The Old American Ruling Class Has Lost the Revolution

American  Thinker 

After sixteen years, the most consequential political revolution in the history of the United States is drawing to a close. The current Ruling Class’s domination of the two major political parties is in shambles as the Democrat party is now controlled by true believers in Marxist Wokeism, and the Republican party has been taken over by Donald Trump and America First populists. The tentacles of the ruling elites that have long encircled both parties have been severed.

Over the years, the current Ruling Class, which can trace its beginning to the Woodrow Wilson administration, has choreographed the two parties into unique and complementary roles. The Democrat party was portrayed as the party of “the people” and the superior political strategists and tacticians promoting an increasingly active government. Meanwhile, the Republican party’s role was to be the token to limit, while still accommodating, the big-government policies of the Democrat party and thus the ever-increasing power of the Ruling Class.

As long as there was peace and ever-growing prosperity, that arrangement went unnoticed by the vast majority of an apathetic electorate as the wealth and influence of the nation’s elites increased geometrically.

While the Ruling Class reveled in their power and influence, they ignored the gradual infiltration of die-in-the-wool Marxists into the hierarchy of the Democrat party. They were certain that a comparatively small cadre of true believers would never be able to take over a major political party. The ruling elites over-confidently believed they would always maintain their hegemony within the Democrat party.

Further, as long as the Ruling Class maintained its influence within the Republican party hierarchy, the Marxists’ gradual infiltration into the upper reaches of the Democrat party could be tolerated as part of the Ruling Class’s orchestrated charade of caring for the welfare of all Americans.

However, in 2008, Barack Obama’s election lit the fuse of a bloodless revolution that would eventuate in the decline and fall of the current Ruling Class.

In the run-up to the 2008 election, the ruling elite’s preferred candidates were Hillary Clinton and John McCain. They knew that a glib Barack Obama was steeped in Marxist ideology and had long been a foot soldier for the cause. But two factors they could not control were his ability to portray himself as a “moderate” and his skin color, which would almost certainly guarantee his winning the Democrat nomination against an unlikeable Hillary Clinton and the presidency against a feckless John McCain. Thus, the Ruling Class was forced into tacitly endorsing Obama’s candidacy despite being uncertain if they could control him, his radical left-wing policies, and his declared intent to transform the Democrat party and the nation.

Once elected, Obama and his minions almost immediately exploited his unique position as the first black president, a weapon Obama himself never failed to wield in order to manipulate, intimidate, and marginalize the Ruling Class, who were the ultimate target of dedicated Marxist true-believers.

During the length of Obama’s two terms, many of these so-called best and brightest became increasingly afraid of losing their status and lifestyles if they condemned his far-left governance and overt racial animosity, the latter of which was a major part of Obama’s plan to foment nationwide discontent. As a byproduct of their cowardice, they were increasingly reluctant to confront the ongoing and stealthy success of Obama’s transformation of the Democrat party.

While the Marxists continued their takeover of the party, there was a tenuous understanding on power sharing. The Ruling Class duped themselves into believing they would continue to dominate the corridors of power in exchange for their implicit acquiescence to the Marxist transformation of America via the culture and society under the umbrella of Wokeism. When faced with the choice of a de facto alliance with the radical left or purging them from the party and maintaining the status quo, they chose expediency over pragmatism.

Nonetheless, the elites still had their domination of the Republican party to fall back on. They were certain that their tentacles in the party would allow them an alternative to maintain their power if the Marxist takeover of the Democrat party ever became a fait accompli.

That all changed in 2015 with Donald Trump’s announcement that he was going to pursue the nomination of the Republican party because of the misgovernance and chaos brought about by the Ruling Class’s tacit endorsement of Barack Obama’s policies and anti-Americanism.

Donald Trump possessed a trait that the ruling elites and their Marxist-inspired allies could never match. Trump could not only relate to and empathize with the “unwashed masses,” but he also thought, acted, and spoke like many of them. The possibility of having a man they perceived to be the composite of their stereotypes of “deplorable” Americans occupying the White House and unshackling the Republican party from the Ruling Class infuriated the self-styled best and brightest.

The Ruling Class viewed Trump’s ability to connect with the American people and create a new powerful political movement as an existential threat to its power. Instead of working with Trump for the betterment of the country, its members, including once conservative “Never Trumpers,” descended into uncontrolled rage and further allied themselves with the Marxist/Woke left. This alliance committed some of the biggest blunders in American political history.

The anger at Trump mutated into a frenzied obsession to leave no stone unturned in either forcing him to resign, or effectively neutering his presidency, or impeaching, and, if necessary, imprisoning him. In their addled thinking, nothing, even if it alienated half of the citizenry, was out of bounds to achieve their single-minded goal of destroying Donald Trump and the political movement he inspired.

Despite their incessant ankle-biting, in his first four years as president, Donald Trump rebuilt the economy, significantly curtailed illegal immigration, secured peace agreements no one thought possible, did not embroil the United States in any new foreign wars, and began the transformation of the Republican party into a populist America First party.

These successes further enraged the ruling elite/radical left alliance. This cabal foolishly threw caution to the wind and overtly and massively engaged in voter fraud in 2020 in order to elect a senescent Joe Biden, thereby permanently alienating over half of the electorate. They then stupidly acquiesced to the disastrous policies of their Marxist allies in governing the nation.

Perhaps most significantly because of its symbolism, in 2023-24, they mindlessly attempted to manipulate the legal system in order to imprison Trump for the rest of his life, increasing his popularity among the vast bulk of the citizenry. Trump’s landslide victory in the 2024 election sealed the fate of the current Ruling Class.

Thanks to their avarice, megalomania, and myopia, the ruling elites have effectively destroyed their power base. They have lost virtually all their influence in the Democrat party as it is now fully controlled by its Marxist/Woke wing. Their reckless determination to destroy Trump and the MAGA movement eventuated in the squandering of all their influence in the Republican party.

The political landscape in the United States now consists of an anti-American Marxist/Woke-obsessed Democrat party versus an egalitarian Republican party. With the elimination of the outsized influence of the Ruling Class, not since the decade prior to the Civil War have the political battlelines been so clearly delineated.

Aristotle Showed Us the Way: How to Analyze an Argument, Logically

 

By Ward Clark  | 4:15 PM on August 14, 2025  |  RedState

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

My Dad was an unusual guy. A farmer for much of his life, followed by being a quality engineer for the John Deere Waterloo tractor works, Dad may well have been the most well-read man I've ever known, and I read a lot myself. A self-styled country gentleman, Dad could intelligently discuss Greek philosophy, early-earth geology, human history, cosmology, and physics. He could have taught a college-level history course on the American Revolution and the American Civil War, an interest I share, and Dad and I spent many happy hours discussing and dissecting both of those quintessentially American conflicts.

When I was about, oh, 14, I was lounging around reading a magazine when Mom and Dad returned from a visit to the library. Dad handed me a book. "Read this," he said, his voice carrying the tone of command I was so familiar with, "...and when you're done, let's talk about it."

The book was Aristotle's "Organon," which is the collection of Aristotle's six primary works on logic and logical analysis. I read it. We talked about it. And, amazingly enough for a kid that age on a rural homestead in northeast Iowa in the '70s, I started thinking about it. Dad had the habit of nudging me to read things like this, and I'm richer for it, but Aristotle's works on logic and logical analysis had a profound effect, especially later, when I started pursuing an education in the sciences (Biology).

 The most important aspects of Aristotle's work, the ones that I try to apply to every analysis of policy today, are his Laws of Thought. Those are:

1. The Law of Contradiction
2. The Law of the Excluded Middle
3. The Principle of Identity

Britannica has a pretty cogent definition of the three laws:

The three laws can be stated symbolically as follows. (1) For all propositions p, it is impossible for both p and not p to be true, or: ∼(p · ∼p), in which ∼ means “not” and · means “and.” (2) Either p or ∼p must be true, there being no third or middle true proposition between them, or: p ∨ ∼p, in which ∨ means “or.” (3) If a propositional function F is true of an individual variable x, then F is true of x, or: F(x) ⊃ F(x), in which ⊃ means “formally implies.” Another formulation of the principle of identity asserts that a thing is identical with itself, or (∀x) (x = x), in which ∀ means “for every”; or simply that x is x.

That's rather turgid, so let's simplify them: 

1. Two assertions of fact cannot contradict each other and both be true.
2. In any such assertion of fact, one or the other must be true, and the other, false; the truth cannot lie in between. Aristotle used as an example the statements "Man is mortal" and "Man is immortal." 
3. A is A. A thing is what it is, and cannot be anything else. Facts are facts, no matter how they make people feel.

The first two Aristotle describes as axioms:

...an indemonstrable first principle, rule, or maxim, that has found general acceptance or is thought worthy of common acceptance whether by virtue of a claim to intrinsic merit or on the basis of an appeal to self-evidence. An example would be: “Nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.”

So, as an axiom, we have the Law of Contradiction applied in the very definition. 

Why are these things important? What did Aristotle record here, in his Organon, that we can apply today?

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Read More: What's the Real Value of College?

100 Years Ago, H.L. Mencken Wrote of Government, Radicals, and Liberty. Did He Foresee Our Modern Times?

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While we occasionally delve into other topics, here at RedState, we are primarily carrying on a political discussion. While there are many aspects to politics, in any discussion of policy and policy proposals, it's important to look at the facts. Too many people, in all candor, people on both sides of the American political spectrum, are prone to fall into emotional or agenda-driven arguments. This includes our elected officials, who we should be able to trust to carry out the business of the American people by making decisions based on logic, on facts. Granted, one side is better at this than the other; one political party is more inclined to logical argument than the other (although not perfectly so), and since you're here, at RedState, reading this, you have a pretty good idea which side that is. 

In any such discussion, one can do a lot worse than to apply the laws of thought. What are the facts? Which claims are supported by evidence? Which things are true, and which, false?

This is elementary logic. This is how we should frame arguments. This is how science is supposed to work, and this should be how policy discussions work. It's not, always; it's not even most of the time. Emotional and polemic arguments too often carry the day, and that's not a good thing. There are places for emotional appeals, of course, but debates of policy are not among them.

It's a common enough notion to think that, just because we are enjoying much more advanced technologies than someone like Aristotle, who lived over 2,000 years ago, that we are somehow smarter than he was. That's just not true; a reading of any of Aristotle's work will show that very clearly. He formulated rules of logic that still hold value today. We should use them. We should apply them. And we should insist our elected representatives do likewise.

Photo credit: Nikolas Giakoumidis

X22, And we Know, and more- August 14

 

U.S. Bribery Indictment Points to Mexican State Corruption and Vast Cartel-Linked Oil, Drug Trafficking Operations

 

HOUSTON — A new U.S. indictment accuses two Mexican nationals doing business in Texas of bribing officials at Mexico’s state energy company Pemex — a scheme that appears to be just one piece of a vast conspiracy outlined in U.S. sanctions filings in May, pointing to cartel-linked operations that have penetrated the global energy sector and are tied to terror-designated networks importing Chinese chemical precursors to flood North America with fentanyl, methamphetamine, and other narcotics.

Unsealed in the Southern District of Texas in August 2025, the charges allege that between 2019 and 2021, Ramon Alexandro Rovirosa Martinez and Mario Alberto Avila Lizarraga paid $150,000 in cash and provided luxury goods to officials at Pemex and its exploration arm, PEP, to infiltrate the company’s auditing branch.

While not explicitly alleged in the filings, The Bureau’s analysis suggests the bribes likely enabled oil companies and traders acting as fronts for cartels — including the Jalisco New Generation, Sinaloa, or Gulf networks — to steal crude oil from Mexico, process it through U.S. refineries, and sell it worldwide.

The 21-page indictment — along with numerous earlier filings related to U.S. Treasury, FinCEN, Homeland Security, and DEA investigations — points to the cartels’ deeply insidious corporate infiltration, which has allowed them to function as a kind of shadow state in Mexico and to embed themselves across many countries worldwide, particularly in jurisdictions where law enforcement is weak or compromised.

Court records show that Rovirosa was no stranger to high-level U.S. agencies: in March 2023, he filed a petition in Washington, D.C., against the Department of Homeland Security and Attorney General Merrick Garland, seeking action on an immigration matter involving the Immigrant Investor Program Office — before abruptly dropping the case six weeks later.

Since March 2016, he has held U.S. lawful permanent resident status and lived in Texas — making him a “domestic concern” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Prosecutors allege that between 2019 and 2021, Rovirosa and Avila conspired to bribe officials at Pemex and its exploration arm, PEP, with cash and luxury goods. In return, three senior officials allegedly reversed audits into six Mexican oil companies tied to the defendants and awarded contracts for Rovirosa’s firms to build roads and infrastructure.

The government’s case includes damning WhatsApp exchanges between Mexican officials and the defendants. In October 2019, for example, a Mexican official allegedly informed Avila that, based on his conversations with others at Pemex and PEP, Rovirosa’s Mexican oil companies could resume submitting invoices for payment. Avila replied that he would inform Rovirosa. Three days later, “Foreign Official #1” messaged again, the indictment says, confirming he had received the Louis Vuitton handbag promised to his wife. Avila’s incriminating reply, according to the indictment: “You’re welcome, bud; you’ve earned it.”

Oil Theft, Fentanyl, and Trade-Based Laundering: A Converging Cartel Revenue Engine

The allegations come against a much larger backdrop. On May 1, 2025, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in coordination with OFAC, the DEA, FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations, issued an anti–money laundering alert warning that the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, and other Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations are engaged in industrial-scale theft and smuggling of Pemex crude across the U.S. southwest border. The cartels and their huachicoleros — oil thieves — primarily obtain crude by bribing corrupt Pemex employees and local officials, but also by drilling illegal taps into pipelines, stealing from refineries, and threatening workers. These operations have fueled violence and corruption across Mexico and, in some cases, triggered catastrophic pipeline explosions.

Treasury and law enforcement officials note that the scheme exploits Mexico’s reliance on U.S. refineries for sour and heavy crude, providing cover for stolen product to move alongside legitimate flows. Many complicit importers operate in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the Eagle Ford Shale, the Permian Basin, Houston, and Dallas, using front and shell companies to receive, store, and distribute the oil. While prosecutors have not formally tied Rovirosa’s bribery case to this broader theft-and-distribution network, the geography, timing, and Pemex nexus place the charges in the same operational landscape U.S. agencies identify as both a critical non-drug revenue stream and a key trade-based money laundering platform for Mexico’s most powerful cartels.

According to FinCEN, the smuggling process begins with stolen crude moved to storage tanks in cartel-controlled territories, often in major Mexican oil hubs such as Veracruz, Altamira, and Monterrey. From there, it is transported across the U.S. southwest border, first to vacant lots outfitted with mobile storage tanks operated by U.S. companies under the control of Mexican brokers or complicit U.S. importers. These fronts then list themselves in trade documents as the importers and buyers, with complicit importers recorded as the ultimate consignees. False paperwork, often mischaracterizing the shipments as “waste oil” or hazardous materials, enables the illicit crude to enter U.S. commerce and be refined and sold across the Western Hemisphere, “as well as in Japan, India, Africa, and other foreign jurisdictions — most of whom are likely unaware of the illegitimate source of the crude oil,” FinCEN says.

While not named in the indictment against Rovirosa and Avila, U.S. government sanctions suggest a major figure — Cesar Morfin Morfin — may loom behind the networks implicated in Pemex corruption schemes. On May 1, 2025, OFAC sanctioned numerous Mexican individuals and companies under Executive Orders 14059 and 13224, “Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism,” citing their direct or indirect links to CJNG’s fuel theft and oil smuggling operations along the U.S. southwest border. “This network generates hundreds of millions of dollars annually, benefitting CJNG, through a slew of criminal activities, including fentanyl trafficking, fuel theft, and smuggling stolen crude oil from Mexico across the southwest border,” the sanctions notice states.

OFAC designated Morfin (a.k.a. “Primito”), is described as a CJNG cell leader in Tamaulipas.

“Primito is involved in the transportation, importation, and distribution of narcotics, including fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, and marijuana, into the United States,” the notice says. “He has also been known to import fentanyl and methamphetamine precursor chemicals sourced from China.”

According to OFAC, Primito’s lavish lifestyle has included exotic animals and dozens of luxury vehicles. Recently, he and his network have shifted their focus toward stolen fuel, specifically crude oil smuggling into the United States, given its high profit margins. Primito allegedly acquires stolen crude from co-opted Pemex employees and other CJNG members. Leveraging control over port-of-entry bridges between Tamaulipas and Texas, he is said to charge fees to trucks moving crude into the United States via these routes. His subordinates and associates allegedly falsify customs documents to facilitate cross-border smuggling and operate front companies to sell stolen fuel, some directly to retail gas stations.

The FinCEN alert also notes that these transactions align with sophisticated trade-based money laundering schemes seen in global drug-finance networks. After selling the stolen crude oil on U.S. and international markets, complicit U.S. importers receive domestic and cross-border wire transfers from third-party brokers, often routed through multiple accounts and jurisdictions. The importers then wire funds to U.S. and Mexican companies controlled by the Mexican brokers, who in turn pay the cartels their share of illicit profits. To disguise the transfers, wire instructions often falsely claim the payments are for invoices tied to waste oil or hazardous materials.

Cartel-Style Corruption Inside Pemex: Bribes for Access, Contracts, and Cover

In the newly unsealed indictment, prosecutors allege that Rovirosa’s scheme targeted three senior Pemex insiders, all classified as “foreign officials” under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Foreign Official #1 was a senior internal audit manager at PEP; Foreign Official #2 was a procurement coordinator at Pemex; and Foreign Official #3 worked in Pemex and PEP’s land infrastructure division.

Between June 2019 and October 2021, Rovirosa and Avila allegedly offered, paid, promised, and authorized bribes — cash, luxury goods, and other benefits — to secure favorable treatment for their network of companies. The aim, prosecutors contend, was to influence Pemex and PEP decisions, gain improper advantages, and lock in contracts worth millions, in violation of the FCPA’s core prohibition on corrupt payments to foreign officials.

The scheme’s opening phase focused on Pemex’s audit gatekeepers. In June and July 2019, Avila, at Rovirosa’s direction, began WhatsApp outreach to Foreign Official #1, pressing for a favorable resolution to an ongoing Pemex audit. Avila allegedly promised a Louis Vuitton handbag for the official’s wife, and in July offered a Hublot watch worth about $12,500, joking, “A Hublot as a commission haha.” On July 24, Foreign Official #1 messaged back with the outcome: “Mission accomplished!!!” The reduced audit penalty — about 225,000 pesos instead of one million — favored Rovirosa’s companies.

During this same period, prosecutors say, cash payments were also offered to Foreign Official #3 to authorize Pemex and PEP payments to certain Mexico Energy Companies. These actions were part of a pattern: closing audits on favorable terms, lifting restrictions blocking payments and new contracts, ignoring disqualifying technical reports to keep bids alive, and steering a mechanical integrity contract. By 2020, prosecutors allege, the network had secured Pemex and PEP business worth at least $2.5 million.

The scheme then zeroed in on the lucrative “Roads and Platforms” infrastructure project. On February 22, 2020, Foreign Official #1 and Avila allegedly discussed how much Avila and Rovirosa would pay Foreign Official #2 for his help. Avila wrote, “You tell me how we should divvy it up… But yes I’ll give [Foreign Official #2] ten for sure.” Six days later, Foreign Official #1 sent Avila the official Pemex award document showing Mexico Energy Company #1 and #2 had won the contract — valued between 12 and 30 million pesos — along with, “Mission accomplished, Bro!!!” and a reminder to deliver the promised payments.

In early March 2020, Rovirosa and Avila allegedly coordinated cash deliveries via trusted associates. On March 3, Avila requested bank details from his assistant, Co-Conspirator #1. That day, Rovirosa instructed Co-Conspirator #2 to make two transfers of roughly 600,000 pesos each from a Mexico Energy Company #6 account — one to Avila’s relative and one to Co-Conspirator #1. The following day, Avila’s relative moved his share into Co-Conspirator #1’s account.

The indictment’s narrative aligns with U.S. anti–money laundering and sanctions alerts issued in May 2025, describing how cartels embed operatives inside Pemex’s compliance, procurement, and infrastructure arms to facilitate oil theft, smuggling, and trade-based laundering. By corrupting officials in precisely these roles, Rovirosa’s network would have gained the kind of institutional leverage that allows cartel-linked schemes to operate undetected.

Sam Cooper

Aug 14, 2025

https://www.thebureau.news/p/us-bribery-indictment-points-to-mexican?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1444443&post_id=170976069&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=rd3ao&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

An Existential Threat to and from the Intelligence Community

American  Thinker 

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard’s declassification of communications and reports that implicate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, senior officials from the Obama administration, and former heads of the Intelligence Community in a conspiracy to frame President Trump with the Russia Collusion Hoax is nothing less than earth-shattering.  

America has endured many political scandals.  The country has never had to contend with anything of this magnitude — in which a lame-duck president abused and politicized national intelligence-gathering operations in order to blame an adversarial nuclear power for an embarrassing election loss and set in motion a series of fraudulently predicated criminal investigations intended to force President Trump’s resignation from office or impeachment and removal.

As enormous as this scandal already is, it remains an ongoing criminal conspiracy.  Every time former Obama officials — including former DNI James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan — publicly lie about material facts regarding the Russia Collusion Hoax, they are acting as co-conspirators in a plot to defraud the American people, overthrow a legitimately elected president, and cover up past criminal activity.   

Perhaps the only aspect of this story that could rival in size such treason against the United States is the corporate news media’s continued refusal to report these events accurately without fear or favor.  For many reasons, newsrooms will not do so.  Because indoctrinated and committed leftists control the American press, “journalists” lack the requisite discernment to see beyond partisan political blinders and report facts that are personally troubling.  Even worse, many “journalists” have redefined their professional role away from any responsibility for objective truth-telling and toward a kind of active agency in which they shape “truth” to advance a particular worldview.  “Journalists” love Obama.  They despise Trump.  They are happy to act as assets for former Obama administration officials pushing lies and to hide facts that are politically inconvenient.

“Journalists” were and remain essential co-conspirators in the Russia Collusion Hoax.  By publishing sensational stories that were often contradicted by a mountain of publicly available facts, the nation’s pre-eminent news companies aided and abetted the Clinton-Obama information war against the American people.  As has been their wont in this era in which “journalism” resembles stenography, famous “reporters” simply repeated what corrupt members of Obama’s Intelligence Community told them without ever verifying the accuracy of their reporting.  When pressed to corroborate salacious details of their Russia Collusion Hoax stories, “journalists” habitually relied on “anonymous sources” from “past or present government officials” as tawdry proof that their shoddy “journalism” passed muster.

In exchange for acting as propagandists spreading disinformation and misinformation in a hybrid war being waged by powerful Democrats and Intelligence Community officials against citizens of the United States, “reporters” received promotions, celebrity recognition, book deals, and Pulitzer Prizes.  Even after DNI Gabbard’s declassifications have exposed the corporate news media’s Russia Collusion propaganda for the trashy clickbait that it is, “reporters” refuse to retract past lies, return Russia Collusion–related awards or remuneration, or publicly admit any wrongdoing.  

The American press corps is now so inextricably linked to the Democrat party and the corrupt Intelligence Community that it would rather pretend not to see the greatest scandal in American history than admit its own complicity in perpetrating mass fraud against citizens of the United States.  These are, of course, the same “professionals” who refused to acknowledge President Biden’s obvious cognitive decline for four years — going so far as to defame those who did notice as “conspiracy theorists” — only to claim today that the Biden administration simply pulled the wool over their eyes.  Should the growing body of evidence documenting the Clinton-Obama conspiracy to overthrow President Trump become impossible to ignore, these same “professionals” will surely claim that powerful members of the Democrat Party, Obama administration, and espionage apparatus had them fooled, too.

The damage from the Russia Collusion Hoax cannot be overstated.  The psychological warfare directed against the American people destroyed any residual social unity in a nation that has become only more divided since the turn of the century.  The covert hybrid war engineered by Clinton confidants, Obama allies, and Intelligence Community spymasters constituted nothing less than sedition and treason against the legitimate government of the United States.  Not only was President Trump handicapped during his first term by unlawfully predicated criminal investigations but also the Clinton-Obama-aligned co-conspirators further inflamed tensions with nuclear Russia, exhibiting malicious disregard for the safety of the citizens of the United States.  

As a nation, we are lucky that the Clinton-Obama coup d’état was ultimately unsuccessful.  Had the Russia Collusion Hoax precipitated President Trump’s resignation or provided enough political cover for corrupt co-conspirators in Congress to impeach and remove him, the American public would be today even more vulnerable to the machinations of a deeply immoral and dishonest Intelligence Community.  Federal bureaucrats who operate in secret and without oversight remain a constant threat to the freedom of all Americans.  Bureaucrats who would wage an information war against the American people and conspire to provoke kinetic war between Russia and the United States are a threat to all mankind.

After any disaster, the survivors must go on.  It is at this time that sober, well-intentioned people take stock of troubling past events and look for potential lessons that can aid them in the future.  It is fair to say that the Russia Collusion Hoax provides many.  Among those, perhaps this is the most significant: No American should uncritically believe any supposed statement of fact coming from the press, the Intelligence Community, or any government official attempting to define “truth” by appealing to a title of authority.  

Blind faith in powerful institutions ensures only that those institutions will become irredeemably corrupt.  Healthy skepticism for official pronouncements and public debate of government-sponsored “truths” are indispensable ingredients for a free society.  If any honest observer still clung to the naïve belief that the Intelligence Community, permanent federal bureaucracy, or American news media were honest, impartial institutions acting on behalf of all Americans with dispassionate professionalism, the Russia Collusion Hoax should have exposed such comforting delusions as idealistic hogwash.

Here is another lesson vital to the survival of these United States: The president, in whom all executive power is vested, must have complete control of and total authority over the Intelligence Community, the executive departments, and the broader administrative state.  There can be no extra-constitutional organ exercising executive power that feels emboldened to disregard lawful presidential orders and entitled to chart its own course.  If every spy chief and agency manager operates as if vested with independent power and unilateral authority, then there are a thousand “presidents” governing the United States.  As the Electoral College has not voted them into office, they are, in actuality, tyrants disguising their misappropriation of power behind titles of authority.

The Clinton-Obama Russia Collusion Hoax was nearly a successful coup d’état precisely because the Executive Branch of the federal government has long been home to a thousand tyrants pretending to be presidents.  For the Republic to endure, this betrayal of the U.S. Constitution must come to an end.

Acknowledging these truths adds significance to DNI Gabbard’s ongoing disclosures.  At no time in American history has the Office of the President taken such direct aim at its own Intelligence Community.  These public disclosures are embarrassing — which is why America’s rogue agencies have worked so hard to keep them classified.  They are incriminating — which is why a reactionary public relations campaign (read: a new bombardment of information warfare) is underway to undermine DNI Gabbard’s authority and protect Russia Collusion Hoax perpetrators from legal accountability.  Finally, these disclosures are an existential threat to the Intelligence Community — which is why former spies, current members of Congress, and the corporate news media continue to cover up the truth.

The Democrats’ Mortifying Public Impotence

posted by Kurt Schlichter at Townhall 

What is with the Democrats and their insistence on throwing a spotlight on their embarrassing weakness? We haven’t seen such impotence since the last time a Lincoln Project staffer found out that his date had a driver’s license.

While it’s nearly certain that individual Democrats can’t perform as men – spare a moment to pity Fang Fang and the personal cost of her dedication to her country – the party itself is likewise unable to perform as a party. They keep losing, yet they keep publicizing their losses as if their failures were great successes and their defeats were incredible victories. Their problem is that you can’t lose your way to glory. A conquering Roman consul would ride in his triumph with a slave whispering in his ear, “Momento mori” to keep him humble; the Democrats should have interns whispering in their ears, “You suck. Just shut up.”

They keep losing. Typically, repeated failures would bring shame and humiliation, but of course, those are part of the kink. Lefties revel in them. They are celebrating their own impotence, guided by the same consultants who pocketed $20 million to explain to the donkeys that the way to win back normal men was to send them fat chicks as brand ambassadors and harangue them about the patriarchy and creative pronoun usage. When you screw up, you take time off to regroup. You don’t broadcast it to the world as if you’re proud of it. Except that’s what the Democrats are doing. What they’re doing is mortifying to us because we’re normal, but it’s their new normal. It’s all failure theater, and their names are above the title.

Take a look at what the Democrats did in Texas. The Party of Sir Robin bravely ran away – Greg Abbott promised to redistrict, and they turned their tails and fled. Hilariously, as they cowered under the massive shadow cast by Illinois Governor/kaiju J.B. Pritzker, they played it off as if they were defending the Alamo from the Mexicans, though the Democrats today would have surrendered to Santa Ana after he subjected them to a withering land acknowledgment. Instead of just being quiet, they turned the bombast and braggadocio up to 11 and looked ridiculous. It doesn’t make much sense to demand that your enemies “Come and take it,” but only if they can catch you before you get to Chicago. 

The Texas Dems gleefully and publicly channeled the wrong Crockett – Jasmine, not Davey – yet somehow thought they looked awesome. “We’re fighting for democracy,”they announced from the Windy City, much like the French claimed to be resisting the Nazis from Vichy. There were high-fives all around, but outside their bubble, normal people looked at them like they were insane. It was obvious they ran away because they were going to lose, and it was obvious how this was all going to end – and it wasn’t with a trophy. It was like being at a blackjack table and shouting, “Take that!” when dealta 16 with the dealer showing a king.

You would think they’d have the dignity to just shut their stinkin’ traps, but we were subjected to the spectacle of them barging in front of every available camera and hopping on every social media platform to brag about how they had retreated in the face of defeat. Greg Abbott and Kenny Paxton (who is holding out the possibility that Texas will get another based Senator next year when he primaries Gun Control Cornyn), being men and potent ones at that, were having none of it. They were fully prepared to throw these doofuses in Brownsville if they didn’t get their booties back to the Lone Star State to do their job. And lo and behold, the brave braves of bravery folded like a house of cards. They’ll be coming back with their tails between their legs – I’m assuming that felonious funder and furry Beto O’Rourke will provide them with fur suits, as dressing like cartoon fetish animals would be the only possible way to increase their humiliation.

Look, everybody loses once in a while. It’s just reality. It’s a statistical inevitability that you’re going to fail sometimes. The point here isn’t that they’ve lost some recent political battles, though it does solidify their status as total losers. The point is that they’re not ashamed of it. They revel in it. They’re proud of it. But they are not like they’re the captain of the Titanic going down with the ship. They are more like the captain of the Titanic tossing a couple of urchins overboard to get a seat on the lifeboat than expecting kudos for his/her/their/xir courage during an interview on ”Good Morning, America.”

The memo from the Democrat consultants has gone out, and now we are seeing this more and more. It’s utterly mortifying. How many times have we watched social media videos where three or four of their backbenchers show up at an ICE facility to pound on the door and demand oversight, only to be brutally rejected by some GS-3 who slams it in their faces? They immediately do a stand-up in front of their 23-year-old comms director with her iPhone while they hold those little lapel mics in their hands like some Instagram influencer unboxing a Funko Pop for her 2 million incel followers. They whine and complain that they showed up and got turned away with nothing, and we’re supposed to feel…what? Pride? How about contempt? They have been dissed and dismissed, their alleged power scoffed at, their purported authority mocked, and they don’t even have the sense to be embarrassed. Instead, they broadcast it to the world: “Hey, look, everybody, we totally failed again. Celebrate us!"

And what about Corey Booker down on the floor of the Senate for hours doing his Spartacus thing while no one watches and no one cares? At least the real Spartacus defeated a few Roman legions here and there; Booker keeps getting feated by Trump. Sure, Cory is dumb – not Mazie Hirono dumb, but still dumb – yet this is a whole different level of stupid. It’s the same with his comrades. Do they not understand that normal people are laughing at them? Apparently not. Their consultants are telling them this is awesome. These are the same consultants who told Dem pols they needed to get on the “Defund the police,” “Trump is literally Hitler,” and “Castrate the kiddies” bandwagons. Until some rebel consultant comes up with the idea of telling his Democrat clients to try just being normal for once, we’re going to see a lot more Oscar-worthy performances from these failure thespians.

But then, what more can they do than try (and fail) to lose with dignity? The Democrats are in a very tough position. They don’t have the House, they don’t have the Senate, they don’t have the Supreme Court, and they certainly don’t have the presidency. They’ve got nothing, or almost nothing. They do have the regime media, but that’s a two-edged sword because that makes it possible for them to publicize their endless series of last stands that don’t involve actually making a stand and are never the last. It’s the worst of all possible worlds. They keep losing, but they have a giant publicity machine that trumpets their failures to the world.

So, the Democrats are stuck. With no chance of exercising power, they have no option but exercising powerlessness. The act of doing something, anything, may make them feel slightly better for a little while, but what it’s impressing upon the minds of Americans is that these folks are feckless. This is a self-licking ice cream cone of losing, and we should encourage them to slurp it up. After all, we have the 2026 midterms coming up, and their endless examples of their pathetic impotence will lead to electile dysfunction. 

The Disappearance of Logic from Schools—and What It’s Costing Us

 

By Jared Gould   |   Minding the Campus   |   August 12, 2025

Logic was once a cornerstone of education. Before the 20th century, students studied logic as a standalone subject—a rigorous discipline that honed their ability to reason, spot contradictions, and dissect arguments. In early America, logic held a prominent place in the curriculum. Northern colleges like Harvard prioritized it, with figures like Benjamin Franklin authoring logic primers for youth. And Southern institutions wove logic into rhetoric. Yet today, logic as a dedicated subject has all but vanished from schools, relegated to fleeting mentions in math or writing classes. This retreat from logic education is a grave mistake, and its consequences are evident in the emotional, fallacy-ridden state of modern public discourse.

The decline of logic in schools stems from a confluence of factors. The Progressive Education Movement, aiming to make schooling more accessible, simplified curricula and sidelined subjects deemed too esoteric, including logic. Anti-scholastic sentiment further dismissed logic as overly technical, irrelevant to practical life. Meanwhile, the fragmentation of education into specialized niches—math here, literature there—pushed logic out of the general classroom. (Read the National Association of Scholars’s “The Dissolution of General Education.”) Whatever the precise cause, the result is clear: we’ve raised generations of citizens ill-equipped to reason rigorously, leaving them vulnerable to emotional manipulation and logical errors.

Nathaniel Urban, a colleague and keen observer of cultural trends, argues that this lack of logic training has fueled a hyper-emotional approach to thinking. “The state of public discourse is that it is based on feelings and, in turn, is filled with logical fallacies,” he says. 

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Consider a viral Instagram video that encapsulates this problem: a man calmly presents a pro-life argument, only for a woman to retort that he’s giving didn’t go to college vibes. When he reveals he holds advanced degrees—more than she does—and points out that her response is a personal attack rather than a substantive rebuttal, the exchange lays bare a common tactic: the ad hominem fallacy, sidestepping the argument by targeting the speaker’s perceived credibility. She also implicitly leans on an appeal to authority, suggesting only certain credentials qualify someone to speak on the issue. 

Urban sees this pattern everywhere. On abortion, for instance, he notes the common claim: “men cannot weigh in on abortion because they are not women.” This is an appeal to authority—only women have the right perspective—and a weak authority at that, Urban says. “If a man says he is pro-choice because he is not a woman then that is both an appeal to authority and a weak authority figure, a double whammy logical fallacy.”

Similarly, in discussions of race, Urban notes that statements like “white people cannot criticize Black Lives Matter because they don’t understand what it means to be black” deflect substantive critiques with emotional appeals. As a white man, I can still point out—logically—that much was wrong with the organization and movement: its leaders misused donated funds to buy lavish homes, and available data shows police do not disproportionately target black individuals.

The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed our collective reasoning deficits. “Listen to the experts” became a mantra, often wielded as an appeal to authority to silence dissent. “You didn’t go to med school, so who are you to question lockdowns?” was a frequent refrain, as if expertise guaranteed infallibility. Many accepted school closures or other measures not because they weighed the evidence, but because “experts said so.” This blind deference stems from a broader failure of citizens—once students—who lack the ability to question authority logically, a skill that robust logic training in schools could rebuild.

The Lindsey Wilson College Writing Center identifies 21 common logical fallacies, including ad hominem, appeal to authority, appeal to fear, false dilemma, and straw man, among others. These errors aren’t just academic—they shape everyday arguments, from social media spats to political campaigns. (I recently wrote about viral posts that falsely claimed America was founded on the separation of church and state.)

I believe logic training in high school or college could counter this, teaching students to balance emotion with reason. But Urban fears we may be too far gone. 

Decades of cultural shifts—overprotective parenting, social media echo chambers, pop culture’s celebration of “authenticity” over rigor, and the rise of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)—have entrenched emotional reasoning, Urban explains. SEL can foster empathy, but too often it prioritizes feelings over critical thought, leaving students unprepared for complex issues. (Read Peter Wood’s “Is It Time to Retire Social and Emotional Learning?”). At the same time, universities—eager to market education as career training for the masses—are gutting liberal arts and humanities programs, the traditional strongholds of formal logic instruction. STEM fields may teach deductive reasoning through mathematics, but this is no substitute for a comprehensive grounding in logic. Whatever remains of logic education in the humanities, thus, is further fading.

The results are glaring. One of education’s central purposes—alongside career preparation and personal growth—is to equip students for active citizenship in a democracy. That requires the ability to evaluate arguments, question authority, and debate rationally. By sidelining logic, we have pushed too many toward emotional reasoning, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation. American politics now often turns on emotional appeals—fear, outrage, or sympathy—rather than substantive debate. Voters swayed by soundbites or viral memes often lack the tools to test what they’re told. This is not merely a cultural loss—it’s a direct threat to the health of democratic citizenship, which our schools and universities are supposed to defend.

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Urban, though skeptical we can reclaim logic, offers a path forward, drawing inspiration from The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. They argue for making students “antifragile”—capable of thriving amid challenge, not crumbling under disagreement. Logic training is a key step. It equips students to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, and resist emotional manipulation. Urban rejects maxims like “do what feels right” or “speak from the heart,” which prioritize emotion over reason. Classical wisdom, from Aristotle to the Stoics, emphasized the brain’s role in mediating the desires of the heart. Schools must revive this principle, teaching students to think critically rather than feel impulsively.

To restore logic, we should reintroduce it as a core subject in high schools and colleges, not as an afterthought in math or writing. A dedicated logic curriculum would cover formal reasoning and common fallacies, even using examples from politics, media, and everyday life. Teachers could draw on viral moments—like the Instagram clip—to show students how to spot fallacies in action. Universities should also bolster liberal arts programs and make logic a pillar of those programs. For the broader public, workshops or online courses could make logic accessible; in fact, Stanford has a free course. 

A society that can’t reason is easily swayed—by demagogues, misinformation, or fleeting emotions. Bringing logic back to schools isn’t just about better arguments; it’s about better citizens. Logic doesn’t just clarify thought; it safeguards freedom.

Follow Jared Gould on X.

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Image: “No violence no hate speech” by John S. Quarterman on Flickr