The introduction of wokeness into our military weakens it

August 29, 2023

Last July a retired U.S. Army general spoke to an audience on the state of the nation’s military forces. Thomas Spoehr attained the rank of Lt. General in his career spanning more than 36 years in uniform. During that time, he served in positions in the Pentagon, with the 82nd Airborne Division, the 1st Armored Division, and as Deputy Commanding General of U.S. Forces in Iraq.

Spoehr was concerned with some things that had transpired that worked against the efficiency and strength of our military, and shared his concerns with the audience at the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series at Hillsdale College. Following are some of his concerns. 

In 2015, a U.S. Marine Corps study concluded that gender-integrated combat formations did not move as quickly or shoot as accurately, and that women were twice as likely as men to suffer combat injuries. The study was rejected by then-Secretary of the Navy, Ray Maybus.

Later, the Department of Defense under Secretary Ashton Carter opened all military combat jobs to women, committing to “gender-neutral standards” that ensured that female service members would meet the requirements. The Army began to put in place the gender-neutral test promised by Carter. 

However, after finding that women were not scoring as highly as men, the Army threw out the test. Now there is no test to determine whether any soldier can meet the fitness requirements for combat specialties.

Also, that year, President Barack Obama initiated a change to the Pentagon’s longstanding policy on transgender individuals in the military. But after he was elected President, Donald Trump put that change on hold. His Defense Secretary, James Mattis, had information showing, among other things, that transgender individuals suffering from gender dysphoria attempted suicide and experienced severe anxiety at nine times the rate of the general population.

The Trump administration then imposed restrictions on military service personnel suffering from gender dysphoria. However, as one of his first actions, newly elected President Joe Biden signed an executive order that cancelled those restrictions and allowed all transgender individuals to participate in our military services. Later, Biden’s administration allowed active duty military personnel to take time off from their duties to have sex-change surgery, related hormones and drugs, which would be paid for by taxpayers.

The Biden administration has also removed a policy that prohibited personnel with HIV from serving in combat zones, due to the need for special medications and the danger of transmission through shared blood. 

And in recent years, our military’s strenuous physical fitness standard has been weakened, with the goal of “leveling the playing field.” This allows people previously not up to the physical standard to now serve.

In July of last year, a drag queen story hour was scheduled at the base library of Ramstein Air Base in Germany. A drag queen was going to read to children of Air Force personnel stationed there. However, when this news reached lawmakers in the U.S., who complained to the Secretary of the Air Force, the event was cancelled.

Also, in 2021, the Navy released a video instructing Navy personnel that they need to create a “safe space for everybody.” This includes using “inclusive language,” such as saying “hey everybody,” instead of “hey guys.” Spoehr wondered what other “woke” changes might follow. 

Taking things a few steps further down the path, Biden required through an executive order that all organizations in the military services must create Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices, and to produce DEI plans and track the progress toward those goals. The purpose of this is to advance “equity for all.”

Spoehr also mentioned that Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the idea that capitalism is racist are also being used to indoctrinate personnel. The charge of CRT being used was denied by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, but Spoehr said much evidence contradicts Austin’s denial. 

Legislation introduced this year in Congress would halt the use of CRT, the creation of diversity offices, and the easing of physical requirements. Whether this legislation will pass is an open question.

In a write-up of Spoehr’s address printed in Hillsdale’s publication, “Imprimis,” is this: “Wokeness also comes in the form of conflating the mission of the military with environmental ideology. A year ago, President Biden told a group of overseas Air Force airmen that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had determined that the greatest threat facing America was global warming—a claim the Joint Chiefs had to walk back. 

“In the same vein, Biden signed an executive order imposing a massive regime of environmental goals and requirements for the Department of Defense. These goals included transitioning to all electric non-tactical vehicles by 2035, carbon-free electricity for military installations by that same year, and net zero emissions from those installations by 2050. As a result, the Pentagon recently announced it will devote over $3 billion of its already stretched-thin military budget to climate-related initiatives in 2023 alone.”

The job and responsibility of the U.S. military is to protect and defend the United States. Social experimentation and political ideology weaken its ability. The military must have at every position the best qualified and capable person possible, regardless of race or gender.

The fundamental transformation of the United States is well underway

August 22, 2023

Way back when Barack Obama was campaigning for President of the United States he famously said, “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Years later, in an interview with then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, then-President Obama somewhat walked back his statement. But looking at what has happened between Obama’s original statement and today, it is pretty obvious that the Democrats are indeed working to fundamentally transform the country.

Democrats are increasingly comfortable attacking foundational principles and elements of American governance. Here are some of the efforts now underway.

They want to enlarge the U.S. Supreme Court by adding Democrat appointees to it. Unhappy with recent rulings, they want to add more liberal justices to the Court. 

This idea ignores the reality that the judicially conservative justices they want to put in the minority make rulings based upon existing law and constitutional principles that are understood today as when they were enacted. They are “originalists.” 

Democrats prefer instead to change these principles using a liberal majority on the Court. They want to pack it with justices who will reinterpret laws, not support them as intended.

They favor doing away with the Electoral College. One point made to support this transformation is that in a democracy, the winner of the popular vote should be President. However, as has been said here and elsewhere before, the United States is not a pure democracy; it is a republic. Thus, by design, not all decisions are to be made by 50 percent-plus-one vote.

And, only four times in the election of 46 Presidents in over 240 years has the Electoral College been in conflict with the popular vote. 

However, without the balancing of the varied interests of Americans provided by the Electoral College, every Presidential election would be decided by the big states and big cities. The rest of the country would be at their mercy. It is not what the Founders believed was best, nor is it in the best interest of all Americans for Presidents to be forever selected by a few states.

“Democrats in the Senate have introduced legislation to make Washington, DC a state, and they’re seeing overwhelming support,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., wrote in an email. More than 40 Senators support this idea, including Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, but not West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

“Democrats know they can’t win with standard tactics,” McCaarthy wrote, “so they’re making a power play by trying to flip the game board to their advantage!” 

But here is why it can’t happen: Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides explicitly for a national capital that would not be part of a state nor treated as a state. It is a neutral district where representatives of all the states can meet on an equal footing to conduct the nation’s business. DC as a state, or any state, would carry too much power.

Federal regulations — both existing and planned — are limiting Americans’ ability to choose items they want and need, and making many things more difficult and expensive to produce.

Gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles are discouraged in favor of electric vehicles. Many household appliances that work on natural gas or other fuels are targeted for replacement, as are incandescent lightbulbs.

The massive set of federal regulations tell Americans things they can no longer do, and things they can no longer purchase. 

All of this is done under the premise of making things better. But ultimately, they increase the control that the federal government, under Democrat control, will hold over the people, and reduce our freedoms.

Biden’s failure to adequately secure the southern border, as required by the Constitution and laws, has allowed a huge increase in illegals entering the country.

“According to Customs and Border Protection, since January 2021 when Biden took the oath of office, there have been 5,118,661 encounters with illegal immigrants along the southern border,” as reported by Townhall.com. “Add to that the number of known ‘gotaways,’” which are illegal immigrants who were not apprehended.

“Through the first half of Biden's term from January 2021 through January 2023, Customs and Border Protection reported 1.2 million ‘gotaways.’”

While most of these people may be good people looking for a better life, others carry disease, are criminals or drug or child traffickers. The negative effects of illegals on cities and states is enormous, and the number of drug deaths has climbed.

Further, these illegal “residents” may eventually be given citizen status by the Democrat administration, without earning it, as in the past. This is both foolish and dangerous.

The ideas of Democrats/liberals/socialists are unable to win among all Americans on their merit. So, they want to gain control over the rest of us, and will do nearly anything to gain that position, and fundamental transformation is their number one tool.

And in the pure democracy into which they want to transform America, on a vote to end all fossil fuel uses, ban guns, limit free speech, have abortion after birth, or any wild idea, all it will take is a 50 percent-plus-one vote to accomplish that, or a Supreme Court with “law makers” instead of “law interpreters.”

The problems associated with recycling plastics

August 15, 2023

The climate change faction, to which the Biden administration belongs, wants to do away with fossil fuels. But what they may not realize is that in addition to being fuel, some fossil fuels, like oil and natural gas, are basic elements in many things the American people need and want.

“Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas make the manufacturing of over 6,000 everyday products and high-tech devices possible,” Energy.gov tells us. 

“Major petrochemicals—including ethylene, propylene, acetylene, benzene, and toluene, as well as natural gas constituents like methane, propane, and ethane—are the feedstock chemicals for the production of many of the items we use and depend on every day. Modern life relies on the availability of these products that are made in the United States and across the globe.”

Energy.gov lists 161 of the 6,000 items that are made from oil and natural gas. The list includes: artificial limbs, asphalt, aspirin, awnings, backpacks, balloons, caulking, electric blankets, electrical tape, enamel, epoxy paint, eyeglasses, fan belts, faucet washers, fertilizers, hearing aids, heart valves, house paint, ink, insect repellent, insecticides, insulation, iPad/iPhone, petroleum jelly, pharmaceuticals, plastics, life jackets, light-weight aircraft, roofing, refrigerants, vinyl flooring, vitamin capsules, tires, tool boxes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, transparent tape, water pipes, wind turbine blades, and many more.

Many of those products are valuable and useful, so the mania to end fossil fuels carries with it a heavy price in terms of replacing these items.

One of those products is plastic. Take a guess at how many things that people use, want, and depend upon are made from or contain plastic?

Plastics, however, have a down side. So many plastic products are used once or a few times and discarded. Many people try to recycle them, but that is a non-existent entity, to a large degree.

An article on the National Public Radio (NPR) website addresses this. “The vast majority of plastic that people use, and in many cases put into blue recycling bins, is headed to landfills, or worse, according to a report from Greenpeace on the state of plastic recycling in the U.S.”

The article cites a report that the amount of plastic actually recycled and used for new products has fallen to only about 5 percent, and is expected to fall even further in the future.

“Greenpeace found that no plastic — not even soda bottles, one of the most prolific items thrown into recycling bins — meets the threshold to be called "recyclable" according to standards set by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation New Plastic Economy Initiative,” the article continued. “Plastic must have a recycling rate of 30 percent to reach that standard; no plastic has ever been recycled and reused close to that rate.”

The NPR article also explained that “Waste management experts say the problem with plastic is that it is expensive to collect and sort. There are now thousands of different types of plastic, and none of them can be melted down together. Plastic also degrades after one or two uses. Greenpeace found that the more plastic is reused the more toxic it becomes.

“New plastic, on the other hand, is cheap and easy to produce. The result is that plastic trash has few markets — a reality the public has not wanted to hear,” NPR wrote.

There are tons of these un-reusable plastic items that are not really needed. Things such as packaging materials, shopping bags, straws, bottles, cups and such things were made of paper or glass prior to plastic being implemented, and we can move back in that direction. Paper and glass are much easier to recycle or dispose of than these plastic items.

So, while we need to cut back on the production of plastic items that can be replaced with materials that can be reused, or really are not needed, there are still many plastic items that we must continue to produce.

On the former point, “Environmentalists and lawmakers in some states are now pushing for legislation that bans single use plastics, and for ‘bottle bills’ which pay customers to bring back their plastic bottles,” NPR said. “The bills have led to successful recycling rates for plastic bottles in places like Oregon and Michigan, but have faced steep resistance from plastic and oil industry lobbyists.”

"The real solution is to switch to systems of reuse and refill," Lisa Ramsden, senior plastic campaigner for Greenpeace USA, said. "We are at a decision point on plastic pollution. It is time for corporations to turn off the plastic tap."

Joshua Baca, vice president of plastics for the American Chemistry Council, criticized the Greenpeace view on plastics, and added that the industry is "on the cusp of a circularity revolution" regarding plastic recycling, and is "scaling up sortation, advanced recycling, and new partnerships that enable used plastic to be remade again and again."

Throwing used plastics in oceans and landfills has created a serious problem. It makes no sense to keep producing and then throwing away plastic items that are used once or a few times, like straws, wrappers, etc. Those items could be made from recyclable materials, or be made to be reused continuously.

Climate change is being blamed for wildfires in North America

August 8, 2023

The wild fires in Canada this year along with the warmer-than-normal temperatures in parts of the country have energized the pro-climate change voices.

An article on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Website noted the following: “Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last two decades.”

Citing a 2016 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) study, the article added that, “climate change enhanced the drying of organic matter and doubled the number of large fires between 1984 and 2015 in the western United States. A 2021 study supported by NOAA concluded that climate change has been the main driver of the increase in fire in the western United States.”

This is a compelling scenario. Wildfires in the U.S. and Canada have certainly been a problem, particularly recently. But as Paul Harvey so wisely said in his radio broadcasts, “Now, the rest of the story.”

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal last month, authored by Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, tells us that, “One of the most common tropes in our increasingly alarmist climate debate is that global warming has set the world on fire. But it hasn’t.”

Lomborg isn’t just some “climate denier,” he is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. He was listed as one of Time's “100 most influential people,” and Business Insider cited him as one of "The 10 Most-Respected Global Warming Skeptics."

The Copenhagen Consensus Center is the winner of Prospect magazine’s 2016 Think Tank of the Year award in the International Affairs category for think tanks based in the United States. 

Given his skepticism of the degree to which the fears of climate change have been expanded, his arguments against that mentality have been harshly received by those who promote that danger.

But he does not come to the fight unarmed, or with only words. In his column he wrote that, “For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3 percent of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward.” In support of that claim, there is a chart prepared by the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA).

“In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data,” Lomborg continues, “the world hit a new record-low of 2.2 percent burned area. Yet you’ll struggle to find that reported anywhere.”

The area burned has decreased by 0.8 percent, showing that there has been roughly 27 percent less area burned since 2000.

Lomborg’s point is that while looking at North America tells a particular story, broadening the focus to include the entire globe tells a very different story.

Leighton Steward, who passed away last year, was a geologist, environmentalist, author, and retired energy industry executive. He had served as Chairman of the Board of The Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University, was Chairman of the National Wetlands Coalition, and was twice Chairman of the Audubon Nature Institute. He had offered environmental advice that was accepted by both the EPA and the U. S. Corps of Engineers.

Years before his passing, U.S. News’ “Washington Whispers” discussed Steward’s perspective on climate change. Paul Bedard, who authored the article, outlined Steward’s views. “Much of the global warming debate has focused on reducing CO2 emissions because it is thought that the greenhouse gas produced mostly from fossil fuels is warming the planet. But Steward, who once believed CO2 caused global warming, is trying to fight that with a mountain of studies and scientific evidence that suggest CO2 is not the cause for warming. What's more, he says CO2 levels are so low that more, not less, is needed to sustain and expand plant growth.”

Furthermore, Steward believed that if CO2 levels are cut, food production will suffer because plants grown at higher CO2 levels make larger fruit and vegetables and also use less water. He also believed that higher CO2 levels are really not harmful to humans. 

Buying into the CO2 crisis, the Biden administration is rising to the occasion by planning to limit many things that Americans need and want. Things like gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles that are affordable and dependable. Incandescent bulbs to light our homes and businesses. Stoves, water heaters, furnaces, grills and other appliances powered by natural gas and propane. All of these desired devices will be banned in favor of electric devices that will be heavily regulated, very expensive, and will create more of a demand than the electric grid can supply.

And the federal government — which has evolved from the smaller and limited entity it was designed to be into a gargantuan, too-powerful body — now enforces these political desires with rules with the force of law that have not been approved by the Congress, the law-making body in our tripartite government.

Students’ objection to curriculum should not cause job loss

August 1, 2023

The old-timers among us look around and are stunned, shocked, and in disbelief at some of what they see going on.

One of those things is the “cancel culture,” where people who don’t like or are offended by something or someone proceed to “cancel” it or them. That means having statues torn down or the name of a building changed, or ruining the life or career of a person.

Quite often, the subject of the “cancelation” is someone or something about which the cancelers only know enough to be upset about it or them. And quite often, the cancelers don’t know the whole story behind the subject.

Another one is the idea that if someone is born a male or a female, and they are uncomfortable with that, they can indulge in chemical and/or surgical processes and try to change their gender to the other one.

These ideas did not exist several decades ago, or if they did, they weren’t talked about very much.

Today, the meaning of the idea of “gender” is very broad and fluid among some folks. And there has become a sort of underground rule that these ideas must be accepted by everyone, regardless of what people know or believe.

A recent news item tells the story of a biology professor, Dr. Johnson Varkey. He has been an adjunct professor of biology at St. Philip's College in San Antonio, Texas for 19 years. And during that time, he has taught Human Anatomy and Physiology to some 1,500 students.

On November 28, 2022, four of Varkey's students walked out of his class when he stated that sex was determined by X and Y chromosomes, just as he always had during his years teaching at the college. Shortly thereafter, he was fired.

However, the school allegedly fired him for teaching his students “that sex was determined by X and Y chromosomes and that reproduction must occur between a male and a female to continue the human species,” according to a report by Fox News Digital. “Despite the fact that Varkey taught from the school-approved and science-based curriculum, St. Philip's College claims his teaching was religious.”

In response to his being fired, Varkey wrote in a communiqué to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which he said, "I also explained that when a sperm (which has 23 chromosomes) joins with an egg (which also has 23 chromosomes), a zygote (which has 46 chromosomes) is formed, and it begins to divide, and after 38 weeks a baby is born. Because no information is added or deleted in those 38 weeks, life starts when the zygote begins to divide, not when the baby is born."

The Fox report noted that “in his notice of termination letter, St. Philip’s College said the complaint against him contained several reports of ‘religious preaching, discriminatory comments about homosexuals and transgender individuals, anti-abortion rhetoric, and misogynistic banter.’ The college claims he violated ‘the highest standards of academic honesty and integrity,’ but provided no explanation or reasoning for its accusation.”

"It saddens me that we have come to the place where, in an institution of higher learning, the feelings and opinions of the students are allowed to usurp the facts of science," Varkey told Fox. 

Is there a sensible explanation for why, after 19 years of teaching the same biology course based upon a long-approved curriculum, the college suddenly accepts the allegation of four students that Varkey’s presentation of the course material is religious, discriminatory against some students, anti-abortion and misogynistic? 

In opposing his firing, Varkey’s First Liberty Institute (FLI) attorneys have argued that his classroom work is based upon his biological education and experience, and also his religious beliefs. They also state that "throughout his employment, he never discussed with any student his personal views — religious or otherwise — on human gender or sexuality."

Are college professors and others now expected to adjust the presentation of their subjects so that they don’t offend their students, even if that means abandoning long-held and scientifically sound principles?

“No college professor should be fired for teaching factual concepts that a handful of students don’t want to hear," Keisha Russel, Counsel for FLI and the lead attorney on Varkey’s case, told Fox News Digital. "When public universities silence their own professors from teaching true concepts to students, education has been turned on its head."

The Alamo Colleges District, of which St. Philip’s College is a part, told Fox News Digital it does not comment on personnel issues. 

Science is a process of investigation. At some point, a theory gains acceptance as a general truth, as no different evidence has been presented for a long time. But there is always a chance that something will come along. Therefore, “settled science” is not always settled.

However, the science of gender has not been challenged by new scientific evidence, and two genders reign as the general truth. Colleges and universities ought to be substantially more thoughtful about when they endorse ideas that are significantly different than what is considered the correct scientific position.

And certainly, this situation ought not to have cost a long-time professor his job.

Education is one of the United States’ current serious problems

July 25, 2023

Among the nation’s many current problems is the decline in public education’s success in teaching students the basic subjects they must have to be successful, or even to survive at a suitable level.

Education Week provided a disturbing look at this situation last September. “The results, released today from the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ Long-Term Trend test, paint a stark picture of 9-year-olds’ achievement in 2022. Over the past two years, math scores dropped by seven points — the first ever decline in the long-term trend assessment’s 50-year history. Reading scores also fell by five points, the biggest drop since 1990.”

In explaining this disturbing information, Peggy G. Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the National Assessment of Educational Progress, said “These results are sobering,” adding that part of the problem is “that COVID-19 shocked American education and stunted the academic growth of this age group of children.”

Indeed, COVID-19, and the way many in authority over us reacted to it, had a very damaging effect on education. But these problems were not new with the pandemic, as other studies have shown.

Add to that the “progressive” and “woke” elements that have been sneaked into many state and local education systems, some actions by the federal and local governments, and the problem becomes much worse.

The education system — and the public education system in particular, due to the large proportion of our children that parents send to public schools expecting them to be properly educated — is failing in much of America. It is failing the parents and other citizens whose taxes support public education. But, worst of all, it is failing those students who attend those schools. That trust is no longer appropriate for far too many school systems.

Marc Tucker is the president emeritus and a distinguished senior fellow of the National Center on Education and the Economy. He has some interesting comments about education. “In my last blog, I described how high school textbooks that used to be written at the 12th-grade level for 12th graders are now written at the 7th- or 8th-grade level. I cited a report that said that many community college teachers do not assign much writing at all to their first-year students because they cannot write. 

“I revealed that the community college course called College Math is not college math at all, but is in reality just a course in Algebra I — a course that is supposed to be passed in middle school in most states — with a few other topics thrown in, and many community college students cannot do the work. 

“I pointed to data that says that the students who go to the typical four-year college are no better prepared than those attending community colleges. I then pointed to another study that says that for close to 40 percent of our college students, the first two years of college add virtually no value at all, and ‘not much’ value for the rest. 

“I ended by pointing out that, if this is all true, then colleges are typically teaching most students what we used to teach in the high school college-bound track and are not doing it very well.”

Tucker’s revelation was written in 2015.

It was reported by TV station NBC Boston last September that a school district in Massachusetts has been slowly phasing Algebra 1 out of its middle-school curriculum because the advanced math classes were not attended by equal numbers of students of the four racial categories.

This “transition” began in 2017, and was designed to create better equity among math students.

“Equity” is more important in many school systems than merit. It is no longer important that students gain the highest level of knowledge of subjects of which they are capable. It is more important that an equal number of students in each of the races get the same level of knowledge, regardless of how low that level may be.

In higher education, too, it is becoming more important to have the “correct,” or roughly equal numbers of students from various groups than to have the most capable students from whichever groups fill each class level.

But when they are finished with school, how do those students, who really haven’t earned some of the rewards they have received, feel about that? Do they not care? Or, does it negatively affect their self-esteem, self-confidence? Are they really better off having something they did not earn? 

And, when they get into the work-a-day world, will they be able to perform as expected, or will their job performance match their less-than-excellent school performance?

It might feel good or please folks to have the “right” number of each race and gender in every organized group. But what we need, and must have in every critical position is the person most qualified, or at the very least, highly qualified, who has proven their qualification, regardless of their race or gender.

But the critical question is, as this affliction of demanding equal numbers grows, and the level of performance correspondingly falls, will the United States be able to successfully compete on the world stage, or protect itself from its adversaries? 

Could the region possibly see a return of the good old days?

July 18, 2023

Those of us fortunate enough to be around this area in the 40s, 50s and 60s probably remember what Bluefield was like, back then. One of my vivid memories is in the years after WHIS-TV went on the air in 1955. The TV station and its radio siblings, WHIS-AM and FM were located on the third floor of what was then the Municipal Building on Bland Street, and is now the Arts Center.

I liked the TV and radio stations and hung around there a good bit. I remember standing at the windows overlooking Bland Street at 5:00 p.m. watching two lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic slowly crawling out of the downtown area. 

At that time the downtown was filled and thriving: clothing stores, furniture stores, pharmacies, office buildings, banks, a music store, hotels, restaurants, a newspaper, railroad buildings, and more. Bluefield was the shopping center and banking center for the southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia coal fields, where tens of thousands of regional residents lived and worked.

The rail yard was filled with hundreds of train cars, both those dozens filled with coal getting ready to head out, and those empty cars ready to be filled up again. Empty tracks were not visible until you were out of the downtown area of both Bluefields.

The coal industry isn’t what it once was, due to natural and manmade events. Coal became naturally replaced for some uses by other fuels. But it also was targeted by governments, which caused great distress well before the job and business losses should have occurred, and over a much shorter time period than was either necessary or judicious.

Today, a large faction wants coal and other fossil fuels to be abandoned in favor of cleaner, “green” energy sources. But fortunately, there is still a need for these fuels, not only in America, but across the globe.

“Coal is an abundant natural resource that can be used as a source of energy, as a chemical source from which numerous synthetic compounds (e.g., dyes, oils, waxes, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides) can be derived,” Britannica.com explains, “and in the production of coke for metallurgical processes,” such as making steel.

Although burning coal for heat and energy are heavily opposed, coal is still a major source of energy for electricity, particularly in other countries like China and India. Also, the gasification and liquefaction of coal produce gaseous and liquid fuels that can be easily transported by pipeline and stored in tanks.

Britannica.com adds, “After the tremendous rise in coal use in the early 2000s, which was primarily driven by the growth of China’s economy, coal use worldwide peaked in 2012. Since then coal use has experienced a steady decline, offset largely by increases in natural gas use.”

For coal reserves, only China has more than the U.S., but the U.S. has nearly twice as much recoverable coal as China. And the industry is working to make burning coal a cleaner process.

“Meanwhile, more than a quarter trillion tons of coal lie underfoot, from the Appalachians through the Illinois Basin to the Rocky Mountains—enough to last 250 years at today's consumption rate,” according to National Geographic. “You hear it again and again: The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal. About 40 coal-burning power plants are now being designed or built in the U.S., [and] China, also rich in coal, could build several hundred by 2025.”

Clearly, there is and will be for a long time the need for coal produced in the two Virginias, and elsewhere.

Chris Hamilton, President & CEO West Virginia Coal Association, sent out an email thorough Friends of Coal recently, saying, “Throughout our state’s 160-year history, the coal industry has been a major driver behind West Virginia’s economy and billions of dollars of new investment will ensure that similar benefits are generated for the next 160 years.

“Despite all the hype you hear about a zero-carbon economy and transitioning to renewable, or intermittent energy forms, West Virginia’s metallurgical and thermal coals will continue to drive our economy while remaining a stable component of our state and nation’s energy mix,” he wrote.

The email contained some other relevant information:

* World coal use is growing with over 8 billion tons consumed in 2022.

* Coal accounts for over 50 percent of West Virginia’s total export product.

* West Virginia-produced coal accounts for over 40 percent of our nation’s total coal exports.

* Forty countries and 30 states rely on West Virginia coal to power their energy needs.

* West Virginia produces the highest quality metallurgical coal found anywhere in the world and 69 percent of the base fuel for domestic steel making.

The coal industry may not again become the powerful local economic engine it was back in the day, but it is still responsible for over $14 billion in annual economic activity for the state, provides 50,000-plus West Virginia jobs, and provides substantial severance tax collections for the state.

The coal reserves in our region constitute an opportunity to provide a product that the nation and the world will need for quite a while in the future, and an economic boost for the region.

Climate alarmism’s failures have seriously damaged our country

July 11, 2023

News headlines in the days following the July 4th holiday said the following things:
* The planet saw its hottest day on record this week. - CNN
* Heat Records Broken Across Earth - The New York Times
* How we know the Earth is now the hottest in thousands of years - The Washington Post
* World's hottest day? Earth set another heat record Thursday - USA Today

These headlines fit comfortably with predictions of climate catastrophe that we have been treated to over a period of many years, such as these, published by The Western Journal in 2018:
* 1970: “Most species on the Earth will perish by 1995” 
* 1970s: “Global cooling is the real problem”
* 1989: “If global warming isn’t reversed by the year 2000, it will be too late to avert catastrophe”
* 2000: “Great Britain will be almost snow-less thanks to global warming”
* 2001: “Snow is going to be a thing of the past in other places, too”
* 2008: “We’ll be living in Antarctica pretty soon”
* 2008: “Prince Charles says we only have 96 months to save the world”
* 2009: “We only have 50 days to save the world from global warming”
* 2016: “Pretty much everything in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’”

And, there was one more, but the end date of this predicted catastrophe has not yet arrived: 1988: “The Earth will warm by 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit by 2025-2050.”

These were serious predictions made by, or based upon theories promoted by, scientists and/or organizations focused on climate issues. 

The reference to “An Inconvenient Truth” addresses the documentary produced by former Vice President Al Gore, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for it.

In the 2006 global warming documentary, Gore predicted that the global sea level could rise as much as 20 feet "in the near future."

It didn’t happen.

Two years later during a speech at the Copenhagen Climate Conference he said that there was "a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years."

It didn’t happen.

Dire predictions like those of Gore and the preceding list that did not come true tend to create doubt about other similar predictions. Even those that someday may come true, if any of them ever will.

This is even more likely when people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the former bartender and current member of the House of Representatives, warn of impending doom.

“The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change,” she reportedly said, “and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?”

This comment found the support of two-thirds of Democrats in a Rasmussen poll, and a total of 48 percent of all those polled. Later, Ocasio-Cortez labeled her comment as “dry humor” and “sarcasm.”

One of the many great things about this country is the ability of everyone to say pretty much anything they want to say, with a few exceptions for dangerous material. This is still largely true, despite some recent efforts to control some opinions. These previous faulty predictions were allowed, and even encouraged.

We don’t really know what prompted the “predictors” to say what they said. Perhaps they truly believed what they were saying. Or, perhaps they had some nefarious purpose behind their predictions.

What we do know is that the predictions were grossly wrong, since the time for them to have occurred has passed, and Earth is still here and hardly the worse for wear.

And yet there are still those that predict climate catastrophe, and a broad range of folks who believe them.

In a video on Facebook, a guy was interviewing another guy and asked him what to do about climate change. The interviewee said, “Farming has to stop. That’s the single biggest driver of climate change.” An interesting perspective.

The interviewer then said, “Alright. Without farming you would be hungry, naked and sober.” Perhaps the interviewee had not thought beyond his initial idea.

Even some of those who reject the cataclysmic predictions agree that people and their habits are having an effect on Earth’s climate. But they understand that anything that the United States does will have minimal effect on the global atmosphere. 

Yet, the U.S. under the Biden administration’s edicts, tries to kill fossil fuels, push “green energy” on us, despite its inability to meet the demand, force electric vehicles on the populace, and do away with gas ovens and other things. All this as China, India and other nations continue to increase their reliance on coal-burning energy and other uses of fossil fuels.

We need to think smartly about this situation and not try to force on people things that will occur naturally as the clean forms of energy that they think will save the world evolve.

The situation simply does not require the U.S. and other nations inclined to fight climate change to force expensive and often painful situations on their people, while other nations happily ignore the situation, counteracting whatever smidgen of good these harsh methods accomplish with their selfish tendencies.

Our Founders would be proud of the Court’s recent decisions

July 4, 2023

The U.S Supreme Court did its job quite well last week. In three notable cases, the Court did exactly what it was designed to do: it ruled according to the language and the principles of the U.S. Constitution.

In the case ending affirmative action in higher education, it ruled that affirmative action, the measure which for decades was used to end discrimination, was itself discriminatory, and therefore unconstitutional.

In the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis a graphic designer refused to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple, due to her religious beliefs. However, her refusal was in breach of Colorado’s discrimination law. But the Court upheld the designer’s free speech rights and religious beliefs as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

And in the case where President Joe Biden tried to make the taxpayers bailout people with outstanding student loan debt through an Executive Order, thereby bypassing Congress, the Court again properly ruled that the president of the United States does not have the Constitutional authority to do that. 

Interestingly, some years ago, before he was President, Biden publicly said that the action he later took was not Constitutional. That sentiment was also expressed by Nancy Pelosi, when she was the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2021.

And, predictably, the liberal’s reaction to these rulings is both strong and off the mark. Some of them probably do understand why the Court, doing the right thing, ruled as it did. Others are going to complain, despite that reality.

Contrary to the idea that many people have, the Supreme Court’s job is not to make Biden or Trump, Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, or any group happy with its rulings. 

Its job is not to make decisions that are politically based, or to reinterpret the Constitution or laws to make a ruling that is more likeable or pleasing to anyone. Its job is to correctly interpret the Constitution and the laws of the country.

And that is what the justices who are judicial conservatives did. And the liberal justices opposed them with their votes, which also opposed the meaning of the Constitution.

While Biden’s attempt on the student loan bailout would have made thousands of people very happy, allowing that to happen would be allowing the President to exercise powers that are reserved for the Congress. Fortunately, the proper understanding of the Constitution’s tripartite federal government held by the judicial conservatives on the Court, led to the correct ruling in the case.

A very timely and effective look at the difference between judicial conservatism and judicial liberalism occurred in the opposing positions on the affirmative action ruling. And the two sides are represented by black/African-American Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson is the newest member of the Court, taking her seat this year. When asked during her confirmation hearing by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, to define the word "woman," she replied, “I can’t.” Shortly after that, she added, “not in this context. I’m not a biologist.”

And her dissent on the affirmative action ruling said this: “With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces ‘colorblindness for all’ by legal fiat,” she wrote. “But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. And having so detached itself from this country’s actual past and present experiences, the Court has now been lured into interfering with the crucial work that [the University of North Carolina] and other institutions of higher learning are doing to solve America’s real-world problems.

“No one benefits from ignorance. Although formal race linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all Americans in innumerable ways, and today's ruling makes things worse, not better,” she continued.

Thomas, on the other hand, took a vastly different view in his concurring opinion. “The solution to our Nation’s racial problems thus cannot come from policies grounded in affirmative action or some other conception of equity,” he wrote. “Racialism simply cannot be undone by different or more racialism. Instead, the solution announced in the second founding is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors.”

Jackson’s argument focuses not on the constitutionality of the discrimination favoring one race over others, which was the question before the Court. Her argument focuses on her concept of racism and whether or not it is important.

This is a common mis-focus of the liberal justices: social justice, not justice by law. They argue for social justice, even if in doing so the principles of the Constitution are ignored or trampled on.

Our founders created a brilliant Constitution, and made a special point of guaranteeing certain rights, without which rights a free nation cannot exist. We must always honor those guarantees, even if doing that is inconvenient for some of us.

As we celebrate our founding, is America heading off track?

June 27, 2023

As the 4th of July, or “Independence Day,” approaches, here is a little bit of the history of that wonderful day, courtesy of Britannica online.

“It commemorates the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. The Congress had voted in favour of independence from Great Britain on July 2 but did not actually complete the process of revising the Declaration of Independence, originally drafted by Thomas Jefferson in consultation with fellow committee members John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and William Livingston, until two days later. 

“The celebration was initially modeled on that of the king’s birthday, which had been marked annually by bell ringing, bonfires, solemn processions, and oratory. Such festivals had long played a significant role in the Anglo-American political tradition. Especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, when dynastic and religious controversies racked the British Empire (and much of the rest of Europe), the choice of which anniversaries of historic events were celebrated and which were lamented had clear political meanings. 

“The ritual of toasting the king and other patriot-heroes — or of criticizing them — became an informal kind of political speech, further formalized in mid-18th century when the toasts given at taverns and banquets began to be reprinted in newspapers.”

Today, we often celebrate this historic occasion with fireworks displays at baseball games, parades, and other such events. However, we are, and have been for some time, moving away from the structure of our nation as our founders established it.

Alas, many Americans and others who live in the U.S. do not regard July 4th as a day to celebrate. And many of them, especially some younger ones, who haven’t been properly taught about their country, or for other reasons do not value it. Not only is July 4th not seen as something to celebrate, but America itself is not valued by many.

There is a famous story about this situation arising. James McHenry, a Maryland delegate to the Constitutional Convention, had recorded in his journal a brief conversation between a lady and Benjamin Franklin one day during the Convention. “A lady asked Dr. Franklin, ‘Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?’ Franklin replied, ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’”

The most notable democratic establishment, although not the first, was ancient Greece in the 4th and 5th centuries BC. Ancient Greece lasted about 200 years before falling apart.

The United States of America is approaching 250 years of existence, a bit longer than Greece, but showing signs of its dissolution, as well.

It is the tendency of some of those in our government these days, elected representatives and hired bureaucrats, to strive for greater and greater levels of control over the citizens, the people who pay their salaries, and entrust them with their freedoms. Only the comparatively few actual small-d “democrats,” who are determined to maintain the high level of personal freedom of the people and the low level of government control provided by our Constitution, avoid striving to increase control.

If we were to be visited by some of the founders and first presidents today, they would be aghast at what has been done to their marvelous creation. Their brilliant work does not appeal to many of those inside and outside of government, who either are not capable of understanding the greatness of our Constitution, or whose desires for power cause them to move away from our democratic republic and toward a monarchy or dictatorship. Away from capitalism and toward socialism.

How many of the founders ever considered having a Department of Education that would attempt to control what our children are presented in government schools that is outside of accepted curricula; or an Environmental Protection Agency that would tell property owners what they may do with mud puddles on their property.

Would they have imagined a Department of Homeland Security that would not secure our borders, or a Department of Justice that would label parents who attend school board meetings to complain about what is happening in their children’s schools — which are supported with the parents’ taxes — as domestic terrorists?

Of course, the founders could not imagine the way technology would evolve, and the tools we would have at our disposal. Which is why their policies are broadly designed to apply to whatever the future delivers, without the need to apply specifically to each and every new thing.

We have freedom of speech and expression — whether in public, online, or anywhere else — so long as that speech is not obviously dangerous. We don’t need self-important platform media tycoons imposing their political beliefs on us.

Former President Barack Obama must at least be given kudos for one thing: his honesty when he said, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

This transformation is continuing under President Joe Biden, whose party is determined to “progress” America from the most free and successful governmental form in history.

Forbes magazine asks: “Why have socialist ideas become so attractive again, despite the fact that, without exception, every socialist experiment over the past 100 years has ended in dismal failure?”

Good question.

Does the United States really want or need a cashless currency?

June 20, 2023

Forbes Advisor reported earlier this month that the federal government is exploring creating a digital currency for the country, a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has promoted the idea by saying that digital dollars could help lower transaction costs and support faster payments in the country.

The Club for Growth referenced a recent poll by the Cato Institute that said that only 28% of Americans were aware of CBDCs, or the digital currency idea.

“The U.S. is a latecomer to the CBDC party,” Forbes reported. “China’s digital yuan pilot program is being used to pay salaries today, while the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar is legal tender in the Caribbean nation. Australia, Thailand, Brazil, India, South Korea and Russia are running or preparing to launch CBDC projects.”

Last year, Reuters reported that the Federal Reserve of New York announced that big banks and the New York Fed are testing digital dollars in a 12-week pilot program. Some of those participating are: Citigroup, HSBC, Mastercard, and Wells Fargo.

Forbes explained how digital currency would work: “In nearly every country, the vast majority of money is held in the form of electronic bank records. People can withdraw money from such computerized accounts as physical cash. What differentiates a digital currency is that it only exists as an electronic record, unavailable as coins or banknotes.”

The advantages are being trumpeted. CBDCs are quick and easy. Digital dollars give us a cashless society, and you have no loose change lying around or bills in your wallet. 

However, while Yellen and others might like this idea, not everyone thinks digital money is great. Some think that CBDCs give the government too much control over how people spend their money, like what kinds of things they are buying, and from whom.

The government could exercise total control over our lives by controlling our money. And, ultimately, close our bank accounts whenever and for what ever reason it wants to. No doubt that last part will be denied. But the option will still exist.

An example of this occurred in Canada. During the pandemic Canadian truckers were told to be double vaccinated or they couldn’t work. Those that didn’t comply found the government had closed their bank accounts.

The Forbes article dealt with things that worry opponents of digital currency. One concern is the potential for the power of central banks to increase, particularly on such things as credit allocation. They could also restrict savings and spending, implement negative interest rates, and establish automatic tax collection.

And, it would allow government to keep an eye on our financial transactions, and control who has access to the currency. On that note, any American who uses a debit card can already have their payments tracked, said Adam Jordan, director of investments for Paul R. Ried Financial Group. “The concern about privacy is a real one, but only if a government went so far as to try to eliminate physical currencies,” he said. “The government already has the ability to track all our digital electronic payments.”

And, Forbes reported that the Biden administration has said if the U.S. goes with a CBDC, it should “expand equitable access to the financial system, preserve the role of physical cash, and only collect data that is strictly necessary.” Well, it sounds good.

More than 100 countries are looking at using CBDCs, and Forbes said that they represent more than 95 percent of global GDP. The Bahamas issued the Sand Dollar in 2020. DCash was rolled out in the Eastern Caribbean in late 2020. Nigeria followed about a year later, becoming the first African country to implement a CBDC, called the eNaira. And, China has been involved with digital currency since 2020. The article added that some U.S. central banks already have versions of digital currencies.

“The digital dollar is one of the greatest threats to your financial freedom and privacy,” the Club for Growth said. “It gives the government complete control over your bank account. And that power, especially in the wrong hands, will be a nightmare for the American people.”

The Club then cited examples of how the information the government has could be used against us. If you use to much carbon in a month, your transactions might be limited. Or, if you voice the wrong political opinion, your bank account could be frozen. Support your favorite charity, and if it’s not on the approved list, your credit access could be denied.

Our government already exercises an enormous degree of control over us. Much of this control is the product of bureaucracy, which creates rules that serve the bureaucracy’s desires for power, but have not been approved by Congress. And Congress has allowed this to continue. These rules really serve to restrict much of the freedoms that we once had.

Our nation was established on the concept of federalism, which has a federal government, but leaves much power in the hands of the states. That system is being euthanized, little by little. Implementing a system of digital currency controlled by the federal government has great negative potential. That system will need strong safeguards. Maybe we should just leave things as they are.

Fueling America: U.S. not capable of being battery powered

June 13, 2023

The U.S. government has many policies, rules and other things in place that work against people’s interests. In the haste to do away with fossil fuel use, we have made it more difficult to acquire coal, oil and natural gas, things that people need. And even when we have those fuels, it has been made more difficult and more expensive to transport them. Pipeline transport is much more economical than transporting oil and natural gas by truck and train. But President Joe Biden’s halting of the Keystone XL Pipeline interfered with that.

Even Biden knows that we can’t do without fossil fuels. As he said during the State of the Union address last February, “We’re going to need oil for at least another decade.” The Congressional audience erupted in laughter, and he corrected himself, adding, “And beyond that, we’re going to need it.” 

Because of Biden’s actions the U.S.  now has to buy oil from other countries, usually dirtier and more polluting than our oil, which is the cleanest in the world. 

In 2021, the Energy Information Administration reported that about 51 percent of the world’s oil comes from five countries. The U.S. led the group, producing 14.5 percent of the 51 percent, followed by Russia at 13.1 percent, Saudi Arabia at 12.1 percent, and Canada and Iraq that together total about 11 percent.

In 2022 U.S. oil production was below the 2019 record levels. That may reflect a trend in domestic oil production.

The terribly optimistic idea of an electric vehicle replacement of vehicles that burn gasoline and diesel fuel any time in the next three decades or so is a pipe dream. 

The vehicles in use in the U.S. are mostly made here, and they use fuels we can make here. But the desire is to replace them with vehicles that use batteries, and a great deal of the materials to make the batteries come from other countries.

As reported by U.S. News, most electric cars use lithium-ion batteries. “These types of batteries require several chemical components, including lithium, manganese, cobalt, graphite, steel and nickel, and they require a lot of these materials. By a lot, we mean about 17 pounds of lithium carbonate, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds of cobalt and a whopping 77 pounds of nickel!”

Here's where some of the components for batteries come from. According to SAE International, 100 percent of natural graphite comes from China, Mexico, Canada and India; 37 percent of copper comes from Chile, Canada and Mexico; 50 percent of nickel comes from Canada, Norway, Finland, and Russia; 100 percent of Manganese comes from Gabon, South Africa, Australia and Georgia; 50 percent of lithium comes from Argentina, Chile, China and Russia; 100 percent of rare earths come from China, Estonia, Japan and Malaysia; and 83 percent of zinc comes from Canada, Mexico, Peru and Spain. 

We are dependent on other countries for much of these components.

U.S. mining of basically anything useful as a fuel or in making materials for electric vehicles, like nickel, copper and cobalt, is blocked or made more difficult by government rules. And we buy lots of these materials, and other things, from China, our greatest adversary.

So, while we will need fossil fuels for a long time, and while the materials for making EV batteries largely come from other countries, the climate change faction still preaches our destruction if we don’t change how we do many things.

Not everyone agrees with that unavoidable catastrophe being the future of the world if we don’t stop using fossil fuels.

One of those people is an early member and former president of Greenpeace. Formed in Canada in 1971, Greenpeace exists “to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future,” according to its website.

A former president of Greenpeace, Dr. Patrick Moore, served as Greenpeace Canada President for nine years and as a Director of Greenpeace International for six years. Among his many credits, Moore has a Ph.D. in Ecology from the Institute of Resource Ecology at the University of British Columbia.

He is no longer affiliated with Greenpeace, and his current position on Earth’s environment is at odds with the organization, and that has earned him its harsh criticism.

Speaking on a video from 2015, Moore said the following: “There is no definitive scientific proof … that carbon dioxide is responsible for any of the slight warming of the global climate that has occurred during the last 300 years.

“But there is a certainty beyond a reasonable doubt that CO2 is the building block for all life on Earth, and that without its presence in the global atmosphere … this would be a dead planet.”

Moore is not the only scientist who disbelieves the idea that CO2 will someday destroy humanity. And the accuracy of previous predictions of environmental catastrophe is stunningly poor. 

Not burning fossil fuels is certainly a worthy goal. And it is a goal that will eventually be reached as the natural development of alternative energy proceeds.

These manic efforts to force these not-yet-capable energy sources into use is expensive, and works against the needs and desires of the people.

Two arguments made against DeSantis are incorrect

June 6, 2023

The 2024 Presidential Election is still 17 months away, and campaigning for the nominations is already heating up. The Republican list is growing, featuring these declared candidates and others likely to declare: Former President Donald Trump, former United Nations Ambassador and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and political commentator Larry Elder.

Democrats, on the other hand, have only three interested parties, so far: President Joe Biden, environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., lecturer and author and 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.

Biden and Trump lead their respective parties at this point, and only one other Republican candidate, DeSantis, has seen much support. That has Trump firing shots across the bow, starting as DeSantis was traveling the country before he declared himself officially a candidate.

Trump, whose aggressive nature has cost him votes in the past, is focusing on DeSantis because he’s the only threat at this point. Trump has noted recently that you have to go after number two, and he is doing just that.

In addition to his penchant for name-calling, Trump has criticized Ron “DeSanctimonious” on two things recently. On both counts there is a problem with the criticism.

A political ad produced by Make America Great Again, Inc., has the narrator saying “We Can’t Afford Ron DeSalesTax,” with the tune of “Old MacDonald Had A Farm” in the background. It accuses DeSantis of having voted to raise taxes when he supported a 23 percent sales tax measure while serving in the House of Representatives a few years back.

That is true, as far as that brief statement goes. In fact, DeSantis co-sponsored the Fair Tax Act in 2013, 2015, and 2017. However, there is a good bit more important information about the Act than the Trump ad tells us.

In addition to a sales tax with a high rate, the Act would replace federal income, estate, payroll and gift taxes. So instead of paying a tax on every dollar you earn and those other categories, you pay only on things you buy that are subject to the tax. That is very different than simply voting for a 23 percent sales tax, on top of the others, as the ad implies.

"In Congress, the governor supported the concept of a Fair Tax, a plan to lower the overall tax burden on an individual by replacing all federal taxes — including income tax — with a lower tax. The plan also sought to end the IRS which, at the time, was being weaponized by the Obama administration. To describe only part of the plan in an attack is dishonest," said Bryan Griffin, the DeSantis political team press secretary.

DeSantis is still a critic of the IRS, saying it has become "a corrupt organization" and would "chuck it out the window" for a single-rate taxation system. He said that he has supported all of the single-rate proposals, and believes a fair tax or a flat tax system replacing the current system would be a big step forward, and something more favorable to average folks.

The second thing Trump misrepresented is DeSantis talking about two terms in the White House. “I’ve been watching ‘DeSanctus’ go out and say ‘I’ve got eight years. It’s going to be eight years,'” Trump said. “If he’s saying it’s going to take eight years for things to change, then you don’t want him as your president,” he added. “I can turn quickly. Reduce inflation, lower interest rates and heal the economy. This will take six months,” he said in a radio interview.

But DeSantis was not saying it would take him eight years just to do those things. He was saying that he could hold the presidency for eight years, as opposed to only four years that Trump could serve. That would give his policies more time to mature and become the new normal. DeSantis’ point was quite different than what Trump implied.

DeSantis’ idea for a new tax system based on the new sales tax and eliminating the IRS, would simplify the tax situation, reduce the taxes paid by millions of Americans, reduce the federal budget and help the government live within its means, and also reduce the heavy hand that government agencies often wield over those they serve. And a system with a fair tax or flat tax would also provide benefits to taxpayers.

It seems likely that Trump would also like the ideas DeSantis has for taxation. He did, after all, cut taxes substantially while he was President.

Trump and DeSantis will likely be going at each other throughout the campaign. Hopefully, the focus will become what each candidate is for, rather than what and who they are against. 

Annual budget deficits must end, and the debt must be reduced

May 30, 2023

The National Debt is a monstrous cloud hanging over the United States. It is money owed that is not being repaid, but growing each year.

As of May 25, the National Debt stood at $31,800,000,000,000 ($31.8 trillion). That is a number so huge that it is difficult to understand.

The U.S. Census Bureau tells us that as of July 1, 2022 there were 333,287,557 U.S. citizens. That means that for each citizen — man, woman and child — there is about $94.00 of debt, and about $430.00 per person 18 years-old and older.

Having a National Debt is not new. Its history is a fascinating thing to study.

There was a National Debt when President George Washington, took office in 1789. It was slightly more than $71 million. And, it increased by 11 million during his term that ended in 1797. 

Most of our presidents have seen the Debt increase during their terms in office, although 12 had a decrease in the Debt when they left office: Thomas Jefferson in 1809; James Monroe in 1825; John Adams in 1829; Andrew Jackson in 1837; Millard Fillmore in 1853; Franklin Pierce in 1857; Andrew Johnson in 1869; Ulysses S. Grant in 1877; Rutherford B Hayes in 1881; Chester Arthur in 1885; Grover Cleveland in 1889; Benjamin Harrison in 1893; Warren Harding in 1923; and Calvin Coolidge in 1929. 

Two presidents saw no change. James Garfield was assassinated during his first term after only 200 days in office. And after only 31 days in office, William Henry Harrison died.

It has been more than 90 years since the Debt was lowered under Coolidge. The reduction was $5.4 trillion for a total Debt of $16.9 trillion, slightly more than half of today’s Debt.

Since then, every president — 16 of them — has seen an increase during their time in office.

While things that a president does can affect the Debt, sometimes things beyond his control cause an increase. Factors like wars, recessions and national crises can affect the Debt. A recent crisis was the Covid pandemic. Another was the 9-11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that led to spending that was not planned.

Also, because the U.S. fiscal year begins in October and ends the following September, and presidents take office on January 21, during most of a president’s first year in office, he is at the mercy of his predecessor’s budget.

The Debt Ceiling is the limit on borrowing that can be done, and Congress has control of it. It is part of a law (Title 31 USC, section 3101) that sets a legislative limit on the amount of national debt that can be incurred by the U.S. Treasury. 

When the debt ceiling is reached, as it often is, these days, the President and Congress must work toward an agreement on raising it. If they succeed, the government can borrow more money to meet its obligations. If not, a government shutdown occurs until an agreement is reached. The latter option is not really a viable one.

For the last nine decades the National Debt has continued to rise.  The smallest increases since Coolidge’s lowering of the Debt in 1929 are from three consecutive presidents who served from 1981 to 2001: Ronald Reagan at $1.86 trillion; George H.W. Bush at $1.55 trillion; and Bill Clinton at $1.4 trillion.

Since Clinton’s tenure, the next three presidents have seen larger increases: George W. Bush at $6.1 trillion; Barack Obama at $8.3 trillion, and Donald Trump at $8.2 trillion. Joseph Biden has seen the Debt increase by $2.5 trillion in his two-plus years in office.

In December of 2022, interest on the National Debt — which at that time was $31.4 trillion — was $210 billion, roughly 15 percent of total government spending for the year, according to Visual Capitalist online.

“The current revenue of the federal government is approximately $4.6 trillion while spending exceeds $6.0 trillion,” Forbes online reported in April. “Thus, the current budget deficit is over $1.4 trillion. It’s clear that members of Congress are spending like drunken sailors and like the Titanic, the U.S. is on a collision course with a financial iceberg.” 

The article goes on to say that high interest rates make this situation worse for the government to meet its financial obligations. Meanwhile, politicians seeking reelection prefer to keep spending.

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed a measure to raise the Debt Ceiling, but also to make significant spending cuts. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, and President Joe Biden have been meeting trying to reach an agreement.

Hopefully, by the time this column is published, an agreement will have been reached.

At some point, elected members of Congress and the President of the United States must recognize that this unconscionable spending must stop, and the country must trim down, and develop a budget that pays current obligations and begins to pay down this humongous debt.

Our country was designed to be small, efficient, and non-intrusive. A government that protects the freedoms of its people, would not intrude on their good lives, and would not grow into the gargantuan monstrosity it has become. That is what the government needs to again become.