The Point of No Return

The Point of No Return

By Dr. Thomas Sowell

This is an election year. But the issues this year are not about Democrats and Republicans. The big issue is whether this nation has degenerated to a point of no return — a point where we risk destroying ourselves, before our enemies can destroy us.

If there is one moment that symbolized our degeneration, it was when an enraged mob gathered in front of the Supreme Court and a leader of the United States Senate shouted threats against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying "You won't know what hit you!"

There have always been irresponsible demagogues. But there was once a time when anyone who shouted threats to a Supreme Court Justice would see the end of his own political career, and could not show his face in decent society again.

You either believe in laws or you believe in mob rule. It doesn't matter whether you agree with the law or agree with the mob on some particular issue. If threats of violence against judges — and publishing where a judge's children go to school — is the way to settle issues, then there is not much point in having elections or laws.

There is also not much point in expecting to have freedom. Threats and violence were the way the Nazis came to power in Germany. Freedom is not free. If you can't be bothered to vote against storm-trooper tactics — regardless of who engages in them, or over what issue — then you can forfeit your freedom.

Worse yet, you can forfeit the freedom of generations not yet born.

Some people seem to think that the Supreme Court has banned abortions. It has done nothing of the sort.

The Supreme Court has in fact done something very different, something long overdue and potentially historic. It has said that their own court had no business making policy decisions which nothing in the Constitution gave them the authority to make.

Get out a copy of the Constitution — and see if you can find anything in there that says the federal government is authorized to make laws about abortion.

Check out the 10th Amendment, which says that the federal government is limited to the specific powers it was granted, with all other powers going to the states or to the people.

Why do we elect legislators to do what the voters want done, if unelected judges are going to make up laws on their own, instead of applying the laws that elected officials passed?

This is part of a very long struggle that has been going on for more than 100 years. Back in the early 20th century, Progressives like President Woodrow Wilson decided that the Constitution put too many limits on the powers they wanted to use.

Claiming that it was nearly impossible to amend the Constitution, Progressives advocated that judges "interpret" the Constitutional limits out of the way.

This was just the first in a long series of sophistries.

In reality, the Constitution was amended 4 times in 8 years — from 1913 through 1920 — during the heyday of the Progressive era.

When the people wanted the Constitution amended, it was amended. When the elites wanted the Constitution amended, but the people did not, that is called democracy.

Another great sophistry was using the federal government's authority to regulate interstate commerce to call all sorts of other things interstate commerce. In 1995, elites were shocked when the Supreme Court ruled — 5 to 4— that carrying a gun near a school was not interstate commerce.

States had a right to ban carrying a gun near a school, and most of them did. But the federal government had no such authority. Nor did the Constitution give the federal government the right to make laws about abortion, one way or the other.

What both state and federal laws do have the right to stop is threats against judges and their families.

This is not a partisan issue. The Republican governor of Virginia is providing protection to Supreme Court Justices who live in that state. But the Republican governor of Maryland seems to think that harassing judges and their families is no big deal.

Voters need to find out who is for or against mob rule, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. We are not going to be a free or decent society otherwise.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/08/22/the-point-of-no-return

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Jan. 6 panel, delivers closing remarks alongside Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) during the sixth hearing on the Jan. 6 investigation in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington on June 28, 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

VIEWPOINTS

Trust the American People, Not the Jan. 6 Committee

Newt Gingrich

 

0:005:32

Commentary

As I wrote in my last column, I was stunned when Susan Ferrechio of The Washington Times reported that the Jan. 6 House Select Committee “has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and obtained more than 25,000 documents related to last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol—yet most of the evidence remains a secret.”

I described the committee as a show trial in the Soviet tradition wherein the outcome was decided, and the spectacle was meant to educate the public on the authority’s version of truth.

I just hadn’t realized how arrogant and open they were about stacking the deck and rigging the game. The Jan. 6 Committee provides a perfect example of the growing totalitarian pressures I describe in my new book “Defeating Big Government Socialism.”

According to Gallup’s most recent Confidence in Institutions survey, 57 percent of Americans have very little or no confidence in Congress. That makes it the least trusted of all 15 institutions Gallup asked about this year.

The news media are close behind, followed by the presidency.

Fifty-three percent of those surveyed had little or no confidence in TV news, and 49 percent of Americans had little or no confidence in the presidency. (Newspapers and the criminal justice system make up fourth and fifth least trusted—both had 46 percent of people with little or no confidence.)

So, we have the Democrats in Congress (with their co-leader anti-Trump, anti-Republican Liz Cheney) acting in secret with the cooperation of the news media. Three of the five least respected institutions in America are colluding to keep more than 1,000 videotaped interviews and 25,000 documents secret from the public.

Of course, we should have seen this coming. Recall at the outset, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to make his own appointments to the committee—violating centuries of rules and tradition—which led to the Republican boycott.

Is it any wonder the American people have anger, hostility, and contempt for the Congress and the news media?

They treat us as though we’re too stupid to see through a rigged game, a stacked deck, and a fraud of carefully selected and edited propaganda.

They’re wrong.

If we’re to be true to Abraham Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” we must trust the people governing.

The obvious step is for House Republicans to move a resolution to make public all the videos and documents, so the American people can decide for themselves what the truth is.

As a former speaker of the House, I know there’s a way to get recorded votes on a resolution to allow the American people to see everything.

Every Democrat should have to answer back home for why they refuse to allow the American people to see all the evidence.

There should be a Republican Party of openness and accountability up against a Democratic Party of secrecy, propaganda, and contempt for the people.

Openness is on the side of history.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote to Richard Price in 1789: “Wherever the people are well informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.”

Both Jefferson and Lincoln relied on the key concept of the Declaration of Independence (of which Jefferson was the principal author): “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.”

For the governed to consent, they must be informed, not manipulated. They must be told the truth—not propagandized.

In a brilliant paper by Allen Guelzo, “’Public Sentiment Is Everything’: Abraham Lincoln and the Power of Public Opinion,” he cites Lincoln in 1856 asserting: “‘Our government rests in public opinion,’ Abraham Lincoln said in 1856. And how could it be otherwise (he explained in 1859), since ‘in a Government of the people, where the voice of all the men of the country, enter substantially into the execution,—or administration, rather—of the Government—in such a Government, what lies at the bottom of it all, is public opinion.’

“‘Public sentiment is everything,’ he replied to Stephen A. Douglas in 1858. ‘Whoever can change public opinion can change the government.’ It is ‘public opinion’ that ‘settles every question here,’ he added in 1860, and in order for ‘any policy to be permanent,’ it ‘must have public opinion at the bottom.’”

Clearly, the left understands that it can’t tell the American people the truth. It must hide the facts and present only the falsehoods. This is why the Jan. 6 Committee has been so manipulative and consistently secretive and dishonest.

Republicans can campaign for honesty, transparency, and government of the people in the tradition of Jefferson and Lincoln.

Let the Democrats (and Cheney) campaign on show trials, secrecy, hiding from the American people, and seeking to manipulate the public in the tradition of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

That will be a clear choice, and I have every confidence which option the American people will choose.

 https://www.theepochtimes.com/trust-the-american-people-not-the-january-6-committee_4588804.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-07-11&utm_medium=email&est=TW1iflHjPMHehJ5CUBljeTCBCk00PEZc9sodA4KmhlqmGcDg9d01%2BpNtLJya

‘America First’ is America at its best

‘America First’ is America at its best

It's disingenuous to link the movement with pre-World War II isolationists

By Keith Kellogg and Fred Fleitz 

OPINION:

As former Trump Administration national security officials who deeply believe in an America First approach to U.S. national security policy, we strongly object to the May 14 Washington Post editorial, “‘America First’ is America at its worst,” which smeared the “America First” movement by associating it with isolationists of the 1930s and ’40s who tried to keep the United States out of World War II and claims those who support America First oppose providing Ukraine with more military aid.

These claims are false and misleading. We asked The Washington Post to run this rebuttal of their editorial, but they refused to publish this full response. Typical for the Post, it refuses to give the conservatives it attacks a fair opportunity to respond.

While there may be others in Washington who casually call themselves “America First,” we at the America First Policy Institute served alongside former President Donald Trump in senior positions at the White House and in departments and agencies throughout the Executive Branch. We are among the leaders of the America First Movement. We have been abundantly clear in condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin’s destructive invasion of Ukraine and the vile atrocities his military is committing there. We have repeatedly stated the urgency that the United States provide Ukraine with all the weaponry it needs to defend itself against Russia’s unjustifiable invasion. 

It was disingenuous for the Post to associate the America First movement with isolationism or pre-World War II isolationists who opposed the United States entering World War II. Today’s America First calls for an independent and secure America with a strong military and alliances. We want to ensure America’s supply chains and economy are stable and robust, and its people are safe. Through internal strength, our nation is best poised to lead and engage in the world and accomplish more for the American people and the peace, prosperity and freedom of others. America First is not isolationism. Rather, it is purposeful transactional engagement with other nations to serve American interests first.

As a result, although we support providing additional military support to Ukraine, including the recent approval by the House of $40 billion for this purpose, we share the concerns of some members of Congress that these funds be well spent, and alliance members contribute equitably. Frankly, we have strong concerns that, once again, America is doing more than its European allies. Sen. Rand Paul has a proposal to name an inspector general to oversee this funding. The special inspector general for Afghanistan was created for this purpose during the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Given the current problems plaguing the U.S. economy and the fact that Ukraine is now the number one recipient of U.S. military aid, we believe it is essential to ensure accountability for the large sums America is committing to help Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion.

America First foreign policy and strong U.S. leadership make the world safer and represent America at its best. Contrary to many liberals, conservative hawks and deep state leakers, the leadership of Mr. Trump did not make the world less safe; it did exactly what it was designed to do — make America strong again and the world a safer place with a purposeful, transactional foreign policy that put the interests of our nation and the American people first.

As history shows us, the only time this century Russia didn’t invade a neighbor was during the four years when Mr. Trump served as commander in chief. America First does not mean America alone. As the only true guardians of America First foreign policy, we unquestionably oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine; we want the United States to send the Ukrainian military the weapons it needs and ensure accountability for the military aid we are providing to Ukraine.

• Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Keith Kellogg was an assistant to the president and national security adviser to former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. He is currently co-chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute. Fred Fleitz was chief of staff of the National Security Council in the Trump administration and a former CIA analyst. He is vice chair of the Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/19/america-first-is-america-at-its-best/

5th Circuit Slaps Down Joe Biden's SEC, Liberals Promptly Lose Their Minds

5th Circuit Slaps Down Joe Biden's SEC, Liberals Promptly Lose Their Minds

By Bonchie | 

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

“Everything I don’t like is a threat to democracy” has become the new slogan of the Democrat Party, and it was put on display again this week after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals slapped down Joe Biden’s SEC.

In a ruling that restored constitutional protections and left Democrats screaming bloody murder, the court found that the SEC does not have the power to internally decide to seize assets from those they feel have committed a crime.

Some might be asking how the SEC ever gained such power in the first place, where an internal, administrative judge can unilaterally steal people’s property. After all, doesn’t the Seventh Amendment guarantee the right to a jury trial? The legislature that delegated such power is mostly to blame, and the SEC has taken that raw power to extremes over the years.

Yet, what strikes me the most is the reaction to this ruling. Here are a few examples of the meltdown that occurred in one Twitter exchange.

For context, a professor at Georgetown University is quote-tweeting a supposed legal expert, decrying how radical it is that a court told an administrative agency they can’t violate the rights of individual citizens. You almost have to admire the guy’s word salad of describing it as violating the “people’s ability to collectively act to protect their economic security.” It would have been easier for him to say he supports an all-powerful, completely unconstitutional administrative state–because that’s exactly what he supports.

And that’s the bigger story here. The Democrat Party does not care one iota about individual rights. They see government as a bludgeon to be used in whatever way they please. If that means violating the Fourth and Seventh Amendments, then they are perfectly fine with that–as long as it serves their end goal. That’s not just true at the SEC. It’s true in every single bloated, inefficient government bureaucracy.

What the 5th Circuit did here is so important because it lays the groundwork for the Supreme Court to fully gut the administrative state and return the power to the people. If Congress wants to do something, they should be made to pass laws, not rely on unelected bureaucrats to do their bidding with no accountability. Never mind the massive taxpayer-funded financial expenditure that is represented. The consternation over a court deciding that people do indeed have rights is astonishing to witness.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/05/21/5th-circuit-slaps-down-joe-bidens-sec-liberals-promptly-lose-their-minds-n567837

Has One Possibly Rigged Election Destroyed America Forever? The Odds Are Against Us

Has One Possibly Rigged Election Destroyed America Forever? The Odds Are Against Us

By Wayne Allyn Root

Folks, we are in a world of trouble.

America has faced tough odds before. America beats impossible odds all the time. We are resilient and relentless. We are a nation of people who believe nothing is impossible. So, never count us out. There is always hope.

But make no mistake: We are now in the fight of our lives. The odds may be worse than we have ever faced. Our nation is being destroyed from within. America is hanging by a thread. The attacks are relentless and ominous.

The nation is divided like never before. You'd have to go back to the Civil War to find our nation this bitterly divided.

Our borders are wide open, with millions of foreign invaders coming in each year. The bad countries of the world are emptying out their prisons to send their worst criminals to us. Refugees by the millions are bringing poverty, disease and violent crime; bloating our budgets; exploding our national debt; and destroying our education, health care and Social Security systems.

Inflation is raging like never before in modern history. No one really knows how bad it will get. But the government is hiding the true level. More accurate measurements of inflation put us in the range of 15% to 20%. And it's only going to get worse. This has the potential to wipe out the great American middle class.

If and when gas reaches $10 per gallon (or higher), the U.S. economy will be at the point of collapse. What working-class or middle-class person will be able to drive to work when it costs $200 or more to fill up one tank of gas?

What will happen to the 3.5 million American truckers who each drive thousands of miles a week? If they can't get the food or goods to market, our nation collapses into "Mad Max" territory. It's every man and woman for themselves.

And don't forget we have the worst employee shortage in history. No one wants to work anymore because President Joe Biden gives so much government welfare and bailout money away. And I haven't even gotten to the worst scenarios yet.

But the point is, an election that I believe was rigged has changed everything.

Think of America with former President Donald Trump in charge. We had perhaps the greatest and most prosperous economy in history; the highest increase in middle-class incomes ever; the lowest unemployment ever — including the lowest black and Latino unemployment ever; inflation and interest rates at historic lows; a perfect supply chain with a plethora of everything; and peace all over the world. But some Americans didn't like Trump's tweets.

What would you give to have Trump back right about now?

Everything is at risk now. America is a disaster now. All because we might have allowed Democrats to rig a presidential election with millions of mail-in ballots; no voter ID; little or no signature matching; plus an insane idea called "ballot harvesting" that used to be illegal in all 50 states; ballot drops in the middle of the night; ballots counted for days after the election until the desired result was achieved; and every Republican witness kicked out of the room while the votes were being counted in key battleground states.

No evidence of a rigged election there, right?

Now to the potential life-or-death problems that we face because we may have allowed a rigged election...

We face the real possibility of World War III with the Ukraine-Russia war. Are you ready to let your sons and daughters die over Ukraine?

We face the real possibility of a nuclear war. We are closer than at any time in modern history. Even the U.N. announced that only days ago.

We are about to sign the Iran treaty, the worst deal in world history, which hands nuclear weapons to the worst terrorist nation in the world.

China is almost certain to invade Taiwan, which makes 95% of the crucial computer chips in the world. Without them we can't operate our computers, cellphones or cars.

And then as a "bonus" we face financial collapse if we can't get enough oil to fill our gas tanks; if the Russian money we just banned from our system undermines credit markets and brings down our entire banking system; or if our dollar collapses as the "world reserve currency."

These disasters are not only all on the table at this minute, but what if several converge at the same time? Our country, your life, your children's future could be gone, forever. Just like that.

All because we allowed what may have been a rigged election in the United States of America.

Who you gonna vote for in November? If you vote Democrat, you are officially suicidal.

P.S. Let's Go Brandon.

https://www.creators.com/read/wayne-allyn-root/03/22/has-one-possibly-rigged-election-destroyed-america-forever-the-odds-are-against-us

Around the World, Authorities Are Cracking Down on 'Freedom Convoys'

Around the World, Authorities Are Cracking Down on 'Freedom Convoys'

BY RICK MORAN 

(Twitter screenshot)

Paris police are threatening truckers in a French “Freedom Convoy” with prison if they try to block traffic. Meanwhile, authorities in New Zealand made more than 100 arrests as they moved to clear a protest encampment of thousands outside the country’s parliament building.

Something is happening in the world. At present, it’s a formless, shapeless mass, and barely discernible. But something wonderful—and scary and exciting and possibly earth-shattering—is happening in countries across the globe.

It’s not some socialist revolt of the masses, although ordinary people are largely driving the movement. The sound you hear coming from these Freedom Convoys is the sound of people who’ve had enough and want to control their own destinies once again. And authorities are refusing to oblige.

Mandates may be the proximate cause of the Freedom Convoys, but it’s what the mandates represent that’s at issue: the micro-managing of the lives of people who are being treated like small children instead of rational adults.

Forcing people to do something for their own good just because the powers that be have decided what’s best is no way to live in a free country—in any country. And it’s clear that governments haven’t caught on to what these protests are really about.

The U.S. government is begging the Canadian government to take action to clear the bridges on the border that have been blocked by truckers in the Freedom Convoys. Apparently, the U.S. auto industry is being negatively impacted by the blockade and some factories have been forced to shut down.

Associated Press:

The White House said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke with their Canadian counterparts and urged them to help resolve the standoff.

Federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said Royal Canadian Mounted Police reinforcements are being sent to Windsor, Ottawa and Coutts, Alberta where another border blockade is happening.

Trudeau met virtually with leaders of Canada’s opposition late Thursday and said he spoke with Windsor’s mayor. Trudeau’s office said there is a willingness to “respond with whatever it takes” to end the blockades.

That certainly sounds ominous. But wouldn’t it be better to, like, you know, talk to the protesters before going in and seizing their rigs and bashing their heads?

In Canada, even some on the right have abandoned the Freedom Convoy after Canadian TV dwelt lovingly on some Nazi flags and the Stars and Bars flying in the protest crowd. This proved to be too much for the mild-mannered Canadians. Perhaps one in a thousand people at the protest harbor hateful thoughts, but the coverage in the Canadian press is making it appear as if there’s a Nazi Party convention is in town.

Or worse, that January 6-style “insurrectionists” are trying to take over the Canadian government…or something.

Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford, meanwhile, moved to cut off funding for the protests by successfully asking a court to freeze millions of dollars in donations to the convoy through crowd-funding site GiveSendGo. Ford has called the protests an occupation.

Canadian officials previously got GoFundMe to cut off funding after protest organizers used the site to raise about 10 million Canadian dollars ($7.8 million). GoFundMe determined that the fundraising effort violated the site’s terms of service due to unlawful activity.

With political and economic pressure mounting, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens announced the city will seek a court injunction to end the occupation.

Mandates in the United States are dropping right and left as Democrats begin to pay a serious political cost for “following the science” when the “science” isn’t very “scientific.” If the radical left in America is forced—reluctant to give up their emergency powers, why not Canada? European nations are also slowly easing restrictions. The writing is on the wall: the COVID panic is over and it’s time to get serious about rebuilding the damage done by ruinous government policies.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/02/11/around-the-world-authorities-are-cracking-down-on-freedom-convoys-n1558379?utm_source=pjmedia&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&bcid=15803c7fc8c68b6fd1f0a5e7f4b59fc49df45d48335d4339ad60f7b0a0c7404d&recip=28668535

Column: Are we living in the Hunger Games?

Column: Are we living in the Hunger Games?

Glenn Harlan Reynolds

• Washington, DC is doing a lot better than the rest of the country.
• Washington is rich not because it makes valuable things, but because it is powerful.
• That's where we are now, with a Capital City that looks more and more like the capital city of an imperial power.

You know the story: While the provinces starve, the Capital City lives it up, its wheeler-dealer bigshots growing fat on the tribute extracted from the rest of the country.

We don't live in The Hunger Games yet, but I'm not the first to notice that Washington, D.C., is doing a lot better than the rest of the country. Even in upscale parts of L.A. or New York, you see boarded up storefronts and other signs that the economy isn't what it used to be. But not so much in the Washington area, where housing prices are going up, fancy restaurants advertise $92 Wagyu steaks, and the Tyson's Corner mall outshines -- as I can attest from firsthand experience -- even Beverly Hills' famed Rodeo Drive.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, the contrast is even starker. As Adam Davidson recently wrote in The New York Times, riding the Amtrak between New York and D.C. exposes stark contrasts between the "haves" of the capital and the have-nots outside the Beltway. And he correctly assigns this to the importance of power.

Washington is rich not because it makes valuable things, but because it is powerful. With virtually everything subject to regulation, it pays to spend money influencing the regulators. As P.J. O'Rourke famously observed: "When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators." But it's not just bags-of-cash style corruption. Most of the D.C. boom is from lobbyists and PR people, and others who are retained to influence what the government does. It's a cold calculation: You're likely to get a much better return from an investment of $1 million on lobbying than on a similar investment in, say, a new factory or better worker training.

So Washington gets fat, and it does so on money taken from the rest of the country: Either directly, in the form of taxes, or indirectly in the form of money that otherwise would have gone to that factory or training program.

I'm not the only one to notice this, or even to make the Hunger Games analogy. As Ross Douthat wrote, "There aren't tributes from Michigan and New Mexico fighting to the death in Dupont Circle just yet. But it doesn't seem like a sign of national health that America's political capital is suddenly richer than our capitals of manufacturing and technology and finance, or that our leaders are more insulated than ever from the trends buffeting the people they're supposed to serve."

No, it's not a sign of health. And it's no coincidence that our lawmakers have weathered the recession better than America has.

It's a sign of illness. And it's exactly the illness that federalism and limited national government -- something I wrote about in the context of secession-talk last week -- was designed to prevent. The reason this approach isn't working any more is that we're not following it.

Under the original Constitutional plan, the federal government's powers were to be few, and mostly concerned with external relations. Under those circumstances, the risk of corruption was comparatively low. Nearly all regulation would come from state governments. They might be corrupted -- since they'd be the only ones worth corrupting -- but problems would be compartmentalized (corruption in Rhode Island wouldn't have much effect on Connecticut, much less Utah) and disciplined by competition with other states.

Well, it's been quite a while since things worked that way; things started go go downhill with the federal expansion under the New Deal, and then really took off after the "regulatory explosion" under President Nixon, who created such entities as the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety & Health Administration.

It's no coincidence that as the federal government morphed from an entity that did a few highly visible things well, to one that did a whole lot of not-so-visible things less well, respect for the federal government plummeted even as the political class' wealth climbed.

That's where we are now, with a capital city that looks more and more like that of an imperial power where courtiers and influence-peddlers abound. Want to do something about it? Don't secede. Return to the Constitution.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2012/11/26/hunger-games-washington-economy-glenn-reynolds/1725783/