under §1983 for malicious prosecution, a plaintiff need not show that the criminal prosecution ended with some affirmative indication of innocence. A plaintiff need only show that his prosecution ended without a conviction. Thompson has satisfied that requirement here.

Thompson v. Clark, et. al. – Certiorari Opinion

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and sent the case back for further review.

Conclusion

While this is a win for Mr. Thompson, it is only a battle in his war. He has not won his case yet, but with the opinion of the Supreme Court, he will at least have a chance.

As often as I point out the arrogance and illiteracy of our federal courts, I think it only proper that I point out when they are right as well. To all of you who have heard me talk about the need to stand your ground when government agents act beyond the law, it does my heart good to see that, at least in this case, there’s a glimmer of hope that someone will receive a redress for their grievance when government officials attack.

The Mask Mandate That Was NOT Found Unconstitutional

    Yes, the CDC’s mask mandate has been vacated, but it was not found unconstitutional.

    By pointing out that the CDC exceeded its statutory authority, the court effectively told the government what it needs to do in order to bring the mandate back.

    This has implications not just for public transportation, but for the ability of government to tell you how to live your life.

You’ve probably heard about the “ruling” from a U.S. District Court Judge in Florida that “struck down” the CDC’s mask mandate on public transportation. There has been plenty of discussion about what this means, how people have reacted, and the fact that the Biden administration is appealing this decision. What has been lost in most of the conversation is that the judge did not find the rule unconstitutional. What does this fact mean for the American people?

Background

Reading from the judge’s opinion, we get some of the background for this case.

As travelers have been reminded for more than a year, federal law requires wearing a mask in airports, train stations, and other transportation hubs as well as on airplanes, buses, trains, and most other public conveyances in the United States. Failure to comply may result in civil and criminal penalties, including removal from the conveyance. This masking requirement‐commonly known as the Mask Mandate‐is a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regulation published in the Federal Register on February 3, 2021.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

I’ve made my position on mandates clear in this column many times. I have flown with a mask, not because the government required it, but because a private company did so. Yes, they required the mask because of an illegal government order, but that was between them and the federal government. Since the airlines refused to stand up against these illegal orders, I have since stopped flying on commercial airlines.

What I want to focus on here is the case that was brought against Joe Biden and his CDC by Health Freedom Defense and others.

In July 2021, Sarah Pope, Ana Daza, and Health Freedom Defense Fund sued various government officials and the CDC, seeking a declaratory judgment that the Mask Mandate was unlawful and to have it set aside for violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

This is another example of why it is so important to go beyond the headlines. All of the reporting about a federal judge’s ruling (judges do not rule, they opine), who stuck down (not true either), the CDC’s mask mandate missed one very important point. The judge never found that the mandate was unconstitutional, because the suit against President Biden and the CDC never asked her to.

Statutory Authority

The CDC claimed that Congress gave them the authority to issue the mandate under the Public Health Services Act of 1944 (PHSA), 42 U.S.C. § 264(a).

Thus, if § 264(a) authorizes the Mask Mandate, the power to do so must be found in one of the actions enumerated in the second sentence. That sentence provides for “inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction . . .and other measures.” § 264(a). A requirement that individual travelers wear a mask is not inspection, fumigation, disinfection, destruction, or pest extermination, and the government does not contend otherwise.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

The Public Health Services Act (PHSA) lists what the CDC can do to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. Mask mandates are not on that list. The CDC claims that this mandate falls under “sanitation”, and is therefore authorized by Congress.

Instead, it argues that the Mask Mandate is a“sanitation” measure or an “other measure” akin to sanitation.

The PHSA does not define “sanitation.” If “a term goes undefined in a statute, [courts] give the term its ordinary meaning.” … Courts often start with dictionaries. Given that the statute was enacted in 1944, the Court looks to dictionaries from the early and mid-20th century to begin its analysis. They provide two senses of sanitation that are relevant here. First, sanitation may refer to measures that clean something or that remove filth, such as trash collection,

washing with soap, incineration, or plumbing. … Second, sanitation may refer to measures that keep something clean.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

Redefining words to get them to mean something that supports your position is standard practice in the legal profession. However, using a simple dictionary search, the court found that the CDC’s definition didn’t cover what they wanted it to do.

Put simply, sanitation as used in the PHSA could have referred to active measures to cleanse something or to preserve the cleanliness of something. While the latter definition would appear to cover the Mask Mandate, the former definition would preclude it. Accordingly, the Court must determine which of the two senses is the best reading of the statute.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

Administrative Procedures Act.

Since the judge dealt with the question of the mandate violating the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), we should look at that as well.

Notice and comment does not apply “when the agency for good cause finds (and incorporates the finding anda briefstatement of reasons therefor in the rules issued) that notice and public procedure thereon are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” 5 U.S.C. § 553(b)(B). The Mandate invoked this exception to forego notice and comment. So, the Court must determine whether a thirty-day notice-and‐comment period was “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.”

This exception “is to be ‘narrowly construed and only reluctantly countenanced.” …. It applies only “in emergency situations” or “where delay could result in serious harm.”

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

Congress, when it illegally delegates its lawmaking authority to the executive branch, puts rules in place as to how an agency could go about making those rules. One of those requirements is that there be a 30-day period, so that the people would be aware of the new rule and have the opportunity to comment on it. It should be a surprise to no one that the federal government gave itself a way to get around these pesky rules. If the rules are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest”, Congress said it was OK to ignore the notice and comment period. Of course, who determines what is and is not necessary or impracticable? Who decides what is in the public interest? According to the CDC, in this case, they do. But what did the court find?

Specifically, the APA requires that an agency invoking good cause “incorporate [its] finding and a brief statement of reasons”why it believes notice and comment is “impracticable” or “contrary to the public interest.” § 553(b)(B). Courts do not defer to the agency’s conclusion on good cause. … The Court’s review of the CDC’s determination that good cause exists “is limited to ‘the grounds that the agency invoked when it took the action.” … The Court “may not supply a reasoned basis for the agency’s action that the agency itself has not given.”

The Mandate asserted that “there [was] good cause to dispense with prior public notice and comment” because‐given “the public health emergency caused by COVID1 9 [‐] i t would be impracticable and contrary to the public’s health, and by extension the public’s interest, to delay the issuance and effective date of this Order.” … This statement, without more, is insufficient to establish good cause to dispense with notice and comment.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

In other words, the CDC said that there was good cause because, in their opinion, there was. Thankfully, the court disagreed. The APA also prohibits rules and regulations that are arbitrary and capricious.

Plaintiffs raise three arguments on why the Mask Mandate was arbitrary and capricious. First, Plaintiffs argue that the Mandate failed to comply with 42 C.F.R. § 70.2. Second, that the Mandate was substantively unreasonable. And third, that the Mandate failed to adequately explain the CDC’s reasoning. Because the Court agrees with Plaintiffs that the CDC failed to adequately explain its reasoning, the Court need not address whether the substantive decisions embodied in the Mandate were themselves arbitrary or capricious or whether the Mandate violated 42 C.F.R. § 70.2.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

In short, the court said that since they’ve already found that the CDC did not adequately explain its reasoning on bypassing the notice and comment period, they didn’t need to deal with the question of arbitrary and capricious.

Judge’s Conclusion

“ It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of [COVID-19].”… In pursuit of that end, the CDC issued the Mask Mandate. But the Mandate exceeded the CDC’s statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions. Because “our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends,” id., the Court declares unlawful and

vacates the Mask Mandate.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

Once again, we see the conflation of the federal government with the public. Whether or not we have a strong interest in combating the spread of COVID-19, that does not mean those in government have that interest as well. Based on the actual data from the CDC about the dangers of COVID-19, I could even dispute how strong that interest might be. In either case, the court found that the CDC had gone beyond the powers delegated to it by Congress and violated the laws regarding rule making. For that reason, the court “declared” (actually the judge opined), that the mandate was unlawful and therefore vacated it.

The one question that was neither asked nor answered was: Is the CDC’s mask mandate constitutional? Because, as the supreme law of the land, if the mandates are unconstitutional there is much more at stake than being forced to wear a mask on an airplane.

Constitutionality

For any act of Congress to be valid, it must be made pursuant to the Constitution.

There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers #78

So if an act of Congress contrary to the Constitution cannot be valid, we must start there. The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

U.S. Constitution, Amendment X

Therefore, the first question that should be asked about any law is, does it exercise a power delegated to the United States by the Constitution? That includes the Public Health Services Act, 42 U.S.C. § 264(a).

The opening sentence of § 264(a) grants the CDC power to issue regulations that “in [its] judgment are necessary” to prevent the spread of communicable disease.

HEALTH FREEDOM DEFENSE FUND,INC., et. al. v Biden et. al. Order

Is the prevention of the spread of communicable diseases a power delegated to the United States? No. Is the regulation of public health delegated to the United States? No. Is regulation of public transportation a power delegated to the United States? Again, no. Some may claim that these powers exists under the General Welfare Clause, but that is not what the Constitution says:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 1

Not only is the general welfare in this clause limited to the United States (the proper noun of the union of states and exactly the same subject as in the Tenth Amendment), but this clause is limited to collecting taxes, not regulating them. As James Madison said in Congress in 1792:

If Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may establish teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation, down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.

Bounty Payments for Cod Fisheries, [6 February] 1792

Others may claim that Congress and the CDC act under the Necessary and Proper Clause. Once again, that is not what the Constitution says:

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 18

Congress only has the power to enact laws necessary and proper for executing the power the Constitution has vested in the government of the United States, not whatever they think is necessary.

So if the United States has not been delegated the power to regulate the public health or prevent the spread of communicable diseases, the PHSA is not a valid law and therefore void. Not only according to Mr. Hamilton, but the Supreme Court as well.

Thus, the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written Constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void, and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

Marbury v. Madison Opinion

Conclusion

As I asked at the beginning of this article, what does this mean for the American people? If the judge is correct and the only problem with the mask mandate is that it wasn’t implemented properly, then there is nothing stopping either the CDC or another agency from reinstituting it, as long as they follow the Administrative Procedures Act. If, on the other hand, I am correct and the PHSA itself is unconstitutional and therefore invalid and void, then We the People never needed to follow it in the first place. The CDC, the states and cities that run the airports, the airlines, and everyone else were following a law that did not legally exist. That makes it just like all those who were afraid to say anything when the emperor walked around with no clothes. It’s worse than that though, because they also committed a federal crime.

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both;

18 U.S.C. §242

For those who used violence in an attempt to get people to comply with this invalid order, things could get worse.

and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

18 U.S.C. §242

You may be asking, what rights, privileges, or immunities protected by the Constitution are violated by a mask mandate?

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;

U.S. Constitution, Amendment V

If you are forced to wear a mask because of a law, statue, ordinance, regulation, or custom, you are being deprived the liberty to live your life as you see fit and the property you have in the control of your body. Since no one bothered to safeguard your rights during this process, you did not receive due process.

An established course for judicial proceedings or other governmental activities designed to safeguard the legal rightsof the individual.

Due Process, The Free Legal Dictionary

These mandates are not based on a person’s actual infectiousness or danger to others. It simply assumes everyone is guilty of being a danger to others and therefore must have their rights restricted. Once again, we see that Founding Father John Jay was correct:

Every member of the State ought diligently to read and to study the constitution of his country, and teach the rising generation to be free. By knowing their rights, they will sooner perceive when they are violated, and be the better prepared to defend and assert them.

John Jay, First Chief Justice of the supreme Court of the United States

Perhaps, if we take this opportunity to learn our rights now, we can avoid such an infringement of them in the future.