Month: November 2021

For someone way past middle age, I have the advantage, as an adult, of perspective when it comes to comparing the overall performance of the last twelve presidents, JFK through Biden.  I cannot recall anything as egregious, nonsensical, misleading, premeditated and unlawful(??) as what is happening since 20 January, 2021 on our southern border.   

National security begins with border security.  National security is enhanced by laws, policy, intent, and border security forces that are equal to the task.  National security, and by extension, the safety of Americans is every president’s number one priority; or at least it has been until now.

President Trump campaigned on bringing order to the southern border.  Through tireless efforts, doing battle with the Congress and the courts, he accomplished what he promised he would do.

On day-one President Biden opened the border with a dramatic statement by freezing all funds for border wall construction and terminating Trump’s national emergency declaration along the border.  During the first four months in office, that decision accomplished two things; it cost taxpayers about $2 billion dollars and, most importantly, it sent a signal that the border is open.

For months, we have watched daily videos of illegal immigrant masses crossing the Rio Grande River, being met by Border Control agents, processed and transported to holding areas.  To add insult to injury, all the while President Biden and his disciples are telling the American people, “The border is closed.”  It goes beyond misrepresentation; it is an outright lie and everyone knows it is a lie.  

But the numbers don’t lie.  FY 21 ended with 1,734,686 illegal immigrant encounters, the highest total ever recorded in one year. Additionally, 21% were aliens who had been encountered before.  Why not try again, this time the border is “open.”

If that is not bad enough, it is the other number that is exponentially more serious; that is, Border Patrol leaders estimate that perhaps hundreds of thousands entered and were not apprehended. Because the Border Patrol agents are routinely overwhelmed with masses of families and unaccompanied children voluntarily reporting to agents at regularly used crossing areas, literally hundreds of miles of border are not patrolled at all.  In those areas the illegals entering are the criminals, MS13 gang members, terrorists and drug and human traffickers. They are a direct threat to our national security and safety of U.S. citizens.

The president and all of his border administrators understand all of this yet continue to insult our intelligence by insisting the situation is not a crisis and the border is not open.

But the situation gets worse by the day.  We are battling a pandemic.  An estimated 20-25% of the aliens are ill when they arrive which for many means Covid positive.  Now it gets worse.  Where are those 1.7 million that we know about?  They have been relocated around the country on busses and planes.  These people have not been tested or vaccinated for Covid.  It is likely that many of those buses and planes were hauling a Covid super-spreader.  Is anyone getting a sense of the hypocrisy relative to Biden’s Covid policies that are being pressed on citizens? 

While vigorously supported by his Executive Branch principals and congressional Democrat leaders, why is our president allowing open borders?  He and his minions refuse to answer that question and seem to believe we are all too stupid to figure it out. The reason is simple, votes; tens of millions of potential democrat voters.  The second chapter to this insanity is currently contained in the Build Back Better legislation which contains a provision for amnesty for at least 7 million illegals.  And of course, we all know that if that becomes reality it will establish a powerful precedent for follow-on amnesty programs. 

Back to the title, IS PRESIDENT BIDEN GUILTY OF AIDING AND ABETTING?  Noun: The act of helping, encouraging, or supporting someone in the commission of a crime.  Verb: To actively encourage, to assist, or to support the commission of a criminal act.  Seems pretty clear to me since every illegal immigrant is guilty of committing a federal offense.

Let’s take the allegations of aiding and abetting a step further with this question; IS THE PRESIDENT ALSO GUILTY OF VIOLATING HIS OATH OF OFFICE?

The presidential-mandated oath of office is found in Article II of the Constitution. It contains 35 words and begins as follows: “I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…” That first sentence, in and of itself, is a commitment to all Americans that the president will take all necessary steps to keep foreign enemies out of our country. 

We know, from data released by the Border Patrol, that they continue to apprehend illegals who are on our Terrorist Watch List.  That list has existed since the attack on the United States, September 11, 2001, as we have been actively engaged in a global war on terrorism to keep our county safe.   So, when President Biden willfully opens the borders and takes proactive steps to remove actions that were in place to inhibit illegal entry, isn’t he in violation of his oath of office to, “defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic?”  Based on recent history, isn’t it crystal clear that if President Trump had perpetrated this dastardly charade he would have been impeached, convicted and be gone in his first six months?

Unintended consequences that the President and Vice President avoid talking about:

• Too many of these aliens are not here for the “American dream”, they are here to partake of the American welfare system and it’s costing the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars for decades to come. 

• Drugs of all kinds are pouring across the border in tonnages never before experienced. For example, two pounds of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people; 130 pounds could kill everyone in the United States. By April, 2021 after Biden opened the border, 6,494 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the border, a 233% increase from the same period in 2020. The question is, how many tons of drugs came in undetected? Is anyone surprised that drug overdose deaths in America in 2021 topped 100,000 for the first time? Anyone in the Biden administration being held accountable?

• How do Americans feel about what is happening every day on our southern border?  Polling data tells us that only 25% of Americans approve of Bidens border policies; translation, tens of millions of democrats and independents join with republicans in disapproval. What we heard on 20 January is that, “I will be there for all the people”, not just 25%.  The reality is to the contrary.

• Parole Authority, a form of legal status given to illegal immigrants as they enter the U.S., provides them the ability to apply for work permits. Federal law says parole authority is to be used on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian purposes” and “significant public benefit.” A recently retired head of the Border Patrol said he would normally provide 5 or 10 parole authority documents per year.  The Biden administration is issuing them by the tens of thousands. Urgent purposes? Are they breaking another federal law?

• The Cartel is one of the biggest crime organizations in the world. The cartel is one of the biggest drug manufactures in the world.  Cartels control the border. They determine who, what, when, where and how much it will cost to cross the border.  Costs range from $1300 to $10,000 depending on the migrants’ nationality. Illegal immigration has become a major revenue stream for the cartels. Have you heard President Biden address this cartel issue?  Neither have I.  It is just another item in his too-hard box.

• There is one more important but unintended consequence of this whole border mess. We now have confirmation that Vice President Harris is pretty much a zero when it comes to planning, commitment, leadership, honesty and communications and that President Biden appears to be OK with that outcome.   We should be worried about what that portends for the future of this administration and our country

How can this administration get away with all of these lies, the deceit and deception? One answer has to do with the fourth estate. The term “fourth estate” is often attributed to British politician Edmund Burke who observed, “There were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than them all.”

In the United States, the term fourth estate has been used to place the press alongside the three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial.  The fourth estate refers to the watchdog role of the press, one that is important to a functioning democracy.

Watchdog, a proper graphic term. Unfortunately, its importance to the proper functioning of our democracy has diminished to the point that it is now, performing a divisive disservice to the every-day functioning of our government.

The journalists in the U.S. are not stupid, blind or unaware of what is happening on our southern border.  But their leaders in the main-stream media, for the most part, have become so politicized they have completely lost the capability to perform the once-vaunted fourth estate role.  Honesty, integrity, just doing the right thing are gone from reporting.  We the people are being lied to and misinformed on a daily basis.

 But the most insidious power the media has is the power to ignore.  And that is what is happening today with respect to the illegal immigration problems. With the exception of a few news papers and TV news sources, the main-street media goes out of its way every day to provide cover for the Biden administration, across the board democrat leadership and the democrat/liberal establishment.

But the problem goes much deeper.  With the media providing cover for bad decisions, bad policy and lackluster leadership, the administration, the Congress, the bureaucracy feels safe operating with accountability.  Without accountability an organization and all it/they control will begin to lose its foundation, its honesty, its integrity, its vitality and spirit. Morale goes down the crapper. 

Conclusions:

• President Biden is culpable for what is happening and what is not happening at the border.
• For the Biden/Harris administration to not recognize the humanitarian crisis that has existed during his months in office is reprehensible; the rape, crime, unsanitary conditions and suffering during the long journey. Consider the trauma associated with an estimated 180,000 unaccompanied children, many of them found alone and only 5 or 6 years old.  Where is the compassion?  This is not who we are as a compassionate and benevolent nation. 
• In our daily lives we are rarely able to have all we want, when we want it and that leads to prioritization. With respect to the illegal immigration issue, the Biden administration has prioritized and placed  an atmosphere of control over what is best for we the people and our great nation.  They are not stupid and during quiet, reflective moments most of them perhaps see and understand that they are not right, not supporting us, not properly providing for our security. But they are driven by a philosophic underpinning of control and power at any cost.  Control the people, control the government, control future power.
• At least for the present, President Biden will not be held accountable for aiding and abetting criminal activity on our southern border or for violating his oath of office.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.

Many today look at the too-far-left democrat party and declare that they are trying to create a socialist state.  With the exception of Bernie Sanders, I do not necessarily believe the Biden administration set out to create a socialist America.  Having said that we need to take a deep breath and look at the current direction of the U.S. Are we headed for socialism?

First, we can look at the short-hand version….Eight Steps to Socialism.  This list is commonly attributed to Saul Alinsky; however, this particular list did not appear in either of his two books. Whomever actually wrote it, it is a pretty scary list.

Saul Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community activist and political theorist. Alinsky synthesized his theory of political agitation is his famous 1971 book, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. His book is considered a founding text of modern community organizing and a classic of radical-leftist agitation-propaganda theory. Barack Obama received a comprehensive course in Saul Alinsky during his years as a community organizer in Chicago, an experience Obama recalled as “The best education he ever had.”

The Alinsky equation is summarized in his famous Rule # 13: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Can this happen in our great country? Consider the Obama/Biden rhetoric about wealthy Americans (although they both are in that category); make the rich a target and scapegoat for all of our ills, divide and conquer, demonize some to extract power for others.

Obama and Biden have both told us, countless times, that their intent is to “transform America.” The Alinsky model is certainly transformative.  BTW another prominent Democrat, Hillary Clinton, has also often been linked with Alinsky because she wrote her senior thesis entitled “An Analysis of the Alinsky Model” while she was a student at Wellesley College in 1969. Anyone surprised?

Here are the Eight Steps to Socialism, read them and draw your own conclusions about the Obama/Biden transformation:

1)Healthcare– Control healthcare and you control the people.
2) Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
4) Gun Control– Remove the ability to defend themselves from the government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect of their lives (food, housing, and income).
6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school.
7) Religion – Remove the belief in the God from the government and schools
8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to tax the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Does any of this sound like what is happening to the United States? Whomever actually wrote the 8 steeps, merely simplified Vladimir Lenin’s original scheme for world conquest by communism. Joseph Stalin described his Russian converts as “Useful Idiots.” Is that what we are becoming?

Back to the title of this piece, WHERE IS AMERICA HEADED AS OF NOVEMBER, 2021?  At its core socialism is about economics. To accomplish those eight steps a number of economic factors and action should be considered. 

MASSIVE GOVERNMENT SPENDING, what are the consequences (I will continue to emphasize this word)? Spending, in and of itself, is not always bad, for example massive government spending for the “New Deal” in the 1930s was unprecedented and served a specific purpose to solve a specific problem, that problem being the Great Depression with its 25% unemployment. The goal was, “relief, recovery and reform.”

 The New Deal spending was designed to put millions back to work and the work was to produce the likes of dams, national parks, infrastructure.  For example, the Civilian Conservation Corps hired 4 million workers over nine years to conserve public lands, plant forests, build dams and maintained roads and trails.  The Works Progress Administration put 8.5 million people to work.  When a project was completed, the spending stopped.  Each project provided a positive for every American.

Consequences?  New Deal spending along with the onset of World War II rapidly took the U.S. out of the depression and transformed America into an energetic, confident, prosperous and envied world leader.

Contrast the positive and lasting impact of the New Deal with the potential consequences of massive spending today:

• It will continue to increase the size of an already massive federal government bureaucracy.  
• Much of the new massive spending is for new entitlements which will continue to grow, the funding for which will never end and will never be scaled back.
• Entitlements lead to unprecedented government control over the daily lives of every American, cradle to grave.
• With size and control, comes government regulations and the resulting negative impact on entrepreneurial spirit and economic growth.
• Massive federal regulation and control leads to reduced states’ rights.
• And most importantly today’s massive spending is a stake in the heart of perhaps the most important 55 words ever written:  Thomas Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  Today’s massive federal government spending powers are certainly not based on “consent of the governed” but we the people are on the hook to pay for every cent of this spending

INCREASED TAX BURDENS are the consequences of massive government spending. Corporate taxes, wealth taxes, death taxes, increased individual income taxes on the wealthy, taxes on capital gains and perhaps taxes on unrealized capital gains.  All of these taxes targeting the wealthy to pay their (yet to be defined by Biden) “fail share.”  Consequences of massive tax increases are reduced capital investment (the life-blood of capitalism), disincentivization to expand and grow, reduced entrepreneurial spirit and the rich moving their wealth out of the U.S. Yes, the rich can leave; France thought it was a great idea to soak the rich with high taxes and, in 2016 alone, over 12,000 millionaires departed their homeland. France has been forced to back off on their taxing-the-rich policies. 

The bottom-line consequences of overtaxing the rich are REDUCED GROWTH LEADING TO ECONOMIC STAGNATION. Over the last 20 years, the European Union, which featured socialist and semi-socialist states, had almost zero economic growth.  

DEBT and the consequences therein. A highly reliable measure of a nation’s economic wellness is to look at the ratio of debt compared to its productivity. When Obama took office, January 2009 the U.S. ratio of debt to GDP was about 77%, considered reasonable and far below other industrial nations.  Today, after a decade-plus of deficit spending our debt to GDP ratio is about 127%. When over 100% it speaks volumes about our ability or inability to repay the debt.  Consequences?  Additionally, a 2013 study by the World Bank found that if the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 77% for an extended period, it slows economic growth.

INCREASING THE MONEY SUPPLY consequences:  Massive spending leads us down the path to artificially increasing the nation’s money supply, aka “printing money.”  In 2020, the money supply was increased by almost $4 trillion, by far the largest annual expansion in U.S. history. Consequences: increasing the money supply beyond the needs of economic growth leads to inflation and in many countries, it has led to hyperinflation. Venezuela’s inflation, for example, has risen by over 1 million per cent.  But, you say, that can’t happen here.  It already has. During the Civil war, the Confederacy of southern states found itself short of finances (it could only raise 46% of the cost of war from taxes and bonds) so it increased the printing of money to pay for materials and soldiers. However, with economic output falling, this caused inflation of 700% in the first two years of war and reaching a peak of over 5000% by 1865.

CONCLUSIONS:  The above economic factors, massive spending, massive tax increases, out-of-control national debt and printing trillions of dollars are not necessarily sequential actions and activities; they sometimes overlap and feed off each other’s momentum.  But at some point, there is enough confluence of these economic factors that the totality becomes overwhelming, uncontrollable and perhaps irreversible.  That is what the Congressional Budget Office keeps telling us when they conclude that the massive government spending, entitlements and debt are “unstainable.”

What has happened in just the past ten months has caused alarm bell to ring loud and clear.  More and more of us are asking what is going on, where are we headed, what will our country be like in the next few years?  Optimism is waning. Our feel-good spirit is being crushed. Is the “American dream” no longer a possibility? This is not a good place for a country to be.

It is as though President Biden climbed to the top of a very large snow-covered hill on 20 January, made a big round snow ball and tossed it down the hill. We watch it roll and grow in size (government). We see it gaining weight (government control).  Half way down the hill it becomes obvious that it is becoming an uncontrollable mass (thousands of pages of multi-trillion-dollar legislation that no one has read) that may have the potential to be a destructive force to all classes of Americans.   That is, a disincentivized wealthy class as government takes an ever-increasing percent of their wealth to the point that there is no more to take. Destruction of the middle class as the need for more and more taxes negatively impacts their well-being and kills their entrepreneurial spirit.  At the lower end of the spectrum are the masses that will have lived every phase of their life with a government handout; child care, rent, housing, heating, cell phone, food, paid time off, unemployment compensation, medical, education, social security.  Cradle to grave generational dependence and none of it requires recipients to get a job.

Surely socialism cannot happen to America.  But, what if…..

• What if we cannot stop printing money? 
• What if we cannot control today’s inflation and it begins increasing by factors of tens or hundreds (as it has in so many countries in recent history)?
• What if we do nothing about deficit spending and national debt ($28 trillion now) that is increasing at a rate of $45.5 per second!!?
• What if interest rates go to 6% and the interest on our debt consumes so much of the budget that we cannot provide for an adequately sized, trained and ready military force for national security?
• What if all of the above leads our enemies to conclude that we have reached the point of no return and are vulnerable to multiple attacks by various means?
• What if social security goes broke (currently scheduled to be insolvent by 2033)?
• What if Medicare goes broke (currently scheduled to be insolvent by 2026)?
• What happens if the government checks stop coming to the masses who have become government dependent?
• What if the wealthy find a way to hide their wealth or find a new place to live (as previously mentioned, in 2016 France lost over 12,000 millionaires because of the exorbitant wealth tax)?
• What if our borders remain unsecure and the world’s masses become ours to feed, cloth, house, educate, and care for?
• What if Medicare-for-all becomes reality with an estimated yearly cost $3.2 trillion?
• Etc.

This is not just my personal what-if list, this has become the concern of millions of Americans, especially our middle class, the greatest middle class in world history.  What is happening before our eyes could cause our middle class to become nonexistent. 

The United States is not, currently, a socialist nation. Our economic vitality remains generally decentralized which is a necessity for a stable republic.  But as the power of government grows our rights correspondingly diminish and ultimately socialism is maintained by force.

History, of course, is not a pre-determined straight line. Wise leaders have steered civilizations away from bad decisions. Are we blessed with a wise leader today? Just take a quick look back 10 months and you draw your own conclusions.

On 20 January, 2021 the nation listened to President Biden’s impassioned inauguration speech about being a leader for all Americans and that the centerpiece of his administration would be to bring unity to America.  The immediate reviews of the speech by all media and most politicians were glowing accolades. But before the ink was dry on praise for his words, he was busy at his desk, also on 20 January, signing the first of 40 executive orders he would issue in his first two weeks in office. 

For the most part those executive orders were specifically designed to counter Trump initiatives, policies, and accomplishments.  Remember, in November, 2020, 73.6 million Americans voted for Trump and that total was 7 million more than any sitting president in history had received. My sense is that a significant portion of the 73.6 million votes were not cast because they liked his tweets, personality or leadership style; they voted for Trump because of the numerous policies he put in place that positively impacted all Americans.  How did Biden’s knee-jerk actions in the first 48 hours contribute to his “unity” promise?  Within 48 hours our country had transitioned from a Trump-promises-made, promises-kept administration to a promises-made, promises-go-to-hell Biden intent. That’s authoritarianism in a nut shell.  That’s power and control personified. That’s a formula for tearing down this great country and it seems to be working out just as planned.  Do we have a leader we can believe in, who we can trust, who is looking out for the best interest of every American?

“The borders are closed.”

“We have gotten control of the border.”

“I have been to the border before; I know it well.”

“We will get all Americans out of Afghanistan.”

The Afghanistan evacuation was, “most extraordinary.”

“If you make less than $400,000 a year, you will not pay one more cent in taxes.”

“My Build Back Better agenda costs zero dollars.”

                                                            President Biden, 2021

CONSEQUENCES.  I took the liberty to highlight that word with underline throughout this missive.  Why?  What I have attempted to portray is the reality of our potential future. “Reality the quality or state of being actual or true.”  Reality is something we have to debate individually by relying on history, research and the wisdom of others. I leave you then with this thought.  Every day in his publications, Rip McIntosh, who I am proud to call my friend, leaves us with this important message…. “You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of reality.”  Ayn Rand

Think about the potential consequences of what is happening to our great nation, draw some conclusions and, if appropriate, speak out against the reality and the consequences.

Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, a columnist for THE PILOT, a national award-winning local newspaper in Southern Pines, NC and the author of a blog, WeThePeopleSpeaking.com