Part 3: A New U.S. Constitution

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Professor Taboo

I feel incompetent to fulfill duties so important and responsible as those which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.
Andrew johnson, april 17, 1865

If only many more Vice-Presidents, or Presidents of the United States under such extraordinary circumstances as an assassination and death of their preceding President, in this case Abraham Lincoln, could be so brutally honest and so unequivocally correct. Most likely this country would have been a much, much better led nation.

President Andrew Johnson is widely regarded by U.S. historians as one of six of America’s worst, most abusive Presidents of their office in all of the 247-years of this country’s federal government. The Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. on Presidential legacies, states:

Andrew Johnson’s racism and antipathy towards African-American civil rights were a harbinger for similar attitudes to come during Reconstruction.

[He is] the first president to be impeached—but not convicted or removed from office—Johnson often contends with James Buchanan for the title of worst president.
Smithsonian institute’s national portrait gallery — at https://www.si.edu/spotlight/knowing-the-presidents-andrew-johnson — accessed jan. 11, 2023

Prior to former President Donald Trump, Richard M. Nixon was hands down regarded as the No. 1 All-time Worst U.S. President in our nation’s history. After January 6^th, 2021 and the attack and insurrection on the U.S. Capitol Building, later proven to be premeditated, formed, led, and incited by former President Trump, the top-spot of “Worst President Ever” was far surpassed by the complicit, derelict behavior of the incompetent D.J. Trump. This begs the prior closing questions from Part 2: A New U.S. Constitution… How did the office of POTUS gain so much power and influence over both a triumvirate federal government and a minority radical mob of its citizens? We now continue from Part 2 and the dire need for a new 21^st-century U.S. Constitution.

On a side note, I apologize for the delay of this Part 3. Mom’s severe dementia (early pre-stage Alzheimer’s) went through a past 2-3 week tough phase. It took a lot out of me as well managing it. Her PCP prescribed a new Alzheimer’s slash dementia drug that didn’t go as expected; too many side-effects for her. So we’ve been given another one: Memantine. So far, so good.

As noted in the previous Part 2, the 1787 Constitutional Convention gave immense power and control to the President. Recapping some of those powers, he or she possessed/possesses:

Ultimate command and decision of all U.S. military branches.
Power to veto any Congressional legislation, unless two-thirds of both Chambers overturned the veto.
Nominate virtually every single major federal officials and judges with Senate confirmation.
Office staying power unless a supermajority impeaches the President.
Conduct diplomacy with foreign nations, both friendly and otherwise, and sign treaties with the Senate’s approval, whether popular or not by the American people.
Issuing Executive Orders, which clarify laws as the President interprets them or direct Executive staff to further enforce existing laws.
Power to extend pardons and/or clemencies for federal crimes, even if based on personal preferences or biases.

Of these seven above bullet-points, at least six (6) former Presidents abused no less than five of these seven Executive powers. Many of these abuses happened because of domestic and foreign events. As a result, the Presidency (and his closest staff) seized the opportunity or opportunities to garner popular, public and political support even though the reactions or counter-measures might not have been legally Constitutional in hindsight, or at the time. Unfortunately, the principle of full Executive transparency has become a dying or dead art at the expense of the American people, their trust, and reproach of the Presidential Office. Two points and cases: 1) the end of Nixon’s 5-years, and 2) followed by Trump’s only term in office. Most everyone is familiar with Nixon’s criminal behavior, but at the end of the January 6th Committee’s Investigations & Hearings, they referred to the Department of Justice four criminal cases to pursue:

Obstruction of an Official Proceeding – in violation of Section 1512(c)(2) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code.
Conspiracy to Defraud the United States – in violation of Section 371 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code.
Conspiracy to Make a False Statement – in violation of Section 1001 of Title 18.
‘Incite,’ ‘Assist’ or ‘Aid and Comfort’ an Insurrection – in violation of Section 2383 of Title 18 of the U.S.C.

Whether a former United States President is actually indicted and sentenced for clear and obvious crimes based upon overwhelming evidence, remains to be seen. Fingers crossed.

Many 1787 Philadelphia delegates and most all Founders were very troubled by just how much power lay at the disposal of the Oval Office and its potential for abuses of executive actions. And this was in 1787! Today’s POTUS is above and beyond more robust than the Founders could have possibly imagined. To say they’d be deeply disturbed by today’s Presidential, forgiving latitude would be a gross understatement. At that time, delegates wanted an abusive President to be removed by a majority of legislators or to serve the desires of Congress, at the very least collaborate in amenable, reasonable ways. This is no longer the case and hasn’t been for over four decades or more. FDR was by far and away a vastly more powerful President than James Madison or Dwight Eisenhower. And Franklin Roosevelt was given his powers of great latitude by Congress because of widespread public fears brought about by the Great Depression and World War II. FDR even sought to expand his incredible latitude in office, particularly in his second-term due to America’s fears, and indirectly their naïvety of the office’s powers under the U.S. Constitution.

In 1936 and 1937 Roosevelt gained a supermajority of both the House and Senate for his Democratic Party due in large part from his large margin of victory in the popular-vote during his reelection. It is this evolution of political changes in the relationships between Branches, plus their influences upon Congress that set it all in motion. In those desperate times, the original intent and spirit of what the Founders wished was not a going concern by any means.

During the country’s 19^th-century expansion west (Manifest Destiny & following), into the southern hemisphere and Central & South America, and around the western Pacific Ocean beyond Hawaii, past Presidents sought increased latitude and powers. They most often achieved them by wealthy, elite support from individuals and political organizations—what we might call SuperPAC’s today.

Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln—three of America’s strongest presidents—defied perceived constitutional restraints on their offices to meet what they saw as America’s political needs. Their decisions often were popularly ratified (in retrospect, sometimes unfortunately so).
george william van cleve, “making a new American constitution,” Maroon Bells Press. Kindle Edition.

Well after Roosevelt’s New Deal, the general public supported a vigorous American President, especially during hard, tumultuous times. Much of these decades after the New Deal have been positive. For instance, social welfare, which includes benefits we now take for granted, came into existence like funding for public education, healthcare, air-travel safety and regulations, and retirement (Social Security Benefits) as well as magnificent national parks and wilderness lands. But many Constitutional scholars and proponents of a robust Presidential office are increasingly worried that the White House has become or surpassed being imperial in nature.

Renown intellectual, American historian and social critic Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., is often quoted in the wake of Lyndon B. Johnson’s and Richard M. Nixon’s presidencies, that the office now behaves far too imperialistic. This was no more evident than during the Vietnam conflict and related military offenses such as the clandestine invasion of Cambodia which took the Vietnam conflict into further expansion, loss of life, and exponential drainage of American resources. And then there was Watergate. Nixon was caught in rampant criminal behavior and abuse of presidential power. Despite Congress passing several laws soon after, intended to limit presidential abuse, most experts of The Hill believe they are feeble symbolic laws with no bite. Perfect example? The 1973 War Powers Act.

This Senate Resolution #440 was intended to restrain the Commander in Chief’s rash, and/or reckless abuse of America’s military might and the lives therein. However, in the end the resolution left broad sometimes vague discretion to the president allowing the use of military force as the immediate choice. As co-chairs of the Miller Center War Powers Commission in July 2008, both former Secretaries of State James Baker (to H.W. Bush) and Warren Christopher (to Bill Clinton), as they had testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in March 2008, they and the committee unanimously recommended changes to the War Powers Act. It sought to encourage much more significant consultation between the Executive Branch and Congress in times of foreign hostility. And on a footnote, Baker and Christopher represented both political parties; a bipartisan recommendation.

But due to the Constitution’s ambiguity coupled with an inefficient weaker Congress, if anything has transpired since FDR’s huge latitudes, the President’s imperial power has been allowed to continue if not grow. As a result, this expansion raises serious questions about 1) national security lying in the hands of one office, and 2) the critical concept and application of “Separation of Powers.” It is here that Americans and their modern politicians have lost their way and strayed.

[The Congress shall have power] …To declare War, grant letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning captures on Land and Water; …
article I, section 8, clause 11 — u.s. constitution, federal convention of 1787

On this section and clause regarding the Commander in Chief’s war powers, I am unsure how much more it could be crystal clear. Seriously. The Constitution establishes explicitly the separation of Congress’ means of declaring war and the sitting President’s intentions or actions with the nation’s armed forces and (18^th-century) militia. Why is this? It would seem to be a no-brainer, but for the sake of factual information, the explicit purpose of the Separation of Powers principle is this: making war undeniably puts great risks upon our nation’s resources and our military families for several generations to follow. The Founders understood this profoundly. They even had their own immediate and/or extended family, flesh and bone give their own limbs and livelihoods in past or present wars. Congress is supposed to be a safety measure, a hedge against rash reactions by a President. Never did the core Founding Fathers imagine a president—no matter how adept—should have the unilateral decision to enter or manipulate the U.S. into a foreign conflict. That would border on or define unchecked imperial authority, something the Founders witnessed first-hand all too often in their lives.

Be that as it may, the question remains: In modern America, particularly during the 20^th-century, has this Constitutional principle been clear and unequivocal, especially in light of the Second Iraqi War and post-9/11 regarding the Taliban in Afghanistan? And keep in mind that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan the majority of his 13-year escape and concealment from U.S. forces and agencies, not in Afghanistan.

President James K. Polk in 1846 went looking for a war with Mexico, which he had always favored, for increased American commerce and economic expansion of American businesses and their business moguls. In the 77-years since the end of World War II many analysts and critics of Washington, D.C. feel Congress has relinquished its Constitutional duty to oversee and prevent unilateral military actions by a single man, an imperialistic president.

Another recent example. In 2019 both chambers of Congress voted to block U.S. sales of military weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. for their initiated war in Yemen. Essentially this conflict is America’s and two Presidential administrations: Obama’s and Trump’s. In July of 2019, however, Trump vetoed three congressional resolutions to stop weapons sales and would have stopped the slaughter of over 250,000 Yemen civilians at the time. But Trump went even much further. He audaciously declared the conflict an “emergency” to bypass Congress all together, speeding up the sales and export of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.

But Trump was simply following a long precedent of Congressional abdication and irresponsibility within the Constitutional principle of checks-and-balances. Today, Congress mostly “passes the buck” to the President’s discretion—i.e. to be the possible fall-guy rather than lose their own opulent, long-term salaries and pensions. And yet still, the removal by impeachment of a dictatorial, imperial president requires a supermajority vote. Congressional funding cutoffs for irrational, high-risk military actions abroad can simply be vetoed or ignored by presidents, all essentially legal under our 18^th-century Constitution.

In his 1961 farewell speech, President Dwight Eisenhower had this to say about the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union, a confounding, necessary(?) evil:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be might, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight d. eisenhower, january 17, 1961 — transfer of power address to elected president john f. kennedy

Today, the weapons of the 21^st-century can destroy the planet or cripple one or two continents in a few hours or a day. Presuming it is indeed a “necessary evil,” should the unilateral power and decision rest with one office, one man, in one moment? As our modern Constitution stands right now with an ineffective or spineless Congress, yes, one president can indeed cause the extermination of the planet, in part or in whole. Think about that.

The United States has consistently accounted for between one-third and forty percent of all world military spending. The United States’ defense budget has increased roughly 50-percent during that period, to 600 billion dollars per year or more in 2011 dollars.
council on foreigh relations, trends on military spending, july 25, 2014, https://www.cfr.org/report/trends-us-military-spending – accessed jan. 29, 2023

Over the last thirty-five years specifically, the U.S. has become a country of excessive exercises of military production and bullying around the globe despite its incessant rhetoric of freedom and democracy for all. To much of the world we resemble the brutal Roman Empire than we do what the original Founding Fathers intended to create.

This current American condition begs two enormously important questions:

As with very successful, long established private corporations and their demands/requirements of new job-applicants, does the U.S. have a Constitutional protocol for choosing the best president and congress-people that places the candidates into office with the utmost qualifications and experience to comfortably manage the most potent military force in known history and the ever complex foreign policy it coherently demands? — And…
Do those federal elected officials have the reasonable political incentives to execute those controls over the highly influential political donations of the American “military-industrial complex” of which Eisenhower referred?

The answers to these two questions are pretty obvious. No.

In the last 30-years of U.S. presidents only one president has had any level of military experience in his background: George W. Bush. And if it matters in a modern, ineffective, spineless Congress, the number of veterans elected by American voters into the House of Representatives or the Senate has been in a sharp decline since 1973 (see Table above). To be fair, many observers and critics of presidential administrations would conclude that George W. Bush’s military “experience” wasn’t really legitimate experience—simply the part-time Texas Air National Guard; not a combat unit in the least. This sharp decline is or should be of critical concern to all American voters. But remarkably it is not, as is evidenced by the popular vote over the said 30-years. And over the past thirty years what does our nation have to show, factually, to boast about regarding the enormous expenditures of tax-payer dollars and more importantly irreplaceable American or human lives in undebated wars, quasi-wars or conflicts the last several decades?

Congress: The Rotted Branch

How many times in your memory do you remember our U.S. Congress being stuck in a stalemate, a standoff or shutdown, and completely unable to proceed with legislating, debating, and passing beneficial laws for the American people? Care to guess? Do you think it might be three or four? Perhaps six or seven times in your lifetime? Less? A lot more?

Well, that was a bit of a trick question. Why? Because it depends on precisely how one defines stalemate or shutdown and paralyzed. The most recent total paralysis was of course the selection of a new House Speaker in January 2023. Without an elected majority House Speaker, both branches of Congress would come to a halt causing a ripple-effect of havoc upon federal legislation and representatives therein unable to offer daily services to constituents. Staff there would lose their pay and benefits. That’s just the first ripple-effect after a few days. Listing all the potential collapses throughout our federal government would require another 3-thousand to 4-thousand words to explain and perhaps another week of drafting for me. Let’s skip that dreadful scenario, shall we.

According to Wikipedia and its “Government Shutdowns” page, since 1980 there have been no less than ten (10) collapses of one or more days. But Wikipedia wisely conditions the list saying “This list includes only major funding gaps which led to actual employee furloughs within federal departments of the US government. It does not include funding gaps that did not involve shutdowns of government departments…” The complex contemporary issues surrounding and influencing the rising paralysis of Congress involves every major federal debt and budgets, including but not limited to public debt, military budgets, taxation, the economy, unemployment, and healthcare reform to name just six facets of multitudes.

Like it or not, our 18^th-century U.S. Constitution contributes substantially to this chronic paralysis, it is not the usual rhetoric of party officials, ideologies, and uncompromising congress-members bent on their personal futures as we are often told. It isn’t just controversies over redistribution of wealth or equality. One example is on more extensive gun-control regulations. Opinion polls the last five to ten years have repeatedly shown that around 80% — 90% of Americans support universal background checks for all weapons sales. Very reasonable background checks and further red-flag laws on sale-requirements are without a doubt constitutional simply for general public safety. Yet sadly, over the last 30-40 years Congress has generally been apathetic, indifferent to act on such gun-control public safety issues despite the widespread support of them, particularly by school districts and places of worship!

What has been the true price for Americans to have a chronically ineffective, often paralyzed, 18^th-century stifled Congress? How many school students and teachers like Uvalde, TX? How many church-goers like the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, TX? How greedy is the congressional beast versus its modern, perceived benefits? Can you count them all?

As of 2018, three-hundred (300) congressional members received $75,528 per annum salaries, plus Secondary Security Income (SSI), outstanding health benefits, and very generous pensions. Another additional 300 retired members—also with pensions and great health coverage—received an average $41,208 per year without SSI, but they are entitled to receive and most often draw it as well. All in all, as of 2019 the congressional pensions are between 2.5 to 4-times as much as the average American receives from their lifetime of hard work in Social Security! There’s more appalling news-facts about our present and past congressional members…

American legal scholar, political critic, and acclaimed academic Lawrence Lessig, discovered that more than four-hundred (400) present and former members of Congress have created campaign fundraising schemes, known as Leadership PAC’s, that provide them lucrative travel anywhere, 4-5 star meals, and entertainment extravagances which all fall into an IRS category of “discretionary non-taxable compensation.” And as of today, it is Constitutional and legal for them to live such lifestyles. By the way, for some perspective, the 2022 national poverty-line or wages/income considered impoverishing in the U.S. was $13,590/year for a single person, and for a household of three people it was $23,030 per year. Compare that to the congress-member who draws an average minimum of $116,736 per year (75,528 + 41,208) and often much, much more.

Just in 2014 Leadership PAC’s raked in over $50-million dollars. Today the totals are significantly higher. Sit down, it gets even more appalling. Each of 435 House Representative members receive over $1-million in office expenses alone. These packages usually compensate about 12-15 full-time staff associates; bigger state-members receive more than $1-million. The (sole?) purpose of each member’s “office expenses” is to undoubtedly guarantee that their boss, the House Representative member, keeps their job after the next election.

For the fiscal year 2020, a very conservative estimate of the total budget for the Congress, including all ancillary agencies such as the Capitol Police Force, was roughly $5-billion dollars, or approximately $10-million per House member (citation).

By almost any middle-class American standard, congress-members live a very comfortable, opulent life, both at work and home.

Where else can someone draw a salary of $174,000; have a staff of several dozen catering to their (and their family’s) every whim; enjoy special access to information and resources at the highest levels of government; forge lucrative relationships with people of immense power and influence; take taxpayer-funded jaunts to all corners of the country and the world; and command constant attention from the local and national media—all in exchange for producing little in the way of tangible outcomes?
tim alberta – chief political correspondent, politico magazine, sept. 27, 2019

Why would any congress-member want to leave such an easy, undemanding office job unless retiring into a lap-of-luxury? What’s better for them to stay is that 1) voters cannot place term-limits on their service thanks to 2) the 1995 Supreme Court decision of U.S. Term Limits, Inc. versus Thornton, which determined (rightly so) that such limits would be unconstitutional, according to our 18^th-century Constitution. Consequently, in the following 28-29 years and the three decades ending in 2009, more than 85% of all members of Congress who ran for reelection were comfortably re-elected. Why? Because there is little incentive for new younger blood to run for those congressional seats. For the last 10-years little has changed in this congressional picture and setup.

Does it come as any shock that the average tenure in office of congressional members is now nearing quadruple what it was in the 1800’s and tripled in the 1900’s? Far too many non-competitive House seats have created very well-paid, time-serving, lifetime serving careerists, not citizen-legislatures serving their district of Americans. Today, only about 15% to 12% of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives (HoR) are actually contested. According to Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo, “Buying the Bums Out: What’s the Dollar Value of a Seat in Congress?” (Stanford, CA: Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, 1999), most members of Congress do not intentionally give up their seat unless offered somewhere in the neighborhood of $1- and $5-million in 2019 dollars, and this depends on whether or not their seat will stay within their own partisan-party-loyal guidelines. As a congressperson once put it, “Capitol Hill is a farm league for K Street” lobbying interests.

As a result of these de-incentivized, ineffective congressional work conditions, widespread gerrymandering, by both major parties, protects their incumbent officials against competition, playing a huge role in keeping lifetime(?) careerists in the HoR. Imagine how intimidating this challenge is for a young newcomer. Think of how this kills any hope of a third-party, like Independents or Green-party supporters receiving representation on Capitol Hill—this, despite that approximately 40% — 43% of voters in the U.S. are Independents.

Therefore, with these types of incentives for current, career congress-members why risk losing a life of luxury and very generous pension and retirement in your 70’s or 80’s? Congress-careerists are nurtured to avoid taking responsibility for key (controversial) issues that might jeopardize their re-election. Some simply don’t show up to vote, others play all sides of a big issue or dole out generic lip-service to the media and their constituents. Then this dodging of accountability leads to frequent inactivity or snails-pace bureaucracy, or total gridlock in Congress. And most congress-members have mastered the art of of shifting perceived responsibility or blame onto other Branches of government, like the President, especially if the White House resident is traditionally opposite/opposed to their own party.

Probably one of the most historic blunders and deadly disasters of an American partisan, broken, ineffective Congress to effectively improve our intelligence communities, both domestic and globally, and despite many strong proposals to reform procedures and protocols between intelligence agencies… happened on Sept. 11^th, 2001. These findings have been confirmed and reconfirmed in many later investigative studies, examinations, official reports, and forensic analysis of events and intelligence leading up to the attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and the reaction of passengers on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Somerset County, PA.

The “Tower of Voices” at the **Flight 93 National Park Memorial** in Somerset County, PA. It stands 93-ft tall and within its walls are 40 windchimes representing the 40 passengers and crew-members of the downed flight.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

Due to the length and time it required me to draft and write this Part 3 of A New U.S. Constitution, I have decided to pickup the serious problem of Congressional Bicameralism in Part 4. It will also include just how utterly powerful our Supreme Court has, by default of Congress, become today—SCOTUS has begun indirectly legislating laws for America when it was originally the explicit, expressed duty of the Congress’ job-description laid forth by our Founding Fathers! That will be Part 4. I hope you will join me then. And my apologies again for the delay in Part 3. Thank you all kindly for your patience and understanding. 🥰

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

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Enemies: The Art of Wordfare & Cannon Fodder

Posted on February 8, 2022 by Professor Taboo

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Yes, the title is correct: wordfare instead of warfare. It is intended to describe a commander’s art of non-warfare against a lethal, attacking enemy while diverting your country’s cannon-fodder by way of lies and deception to preserve your own self-interests and life. This was the true objective revealed by February 2020.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

The magnitude of Tzu’s wisdom regarding war cannot be overestimated. Nor should it be underestimated. Prior knowledge of your enemy is so advantageous, so monumental for survival, and so utterly imperative really if one can better prepare for a war you could lose, and yet cannot avoid. As a Commander, being acutely naïve, unprepared, and refusing private counsel while acting in or portraying arrogance to your people, the timeless Sun Tzu says “you will succumb in every battle.” You will cost your country dearly in lives, resources, and hasten your defeat, or at least leave your nation dangerously exposed or irreparably weak.

Imagine for a moment you are the Supreme Commander of your nation’s advanced forces. They are formidable and at your disposal. They include not only traditional, highly-trained army, naval, and aerial units equipped with the most sophisticated weaponry available, but are also supported by an equally formidable intelligence, counter-intelligence and communication groups. All of these forces are made possible by your very advanced, domestic manufacturers in science technology, materials, research and development, and their various expert staffs. A cumulative force to be reckoned with, no doubt.

Would these exceptional resources offer you a level of security, confidence, and a fighting chance? They should, especially if you already know war is coming.

“It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence, it is a subject of inquiry [and preparation] which can on no account be neglected.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Throughout history there have been many well-known, successful strategies and proven concepts for waging war. Though Sun Tzu’s work, known as The Art of War, is over 2,500 years old, it is referenced and often utilized in today’s conflicts by the shrewdest military leaders and their cunning foreign diplomats alike. One might say The Art of War, or The Art of Avoiding War, is common knowledge within the halls of command centers and their governments.

The causes and events leading up to war can and usually do present a defendant a critical window of time to prepare. In this initial window one can mobilize domestic resources and inventories as well as organize a preliminary defense, provided no surprise attack(s) wipes out all means of your opposition. A few widely known examples of emergency readiness strategies include:

DIME(FIL) – The elements of national power diplomacy, information, military, and economics, often included are financial, intelligence, and law enforcement (see MIDLIF).
OODA loop – Decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby “get inside” the opponent’s decision cycle and gain the advantage.
Nine Principles of war, as listed on Wikipedia and deduced in part from Sun Tzu’s work.
Weinberger-Powell Doctrine – eight questions that must be answered affirmatively before military action can be taken by the U.S., that is if not surprise attacked. This doctrine will be referenced later.

∼ ∼ ∼ § ∼ ∼ ∼

“If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

With the above few models, concepts, and strategies for waging war introduced, I want you to return to imagining yourself as a Supreme Commander. You have just received a High-Priority Intelligence wire about an impending attack on your nation and civilians. The communique reads:

28 OCTOBER, 2019, 8:17AM EST
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE: INDO-PACIFIC COMMAND

By combining disparate lines of evidence, our intelligence committee and agents were able to put a time-stamp of an imminent threat of mid-October 2019 circulating and organized in the Hubei province of China and Wuhan. By December 2019 this threat will escalate into a scaled attack on the United States' Ports of Entry by mid-January 2020, progressing into a full-scale offensive of lethal, unacceptable proportions by April 2020 or earlier.

URGENT! MAKE ALL PREPARATIONS POSSIBLE IMMEDIATELY!

As Supreme Commander of your nation and the avowed sworn protector of your people, what would you do? What would Sun Tzu do or any other of history’s greatest commanders? Act or remain lethargic? Alarm or panic your people by publicly speaking without first confirming the facts? What are the forecasted consequences of immediate action or idle inaction?

WAR WITHOUT CASUALTIES?

Let’s flip roles. Now, imagine for a moment you are the aggressor, the attacking enemy upon the United States. Become your enemy so that you can anticipate their maneuvers and objectives. Find your enemy’s worst weakness, exploit it and without being discovered in so doing. What does the 2,500+ year old treatise by Sun Tzu recommend doing to expedite victory with minimal losses to your people and forces?

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Would it be possible to defeat your enemy without fighting or while fighting, sustaining no casualties from your ranks? How might a feat that remarkable be pulled off?

Quick Disclaimer: Before I continue I want to make clear that I am in no way promoting any sort of conspiracy theory from this blog-post. I am merely proposing What If’s in the historical context of warring nations while examining and inquiring how best to wage war on your enemy. But precisely what I am denouncing in real-time from actual real events, I will soon reveal below.

The history of warfare is replete with victorious tactics and methods of the most sinister kind. From the 14th-century BCE Hittites to the 4th-century BCE Scythians, the 1st-century BCE Carthaginians and the Romans, the 14th-century CE Mongols and the 18th-century CE Russians, to the 19th-century Germans in World War I, biological warfare has been employed by combatants. A host of these diabolical tactics, many known and some unknown and unconfirmed, have been used with devastating effectiveness. And they were used with minimal-to-no casualties for the attacker. For the most inhumane, immoral, and bloodthirsty tyrant, that is a blueprint for victory indeed; victory at any cost by any means.

“Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Attack your enemy where he is most unprepared, appear where he least expects, and where he is most vulnerable. In early 1941 when Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto of the Imperial Japanese Navy designed the attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, Yamamoto followed Sun Tzu’s three principles above.

By accomplishing all three objectives in a surprise attack 11-months later, Yamamoto and Imperial Japan crippled America’s ability to stop or significantly oppose Japan’s South Asian and Pacific expansions until mid-1942. The loss of military and civilian lives on Dec. 7, 1941 were heavily lopsided: 64 Japanese personnel to 2,335 U.S. personnel and 68 American civilians lost. Over 1,100 Americans were seriously wounded.

When World War II officially ended, the total number of fatalities for the United States topped out at approximately 420,000 dead. The amount of lives lost from all involved warring nations and the civilian bystanders caught in the cross-hairs was astronomical by any standards. But I want to reiterate American losses: 420,000 killed. All of them premature, obviously. Think about that for a minute. Thousands upon many thousands killed were only teenagers, multitudes signed up without their mom’s or dad’s permission, with 60-70 more years ahead to live a life.

“When one treats people with benevolence, justice, and righteousness, and reposes confidence in them, the army will be united in mind and all will be happy to serve their leaders’.”
Sun Tzu

Imagine what Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered and knew too well would be the cost in American lives? The untold damage for families was felt for the next two or three generations to come. Children raised by one parent and perhaps the eldest sister; brothers old enough to fight were gone, many never to return.

The U.S. economy in wartime was fragile at best. There was no guarantee our Federal Reserve would hold out to the end, especially in the first two or three years of fighting, much less our civilian population. My family still has my father’s boyhood wartime rations card and stamps for all 1942 American civilians when they went to grocery, supply stores and other merchants. My Mom told me one day that Dad spoke modestly about how difficult the rationing was and on occasion he and his family of seven simply went without, sometimes for several months. But in order to win the war they had to and did it gladly.

Today, generations removed from a world war, we take for granted these American luxuries and abundance without any thought or gratitude as if we’re entitled royalty. In truth we don’t need so much lavishness to survive. In fact, when we do not or cannot get this opulent overabundance, I’d say we’ve demonstrated too often self-absorbed ugliness coming out in childish tantrums. We revolt, spit foul-mouthed insults, even become barbaric to our fellow Americans and leaders with little, if at all, civility, understanding, respect, or dignifying collaboration during national crises.

[There] “is a third strategy that States might employ to increase their relative power. This strategy involves causing two rivals to engage into a protracted [fight or] war, so that they bleed each other white, while the Baiter remains on the sideline, its military strength intact.”
John J. Mearsheimer – The tragedy of great power politics

In November and December 2019, however, America was not in a world war per se. It was to be a different type of war, and a “war” we had already waged numerous times before. The most costly of them was from February 1918 to April 1920. Much more, our enemy today warned us they were coming and would assault us by January 2020. Even more staggering, our enemy told us how they were going to attack!

To the severe detriment and death of ordinary, hardworking Americans this early announcement of war, biological war, came during the 2020 election year. As a result, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans’ safety and health were ignored, jeopardized, sacrificed, dead bodies of all ages turned into a number, then tossed aside—too many unable to be with dying loved ones in ICU—merely for political, ideological gains and one Party’s election campaign.

INCOMPETENCE REDEFINED

Now for the denouncements (D-x).

(D-1) Of all the forty-six United States Presidents, there stands only one who by most standards of foreign and domestic statesmanship, failed miserably to uphold not just the Constitution, but the Executive office’s sworn duties and responsibilities (oath) to the American people: Donald J. Trump. And there is one crucial measuring stick to be first applied: How many Americans were killed by the biological enemy’s relentless attack during Trump’s Administration?

From an initial broadstroke perspective, let’s examine the numbers. As of January 20, 2021, the date Trump officially left/lost the White House Oval Office, the cumulative COVID-19 deaths were 424,401 per the CDC, typically lower, delayed numbers than reported by other health organizations like Worldometer.info and others. However, when President Joe Biden took office, after 15-months of finally fighting back against enormous odds—in several cases not able to fight back offensively as one unified nation—America was still woefully unprepared, disorganized, and dragging its feet to counter-attack the biological enemy that had invaded our ports of entry as early as Jan. 13th in Chicago, IL. Later, the enemy was confirmed in nation Jan. 21, 2020 in Snohomish, WA, then Chicago, IL, Orange Co. LA and Santa Clara Co., CA, and Maricopa County, AZ all before February 1st. Therefore, how many American deaths should be fairly attributed to Biden’s charge at the helm?

Making the preposterous claim that more Americans have been killed by COVID during Biden’s Presidency than during Trump’s is not only wrong, but does not take into account all variables and factors involved during a campaign election year. This was followed by an uncooperative, belligerent transition from the old to a wholly new Administration. In fact, suggesting this claim would be like saying President Harry Truman single-handedly lead us to victory over Japan and Nazi Germany in 1945. It’s absurd. Only incompetent fools would count Truman as our heroic WWII president or Biden the killer of 337,480+ Americans. Read the facts-checked here.

[War, or being prepared for war] is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. […]
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

(D-2) Earlier in the post I bulleted the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine. Within this doctrine are eight Sun Tzu “deliberation questions,” if you will, that must be answered affirmatively before military action can be taken by the U.S. This doctrine of deliberations outlines how to respond to a national security threat, in this case COVID-19. It’s considerations should have taken place at the nation’s highest levels preferably by mid-November 2019 and reasonably no later than December 2019. With answers following the eight deliberations are:

Was a vital national security interest threatened? YES.
Did we have a clear attainable objective? YES, it was self-evident. a) To at least slow the death-rate of Americans as significantly as possible by b) preliminary and necessary pandemic mandates, while c) researching then determining a medically safe vaccine(s), d) expediting its speedy distribution to all Americans, and e) disseminating singular, factual information about #a–d in order to stop, repel, and eradicate this biological enemy.
Were the risks and costs fully and frankly analyzed? NO. As of Jan. 31, 2020, when President Trump took his first (inadequate) action by only denying foreign nationals entry into the U.S. who had traveled to China 2-weeks prior, the risks and full costs of a prolonged biological war were in full swing and devastating, hence, not frankly or realistically analyzed.
Were all other non-violent policy means [e.g. in this case PPE’s for frontline health & emergency workers, at the very least] fully exhausted? NO. Manufacturing capacities of PPE’s would’ve easily met demand.
Was there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? NO. By early 2021 the CDC and DHHS determined at least one follow-up booster shot would be required, possibly 2-3 more if the COVID virus was allowed to perpetuate and mutate into variants.
Were the consequences of our action fully considered? NO. See Trump disinformation slideshow below.
Is the action supported by the American people? MIXED. Due to inconsistent federal to individual state leadership & statesmanship regarding #2a, b, d, and e above, as well as highly polarized political rhetoric, about 163-million Americans chose indifference and/or passivity to the enemy’s invasion.
Did we have genuine broad international support? YES, OVERWHELMINGLY. However, because of #2 thru #7 it did not matter until February 2021, much too late.

The final Weinberger-Powell Doctrine scorecard for Jan. 20, 2021 and the outgoing Administration reads “An Unmitigated Disaster,” obviously. To confirm simply talk to any of the 424,400+ surviving American family-members of their premature loss(es) of loved one(s) or pandemic ER/ICU nurses to affirm this final score. The stories are gut-wrenching. One example from November 25, 2020:

COVID Crisis Nurse Shares Chilling Experience – PBS Amanpour & Co.

Furthermore, in relation to #2-e above, these were the reports Trump was disseminating to Americans on how the biological invasion and war was progressing. From my Nov. 2020 blog-post Delusional Incompetence; notice the dates of egregious disinformation:

(D-3) This all could have been made less devastating, so less deadly had immediate action by a declaration of war been made and all available resources mobilized. Instead, the total death-toll to date of American cannon-fodder, insolent indifference, and initial inaction and continued inadequate half-measures (or less) by the former President and his Administration is in context of American lives, prematurely (to put mildly) and unnecessarily lost, unthinkable and glaring:

*The unnecessary reality of inaction, incompetence, and human loss.*

(D-4) Since 1884 all U.S. Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Senators, H-Representatives, and other federal employees serving Americans take this sworn oath and promise We the People to abide by and fulfill them. Most all Presidents of Crises have served Americans with honor, distinction, and statesmanship (see the C-SPAN network 2021 Lincoln Forum’s Wartime Leadership – Lincoln & FDR and Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship for exact definition) in accordance to this Presidential Oath of Office:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Then around 12-noon, the president-elect recites the following oath, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution as follows:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Inauguration of the President of the United States –https://www.usa.gov/inauguration

That Constitution is for the People, all Americans, is the law of the land for all U.S. citizens and its employees, and therefore by implication denotes the same protection and defense for every U.S. citizen, all ages, all ethnicities, all creeds, all socioeconomic classes without exception. By this measuring stick former President Trump also failed miserably. He was unequivocally derelict in his duties he vowed to uphold on Jan. 20, 2017 at his inauguration.

“Rouse him, and learn the principle of his activity or inactivity. Force him to reveal himself, so as to find out his vulnerable spots. […]
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

BAIT & BLEED REVISITED

(D-5) Returning finally to the military concept of what Mearsheimer coined as baiting, bleeding out, or bloodletting, imagine once again you were the enemy aggressor on the United States. According to Sun Tzu and Mearsheimer, one subtle method of collapsing or weakening your enemy with minimal losses to your forces would be to pit, to radicalize and polarize your enemy’s inner factions against each other. For a prime example, divide (extremist) Republicans and (progressive) Democrats so fiercely that the U.S. as a whole cannot be of one mind, one objective to win the war. As the popular cliché goes, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

By pitting Americans against Americans, as the enemy aggressor you win over half the battles or better, and win the war. This tactic of Americans killing Americans (via biological virology) would make Sun Tzu and any prolific general, past or present, foaming at the mouth green with envy!

For all the arrogant incompetence we’ve endured, the wordfare vs. warfare, and indifferent inaction, we the American people, who put the historically worst leader into the White House from Jan. 2017 to Jan. 2021, beyond any doubt are suffering and have suffered the worst calamity, the worst socioeconomic impacts dominoed into every sector of our lives. Thus, it is the worst ongoing defeat in our nation’s two centuries of history. We were baited and blead by our own leader. And as if it could not be any worse, today that incompetent leader still cares less about our rising death-toll and might, just might weasel back into office because some 74-million Americans cannot distinguish between or recognize the manifestations and deceit of a megalomaniac versus exceptional statesmanship.

Constructive Provoking?

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Professor Taboo

President Ronald Reagan and his widow and former First Lady Nancy Reagan are familiar icons of American politics. What are some of the first things that come to mind when reflecting back on his presidency, administration, foreign policy, and his stance on social issues? Take a minute to remember some of the things he and Nancy were well-known to represent and implement.
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President Reagan is noted for supply-side economics pushing a laissez-faire philosophy, freer-market or less-regulated market, and significant reductions in individual tax rates for Americans. He is also noted for escalating the Cold War with the Soviet Union driving their economy bankrupt by attrition. Another notable mark by Reagan’s presidency is his staunch fight and campaign to return vocalized prayers in public schools, later reduced to a “moment of silence” due to opposition by the Supreme Court and Congress. President Reagan is highly regarded in conservative Right politics and economics. This is also the family environment that sons Ron and Michael, and daughters Patti Davis, Maureen, and Christine Reagan grew up. Their father continues to be a favorite historical figure of American conservatism. But that’s the public image, the general image usually portrayed. Examining closely the Reagan family dynamics with his four children, things are anything but conservatively unanimous and smooth. For a brief family background of the Reagans by PBS.org, click here.
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Ron P. Reagan

In fascinating contrast to Reaganism, Ronald Prescott Reagan, son of the former President, joined forces with the Freedom From Religion Foundation in 2009. In May 2014 a controversial advertisement aired with Ron Reagan addressing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions to legally allow government bodies to impose Christian prayer onto everyone at the opening of public meetings as well as other such intrusions beyond and outside of church-related activities and business. Here is the advertisement…

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Constructive Change and How To Implement It

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” The same man said, A people become great exactly in the degree in which they work for the welfare of others. Mahatma Gandhi was perhaps the most prolific philanthropist and social activist of the modern era. All of his remarkable social change, democratic human rights movement, and struggle for independence from the Great British Empire were made and staunchly taught non-violently. Never did he himself raise a hand nor take up arms against the powers-at-be to facilitate the necessary change. He did it even in the face of cruel demeaning rhetoric and/or physical beatings by opposition. He allowed the arrogant self-righteous to become monsters and eventually self-destruct. Gandhi was the epitomy of proper change and how to encourage it.

Though I am inline with much of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s mission statement and campaigns, here is my question and dilemma with Ron’s final statement. When an ideology is CLEARLY wrong politically based upon our U.S. Constitution — that is the deterioration of separation of Church and State as Ron properly explains — is prodding or provoking or inflammatory comments to your opponents the best method to induce change? And even though Ron’s patronizing of America’s religious isn’t physical violence, is it the BEST approach to initiate political and social change? Below I’d very much like to read your thoughts and comments about my question and Ron Reagan’s ad.

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Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always

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