Author: admin

The hysteria over whether or not President Trump and his National Security Advisor, John Bolton may or may not have had a conversation about withholding weapons shipments to the Ukraine in return for an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s activities, has the hatemongers, mainstream media, democrats in general and the House impeachment managers (Shift and Nadler) absolutely apoplectic.    

The relevant question is, if the conversation between Bolton and Trump did take place is that a crime?  After all, isn’t the ongoing impeachment trial about whether or not President Trump committed a crime? Let’s cut to the bottom line, whether or not that conversation ever took place is, in fact, absolutely irrelevant and immaterial.

Let me illustrate the issues of conversations and plans with what may have been an actual foreign policy occurrence in the Trump White House.  September, 2017 the North Korean Foreign Minister, Ro Yong-ho, in an address before the United Nations, stated, “A North Korean missile strike against the US mainland is inevitable.”  What should the president have done about it, nothing?  Doing nothing would have been irresponsible simply because the president is constitutionally responsible for US foreign policy and, by extension, national security.

Here is what may have happened; at least we should all hope it did.  There would be an emergency meeting of the National Security Council principals, most notably the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Advisor.  Following that meeting they would huddle with the president and there would likely be a press release something like this:

“The National Security Council met today to discuss the reckless assertion by the North Korean Foreign Minister that a strike on the US is inevitable.  The Security Council spokesperson said that in considering a response to such a strike, everything is on the table.”

We have all learned over the years that “everything-is-on-the-table” is Washington speak for, the-entire-spectrum-of-options.  In this case on one end of the spectrum would be a nuclear strike, on the other end do nothing and courses of action in between. 

That is called contingency planning.  Contingency planning is simply the answer to the question, what if?  What if North Korea does make a preemptive strike on the US?  What every prudent leader does in such a case is to cause the options to be put into an actual set of contingency plans.  Why is that the responsible thing to do?  Because if North Korea does strike, we do not want to be caught flat-footed staring at a blank sheet of paper. 

In this scenario, the planning could even include prepositioning special weapons and delivery systems somewhere in the western Pacific region.

Contingency planning, that is what responsible leaders do. Just to finish this thought, let’s say that the conversations the president had in the Oval Office with Secretaries of State and Defense got leaked and the New York Times headline the following day is, US PLANS NUCLEAR STRIKE ON NORTH KOREA.  While the statement is technically correct, it is also completely out of context and extremely damaging to foreign relations.

In the current Washington environment, that type of headline is certainly not beyond the realm of possibilities.  The Trump haters, the mainstream media’s hate mongers, democrats and particularly the democrats in the House of Representative would all be in concert citing abuse of power by the president.  That is not an overstatement, because what is going on right now in the Senate is a perfect case in point. 

What the president talks about with his closest advisors in the Oval Office is not a crime nor is it abuse of power. 

Back to John Bolton.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that President Trump said to Bolton, “Hold up on the shipment of aid to Ukraine until I get an agreement that they will investigate Joe and Hunter Biden”.  Did the president actually hold the shipment until he got a commitment for an investigation?  Absolutely not.  Did he actually link the shipment and the investigation issues together in a conversation with Ukraine President Zalinski? Absolutely not.  Saying and doing are two entirely different actions.  Is saying it in the Oval Office a crime?  Of course not. 

What in the hell is this impeachment all about?  Where is the crime? Whatever the president and John Bolton talked about (the operative word is “talked”) is irrelevant, immaterial and every lawyer and reasonably-minded adult in the Senate chamber should know that. 

We should not forget to put the Ukraine situation in perspective.  Russia invaded Ukraine; Ukrainians were fighting for their lives and ask the US for help.  Obama sent $1 billion worth of MREs, other soft goods and VP Biden.  Ukraine is the most corrupt nation in Europe.  President Trump is actively working to curb the annual flow of tens of billions of dollars in “aid” to corrupt nations around the world.  Before sending nearly $400 million in additional aid to Ukraine it would be reasonable to assume that he had serious discussions with his senior advisors about Ukraine’s corruption. 

Bottom line, highly classified, sensitive, conversations do take place and must take place every day if the president is to properly do his job.  Labeling leaked conversations we do not agree with as abuse of power is absurd.

The larger issue:  What will future administrations be like if the President is fearful of having sensitive conversations with senior subordinates?  What will the state of our future national security be if we are fearful of performing necessary, detailed, highly classified contingency planning?  For those who see that outcome as acceptable, you can thank Nancy Pelosi.

 Where is the intellectual honesty in the Bolton hysteria in particular and in the overall impeachment monstrosity? 

Marv Covault, Lt Gen, US Army, retired

The US Constitution is arguably the most important, remarkable, document ever written. Those assembled to write it were brilliant visionaries.  Was it perfect, no; that’s why there are 27 amendments. 

The words in the Constitution were carefully chosen during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, May through September, 1787; presided over by George Washington.  But words, in and of themselves, cannot always convey precisely what the framers of the Constitution intended during their four months of deliberation.

For example, during the ensuing 230-plus years, the Supreme Court has frequently been called upon to render their interpretation of the framers’ intent.

Additionally, precedent has been a powerful factor in determining how the three branches of government operate.  While performing a significant action, if generally accepted, the government thereby sets an example (precedent) for how similar actions should be performed in the future.   This is also called establishing “norms”. 

Adhering to the words in the Constitution, judiciously determining intent and establishing precedent has served this nation well for over 200 years and the US Constitution remains the world’s greatest operational document.

Recently Nancy Pelosi has spoken out about the impeachment of President Trump as follows: 

“The House, she said, was about to cross a very important threshold in American history.”

She followed with, “When someone is impeached, they are always impeached. It cannot be erased.”

I agree 100% with those statements.  I also agree with her pronouncement last spring: “… Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country…….”.  Compelling? Overwhelming? Bipartisan? 

If one studies the literature associated with the Constitutional Convention, there was great discussion and debate as to how to word the impeachment clause so as to avoid a purely partisan act to take down a president.  The intent was clearly for the House of Representatives to identify, “…. Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” 

Pelosi cannot fall back on the expressed words or intent or precedent associated with the Constitution to back up her reckless actions. She has changed the course of this country, perhaps forever. 

How can I make that assertion?  Impeachment has now been redefined as something more akin to a no-confidence vote in the British Parliament and may well be used in the future by a House of Representative that is simply in disagreement with an opposing party president.

To illustrate, by the current standards of impeachment, once President Obama lost the House in 2011, he could have been impeached for Obstruction of Congress and Abuse of Power for the Fast and Furious scandal and for invoking “executive privilege” to justify administration officials’ refusal to testify to Congress.

Also, using a list compiled by the brilliant writer, Victor Davis Hanson, the new impeachment standard would have included:

• Political corruption at the IRS towards conservative groups during the Obama reelection bid.
•  The lies and obstruction about the Benghazi disaster.
• The hot-mic quid pro quo promise Obama made to Russian President Medvedev that resulted in the dismantlement of Eastern Europe missile defense in exchange for Putin’s good behavior to the benefit of Obama’s reelection campaign.
• The abuse of executive orders to nullify federal immigration law.
• The failure to consult Congress on the prisoner swap with the Taliban.
• The lying under oath to Congress by both the CIA director and the Director of National Intelligence.
• Secret monitoring of the communications of Associated Press reporters and Fox’s James Rosen, along with former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson.
• The deliberate nullification of the constitutional treaty-making prerogative of the Senate during the Iran deal, whose secret accords were never disclosed to the American people.
• The warping of the CIA, DOJ, FBI, and National Security Council respectively, in their unethical and often illegal efforts to mislead the FISA courts, surveil the Trump campaign, unmask and leak the names of U.S. citizens whose communications were tapped, and disrupt a presidential transition.

Before the Pelosi-led impeachment of President Trump, none of these offenses would have been impeachable. Now they all are and everything like them in the future will also be fair game.

The deep-seated and frenetic nature of the culture of hate that has consumed the democrats since the 2016 election of Donald Trump has blinded them to the unimaginable ramifications of taking down a president simply because they detest him.

And to think that by closing her eyes to the words of the Constitution, the intent of the framers and 200 years of precedent, one person alone, Speaker Pelosi, was, while guided by hate and ambition, able to completely orchestrate the impeachment.  And as she said, “It cannot be erased.”

Marv Covault

On January 3^rd we woke up to breaking news that the US had killed Gen Soleimani.  He commanded Iran’s most elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force and was in charge of virtually all Iran-sponsored foreign military terrorist operations, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq.

Retired U.S. General David Petraeus, who commanded American forces during the war in Iraq, once called Soleimani “our most significant and evil adversary in the greater Middle East.” 

The US has been engaged in a world war on terrorism since 9/11, 2001.  General Soleimani is the most senior terrorist leader in the world and therefore a valid target.

One’s initial reaction to the news of his death might simply be, oh my, now there will be a revenge attack on the US mainland and/or against military or civilians stationed overseas.  While that may be true, a simple knee-jerk reaction hardly explains the larger issue and justification for taking him out at this point in time.

To put the Soleimani incident in perspective, it may be helpful to go back in time and review Middle East policy in general and Iran in particular since 9/11 2001. 

President Bush’s policy/strategy in the Middle East post-9/11:  After building a justification for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration’s strategy evolved into one of nation building.  That is, if we can successfully establish two valid and enduring democracies, Iraq to a greater extent and Afghanistan to a lesser extent, they could be the catalyst to transform the Middle East.

Unfortunately, we discovered after trillions of dollars and many American lives, that the Middle East is not up to the task.  They are so deeply entrenched in authoritarian rule that they cannot conceive the concept of freedom as we know it. 

September 27, 2013:President Barack Obama calls Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, marking the highest-level contact between the U.S. and Iran since 1979.

What evolved from that was a strategy towards Iran of, for lack of a better word, appeasement.  That is, you be nice to us and we will be nice to you.  It was essentially a reset of US policy in the Middle East.  It was also blind to the Iranian goal of dominance in the Middle East.

What followed was two years of hard work by Obama, Biden and Secretary State Kerry at the negotiating table with Iran.  The Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was sealed July 2015. Part of the deal was to offer Tehran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to curb its nuclear program. The agreement was aimed at ensuring that “Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful.”

Meanwhile, throughout the two years of negotiations, on any given Friday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be viewed repeating his weekly message, “death to Americana and destruction of Israel”.

During negotiations, Obama/Biden/Kerry gave observers the impression that they would do anything to consummate the agreement.  When completed many believed it was not worth the paper it was written on and in fact it gave Iran the green light to continue their drive toward Middle East domination and development of nuclear weapons and long-range delivery missiles. 

Additionally, during the negotiations, President Obama orchestrated the return of $1.7 billion to Iran. During January 2016 an aircraft carrying $400 million cash in various currencies landed in Tehran. That money purportedly was partial payment of an outstanding claim by Iran for U.S. military equipment that was never delivered. Soon after, $1.3 billion followed.

To put this cash payment in context, Iran is the world’s largest state-sponsor of terrorism.  Since 9/11 one of the most important actions against terrorism has been to shut down their ability to use the services of international banking.  Cash has become the life-blood of terrorism.  There is a lot of American and innocent civilian blood on that cash.  A failed Obama strategy of appeasement. 

May 2018, President Trump pulled out of the nuclear agreement with Iran and since has strangled them with economic sanctions.  Interestingly, since the pullout, Iran admitted to advances in its nuclear weapon development. 

The Trump foreign policy/Middle East Strategy can be summed up as follows: “America First”; we will rebuild our economy and our military while imposing harshest possible economic sanctions against those who wish to do us harm.  We will avoid getting involved in large land wars around the world.  But, be advised, if you strike us, we will strike back and you will not like the results. 

On New Year’s Eve, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization in Iraq, attacked the US Embassy in Bagdad.  Dozens of terrorists breaching the compound, did so in support of Kataeb Hezbollah, which the State Department has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

General Soleimani had led Iran foreign policy towards the US through an 18-month lead-up to the US Embassy attack.  Following the Iranian rocket attack on Saudi oil fields and the shooting down of a US drone over international waters, the Trump administration demonstrated unusual restraint.  However, President Trump did issue a “red line in the sand” warning to Iran. 

Soleimani flew into Bagdad to become personally involved with the Kataeb Hezbollah terrorist operations, thereby crossing the red line and presented himself as a perfect target of opportunity.

The Trump doctrine does not seek a land war with Iran.  But three loud-and-clear messages have been sent to the Iranian leadership.  One, when we identify a “red line” we mean do not cross it.  The second is an implied message that the next air strike could take out your entire oil refining capability which is your last and only source of revenue.  Finally, the take-down of Soleimani says it all; we know where you are and you might be next. 

Marv Covault

Across urban America we have neighborhoods that are predominantly white or black and the local schools are therefore corresponding mostly white or black. Segregation supports racism and it is about time we fixed both.    

To understand segregation, we need to understand how it came about. The commander of Union forces in the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant was a champion of African Americans throughout the war. President Lincoln advocated for abolition of slavery and signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1^st, 1863.

During the final days of the Civil War, in 1865, Grant and Lincoln met frequently to discuss what “freedom” should mean for those enslaved. Their plan included the right to own property, to vote, hold office and have access to all schools, public transportation and commercial activities. 

Five days after Lee surrendered to Grant, President Lincoln was assassinated. The Lincoln/Grant vision for the freed slaves died with the President. 

During the post- war period, Lincoln’s replacement, Andrew Johnson, sided with the former Confederate states’ politicians to restrict equality for freed slaves.  This, and other factors, led to the rise of Ku Klux Klan racism, threatening the lives and livelihood of all freed slaves.

For 100 years following the Civil War segregation was  a principle pillar of the Democratic party platform. During presidential elections in the 1960s, Democratic candidate Governor George Wallace is best remembered for his segregationist views, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 officially ended the 100-years of segregation; sort of.  But, even in passage, only 7% of the Democrats in Congress from the former Confederate States voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act.

Stop for a moment and imagine where this country could be today if the Grant/Lincoln plan had been implemented in 1865 and the democrat party would not have had segregation as their centerpiece policy position for 100 years. 

Racism is America begins with segregation, particularly segregated schools and that is the exact point where we can fix racism; not from some top-down bureaucrat-led federal program but rather from the bottom up.

Fact: black and white babies are not born bigoted or with hatred in their hearts; they learn it from adults. Racism is magnified by school segregation.   

Let’s begin by defining the school segregation problem.  Across this country there are about 25,000 “intensively segregated schools”, defined as schools with at least 90% non-white students.  Intensively segregated minority schools overwhelmingly tend to have lower performance and fewer educational opportunities. 

One reason they are lower performing is that many of them have lower quality teachers.  There are two reasons for this.  First, every profession, be it medical, legal, military or teachers, have some individuals who are just not good at what they do.  Low-performing teachers should be asked to find another vocation.  But the teachers’ union contracts make it nearly impossible to fire a teacher so they just hang on dragging down the quality of the instruction. 

Secondly, everyone likes to work for a quality, winning organization and when the minority school ranking is below average, the best and brightest of the teachers voluntarily move on.

Here is an innovative concept that can, in a generation, fix our schools and by extension fix racism from the bottom up.

Clinton Mississippi, population about 25,000, has 5300 students in the public schools.  The racial breakdown is 54% black, 36% white, 6% Asian, 2% Hispanic and 2% other.

In 1970 the district superintendent of schools, Virgil Belue, could see a complete lack of student integration.  He implemented a plan that has been in place since 1971 (see THE WALL STREET JOURNAL article, 24 November, 2019 edition entitled, School Integration Model Lauded). 

For classes beginning in the fall of 1971 Superintendent Belue assigned all the kindergartners and first graders to one school; that school would forever be K-first grade for the entire community. Grades 2 and 3 attended a different school that would forever be grades 2 and 3 only.  This concept continued, two grades per school, encompassing all the school facilities and all grades K-12.

While the students would transfer every 2 years to a different school facility, the integrated classes of students remained together completely integrated all day, every day for 13 years.  The downside, if it is one, is that it requires a little more bussing.  Does it work?  Here is some recent data from Google. 

2018 Mississippi ranking data:

-Clinton High School is ranked #1 in the state in academics.

-Ranked #1 with best teachers. 

-Ranked #2 in best places to teach.

-Ranked #4 in best school district.

-Has an overall “A” rating and is ranked #3 overall.

You might want to take a minute to look at these impressive stats one more time.  But for the insight of Superintendent Belue, this school system would likely be a typical underachiever.  But they are ranked at or near the top in every important category.  You can bet teachers are not abandoning this ship. 

This is segregation/racism fixed from the bottom up.  Could any school district do this?  Yes, by applying a few different metrics depending on the student population.  For example, a school district with ten times the numbers of Clinton could divide their area of operation into smaller sections for integration.   

The larger picture of Clinton Mississippi is that, after nearly 50 years, most of the adults in the Clinton community were educated under the Virgil Belue model, resulting in a community that is integrated in mind and spirit.

This concept is about accountability at the point of execution.  It is not about accountability of some nameless, faceless bureaucrat in Washington with billions of appropriated tax dollars to spend on a series of worthless political ideas about how to deal with education, segregation and racism. 

This plan is simple, doable and Clinton Mississippi is proof of concept. School boards do not need permission, just make it happen.  “Bussing” does not have to be a dirty word, a political football or a failed concept. When applied evenly to every family, every student, in every school, every day, it works.   

Merry Christmas,

Marv Covault

On the first day of the open-hearing impeachment inquiry, Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, called his initial two witnesses, career State Department diplomats William Taylor Jr. and George Kent. They were there because of their service in the US embassy in the Ukraine. 

Listening to them testify brought back vivid memories of my two years as deputy for Pacific area policy dealing daily with personnel in most of the US embassies through the Pacific region. 

Our US foreign service officers are highly intelligent, well-educated and comprise the preeminent foreign service in the world.

Having said that, there is one additional, overarching distinguishing feature; they operate in and support a powerful and pervasive culture of elitism. They are nice folks, pleasant to be around but that culture is part of who they are and how they operate.  The purpose of making that point is to amplify my assessment of their congressional testimony during the week of 18 November. 

Far from providing damning evidence of criminal presidential behavior, the State Department personnel mostly confined themselves to four topics:

First, a 20-30-minute opening statement describing, in agonizing detail, their own sterling résumés and that they know more about how the Ukraine should be treated than anyone on earth. 

Secondly, for the most part they had zero first-hand knowledge of incriminating actions by President Trump. 

Third, their poorly hidden disgust with President Trump’s foreign policy.

And fourth, their disdain for the president’s personal envoy, Rudy Giuliani.

Based on my experiences with the State Department, none of the these surprised me; let me elaborate on 3 and 4. 

Constitutionally, the president is charged with defining US foreign policy, not the State Department.  The State Department executes.  But what happens is that Ambassadors and their staffs become fixated on “their country”, begin to believe they know what is best for “their country” regardless of how it may or may not “fit” into the President’s global policy, regional policy or specific policy for that particular country. 

One of the most important pieces of the Trump foreign policy is an ongoing effort to re-think our decades-old policies on foreign assistance which is normally about $50 billion per year. The problem is that much of that assistance goes to countries wherein corruption is endemic and where a significant portion of the “aid” is routinely syphoned off leaving little actual aid for the intended users. 

A good example, would be a shipment of foodstuffs or MREs (meals ready to eat) to be distributed to a starving populace. It is not unusual to find those products FOR SALE the following day in the local markets. 

The issue in the impeachment hearings is the presence, or absence, of a quid quo pro involving a Biden investigation in return for military aid to Ukraine.

So, now let’s put the military aid to the Ukraine into the context of the President’s new foreign policy on aid to foreign nations.

When a senior leader has to make a decision on a major issue, here is what normally happens.  The staff will put “everything on the table” and develop a number of courses of action (COA) for discussion and eventual decision. 

In the case of aid to Ukraine, the alternatives discussed would likely have included:

COA 1:  following the Trump doctrine, Ukraine (considered to be the most corrupt country in Europe) should not get any aid. 

COA 2:  give them the military aid (they need munitions capable of killing Russian tanks) but make it contingent on tangible efforts to clean up their corruption. That is an example of quid quo pro that is used every day in US embassies; give something, get something.   

COA 3: consider in the offer, VP Biden’s successful bribe to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless they fired their corruption prosecutor.  Also consider in this COA Ukraine’s role in our 2016 presidential election.

COA 4: Give them the military weapons, period. 

Also consider that the aid to Ukraine was a multi-agency action; Departments of Defense, State, Energy, the White House, the US embassy in Ukraine and the European Union were all players.  Emails, meetings, phone calls were ongoing for months creating a ripe environment for rumor and innuendo.

Obvious from their testimony, the Ukraine Embassy folks felt left out and believed they should have been in charge. 

Presidential envoys to foreign nations to consult, negotiate and investigate have been common throughout our history. As the president’s personal envoy to assess corruption, Rudy Giuliani did not need to check-in, check-out or inform the embassy of his mission or findings.  Obvious from their attitude and testimony, this was very disconcerting. 

After days of, “I assumed, I thought, I understood, my impression was, my feelings were, I’ve never met the president, I have never talked to the president”, finally our ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondlund, testified that he looked President Trump in the eye and asked him, “Mr. President, what do you want from the Ukraine”?  The president replied, “nothing, nothing”.  Course of action #4. 

By the way Ambassador Sondland had failed to include that critical episode in his lengthy self-aggrandizing opening statement.  

 Marvin L. Covault

WEALTH TAX, RIGHT OR WRONG FOR AMERICA

What is a wealth tax?  Today, wealthy Americans pay taxes on things like superyachts and fine art when they purchase them, but not after. A wealth tax would make them pay taxes on their assets every year. Elizabeth Warren would apply an annual asset tax of 2% on households worth more than $50 million and 6% of worth greater than $1 billion.

There are some significant downsides to the wealth tax that the progressive/socialist candidates fail to mention while campaigning. 

First: Rich folks do not put their excess cash under a mattress; they invest it and pay taxes on the interest and dividends.  The wealth tax takes money out of the hands of those who invest and provide the continuous flow of capital which, of course, is the fuel for capitalism.

Second: The wealth tax would apply to an estimated 75,000 households. There are already 73,500 full time IRS employees.  How many more thousands of employees would they need to expertly administer the wealth tax?  Big government getting bigger.  

Third:  Wealthy people have very competent tax lawyers who know how to apply tax avoidance measures. The only way to prevent this is to rewrite the tax code and eliminate the loopholes, which is unlikely to happen.  Additionally, the wealthy can move assets to trusts and family foundations or shift property among generations; and they will do so.

Fourth:  The wealth tax is a proven failed system.  In 1990, a dozen nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development imposed wealth taxes. By last year, it was down to three.  France was the latest casualty. 

Fifth:  A significant amount of wealth held by the rich is in hard-to-value assets, such as art.  Will the valuation be accomplished in 75,000 households by thousands of contract experts or by IRS amateurs? How will the taxpayers appeal contested valuations? Thousands of households could end up in litigation for months or years. 

Sixth, a scenario: A 40-year-old entrepreneur is worth $500 million dollars and therefore required to pay a wealth tax.  His 2% wealth tax due is $10 million. Because he consistently invests excess cash and after paying state and federal income taxes, he is short of cash to pay the wealth tax.  Not to worry, Ms. Warren says, “l have a plan.”  Rather than force the taxpayer to sell resources and pay cash, he can tender a portion of his non-liquid assists to the government.  Now he has a new business partner who may well be some nameless, faceless, possibly incompetent bureaucrat in Washington. Extend this over the next 20 or 30 years, 2% every year, and what does he have remaining?  Then he dies and his estate pays a 40% death tax on the remaining assets. This is a nightmare scenario that would play out across the country. 

Seventh:  Because of the downside reasons 1-6 above, rich people figure out how to move their wealth abroad.  It isthe principle reason other countries dropped the wealth tax. 

Eighth:  Ms. Warren has developed the wealth tax issue in response to questions about how she proposes to pay for Medicare for All.  And she sells this new tax revenue stream as if it is all that will be needed.  Wrong, really wrong. Warren’s estimates, which some liberal economists consider too optimistic, that the wealth tax on personal fortunes exceeding $50 million would raise $3.75 trillion over the next decade, ($375 billion per year).  That $375 billion would provide about 13% of what is required for one year of Medicare for All.  Will the middle class pick up the remaining 87%?

As if the above numbers are not misleading enough, Warren also claims Medicare for All will actually save money because of economies of scale for a government-run program. There is zero data to support such an outrageous claim but there are numerous examples of the incompetence of government whenever it is charged with running a large operation.  Cases in point:

In FY18 FEDEX reported a net profit of $2.97 billion and UPS had $4.79 billion while the US Postal Service had a net loss of $3.9 billion.  This is the norm and happens every year.

Government-run Amtrak has reported operating losses every year since its inception in 1971, averaging $900 million per year with 93% of its routes unprofitable. The per-ticket taxpayer subsidy over the past 5 years has been $51 per Amtrak ticket sold. 

The best relevant comparison of how Medicare for All will succeed is to look at the current Veterans Administration which has been a disaster for decades.  It is a bureaucratic, bloated, money pit that has left sick veterans to die while waiting for care.  Medicare for all would attempt to service 18 times the number of those who rely on the VA. Lots of luck saving money.  Check out the disastrous government-run medicine in the UK and Canada. 

Wake up America, it’s time to look at the whole Medicare for All story. And while you are at it, look at Ms. Warren’s list of 56 other new programs that will require more funding, more government control, more bureaucracy and more regulation. 

Marv Covault

Never before has there been a presidential campaign where one party was running on a platform of massive tax increases and unimaginable spending.

The question is, are we getting the whole story?

Statements like, “the income of the top 20% of households is 60 times as much as the bottom 20%” can be heard day after day.  Simple, direct, easy to understand, and a good media sound bite, but is it true?  No.

The bottom 20% households earn, on average, about $4900 (a very low number because so many have no income at all) while the average top 20% household earns $295,900, a ratio of 60 to 1. But it is not 60 to 1, not even close.  Here is why.

The top 20% earn an average of $295,900 and pay $109,100 in taxes; left with $186,800 in, what I will call, available resources. Conversely while the bottom 20% pay no income tax they are the principal recipients of $1.9 trillion in annual public transfer payments. The average low-income household receives $45,400 in government transfers and $3,300 in charitable funds. They pay $2,700 in sales and property taxes.

The average bottom 20% household has $50,900 available resources ($4,900 plus $45,400 plus $3.300 minus $2.700)

So, the income inequity, touted particularly by candidates Warren and Sanders, is not 60 to 1 ($295,900 vs $4,900) it is actually 3.7 to 1.

One problem with the math is that the progressive/socialist democrat candidates lay out their programs piecemeal.  Today it is X dollars for education, the next day it is green stuff, then Medicare for All, and on it goes.  As each is presented there is occasionally a feeble attempt to define how a particular program will be paid for.  But what they never do is articulate the totality of it all, spending and revenue. So, let’s take a stab at that using projected costs and revenue over the next 10 years.

Medicare for All: $32 trillion

Green New Deal/climate change: The American Action Forum estimates that the energy and environmental components would cost $10 trillion. 

Free college tuition: $800 billion

Cancel student debt: $1.6 trillion

Open borders: Illegal immigrants currently cost $116 billion per year.  Open        borders could easily multiply that by a factor of 3 or $3.5 trillion over 10 years.

K-12 education: $800 billion

Child care plan: $1.07 trillion

New infrastructure: $1 trillion

Expanded tax credit to the poor: $2.5 trillion

Affordable housing: $1.9 trillion

Slavery reparations: Not included but estimates range from $17-50 trillion

The total cost is $54 trillion in new proposals over the next decade, on top of the $12.4 trillion deficit projected by the Congressional Budget Office.

Over the next decade the federal government is projected to collect about $4.4 trillion per year and spend about $5.6 trillion. This is without taking into account a single one of the progressive/socialist democrats’ new proposals cited above.

In order to pay for the above campaign promises, we would need to increase the federal government revenue from $4.4 to $9.8 trillion per year. That cannot possibly happen and even if it could be accomplished the national debt would still increase from today’s $21 trillion to $34 Trillion in a decade; dangerous territory. 

Then there are the proposals to “tax the rich.” Increased revenue estimates range from $9.3 trillion under the best-case scenario and, more realistically, $3.9 trillion over the next ten years.  In other words, if these politicians want to spend what they propose, they’ll have to impose enormous taxes on everyone who pays taxes including the middle class.

Additionally, draconian tax increases either across the board or just on the rich has some very scary side effects.  For example, A 70% tax rate on the rich may be smart politics, but it is not smart economics. Economists explain that higher tax rates on the rich have the potential to reduce capital formation, lower economic output, shrink the labor supply, depress levels of entrepreneurship, lead to lower middle-class wages, reduce economic mobility, drive away superstar inventors, lower levels of innovation, lead to higher taxes for everyone else, and encourage tax complexity. In other words, the potential to dramatically and negatively transform our economy.

These numbers are not partisan. They come from the Congressional Budget Office, top liberal think tanks, Wall Street Journal editorials, and various economists’ studies.  While these numbers are not exact and estimates are constantly changing, they paint a picture of the absurdity of the progressive/socialists democrat collective campaign promises.  

In every campaign we hear people say, “politicians will say anything to get elected” and just pass it off as harmless rhetoric.  These numbers are not harmless.  They are scary, dangerous and have the potential to severely alter the foundations of this country.  Wake up America.

Marv Covault

Three points need to be made with respect to the ongoing impeachment saga; constitutionality, precedent and high crimes. 

The Constitution assigns “the sole power” of impeachment to the House of Representatives.  That is, going forward from a majority vote of the whole House, not from a press conference by the Speaker. It is that simple. The full House vote is a key constitutional check, provided by the framers on the impeachment power.  Constitutionality gets an “F” from the get-go.

Second point, precedent:  1868 impeachment of Andrew Johnson, House vote 126-47.  Richard Nixon, House vote, 410-4.  Bill Clinton, 258-176.  Following the full House vote, a committee is then designated to gather evidence.

Representative Schiff, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee has the investigative lead.  His process has been to conduct unclassified hearings in a closed, secure facility questioning witnesses in secret then selectively leaking information to the supportive media.  House Republicans are being denied subpoena authority and access to full transcripts of the hearings.

In graphic contrast to the procedures being used today by Rep. Schiff, during the Nixon impeachment, as explained recently by Robert Doar, the Democrat Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Peter Rodino, assembled a unified staff.  The Republicans were granted joint subpoena authorization.  President Nixon’s counsel attended depositions, had access to all documentation and could cross examine witnesses and present his own witnesses.  The American public was kept fully informed throughout.  As Newt Gringrich recently explained, during the Clinton impeachment, the Republicans “adopted every single rule Rodino had used in 1973.”

Total disregard for procedural precedent also gets an “F”.

Third, where are the “high crimes”?  The president is accountable to the people and the Founders recognized the risks to democracy and the importance of protecting separation of powers by limiting Congressional powers to improperly remove a duly elected president.  The Founders considered authorizing impeachment for “maladministration”, “neglect of duty” and “mal-practice”.  In their seemingly infinite wisdom, the Founders rejected these issues as giving Congress too much power and the potential to turn impeachment into a political circus.

The current impeachment proceedings are centered on a single conversation President Trump had with Ukrainian President Zelensky.  “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.  Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it.”

Several points to be made about that conversation.  One, federal bribery laws require proof of corrupt intent in the form of quid pro quo, defined by the Supreme Court in 1999 as a “specific intent to give or receive something of value in exchange for an official act”.  There was no quid pro quo in the call; i.e. zero mention of the pending military aid.  The alleged quid (military aid which was delivered within weeks) was not contingent on the alleged quo, opening an investigation.  The quo was never “something of value” and furthermore never consummated.

The U.S. is the most benevolent nation in history.  We routinely give about $50 billion a year in aid around the world.  There are historical examples of most presidents asking for quid pro quo.

I have been in nearly every US State Department Embassy in the Pacific region.  Quid pro quo is daily fare; it’s what they do, be it a license to do business, port access, military facilities, shutting down terrorists’ banking, it covers the gamut.  U.S. congressmen know and understand all of this.

Finally, a point about Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney. Using a private person to carry out specific duties overseas is not a crime, not abuse of power, and has been done frequently throughout US history by multiple presidents.

So, on the third point, where are the high crimes, there aren’t any; another “F”. 

I believe the above is a reasonably strong case that what is going on in Washington is not impeachment. So, what is it?  In retrospect, we can now see a conscious, phased operation to prevent/overturn the 2016 Trump election.

Phase one was pre-election 2016 which could soon be enumerated as criminal proceedings. 

Phase two:  Within minutes of the inauguration the Washington Post published that the “campaign to impeach President Trump has begun” without any identifiable crime. 

Representative Al Green’s first motion to impeach was introduced in the House of Representatives December 2017, again no crime.

Phase 3:  Special Council Mueller’s exhaustive investigation of Russian collusion was to have been the coup de grace in 2019.  No crime.

Phase 4:  Emphasis has now shifted from removal from office to ensuring Trump will have to campaign for reelection next year as a non-convicted but at least an impeached President.

Much of what happens in government is predicated on precedent. The House abuse of power described above has the potential to set a precedent that will allow the congress to take down future administrations without just cause. And where does that leave us?

What follows is a quote from a blog by Mollie Hemmingway on 25 October.  She is a very bright and insightful gal. 

“What we are facing now is not partisan warfare, it’s not a mystery novel, it’s not politics-as-usual. We are facing an attempt to tear down the foundations of our republic by corrupt, unelected bureaucrats who have decided the will of voters is subordinate to their will to power. It represents a fatal threat to our system of government, and if this coup succeeds — whether through impeachment proceedings, or through an election that (if the last three years are any indication) the other side is clearly willing to steal by hook or by crook — the nation will cease to be a constitutional, democratic republic.  This isn’t about Trump, or Republicans, or conservatives. It is about Washington needing to learn that political differences have to be settled at the ballot box lest they instead be settled with an undermining of our constitutional norms and institutions.”

Marv Covault

Many Americans have become increasingly disappointed in journalists in particular and journalism in general.  We are not talking about the fine work done by local papers, local radio or regional TV that keeps us informed about education, crime, local politics, traffic, business, weather, etc. It is the national main-stream media that has become the subject of debate and criticism.  

I want to get to a conclusion as to what is desperately wrong with the mass main-stream media, but first background. 

Something very interesting happened on August 15th.  Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, held a closed-door town hall meeting with his writers.  It was to have been a close-hold session but someone recorded and released it. 

Before we get back to the New York Times and Mr. Baquet, it is important to set the stage with some facts.

Fact, the collective media is a powerful institution. Fact, what people generally talk and think about is based on what they hear and/or read about on a daily basis. Survey results; 80% of journalists who are aligned with the democrat or republican parties are liberal.

Fact, in the summer of 2017 Harvard published the results of a media study.  They found that Americans were getting a negative view of what was happening in the Trump administration; CNN 93% negative, NBC 93%, CBS 91%, New York Times 87%, Washington Post 83%, Wall Street Journal 70%, Fox News 52%.  Since that time there has been polling that indicates this trend has continued unabated including MSNBC and ABC.

With 90% negativism day after day it is easy to think, well if they are all saying it, it must be true. Dangerous and upsetting, but true.

Back to Mr. Baquet and his meeting with all the New York Times journalists.  I have read the transcript, all 9600 words.  I do not recommend you read it; it is both disgusting and discouraging.  There are two elements to Baquet’s presentation and answers to his writers’ questions. Baquet explained it this way:

“Chapter 1 of the story of Donald Trump ……..was: Did Donald Trump have untoward relationships with the Russians, and was there obstruction of justice? We set ourselves up to cover that story. I’m going to say it. We won two Pulitzer Prizes covering that story.”  Note: what does that tell us about the credibility of the Pulitzer committee? 

Baquet continues: “The day Bob Mueller walked off that witness stand, two things happened. Our readers (Baquet shifts accountability from himself to the readers) who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, “Holy s_ _ t, Bob Mueller is not going to do it. We’re a little tiny bit flat-footed. I mean, that’s what happens when a story looks a certain way for two years. Right?”

Note: “looks a certain way” is Baquet’s explanation for why The Times wrote for two years as if Trump’s guilt was a foregone conclusion.  Their stories looked that “certain way” because they wrote them to look that way and to convince America it was that way.  Pathetic.

Here is Baquet’s intent going forward: “I think that we’ve got to change.” He goes into a long dissertation on how to write about race in a thoughtful way? Baquet continues, “That, to me, is the vision for coverage. You all are going to have to help us shape that vision. But I think that’s what we’re going to have to do for the rest of the next two years.” His writers have their marching orders.

Every profession, lawyers, doctors, military, educators, journalists, has an ethical basis.  That value base, that code of conduct, that mission statement, whatever form it takes, when practiced gives that profession credibility. 

Credibility is the centerpiece for journalism and credibility comes for impartiality.  Journalism is about the pursuit of truth.  Truth is not always apparent in the beginning. Basing a journalistic campaign on an assumed truth is a formula for failure.  Russian collusion was an assumed truth which led them into an empty hole and complete loss of credibility. 

If we can believe the marching orders Baquet gave his writers, The Times is headed down that same rat hole. 

Now I want to get to the point of this article. One can make a case that while the majority of the Times employees are liberal leaning, they do not have a choice in their bias given the orders from their leader. 

By extension, can we make the same observation about the other members of the negative ninety percenters; ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBE, CNN and the Washington Post?

Are there perhaps seven individuals, the leaders of those negative main-stream mass media giants, who have so corrupted the ethics of their organizations with bitterness and hostility that they are principally responsible for the greatest divide in modern America?  Have they, with their misguided power created this alternative culture of hate?  A culture of hate that is a powerful and pervasive force. 

Where is the honesty?  Where is the integrity? What happened to fair and objective?  Where is the credibility?  Ninety percent negative, think about it. 

Marv Covault

Currently most of the world runs on fossil fuels and at some point in the future we will run out of coal and oil.  It is therefore important to continue to develop renewable energy sources.  Wind and sun are the current favorites because they are accessible, free and renewable. But are they?

The problem is we cannot just stick an extension cord into the wind or out the window into the sunshine and light up the house.  We have to capture the wind and sun and therein lies the rub.  

In case you missed it, Mark Mills (a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute) wrote a short but brutally revealing article in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6 August, entitled, IF YOU WANT ‘RENEWABLE ENERGY’, GET READY TO DIG.  I have borrowed some of his data to make the following points. 

We need to replace gas guzzling automobiles with battery power to reduce hydro carbon buildup.  Makes sense, however, consider that one electric car battery, weighs in at about 1000 pounds.  To produce one battery requires digging up and processing about 500,000 pounds of raw materials. 

There are more than one billion automobiles in the world today. It would take 250 billion tons of materials to build a battery for every car, once. Currently, electric car battery life is about seven years and then we need to dig another 250 billion tons, and again and again, forever.

How about wind.  There are about 240,000 operating wind turbines in the world, producing about 4% of the required electricity.  When it comes to wind turbine construction, there are a lot of numbers out there.  I believe this set fairly captures the story. One, just one, wind turbine requires 350 tons of steel, 1,200 tons of concrete, 40 tons of nonrecyclable plastic and 2 tons of rare-earth elements. That is about 84 million tons of steel already used up.   

 If we want wind to produce half the world’s electricity, we will need to build about 3 million more turbines.  Now we are into hundreds of billions of tons of steel. All those zeros lead us to this question, how much hydrocarbon producing coal and oil will we burn to produce that much steel?  Better take off your rose-colored glasses because there is more bad news. 

Solar power requires even more cement and steel than wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity.  Additionally, production of solar panels requires large amounts of silver and indium.  Mining of these metals will increase by 250% and 1200% respectively over the next twenty years and, oh-by-the-way, some day we will run out of both. 

Solar panels require other “rare-earth” elements which are not currently mined in the US.  Demand for these elements is expected to rise 250-1000% by 2050.  Access to these metals is questionable.  For example, the Republic of the Congo produces 70% of the world’s raw cobalt and China controls 90% of cobalt refining. 

The Netherlands government recently sponsored a “Green” study and concluded that their country’s Green objectives would consume a major share of the global metals required.  The Netherlands population is about 17 million.  The world population is about 7.5 billion. 

Keep in mind that one of the major objectives of the Green revolution is to drastically reduce the emotion of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. Building enough wind turbines to supply half the world’s electricity will require nearly two billion tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel and two billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades. Also alarming is the fact that about 90% of the world’s solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electric grids.

And what do we do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?

Also, whatever lofty goals we may set for the world in order for it to survive, they are shared by only a fraction of the countries. China and India, with a combined population of 2.7 billion, are among the worst offenders.

When I write articles, it is normally my intent to define a problem and then offer up a viable solution.  But not here, this is way beyond my ability to comprehend the way ahead.   

Obviously, the need to do something is pressing but I would leave you with this thought.  As one of the world’s greatest cynics when it comes to politicians, we should not be captured by the one-liner solutions.  Remember that old saying, for every complex problem there is a simple solution, and it is usually wrong.  The devil is in the details.

marv covault