Three Areas of Concern for the US: Total-War Politics, Debt, and the Ruling Class

Stephen Kershnar

Three Areas of Concern

Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer

December 26, 2019

Consider three areas of concern about the US’s direction.  

First, we are moving toward total war in politics. The Inspector General’s report made it clear that the investigation into the Trump campaign was a criminal conspiracy. At least in the later applications for FISA warrants, the signatories knew there was no legal basis for the warrants. The Steele Dossier was nearly all of the evidence in support of the FISA reapplications and the FBI knew early on that it was full of false and unverified stories because it interviewed the single source from which the dossier’s author got his information. In addition, an FBI lawyer doctored information about the target of the investigation (Carter Page) to prevent it from becoming clear what a sham the investigation was. The intelligence agencies not only put spies (confidential human sources and undercover employees) into the Trump campaign, but likely set up a low level advisor (George Papadapoulos) to justify opening up the investigation.  

This report is different from the one covering the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email-related felonies. Previously, the inspector general referred the FBI’s director and deputy director for criminal prosecution.  Significant numbers of FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials have now been referred for prosecution, fired, or demoted. It is now uncontroversial that the former leaders of the CIA, DIA, FBI, and IRS are criminals who should be in prison. Consider John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, and Lois Lerner. The doddering fool who headed the Russia Hoax, Robert Mueller, was either aware that his investigation was based on a hoax or out of the loop.   

The House recently impeached Trump for a thought crime (allegedly considering not sending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine) and for asserting executive privilege similar to how previous presidents asserted it. He didn’t commit a crime as he had a legal right (and, in fact, a legal duty) to demand Ukraine investigate American corrupt involvement with it. No informed adult thinks that Hunter Biden got $83,000 a month from a well-connected Ukrainian company for anything other than his name and, perhaps, Joe Biden’s favorable treatment. Even if Trump didn’t have this right, as best we can determine, he didn’t communicate a quid pro quo to Ukraine. In any case, Ukraine didn’t do what he asked them to do and still got the money. The most the left can say here is that he considered committing a crime but for an informant outing him (a thought crime). Even the evidence for the thought crime is paper thin. Predictably, the informant has suspicious ties to John Brennan and Joe Biden. In short, Democrats have declared total war on Donald Trump. The Brett Kavanaugh debacle fits nicely into this pattern. 

Second, the U.S. Debt is now $23 trillion. It is larger than the American economy ($20 trillion in 2018). Yet the government will likely add $1 trillion in debt each year for the next decade. Because Congress does nothing to address it, the country will simply whistle past the graveyard. The most disappointing person in all this is Donald Trump. One expects him to be the adult in the room.  

Two thirds of the federal budget goes for entitlement spending (50% on Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security alone), interest on the debt (7%), and guaranteed benefits for federal retirees and veterans (8%). Social Security is about to be in the red (leaving aside the credit this part of the government has against another part of it). This guarantees that when cuts have to be made, they will be bitterly resented, hard fought, and very painful.

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, in This Time is Different, point out if the past is like the future, and it usually is, the U.S. will eventually default on the debt and, perhaps, impose painful austerity measures. This will likely crash the economy. It is worth noting that the European Union countries and Japan are building up similar debt-levels. Japan’s debt is 237% of its economy. The EU has a debt level 80% of its overall economy. The debt of the PIGS – Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain – make it clear that something is seriously wrong with leaders across the world and not just Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Schumer.

Third, the Democratic leaders are the most irresponsible in our lifetime. They ignore the FBI’s criminal conspiracy and the Russia Hoax to which it gave rise. Democratic Presidential candidates have little respect for the traditional American nation. Leading candidates have supported confiscating guns, eliminating gasoline-powered engines, junking the Electoral College, pursuing naked political impeachment, packing the Supreme Court, and imposing a wealth tax that runs afoul the Constitution.

The country’s ruling class also doesn’t respect the traditional American nation. It flooded the U.S. with immigrants. One out of seven Americans is now an immigrant (14%) and one out of four Americans is an immigrant or child of an immigrant (26%).  In response to the ongoing flood, the Democratic candidates fight over who is more committed to amnestying 22 million illegal aliens, giving them free stuff, and opening the border. On the open border, consider their support for catch and release, decriminalizing border jumping, eliminating ICE, letting immigrants go on welfare, and tearing down the wall.

These issues are related. Without the flood of left-voting immigrants and their children (85 million), the Democratic Party does not turn into the irresponsible party that weaponized government, ratcheted up government debt, and turned a blind eye to the continued flood of immigrants. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib are a stinging indictment of the new citizens who voted for them. Insufferable elites supported the Afghanistan, Iran, and Libyan wars, propelled the Russia Hoax, pushed impeachment, rammed through the debt-exploding spending bills, and want the Constitution reinterpreted into oblivion. The combination of corrupt elites and immigrant voting machine that supports them is part, but not all, of the problem.