Putting Judicial Review into Perspective by Dennis Haugh

Understanding Constitutional checks and balances stands as perhaps the shiniest example of the failure of the educational system in the 20^th century. If one looks up “checks and balances” on the Internet, a triangle pops up showing each of the three branches of the national government checking and balancing each other as being the complete system of checks and balances. That is what is taught today throughout the educational system. As I explain in Political Vertigo, this is a misrepresentation of the Constitution. It ignores the vertical checks that were in the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights (Amendment 10). The contemporary view is more about balancing power within the national government. The vertical checks are the true checks on the power of the national government. They have been ignored both by the educational system and by our practice of governance.

This post discusses the role of judicial review within the system of checks and balances. To be clear, Edward Corwin was the first to use the term, judicial review, in 1910. The founders used no such term. Dr. Robert Lowry Clinton’s view is that it should really be called judicial supremacy. Nobel Prize winner Gordon S. Wood also uses this term. Although Dr. Wood considers Dr. Clinton to be a revisionist, it is a more accurate term.

Madison left us solid evidence that the framers in the Constitution Convention firmly held that the Supreme Court did NOT have the power to determine and impose what was constitutional and what was not. The Convention notes speak for themselves and affirm that the text in Article III section 2 confines the Supreme Court to rendering judicial opinions only. It does NOT give the Court the authority to dictate to either of the other two branches. This is where the precision of review versus supremacy is important. The accepted view today is really that the Court has an absolute check on the other two branches.  That is supremacy.

The contemporary view taught by the education system is that Marshall “assumed the right of judicial review” in Marbury v. Madison. There are a few ironic twists to this view.

1.    Marshall rightly argued that when a law and the Constitution conflicted, the Constitution is to prevail. This is the main intention of a written Constitution.

2.    He further argued that the legislature could not expand constitutional power of one of the national branches. Such an increase in power required the Article V amendment process.

3.    The Court actually ruled that it did not have the power to issue the writ of mandamus because it did not have original jurisdiction in the case.

Bullet one above is a given, and his application of it in the decision is proper and compatible with the framers’ “constructive limitation to a judiciary nature”. The distinction to be made is that nowhere in the ruling did the Court order either of the other branches to do anything, nor did it invalidate any law. Within the ruling, the determination was made that the Judiciary Act of 1789 could not legitimately augment the Court’s original jurisdiction over the limitation in the Constitution. It is ironic that this part of the argument is taken as the justification for judicial review – which is abstractly in violation of bullet two.

Bullet two argues that the legislature cannot expand constitutional power by a law. It is ironic that proponents of judicial review hold that the judicial branch CAN expand its own judicial power by judicial ruling. The inconsistency should be obvious. Such an increase in power should require an amendment to the Constitution – just as it should for the legislature.

Bullet three is interesting in that the Constitution actually does give the Supreme Court original jurisdiction for “other public officials”. As Secretary of State, Madison was a public official, so the Supreme Court did have original jurisdiction -- by the Constitution, so the Judiciary Act of 1789 was irrelevant. Marshall ignored this and inverted the ruling by making an unnecessary argument. The ruling is an example of how different conclusions can be reached by selecting different priorities as a basis – and ignoring evidence.

If the Constitution doesn’t give the Supreme Court the power to check the other two branches and Marbury v. Madison didn’t establish the power legitimately, how is it that the national government operates as it does? One of the modern tools that I introduce in Political Vertigo is the Strauss-Howe generations model. As generations have turned, there has been gradual acceptance by legal precedence. History has showed time and again that such power shifting happens. This is exactly why theoreticians as far back as Aristotle have proposed written constitutions to stop the phenomenon. As Hume stated, “It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once”.

What is the effect of institutionalized judicial supremacy? If we pause to think about it, our disappointments are really that the Court doesn’t strike down a law. The framers would say that we messed up by electing representatives who would pass such laws in the first place. Their expectation was that we, as the ultimate arbiter, would vote out such representatives and vote in ones that would repair the damage. Their take on our current circumstance would be that we are no longer capable of self-governance because we have become so corrupt as a society that we cannot effect the change via election – whether it is our voting or the result of the votes. Let us consider “Obamacare”.

Most of John Robert’s opinion on ACA was actual on target. The ruling of it as a tax is more than controversial, but there were some very sound points in it. Perhaps the most overlooked statement in the opinion was that he actually stated that we need to quit looking to the Supreme Court to strike down legislation. In fact, that was the founders’ expectation. On the other hand, the people did exactly what the framers expected. They voted in a Republican Congress with the expectation that they would repeal ACA. Congress did not do that. The reelection of Barack Obama signals a weakness in society’s public virtue. A Presidential veto was certain, and Congress failed to show the moral fiber to legislate a repeal.

What the Republican majority in Congress did was to let political faction override the will of the people. In chapter 8 of Political Vertigo, I analyze the modernizations required to restore Madison’s foundational analysis of factions. As things stand, the mechanism that the framers expected us to employ (voting) has been rendered ineffective by factions – and abandonment of republican principles.

The framers did give us another mechanism to exercise our role of ultimate arbiter. That mechanism is the second method of proposing amendments in Article V. Unfortunately, the framers were trailblazing a new concept to put an amendment process into the Constitution, so they didn’t get all the parameters right. In particular, they miscalculated just how difficult it would be to get an Article V Convention of States called. We have 225 years of data to do an analysis, and I do that in chapter 7 of Political Vertigo. At this point, we have gone so long without this course correction, it is not clear that we can ever agree to call such a convention. Many who would otherwise advocate such a convention are too scared of the results – because they know that society has become so corrupted. The results of not attempting this mechanism are obvious. Those who fear a convention should realize that the risk is not going diminish over time. It will only increase.

There is still more to mention about judicial supremacy itself. One of the modern tools introduced in Political Vertigo is Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which really applies to any organization. In a nutshell, there are two groups of people in an organization. The first group promotes the goals of the organization. The second group promotes the organization itself instead the goals. Finally, group two always gains control and makes the rules.

It is interesting to ponder how Pournelle’s Iron Law applies to the Supreme Court. It should be obvious by John Roberts continual saving of Obamacare that he is in group 2. In all probability, most Chief Justices have been in group 2. The result is that the Supreme Court has steadily increased its stature rather than focused on its true role in government. Dr. Gordon S. Wood published a paper in the Washington and Lee Law Review in June of 1999 called The Origins of Judicial Review Revisited, or How the Marshall Court Made More out of Less. The article covers the historic journey and attitudes surrounding judicial review and judges in general. It is one article of many that lionizes Marshall for promoting the stature of the court – which is exactly what group 2 attempts to do.

      Dr. Wood’s article reveals more than history. It reveals the author’s own perspective on the history. To the author, Jefferson was behind the times in his attitude of restricting judicial power. He also considers it enlightened to centralize power in the national government. As I write in Political Vertigo, academics almost universally rate Presidents highly who have actually exceeded their constitutional limitations rather than respected them. The same is true for academics and the legal profession with respect to justices. They also approve of the centralization of power (and money) into Washington DC. The power dynamic has been power being acquired by the national government to the detriment of the states. With the states being the “agents of the people”, this means that the people have progressively less real representation.

Mind Manipulation

IM:  I hear a lot of my fellow Republicans now saying Trump is a catastrophe and do not want to support him; some are even talking about voting for Hillary.

Old Gadfly:  Does that come as a surprise to you?

AM:  What I see playing out in the news is a very deliberate attempt to not only control what we see and understand, but to control our reactions as well.  Take the news today.  All the networks focused on how Trump claimed to have seen a video of an aircraft carrying $400 million in cash as ransom for four hostages released by Iran.  Trump later corrected this claim by saying it was actually another clip of an aircraft carrying the hostages.  The focus was Trump’s incorrect claim.  There was no interest in the $400 million in cash in exchange for the hostages.  In other words, Trump is dishonest or a loose cannon.  How about a glib president that chuckled away the $400 million in cash for four hostages, saying this was not ransom money?

IM:  Remind me what glib means.

AM:  Glib means “fluent and voluble but insincere and shallow.”  Voluble is “characterized by a ready and continuous flow of words” in order to dominate the narrative.  See how the press reacted?  They focused on Trump’s erroneous video clip—something considerably trivial compared with a ransom for hostages.

Old Gadfly:  Remember, F.A. Hayek made two important observations related to these dynamics.  The first was about how the political elite shape reactions to any opposition to their established values in the Chapter, “The End of Truth,” in his book, The Road to Serfdom.  Those sufficiently indoctrinated with these values are to spontaneously attack those who express any opposition to these values.  This explains the vitriolic reporting following George Stephanopoulos’s questions to Trump following the Kahn attacks at the Democrat National Convention.  The second observation in his book The Fatal Conceit:  The Errors of Socialism is that “the mind is the product of cultural evolution and reflects more imitation than reason.”

IM:  I hear a lot of people repeating what is in the news.  When I ask them to provide more detail or examples to support allegations, they go silent.  So, this must be a form of imitation.  Just this morning, I read Michael Morell’s op-ed, “I Ran the C.I.A.  Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton” in the New York Times.  This evening, quotes from his article were all over the news—a classic echo chamber.

AM:  I read the same article—pure propaganda.  He said, “Mrs. Clinton is highly qualified to be commander in chief. . . . I spent four years with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state, most often in the White House Situation Room.  In these critically important meetings, I found her to be prepared, detail-oriented, thoughtful, inquisitive and willing to change her mind if presented with a compelling argument.”  These are called platitudes.  If this is representative of the type of analysis he provided as the acting head of the CIA, no wonder we did so poorly on the international stage.  None of these qualifications relate to actual achievements.  But they do “glibly” disguise the tremendous foreign policy failures during her tenure—Benghazi, Libya, Egypt, Syria, ISIS, a resurgent Russia (who took Crimea and threatened Ukraine), North Korea, China, Cuba, and so forth.  None of these were successes—they were all setbacks.  Obama had no foreign policy expertise when he ran for president.  When McCain confronted him with this realization, Obama laughed at him and said, “but I have superior judgment.”  As if judgement is in one’s DNA and has nothing to do with experience and the wisdom that follows.

IM:  Morell, obviously pandering for a Clinton administration appointment, then went on to criticize Trump for his character traits:  “The traits include his obvious need for self-aggrandizement [nothing compared with the narcissist in chief, Obama], his overreaction to perceived slights [there have been no vicious attacks of Trump—they are all in his imagination], his tendency to make decisions based on intuition [he offers no examples, but don’t forget intuition is what Obama’s superior judgment depended upon], his refusal to change his views based on new information [even Hillary refuses to change her views about lying to the people even from old information on the record from Director Comey], his routine carelessness with the facts [nowhere near to Obama’s characterization of the ISIS threat, the economy, and so forth], his unwillingness to listen to others [Obamacare is the right thing to do even though the majority of Americans didn’t want it], and his lack of respect for the law [enforcing immigration laws do not count and Obama is exempted from similar criticism because it would be racist].

AM:  In my view, the most egregious part of his article is when he suggested Putin “recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.”  Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation were involved in very serious “pay to play” actions with Russian actors.  Joy Overbeck provides a detailed expose in her article, “None Dare Call Her Treasonous.”  On the same page of The New York Times is another op-ed article by Arkody Ostrovsky, the Russian and Eastern European editor of the Economist.  The title of his article was “For Putin, Disinformation Is Power.”  The ideological zealots who make up the editorial staff at The New York Times completely missed the irony of these juxtaposed op-ed articles.  The Morell article is disinformation.

IM:  Mr. Ostrovsky said, “After Mikhail Gorbachev opened up the Soviet media, the contrast between socialist and capitalist economic systems had become too apparent.”  Yet, the progressive Democrats in America are pushing socialism while condemning capitalism.  Trump represents capitalism, which is why the progressive Democrats must diminish him as a candidate.  Ostrovsky continued, “Mr. Putin has reason to fear in one respect.  His system does face an existential threat from the Western model of governance.  Just as the economic inadequacies of Soviet Communism were exposed by comparison with the wealth produced by Western capitalism, Mr. Putin’s authoritarianism cannot match the appeal of an economy based on the rule of law, openness and competition.  The best way for the West to resist Russia, now and then, is to uphold its own values.”  Obama’s vision for fundamentally transforming America took us away from these values.  Hillary Clinton wants to accelerate this transformation.  Trump wants to reinstate them by “making America great again.”

Old Gadfly:  In the cold, gray month of January 1980, my wife and I traveled to Berlin, which included a visit to the Berlin Air Safety Center, a facility manned by officers from the four occupying nations—the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  As we met those on duty who were controlling flights into and out of Berlin corridors, two Soviet officers were in the room.  A younger one was sitting near the wall with his feet resting on the desk, reading the Pravda newspaper.  I shook hands with the senior Soviet officer on duty.  We were told by a younger Soviet officer, who spoke fluent English, the senior officer was a lieutenant colonel and a former MIG-25 pilot.  He was a first lieutenant, but the colonel reported to him—in other words, the lieutenant was the political officer for their unit.

AM:  The Russian word Pravda means “truth” in English.  We know Pravda was the government-sponsored and controlled paper.  It was the propaganda machine for the communist party—it reported on what the people were allowed to know or believe.

          Old Gadfly:  If the communist party controlled what was reported in the Soviet Union, then is it possible for an American ideology to have similar control over news reporting even in so called free societies?  Obviously it is.  American progressives—politicians, media, academia, and Hollywood—control the narrative.  The Trump and Clinton we see is the Trump and Clinton they want us to see.  Aggressive research is contrary to these images.  Hillary Clinton is unapologetically corrupt.  Peter Schweizer reveals some of this corruption in Clinton Cash (here is a free video that provides some of the evidence).  The last couple weeks I have asked friends, family, and complete strangers if they had seen Dinesh D’Souza’s movie or read his book:  Hillary’s America:  The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  Nine out of 10 have never heard of it.  The media is suppressing it.  This is called censorship because the facts and analysis are so contrary to the progressive idea of “truth.”  Americans—all Americans--need to realize this.

A Dark Vein of Intolerance

AM:  The media is engaged in “wolf pack” attacks on Trump because he responded to the Islamic “Gold Star” parents of a son killed while serving in the American armed forces.  The Kahns are receiving 50 times more coverage than the grieving mother of her son who was killed in the Benghazi attack.  The Kahns verbally attacked Trump during the Democrat National Convention (DNC) by suggesting that Trump wanted to violate the U.S. Constitution as indicated by his rhetoric on Muslim immigration.  It was not clear to me what was unconstitutional in regard to Trump rhetoric, notwithstanding the fact that Obama has clearly issued unconstitutional executive orders related to immigration.  This episode reminded me of General Colin Powell’s notorious allegation to David Gregory on Meet the Press that as a registered Republican he voted for Barack Obama twice because of his economic plan and that there was a dark vein of intolerance within the Republican Party (see also this interview).

Old Gadfly:  Where you are going with this, AM.

AM:  First, the Democrat Party had a clear agenda in inviting the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in combat while serving in the American armed forces.  The idea is to make Trump appear (a) bigoted because he wants to ensure Muslims coming from parts of the Middle East are sufficiently vetted before entering the United States, and (b) xenophobic by wanting to enforce immigration laws while confronting those who are here illegally.  Second, the Kahns could then attack Trump because their Muslim and gold star status would be a shield against any rebuttal.  This was a trap.  If Trump responded in any way, it would come across as unsympathetic to grieving parents.  This is exactly what we see playing out in the media.  If, on the other hand, Trump did not respond, then the message that Trump is intolerant to those wanting to come to America, whether Muslim or as an illegal alien, would still be reinforced without any rebuttals.  Third, there are some opinions that the soldier’s father is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Currently, there is no evidence of such membership.  However, recall our conversation on June 15, 2016 regarding Hillary Clinton’s close adviser, Huma Abedin, and her connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.  If Kahn is connected, and I strongly suspect he is, this is part of a much bigger story that aligns with Obama’s vision for fundamentally transforming America—mostly through demographics and its effect on culture.    

IM:  A lack of evidence about Kahn’s motivation or membership does not minimize the sinister tactics employed by the Democrats.  Obviously, the parents did not just appear on the schedule.  The DNC organizers had a particular narrative in mind.  You nailed it, AM, in the intent to set a trap, and the complicit media are relishing in the intended reaction, not just from Trump, but from those who are sympathetic to the grieving parents.  This is how people get coopted into aligning themselves with another politically-oriented policy issue.  Support the parents of a Muslim soldier lost in action and then feel good about Muslims coming to America.  Advertisers associate sexy images with a particular product and, because the sexual component attracts, the product becomes attractive by association.  This is how propaganda works.  Stalin was a master at this with his mind control propaganda.

AM:  In the flurry of media spin on the Kahn story, when confronted by George Stephanopoulos about not sacrificing anything or anyone, Trump could have responded, “No, I have not; but Hillary sacrificed four Americans and the video fall guy at Benghazi.”  But, he did not respond that way.

Old Gadfly:  AM, tell me how this story and its corresponding broader public narrative remind you of General Powell’s “vein of intolerance.”

AM:  Given that General Powell is an African-American who unabashedly accuses the Republican Party of having a vein of intolerance tells me that despite his tremendous accomplishments on behalf of America, he appears to have no idea of how hypocritical that accusation is within the context of American political history.  While progressives love to create truth while obscuring the actual truth, there is far too much documented history that demonstrates the vein of intolerance has actually run throughout the Democrat Party ever since it was founded by Andrew Jackson.  Dinesh D’Souza does a fabulous job presenting this very readable history in his book and movie, Hillary’s America:  The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  I watched the movie and am now reading the book.  The book provides far more detail with a compelling and cohesive set of evidence-based arguments, citing actual source documents and credible historians.  Ironically, his treatment of pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions had little to do with religion and a great deal to do with political power.  Democrats, in both the southern and northern states, were pro-slavery.  The abolitionists, many of whom were Christian, were Republicans.

Old Gadfly:  What did General Powell refer to regarding intolerance?

AM:  He said some Republicans still use “racially tainted language” regarding minorities; he offered a couple of examples based on comments by Sarah Palin and John Sununu.  When I heard the General say this, I inferred that since Republicans opposed the Democrat candidate, an African- American, the real opposition must be due to race, as if Obama’s stated intentions to fundamentally transform America in an egalitarian—where equality trumps liberty—and socialistic direction had nothing to do with the opposition.  Redistributing the wealth sounds good to a socialist (and struggling minorities) but not to those who believe in individual liberty, a limited government, and a capitalistic free market.  These are competing worldviews, and a social psychology professor, Jonathan Haidt, from the Stern School of Business school at New York University does an excellent job explaining these different views in this video.

Old Gadfly:  Democrats have been masters at projecting their own sins upon the Republican Party.  As D’Souza clearly establishes in his book, Democrats were the racist Party of slavery; and, today, they have evolved into the progressive Party of enslavement.  (Recall our conversation on indentured classes on August 28, 2014).  The great champions of American progressivism were the Democrat Party Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson—all three were documented bigots.  The late Democrat Senator Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), but this did not stop President Obama from attending his funeral, even though he chose not to similarly honor Margaret Thatcher or Justice Scalia.  The racist to progressive transformation was complete when an African-American President felt compelled to attend the funeral of a known racist.  And General Powell wants to accuse Republicans of having a vein of intolerance.

IM:  Recall President Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast speech last year.  Of course, the immediate context involved public concerns about the Islamic terrorism taking place across the world.  After opening his speech with “Giving all praise and honor to God,” which is a similar pattern to opening lines for various chapters (or suras) in the Qu’ran (“In the name of Allah [God], the Gracious, and the Merciful”), Obama said the following:

And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ. . . . 

So this is not unique to one group or one religion.  There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.  In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance. But God compels us to try.  

 Old Gadfly:  Aside from Obama’s distorted understanding of the Crusades, what does this passage tell us?

IM:   I particularly noted the sanctimonious assertion, “There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith.”  Obama is perverting and distorting the truth and terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  Democrats promoted slavery, spawned the KKK and Jim Crow laws, advanced segregation and obstructed legislation to advance freedom for all in the form of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.  And, Obama gets on his high horse when he said, “In today’s world, when hate groups have their own Twitter accounts and bigotry can fester in hidden places in cyberspace, it can be even harder to counteract such intolerance.”  It was Obama that said if I had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin and has supported the Black Lives Matter group, the latter of which spawned from the Michael Brown incident in Ferguson, Missouri.  Judgments in both these cases were made before they were even fully processed in our legal system.  Incidentally, Democrats convinced FDR to block anti-lynching legislation in the 1930s.  It seems lynching remains a Democrat tactic in today’s politics.  D’Souza can attest to this.

          Old Gadfly:  When there is a dark vein of intolerance running throughout the progressive Democrat Party, truth does not matter.  When a complicit mainstream media drink the same progressive poison, legitimizing a distorted truth, then stand by for more metaphorical lynchings. 

The Missing Adult

AM:  During the Republican presidential primary season, do you recall Ohio Governor John Kasich claiming to be “the only adult” running?

Old Gadfly:  Yes, I do.

IM:  So, where was he when the Republican National Convention (RNC) commenced?  After all, the RNC is being held in the State of Ohio.

AM:  An adult teaches children all about being a good sport, to shake the hand of your opponent even when you lose the contest.  For the Ohio Governor not to officially welcome delegates to the RNC shows that not only is he a poor sport, he’s a quitter and a loser. 

IM:  For people like John Kasich, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and the Bush clan not to support the Republican candidate for President says a lot more about them than it does the Republican candidate who won the primary playing by the rules.  They truly demonstrate why the word conservative can project a negative, status quo preference for political privilege.  Just like the Democrat ruling class, some within the Republican Party forget that they too can be seduced by a ruling class mentality contrary to the wishes of the constituency they should be humbled and honored to serve.

Old Gadfly:  Unfortunately far too many Americans still feel comfortable being fed narratives shaped by a very biased media.  As you will recall, I categorized many of these individuals as Copernican drones because they lack the capacity to think and analyze original sources on their own.  For example, I have heard many express their fear of Trump because he would be imperialistic or authoritarian.  Perhaps they have been desensitized regarding this notion by a truly authoritarian who has followed through with his promise to circumvent the Congress with his phone and pen.  Trump says that on his first day in office he would rescind unconstitutional executive orders related to the second amendment and immigration.

IM:  I noticed that Trump’s campaign website provides positions on some key issues.  I read through all of these positions, and what struck me was Trump’s apparent intent to work with Congress and our existing institutions to advance solutions.  This does not sound like an imperialistic President.

AM:  Ironically, when looking at Hillary’s campaign website, her positions represent a third Obama term and address everything under the sun—consistent with imperialistic thinking and a belief in a very big and powerful central government.  Let’s see, Hillary’s commitment to the status quo sounds like a conservative.  Trump is the one advancing new ideas to benefit all Americans, not just protected classes at the expense of others.  Nor does he want to enslave the nonruling class.

Old Gadfly:  This past week, I had the opportunity to hear Dinesh D’Souza discuss his upcoming documentary based on his book, Hillary’s America:  The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  The movie opens in three days (July 22, 2016) at theaters nationwide.  Progressives are already trying to debunk the analysis by suggesting political realignment.  Sadly, we see no advertisement by the media.  Does this come as a surprise.  I remember all the media hype about Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth before they were released.  So, we need to spread the word through other means.

IM:  Wasn’t D’Souza convicted recently?

Old Gadfly:  Yes.  This is what he explained in his book:

In this book I will show how Democrats went from slavery for blacks to enslavement for the whole population.  Even those who benefit from the progressive state become dependent upon it and remain captive to their progressive benefactors.  Meanwhile, the rest of us are forced, intimidated, and terrorized into forking over our earnings and possessions so that progressives can dispose of them as they see fit.  In sum, progressive Democrats have gone from exploiting blacks to exploiting everyone.  This is their actual Big Switch. 

. . . Progressives need a pitch, and the best pitch is the idea of social justice.

. . . I learned about the pitch in a federal confinement center where I spent eight months in overnight captivity for my sins against the Obama administration.  My crime was exceeding the campaign finance laws by giving $20,000 over the campaign finance limit to a college pal of mine who was running for the U.S. Senate.  I didn’t do it to get anything in return; I did it simply to help an old friend.  For this, I found myself at the receiving end of the full force of the U.S. government.

But since no one in American history has been prosecuted—let alone incarcerated—for doing what I did, I should be allowed to suspect that my real crime was in exposing President Obama in my film 2016:  Obama’s America and my books The Roots of Obama’s Rage and Obama’s America.  Obama hated my film, vituperatively attacking it on his website barackobama.com, and a few months later, the FBI was knocking on my door (pp. 22-23).        

AM:  What does D’Souza mean by “the Big Switch?”

Old Gadfly:  Democrats and their complicit progressives in academia, the media, and Hollywood claim Republicans, and now Trump, in particular are bigots, racists, misogynists, and so forth, when it was Democrats in our history that were the racists and misogynists.  D’Souza provides evidence that the Ku Klux Klan emerged from the Democrat Party, Jim Crow laws were advanced by Democrats, and Democrats opposed women suffrage.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Read his book.  Better yet, watch the documentary.

IM:  Sadly, there is an abundance of evidence to impugn Democrat social justice policy.  For example, here is an interesting video by Dr. Walter Williams from George Mason University.

AM:  Democrats seem to have a powerful megaphone, claiming Republicans are the party of “no” or “obstructionists.”

Old Gadfly:  When a particular ideological faction controls the narrative, it is easy to manufacture false notions.  This is one of the recruiting advantages ISIS and other Islamic or jihadists groups have, and they start early as in this news video of a kindergarten graduation in the Gaza Strip.  Progressives are an ideological faction, and they want Americans to think they are the ones with ideas to advance progress while Republicans want to put blacks back in chains.  Well, Republicans do have ideas.  Check out Trump’s website and take a look at Ryan’s (Republican Speaker of the House) A Better Way.  Of course, most Americans will only know about Ryan’s policy agenda through the media.  Here’s such an example.  The biggest criticism is about the lack of specific detail, highlighting alternatives to Obamacare, as an example.  As a professor, I always advise students to evaluate primary sources.  This is part of an education many Americans seem to have missed.

IM:  Coloradans are about to discover what they did not read in the legislation before it was passed strictly by Democrat votes.   Because a Colorado democrat-controlled legislature and governor passed an Obamacare exchange, they are now scrambling to see how Colorado will fill the gap in lost federal subsidies this coming year.  The proposed legislation calls for an increase in individual income taxes (from 4.63% to 7.96%) and 10% increase for sole proprietors (from 4.63% to 14.63%) and corporations.  Meanwhile thousands of Coloradans have been added to the State Medicaid program.  The citizens of Ohio will soon discover the same dilemma after Governor John Kasich enthusiastically promoted Obamacare exchanges in his State.  A nice little mess created by progressive Democrats, but they will find a way to blame it on Republicans as in D’Souza’s Big Switch theory.

          Old Gadfly:  Some of this explains why Democrats fear a President Trump.  Trump firmly believes in law and order over political retribution.  As an adult, and given available resources, his Attorney General and other federal-level prosecutors would focus on crimes that are far more egregious than a $20,000 campaign contribution.  Perhaps by then, other “ruling class” Republicans will seek redemption for failing to be an adult, and putting our nation at risk with a President Hillary Clinton. 

Some Are More Equal

IM:  Events during this week demonstrated life imitating satire.

Old Gadfly:  What do you mean, IM?

IM:  In Orwell’s Animal Farm, after the socialists took command, they issued seven commandments.  Over time, seeing how easy it was to control the other animals, Napoleon (styled after Joseph Stalin) reduced the commandments to just one:  “all animals are created equal; some are more equal than others.”

Old Gadfly:    Animal Farm’s class distinctions certainly appear to reflect the FBI Director’s decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton despite his own well-described case of someone who grossly violated federal statutes.  Comey was very careful in his wording:  “no evidence of criminal intent” and “extreme carelessness.”

IM:  This wording was precisely what President Obama signaled when interviewed by Chris Wallace on April 10, 2016 on the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace program.  Obama said he believed there was “no intent” to violate laws, although the actions certainly were “very careless.”

AM:  Then, on a Monday, June 27, 2016, in an unscheduled but well-choreographed arrangement, Bill Clinton privately (no witnesses or photographers) met with Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General of the United States, on her plane on the airport tarmac in Phoenix.  When leaked, Lynch claimed it was just a casual discussion about grandchildren.

IM:  Five days later, on Saturday, July 2, 2016, several FBI agents interviewed Hillary Clinton for about three hours.  This was not a sworn deposition, and there was no recording or transcript of the session.  Yet, Democrats wanted to compare this case to the Petraeus case—the big difference is that the FBI interrogated him under oath.  Do you think Bill advised Lynch to remind the FBI that when they talked to Hillary, it should not be under oath to avoid perjury implications?  Bill remembers his own experience under oath regarding his sexual encounter with Monica Lewinsky.

AM:  Then, on Sunday, July 3, 2016, the New York Times published an article that sent a signal to Loretta Lynch:  “. . . Democrats close to Mrs. Clinton say she may decide to retain Ms. Lynch, the nation’s first black woman to be attorney general, who took office in April 2015."  Of course, by then Lynch said to the public that she would do whatever the FBI recommends.

IM:  All of which led up to FBI Director, Comey, making his announcement on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, that he would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton.  This announcement was just in time for Obama and Clinton to emerge from Air Force One in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a campaign stop.  The optics were powerful—Air Force One, the President, and an unindicted felon flaunting the notion that some people are above the law and thus more equal than others—like Obama, another anointed one.  Obama declared Hillary the most qualified person for President ever in our history.  Sadly, job titles are not sufficient qualifications.  What has Hillary actually accomplished that is positive?  A lot of wreckage followed her wake:  the Russia reset, a Middle East in absolute turmoil, ISIS, North Korea, Iran nuclear deal, and so forth.

AM:  In the military we had a saying, screw up and move up.  It was recognition that senior people who made mistakes somehow got promoted. 

IM:  With the “above the law” precedent clearly established thanks to Lynch, Comey, and Clinton, Tom Perez, Secretary of Labor, appeared on the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace program (hosted by Shannon Bream) today in his “private capacity” on national television to stump for Hillary Clinton.  Can you imagine Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunsford, presenting himself in a business suit on the same talk show to stump for a politician?  He’d be court-martialed for violating the Hatch Act—which applies to all federal officials by the way.  Clearly some Americans are more equal than others.

Old Gadfly:   My son-in-law is a legal immigrant.  When I asked him why foreign nationals come to America, he unhesitatingly said, “America has been known as a prosperous and peaceful society based on the rule of law” (bold italics added for emphasis).  He is very disappointed by what is playing out by this corrupt administration, in general, and by an unscrupulous, above the law, presidential wannabe, in particular. 

Gentlemen, we talked about a ruling class in January.  This week provided more evidence.  How do we wake up Americans?