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Its axiomatic that when you suddenly change the election rules and modus operandi, causing 65 million mail-in ballots (out of 159 million total) to flood unprepared local elections systems, you will get beaucoup irregularities, mistakes and fraud. To that extent, the impending Trumpite challenge when the Congress meets on Wednesday to certify the 2020 election results is spot on.

But at the end of the day, the challenge being mounted by Senator Hawley (R-Missouri) and the Cruz Eleven is both futile and mischievous. Thats because, thank heavens, American government is not organized into an all-powerful, centralized, unitary state like France, Red China or countless other authoritarian regimes in-between.

To the contrary, government in America remains decentralized and federalist, even if the founders design, culminating in the 10th Amendments reservation of unexpressed powers to the states, has been relentlessly chipped away since the New Deal. Indeed, when it comes to many aspects of day-to-day governance, such as on matters of public welfare or commerce, federalism has been drained of substance and the sovereign states have, regrettably, morphed into administrative appendages and fiscal supplicants of Washington.The Great Devaluation:...Baratta, AdamBuy New $25.00(as of 05:09 EDT - Details)

Yet notwithstanding that erosion, one originalist feature from the 1787 convention remains largely in tact: Namely, that the election of Federal officials congressman, senators and presidents is to be conducted by the states as seen fit by their sovereign legislatures.

And thats where the Trumpite challenge comes a cropper: No state has sent dueling slates of electors to the Congress, and no state legislature has petitioned the Congress asserting that its now certified tally of the presidential votes was the product of fraudulent or nefarious maneuvers.

Q.E.D. There is nothing to contest rooted in electoral Federalism because there are no state-based disputes pending before the new Congress. Thats essentially the position of solid libertarians like Congressman Thomas Massie. Hes dead-on correct and not just owing to Scaliaian regards for the Constitutions language and intent on the matter of Federal elections.

The far bigger issue is that there is really nothing more dangerous than the unitarianism implicit in the Trumpite challenge. Namely, the notion that a caucus of Washington pols can appoint themselves de facto commissioners of Federal elections and override state certified results that are not to their liking or partisan advantage even if they are able to proffer plausible evidence of state level irregularities.

For one thing, the nation has weathered prior episodes of state election irregularities and at the end of the day has not been worse for the wear. Clearly, in 1960 the Illinois Dems (led by Chicago Mayor Daley) stole the election for Kennedy, but in the great scheme of things we doubt whether Tricky Dick Nixon would have behaved any better had he won the first time.

Likewise, Bush the Younger may have won Ohios 20 electoral votes in 2004 due to local GOP chicanery. But had it gone the other way, a 271 to 266 win by John Kerry might have resulted in a much earlier end to the Bush Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Notwithstanding the limited gray matter under the latters great shock of dark hair, Lt. John Kerry saw the evil of Americas imperial wars first hand in Vietnam and was far more inclined to stop the pointless shedding of blood and treasure in those woebegone theaters than weekend-warrior national guardsmen, George W. Bush.The Last Gold Rushu202...Haynes, BillBuy New $28.00(as of 04:04 EDT - Details)

This time there is even less difference at stake. The Donald would surely bankrupt the nation by 2024, perhaps only a tad latter than is likely to be the case under Sleepy Joe and/or the Kamala Harris Regency, as the case may be.

But which claimant to the Oval Office will do the most damage in the next four years is not the real issue. The cardinal matter is that the Washington-based Democrat party is now intellectually and politically bankrupt. It has absolutely nothing to offer the American electorate except Woke virtue-signaling and collectivist rhetoric about the lie that America needs a unifer and that we are all in this together against a handful of billionaires, except for (most of) those who support the Dem agenda.

Consequently, the Dems real national agenda is brazenly this: Everything For More Democrat Votes. Period.

Their self-righteously proclaimed positions on open immigration, more beneficent welfare programs, the $15 minimum wage, Federal legislation against so-called voter suppression, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, prison reform, Federal subventions to the nations decaying big cities etc. are all designed to round up more Dem votes and thereby keep todays mendacious class of Dem pols in power.

For crying out loud, these people are so craven that they speciously claim that requiring voters to present an ID is burdensome and discriminatory. In fact, if people are too incompetent to get an ID, their failure to vote is their own damn fault and leaves American democracy no worse for the wear.

Accordingly, there could be nothing more untoward than GOP sanctioning of Washington control of the elections for Federal office. That would open the floodgates to legislative artifice and lawfare maneuver in the courts designed to make voter harvesting of one kind or another easier and more fruitful for the Dem apparatus in the socially and economically dispossessed precincts of the nation.The New Great Depressi...Rickards, JamesBuy New $20.99(as of 04:29 EST - Details)

Meanwhile, what was actually being stolen in the recent past is not a few hundred-thousand votes in a handful of swing states that are the object of the futile Trumpite challenge.

At the end of the day, those legitimately dubious votes dont begin to ixnay the elections larger verdict: Namely, that Trump was such a lousy, self-obsessed candidate and the GOPs agenda was so me too Big government that Sleepy Joe Biden, who barely left his basement bunker, massively won the popular vote by 81.28 million to 74.22 million. Even street-fighter Sidney Powell has not claimed voter fraud of anything close to that huge 7.0 million popular vote margin, the second largest plurality in American history.

So what matters now is whether control of the GOP can be wrested from the careerist pols and neocon empire advocates who dominate the so-called conservative party today. Thats because what has actually been stolen in recent months and years is trillions of dollars from future taxpayers to fund that bipartisan fiscal bacchanalia fostered by the Trumpite-GOP; and also the tens of trillions of windfall gains to the top 1.0% and 0.1% that have been pilfered from the main street economy owing to the Feds hideously unhinged money-pumping.

Consequently, unless the likes of Rand Paul can mobilize a new coalition of liberty-seeking young people, antiwar believers of all generations and adult citizens who can be made to see that capitalist prosperity and future opportunities for individual betterment are being quashed by a rogue central bank, the Real Steal will go on until it ends in fiscal and economic catastrophe.

In that respect, we find it telling that noisy Trumpites like Senator Hawley, who has already effectively thrown his hat in the ring for 2024, dont have a clue about the Real Steal. For crying out loud, this brash populist know-nothing joined forces with Bernie Sanders in pushing the $2,000 helicopter drop of free stuff to everyone, and is so blindly and rabidly anti-Chinese that the neocon war machine could have ordered him from central casting.

By contrast, what Rand Paul and a few others understand, it that the motor force of the Real Steal lies in the upwardly soaring purple line in the chart below. Thats the Feds out-of-control balance sheet, which has grown by 10X just in the last 18 years.

Simply stated, there is no possible world in which sound fiscal governance and productive financial markets can function when the central bank is massively and systematically poisoning the system with falsified asset prices and overpowering inducements for debt accumulation and speculation in the public and private sectors alike.

The Feds Out-of-Control Balance Sheet, 2003-2021

As we have frequently noted, this central bank enabled distortion of fiscal and financial choice has been building for decades, ever since Alan Greenspan panicked during the overdue and healthy purge of the stock market on Black Monday during October 1987.

But by now the unproductive explosion of debt in all sectors of the U.S. economy government, corporate, household and financial has reached epic proportions. Since Q2 1987

This is the heart of the Real Steal. Owing to rotten money, the nation has gone mad burying itself in debt stealing from the future in order to live high on the hog today.

Total Debt Vs. GDP, 1987-2020

The problem is that under the baleful regime of Keynesian central banking, like in Orwells Animal Farm, all of todays high living hogs are not treated equal. On the margin, the overwhelming impact of runaway public and private debt has been the fantastic inflation of financial assets.Say Yes to No Debt: 12...Soaries Jr., DeForest BBest Price: $1.70Buy New $10.44(as of 04:29 EST - Details)

As the estimable Lance Roberts showed this morning, stock prices and earnings grew pretty much in tandem until 1987, as would be inherently the case under a sound money regime. Since then, however, the Feds uncontrolled money-printing has caused the mother of all financial distortions. To wit, since mid-1987

So, yes, there is a reason that Sleepy Joe won. The GOP has not had enough sense to understand that the Fed is the root of todays economic failure in Flyover America so the voters signed up for an old dufus and 47-year pol who still had enough wits about him to tilt at the baleful consequences of the nations rogue central bank.

PEAK TRUMP, IMPENDING CRISES, ESSENTIAL INFO & ACTION

Reprinted with permission fromDavid Stockmans Contra Corner.

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Stop the Real Steal! - LewRockwell

Im a big fan of Ron Paul. I supported him in 2008 and 2012. For this reason, I really tried to like Rand Paul, but he makes it hard. I still have some residual sympathy for Rand, so I really want to help him out even though I wont be voting for him. Once he drops out, I plan to do a post-mortem on his campaign, because I really think Rand and his supporters need to hear some hard truths from someone associated with the liberty movement who isnt one of the libertarian cool kids This is not that post-mortem, but consider it a preview.

Since Rand has slipped in the polls, he seems to have decided that he should take on the role of conservative orthodoxy enforcer. I dont know if he was advised to do this or if he took on the role himself, but it is a role he is very ill suited for, and it isnt going to help him.

First of all, the role of orthodoxy enforcer is best suited for an ideological or message candidate who actually isnt in it to win it. This is a role Rand could have taken. It is the role, in my opinion, that he should have taken. He could have run as the slightly less dogmatic version of his father, with the point of carrying on the banner, especially on foreign policy, and keeping the movement together and energized. But Rand, likely bolstered by early poll numbers and some flattering press, deliberately chose not to run that type of campaign, so now the conservative orthodoxy enforcer role seems desperate and contrived.

Second, the role of conservative orthodoxy enforcer might also be suited for someone with a plausible shot at the nomination (meaning not just a message candidate), but who more clearly represents the more conservative by degree niche, which in this race would be Ted Cruz. One problem with Rand acting as conservative orthodoxy enforcer is that he is himself viewed with suspicion by many conservatives. Dont get me wrong, on the issues such as foreign policy and government surveillance where Rand might be viewed suspiciously, I side with Rand rather than most of the more conservative by degree crowd, but that doesnt change the fact that this suspicion makes Rand a poor messenger for the Candidate X is not conservative enough strategy. Note also, that Ted Cruz, who is better suited for the role, has very wisely chosen not to play the more conservative than thou card against Trump.

Third, early in the campaign my social network feed, peopled as it is with many liberty movement types, was filled with denunciations of Rand from more plumb line libertarians, excoriating him for deviating too much from libertarian orthodoxy and for tarnishing his fathers legacy. These were inevitably followed by more pragmatic supporters of Rand pleading with Rands critics to put aside their orthodoxy for the sake of political expediency. Regardless of what side you come down on in that debate, it is a bit clangy for a candidate who has been routinely criticized by some of his potential base for wandering off the ranch, to then turn around and question the orthodoxy of other candidates from a niche he doesnt exactly fit in himself.

So why is Rands campaign struggling despite what many believed to be a promising start, such that now he feels the need to play conservative attack dog? I think the most obvious answer is the entrance into the race of Donald Trump. If you look at where the candidates started in the polls and where they are now, you could argue that only Jeb Bush has been hurt more by Trump than Rand. Trump has clearly sucked up most of the energy of the angry anti-Establishment crowd. Since Trump is far from a libertarian, many libertarian activists dont want to believe this. They wonder how anyone who might have supported Rand could support Trump, but most voters, unlike political hobbyists like us who debate these things on the internet, are not precision ideologues. They may have certain issues they are invested in like guns or abortion, but they are not necessarily ideological box checkers. Much of what determines who they support is visceral and gestalt.

In 2011 Donald Trump gave a speech at CPAC where he made a comment critical of Ron Paul. He did not criticize Ron Paul preemptively, but responded to chants of Ron Pauls name from his supporters in the audience. He said Ron Paul cannot get elected, Im sorry to tell you. This little exchanged caused howls of outrage from Ron Pauls admirably defensive supporters, but I advised at the time within my own Ron Paul circles that we should take it easy on Trump because there was potentially a lot of overlap between the respective bases. Again, this contention was greeted incredulously by many Paul supporters, but I was aware of Trumps populist leanings and past flirtation with the Reform Party. Despite what many would like to believe, not all of Ron Pauls supporters were libertarians or even Constitutionalists. Many were populist anti-Establishment types who were simply mad as Hell and not going to take it anymore, and Ron Paul was the candidate that best communicated their discontent. I believe the direction of the campaign season so far vindicates my contention of overlapping bases.

So what should Rand Paul do instead of playing conservative attack dog? He simply needs to be himself. He needs to make the case for the policies he supports in a straightforward manner. Not everyone is going to agree with him, but voters do sense and respect authenticity. No number of appearances in a red checked flannel shirt was ever going to make voters believe Lamar Alexander was a man of the people rather than the Establishment pol that he was. Likewise, no amount of role playing by Rand is going to make him into a more authentic version of Ted Cruz. He is what he is, his daddys son who toned it down a bit to win a Senate seat.

Also, Rand needs to learn from the Donald Trump phenomenon, rather than flail at it. There is a real groundswell of angry, anti-Establishment, populist sentiment among the Republican electorate. There are ways for libertarians to tap into this without endorsing government economic activism. Denounce crony capitalism. Denounce corporate welfare. Denounce big money vote buying. Denounce Federal Reserve interest rate manipulation. Denounce phony free trade deals. That field is ripe for harvest, but petulant finger wagging at Trump and his supporters for ideological deviations is not going to win over many Republican primary voters.

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A Better Strategy for Rand Paul - LewRockwell

Lying Leftists at AOL

An AOL headline today is about how Senator Rand Paul said that he is not taking the jab because hes had the disease and has natural immunity. The AOL headline declares that this is unscientific while pointing out that Rand Paul is a doctor by trade, like his father.

Well, if you just go on the CDC Web site and find the entry for natural immunity you will find that it says exactly what Rand Paul said the opposite of what the lying skunks at AOL are saying. It says that your body creates antibodies once you are infected and that they may last a lifetime. Get the measles, says the CDC, and you body will create antibodies that may very well protect you from measles but not other illnesses for the rest of your life.

In addition to being the paid political whores of the Demo-Bolshevik party, AOL and all the rest are also corrupt puppets of the pharmaceutical industry and its government sponsors.

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As soon as the Senate received the lone article of impeachment accusing President Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection in the Jan. 6 mob assault on the Capitol, Rand Paul rose to object.

The Senate, he said, has no right to try a private citizen, which Trump now is. Thus, what we are about to do is flatly unconstitutional.

Forty-five of 50 Republican members agreed with Pauls motion.

This vote indicates its over. The trial is all over, said Paul. If you voted that (the Senate trial is) unconstitutional, how in the world would you ever vote to convict somebody for this?

Consistency says you would not.Max Beauty Autunm Wint...Buy New $10.99(as of 03:23 EST - Details)

Susan Collins of Maine, one of five Republicans who voted against Pauls motion, agreed that the vote portends the final vote on conviction.

Do the math, Collins said. Its extraordinarily unlikely the president will be convicted.

Rand Paul may have just derailed the second impeachment of Donald Trump.

Chief Justice John Roberts, the constitutional officer designated to preside over Senate impeachment trials, has said he will not preside over this latest trial of the ex-president. With Roberts seeing no constitutional duty, and declining the honor, his replacement as the presiding officer will be Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving Democrat and the president pro tempore of the Senate.

But Leahy is viscerally hostile to Trump and one of a Democratic bloc that voted twice last January to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors. How will it look to the world if this partisan is installed as both judge and juror at the trial of his political enemy?

Welcome to Zimbabwe.

Does the liberal establishment, now back in power and controlling the House, Senate and presidency, not see how this is all going to look in the history books, generations hence?

Blinded by hatred of Trump, enraged by the mob that stormed the Capitol, Nancy Pelosis House, in a rush to judgment, without hearing a single Trump witness and without letting his lawyer offer a defense, impeached, i.e., indicted, Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection.

But how could Trump have incited the riot and the attack on the Capitol when the mob swept up the stairs before Trump finished speaking a mile away? And he would end his rally remarks by urging the crowd to march to the Hill peacefully and patriotically.

We have subsequently learned that plans and plots were being hatched days before the assault on the Capitol began.

Was the Trump White House, or Trump, privy to those plots?

In August 1974, it was a near certainty that the House would vote to impeach Richard Nixon. But after the president resigned, the House did not impeach, and Ford pardoned Nixon so the country could move on.

The rage of the establishment at being deprived of its revenge against Nixon who had turned the Silent Majority against it, not unlike today, knew no bounds. And, though history has vindicated Ford, his pardon of Nixon precipitated a plunge in his poll numbers.NOVICA Blue Floral Kni...Buy New $154.00(as of 03:23 EST - Details)

Half a century on, however, history says Ford did the right thing.

Why then are the Democrats continuing with this exercise in vengeance?

They want Trump convicted so that he will be prohibited from ever again holding public office. The establishment fears that Trump could make a comeback, win the Republican primaries in 2024, become the nominee, and return in triumph as president.

They are determined to abort that possibility. Many openly admit it.

What does that say about the liberal establishments love of democracy when they would disqualify, in advance, the largest vote-getter their opposition party ever had, out of fear he might come back to win the presidency as he did in 2016?

Trust the people! was a campaign slogan made famous by George Wallace. Our national establishment prattles endlessly on about its devotion to democracy, but it does not trust the people.

But the establishment is going to pay a price for trying to squeeze the last ounces of juice out of this rotting fruit. President Joe Bidens call to unity are being drowned out by Democratic howls for a trial, conviction and banishment.

This effort to convict and disqualify Trump from running again tells us more about the people behind it than it does about Trump.

For the odds are slim at best that Trump would or could, at 78, win the nomination and the presidency a second time, as Grover Cleveland did in 1892.

Yet, a fearful establishment does not want to take the chance.

For all the babbling about democracy we have heard in recent days, the establishment wants to eliminate the possibility that the people could rise up, and, horror of horrors, elect Trump once more.

You can smell the fear.

The Best of Patrick J. Buchanan

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Is the Establishment Still Terrified of Trump? - LewRockwell

This week's Republican primary in Ohio's congressional special election was a relatively crowded affair. Given the partisan leanings of the state's 15th district, locals realized that the winner of the GOP nomination would inevitably end up in Congress, and so plenty of candidates competed for the prize.

Not surprisingly, with nearly a dozen Republicans on the ballot, different candidates lined up support from different allies: Donald Trump backed former coal lobbyist Mike Carey; former Rep. Steve Stivers supported state Rep. Jeff LaRe; Sen. Rand Paul rallied behind state Rep. Ron Hood; while Debbie Meadows, a conservative activist who's married to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, stood behind local church leader Ruth Edmonds.

At first blush, this wouldn't have seemed especially notable. But just below the surface, there was a problem: Donald Trump didn't want different GOP leaders endorsing different candidates; he wanted everyone to ignore their preferences and support his chosen candidate -- because he said so.

Politico reported a few weeks ago that Team Trump saw the intra-party diversity of thought as an example of "disloyalty."

The same article quoted former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski saying, "Organizations that endorse candidates against the president's endorsement do so at their own peril." He added, "[I]t will be remembered."

Evidently, he wasn't kidding. The former president issued a written statement yesterday, not only celebrating the fact that his candidate prevailed, but also calling out Rand Paul by name for daring to back his own candidate in a Republican special-election primary.

"Do you think Rand Paul will apologize for spending nearly $1 Million on another candidate in Ohio's 15th District congressional race after I had already endorsed Mike Carey? ... Rand's candidate came in a distant third out of eleven. Rand is a different kind of guy.... Do you think he learned his lesson?"

Trump didn't specify what "lesson" the Kentucky senator is supposed to have learned, but there's no great mystery here.

It's not enough to be loyal to Trump; the failed former president also expects Republicans to be loyal to those who are loyal to Trump. He gets to pick the candidates; his endorsement must be paramount; his preferences must be honored above others'. The job of other Republicans is to smile, nod, and do what the former president says they should do.

Trump's authoritarian instincts in governing are well known, but no one should forget that he brings a similar style to his role as the effective head of the contemporary Republican Party.

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Why Rand Paul is suddenly having to deal with Donald Trump's ire - MSNBC