The pre-Christmas vote by the U.S. House and Senate to pass the $1.7 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill at a time when America’s balance sheet is in its worst condition ever is a sign post that financial collapse cannot be far away. Our nation is now technically bankrupt with liabilities significantly exceeding assets. And it gets worse every year with national debt now growing on a long-term annual basis at 8% or more, while assets (GDP) are growing on average at only 2.5 to 3% annually. Politically, our federal government is operating at ever new levels of dysfunction and corruption with diminishing accountability to the Constitution in either the spirit or the letter of the law.
Consider: the widespread failure of elected officials to uphold their oath of office; the political weaponization of the Justice Department and the FBI; the unequal two-tiered practice of justice and law enforcement; the flood of illegal immigrants and criminal enterprises into the United States as a direct result of willful federal government policy; and the violation of the First Amendment by federal agencies such as the FBI, DOJ, DHS, the CDC and DOD, who have engaged in covert operations against American citizens that include media manipulation and psy-ops.
With a new Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives it is time for action and results.
There are two priorities for the new Congress. First, it needs to write and pass bills that fix the biggest problems—like crime and the southern border—that will improve the lives of all Americans. Second, Congress needs to hold public hearings for discovery of causes of our nation’s dysfunction and corruption. The House of Representatives is well suited for this because of the breadth of its committee structure and because it holds the purse strings that can withhold funding for government agencies who fail to be transparent and cooperate. Simultaneous and separate hearings on different areas of failure and corruption, can produce findings, deliver policy solutions and personnel recommendations and prosecutions well before the 2024 election.
Since the First Amendment protects the entire Constitution, a good place to start this process is discovery and examination of how those rights have been violated. The “Twitter files” being released by Elon Musk and other whistleblowers have revealed how the Deep State has destroyed Americans’ First Amendment rights.
One thing we now know is that significant numbers of ex-intelligence agents and employees have become employees of Twitter, Facebook, and Google. And this is more than the usual the revolving door of ex-government employees finding work with government contractor firms. The FBI was working so closely with Twitter since January of 2020 that it was viewed as an agency “subsidiary”—flagging and blocking numerous accounts for purportedly “harmful misinformation”—before Elon Musk’s takeover.
Perhaps the easiest to understand operation to influence election outcomes was revealed by FBI actions in October 2020, nine months after the agency obtained possession of the Hunter Biden laptop. At that time just three weeks before the Presidential election, the FBI actively suppressed the Biden laptop expose in New York Post, creating a blackout of Biden family criminal activities on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. It has been observed by many including Democrats that this may have sealed the election of Joe Biden as President.
It turns out that the Department of Homeland Security has been one of the key coordinating centers of censorship. The DHS was deeply involved in censorship leading up to the 2020 election in creating a public-private consortium known as the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) with the stated purpose to “monitor and correct election mis-and disinformation,” such as the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop. This EIP censorship network partnered with two other subagency-operations within DHS, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC), and also the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) during the 2020 election cycle. Collectively they operated as technocratic thought police forwarding tickets of “mis- and disinformation” to social media companies.
The EIP grew to about 120 analysts monitoring social media for 20 hours a day. It developed communication portals through which it forwarded supposed misinformation to be censored to Big Tech platforms and their social media engineers, including Twitter, Facebook, Google, TikTok, Reddit, and Discord as well as liberal groups such as Democratic National Committee, the NAACP, Common Cause, and influential academic organizations such as Harvard’s Defending Digital Democracy Project, which operated throughout the 2020 and 2022 election cycles to censor supposed “mis- and disinformation.” The EIP did shift some of its censorship resources when it came time to launch the Virality Project in February 2021 to promote Covid-19 vaccines.
The CDC also had a secret portal to censor and ban dissenting social media posts, a practice that facilitated the shut-down of the economy and cost the lives of many who were deprived of learning about low-cost effective therapeutic treatments for Covid-19, while also promoting mandates for mask-wearing, social distancing and the holy grail of vaccinations to be delivered in the future.
Equal in importance to protecting Americans’ First Amendment rights, is the need to hold hearings and take action on the political weaponization of the Justice Department and the FBI and the unequal two-tiered nature of justice and law enforcement, which has been self-evident for the last fifteen to twenty years.
The full scope and numbers of illegal immigrants and the accompanying criminal and terrorist elements gaining entry through our southern border also need to be examined through House committee hearings, and—if warranted—the impeachment of DHS Secretary Mayorkas for dereliction of his oath of office and duty to protect the nation’s southern border from mass invasion.
The other critical factor for the renewal and survival of the United States is the restoration of public trust in its national elections, which many feel have been rendered irrelevant because of the massive fraud and irregularities in the 2020 and 2022 elections. Out of control mail-in voting, ballot harvesting and curing of ballots to the tune of more than 35% of some 112 million ballots cast in November 2022 makes auditing impossible. And while the irregularities are there for all to see, the political weaponization of the DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA together with their portals and penetration of the media have succeeded in blasting those who object to these radical ballot changes, extended ballot counting after election day and rigged electronic tabulation or to anyone who questions election results. On cue the media calls these “election deniers,” “democracy destroyers,” or even “insurrectionists.”
We will close by returning to the paramount importance of the First Amendment. The freedom to speak, read, hear, and view diverse perspectives protects all the other amendments and the Constitution itself. Getting at the truth is as essential for effective government and it only emerges from free discourse and debate—often more from the people with practical experience from the front line than from experts from the ivory tower or other insiders with entrenched careers or compromised by politics and financial payoffs.
The CDC has been wrong in all its recommendations on dealing with Covid-19, causing devastating economic destruction and unnecessary deaths. The DHS has effectively helped criminal enterprises and betrayed the American people by ineffective border enforcement and then it has lied about the results. The Biden DOJ and the FBI have violated American citizens’ Constitutional rights in countless and diverse matters revolving around First Amendment rights, even resulting in the unprecedented imprisonment of American citizens as political prisoners. The DOD brought about the loss of America’s stature as a reliable ally by abruptly and inexplicably abandoning Afghanistan—leaving behind thousands of loyal Afghan allies, some $85 billion in advanced military equipment, and abandoning the largest air base in central Asia to the Chinese. And if this wasn’t enough, the DOD leadership under Generals Austin and Milley during the last two years has pursued policies that have systematically weakened the American war-fighting capability at a time of rising overseas threats.
The mandate for the 2023 new year and 118th U.S. Congress opening the first week of January is straightforward: First, pass bills that solve big problems and help the largest number of Americans. Second, investigate government malfeasance and violations of American citizens’ Constitutional rights for the purpose of cleaning up government by recommending and pursuing penalties, prosecutions, and impeachments.
Scott Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute. His recent book, Rediscovering America, was #1 new release in history for eight straight weeks at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637581599). Reach him at scottp@discovery.org.
“ First, pass bills that solve big problems and help the largest number of Americans. Second, investigate government malfeasance and violations of American citizens’
No, do it the other way around, passing bills that lie leads to the ineffectiveness of the investigations.
Investigate, investigate, investigate. And then what? What prosecutor will bring charges or indict? What sheriff will make arrests? What judge will hear a case? What jury will find them guilty?
We need to overturn the Malarkey Mandate that is ruining our lives.
Meet the new congress, same as the old congress. Led by a RINO who loves the demrats.
Not led by anyone. Jeffries is still getting the most votes though.
Yes, “the time for action…” in the House is now, and look what the GOP is doing…squandering its time while America waits for recovery to start.
“Second, Congress needs to hold public hearings for discovery of causes of our nation’s dysfunction and corruption.”
The causes are the corrupt and irrational philosophies, ideologies, and ideas being taught at the universities. Where do you think the Deep State careerist employees/operators get their totalitarian convictions? At the schools they graduate from.
If the universities were indoctrinating their students in Christianity then those students upon graduating and finding employment in the federal government would be personally dedicated to implementing Christian policies at the federal level. If the universities were teaching Islam then it would be Islam. If they were teaching Objectivism then it would be Objectivism. If they are teaching socialism, feminism, anti-racism, globalism, and transgenderism, then that’s what you’ll get….
You can read Diana West’s book “The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy” to get a concrete understanding of what ideological motivations drive the Deep State/Swamp careerist employees/operators.
“The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Just as a man’s actions are preceded and determined by some form of idea in his mind, so a society’s existential conditions are preceded and determined by the ascendancy of a certain philosophy among those whose job is to deal with ideas. The events of any given period of history are the result of the thinking of the preceding period.” – Ayn Rand
It’s the schools that matter most of all if you want to change save America.
“A Key Lesson in Education Policy: You Don’t Make Peace with Termites”
https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2023/01/a-key-lesson-in-education-policy-you-dont-make-peace-with-termites/
Perhaps our Congress (and even voting citizens) should look to the religious world for a concept that is needed: “To be born again!” Or perhaps one should look up the old column in Vogue where the question each month was asked: “Can this marriage be saved?” Even Ivan Boesky knew when to attack a company that was ripe for takeover, etc.
In other words, we are headed in the wrong direction and what it will take to stop and change direction will not be easy, not at all!
It would indeed be delicious to see some of these agencies defunded, re-directed, and humbled, but I am not holding my breath.
Just so as long as they can spend our money for their little pet projects they don’t give a darn about what happens with America
We ALL know that ANY bills that will be BENEFICIAL to ALL Americans will be DOA in the DEMOcrat infested Senate – rino’s included! BUT, since the HOUSE does have the POWER of the PURSE, they should pass INDIVIDUAL BILLS that fund our VITAL Functions – MILITARY, Social Security, BORDER Security, and then let the DEMOcrats NOT pass them!! WHO WILL BE TO BLAME??? DO NOT FUND the IRS/DOJ/DHS/FBI until the provisions for FULL DISCLOSURE of CRIMES has been presented and PROSECUTED! Just REDUCE funding for those and several other Departments to “EMT Levels” (Elon Musk Twitter Levels) or about one FOURTH of the current funding!! Nothing else they can do but this and TALK! MAYBE people will LISTEN!!
First priority: Absolutely ZERO increase in the debt ceiling. This one thing can be achieved in the House of Representatives without any cooperation from the Senate or the President. Only when the unconstitutional failures and actions of the current administration are truly reversed should the House consider ANY increase in federal debt.
Contrary to wide spread opinion, current law will deal with the collision of the federal purse with the debt ceiling, continuing to refund bonds, service interest payments, make social security and medicare disbursements, and provide for defense salaries. So the “government shutdown” boogey man poses no threat to the full faith and credit of the United States government.
While the administration dithers, the House can expose the malfeasance of the alphabet agencies and cabinet departments that must be purged, and prepare bills to block the revolving door for federal employees and stop funding NGOs that subvert our land with child trafficking and importation of fentanyl in collusion with the TSA.
The repubs won’t do it. They want to get back into power as fast as possible in order to explode the deficit Look at Trump, he added trillions to the deficit through some truly stupid tax cuts for the wealthy.
Also, why would the repubs make social security payments? Getting rid of social security is one of their major, decades old, goals.
Defund the 87,000 new IRS agents…they will cripple small business.
The government is BROKE and HIGHLY Dysfunctional. WILL? those just elected DO? something to stabilize the National Debt rising to over $30,000,000,000 (BILLION) while at the exact same time the Economic Output is declining?
The House is controlled by Right, RHINO WHIG Do NOTHING “Democratic Socialists” liters. Kevin McCarthy is currently having a difficult time getting elected as Majority Leader. mitch mcconnell is a FRAUD & Hypocrite besides being a feckless, spineless cowardly “leaderless leader.”
The Left remains the “FASCISTIC Socialists” liters intent and with purpose of “Fundamentally transforming America.” The RHINO WHIGS posse as NO Opposition as it is current constructed.
Votes hAve Consequences and America has been paying for Votes of FEELINGS since 2020. The Voter has turned their backs on VOTING for their BEST interests to Voting their FEELINGS. The results are MORE than obvious.
Starting 2023 with a HIGHLY Dysfunctional HOUSE and Senate is not the Path to restoring America back to ITS GREATNESS.
You’ve written this from INSIDE your own mental breakdown.
The national debt is more 31 trillion dollars and growing at a rate of more than one trillion dollars a year as far as the eyes can see. The national debt will bankrupt the United States.
Your figure regarding the national debt is an error. The national debt is over $31,000,000,000,000 trillion, not billion. You needed to add three more zeros.
The national debt is more than 31 trillion dollars, not billions of dollars. Thought you might like to know.
The Left remains the “FASCISTIC Socialists” liters intent and with purpose of “Fundamentally transforming America.” The RHINO WHIGS are becoming Less and LESS relevant NO Opposition as it is current constructed.
Votes have Consequences and America has been paying for Votes of FEELINGS since 2020. The Voter has turned their backs on VOTING for their BEST interests to Voting their FEELINGS. The results are MORE than obvious.
Starting 2023 with a HIGHLY Dysfunctional HOUSE and Senate is not the Path to restoring America back to ITS GREATNESS.
“Scott Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute”
Forgive me if I don’t take political advice from someone who doesn’t believe in evolution.
The mandate should be to elect a speaker, but the candidate with the most votes three times in a row will not be elected. That’s the beauty of America.
Jeffries has the most votes. Just make him speaker instead of this idiocy.