Vigilant Americans Should Be Armed

American  Thinker 

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has  President Trump “the gravest threat to American democracy.”  Nonetheless, Schumer wants to erase the Second Amendment.  House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries  Trump a “racial arsonist” and  supporters to “fight” the Trump administration “in the streets.”  Still, Jeffries wants to limit gun ownership and confiscate Americans’ firearms.  

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz  Trump is a “tyrant” who “finds new ways to trample rights” each day.  Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia , “President Trump is a tyrant.”  Senator Alex Padilla of California  that Trump is a “tyrant.”  Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon  Trump a “tyrant.”  Democrat lawmakers across the country have repeatedly described President Trump as a “dictator,” a “racist,” a “white supremacist,” a “Russian agent,” and a “Nazi.”  They have compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and other genocidal maniacs.  They swear that Trump is the greatest “threat to democracy” that Americans have ever faced.

Yet every one of these Democrats wants gun control.  Even after taking oaths to defend the Constitution, they actively work to undermine the Second Amendment.  They believe that only the U.S. military, federal agents, law enforcement officers, and private security details for the well-to-do should be permitted to carry firearms.

Consider this another example of why leftists sound insane to normal people.  Rational individuals don’t prance around complaining about “dictatorship” and “tyranny” while looking for every available excuse to disarm the public.  Historically, when alert citizens feared that a government had become too powerful or an official had become too authoritarian, they encouraged their fellow citizens to be well-armed and prepared to defend themselves.  They did not make long-winded speeches in the town square insisting that the time had come for the people to hand over their weapons so that the “tyrant” could provide for their safety.

In leftist-globalists’ upside-down world, “men” get pregnant, free speech requires censorship, we’re all about to die from “climate change,” and the best way to oppose “fascism” is to relinquish your guns to the government.  As the kids like to say, make it make sense.

One thing seems certain: Democrats don’t really believe President Trump is a “tyrant,” but they are pretty sure that they will soon be back in power.  Democrat officials are deliberately riling up their political followers and legitimizing violence against Trump and his supporters.  At the same time, Democrats expect to exercise exclusive authority over which Americans will be disarmed in the future.  

Why wouldn’t they?  Even with Trump in the White House, we live under a two-tier “justice” system right now in which Democrats commit crimes without consequence and Republicans are criminally punished for their political beliefs.  

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Brennan, Susan Rice, Jim Comey, James Clapper and so many other co-conspirators spied on Republican presidential campaigns, defrauded the American people with the Russia Collusion Hoax, and attempted to overthrow President Trump in a coup d'état.  Those traitors will most likely never be so much as charged for their high crimes.  Meanwhile, corrupt prosecutors and judges in Democrat-controlled jurisdictions have engaged in the worst kinds of lawfare against Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, political advisor Roger Stone, policy strategist Steve Bannon, economic advisor Peter Navarro, and numerous attorneys (including Rudy Giuliani) who litigated 2020’s fraud-filled mail-in-ballot presidential “selection.”  

Five years ago, Antifa domestic terrorists and Black Lives Matter shock troops for the Democrat Party burned down entire neighborhoods and caused billions of dollars in property damage across the nation.  Few of these Democrat foot soldiers have ever been prosecuted.  Meanwhile, when Trump voters showed up in D.C. to protest 2020 election fraud and demand secure elections, the FBI and DOJ dedicated unprecedented resources to hunt down every patriotic granny and selfless veteran for the “crime” of walking around the Capitol.  The information warfare specialists in the corporate news still treat Antifa and BLM as if they were peaceful, virtuous organizations.  Those same propagandists have spent the last four-plus years defaming Trump voters as “racists,” “terrorists,” and “insurrectionists.”  

When it comes to Democrat plans for gun control, there is no doubt that those who want to deprive Americans of their natural right to self-defense anticipate favorable and continuing two-tiered “justice.”  Although public debate routinely centers around Americans’ Second Amendment right to own weapons, the heart of the issue also concerns the Fourth Amendment — the right of all Americans to be protected against unreasonable government searches without judicially-sanctioned warrants first establishing probable cause.  If Democrats were serious about disarming dangerous criminals, after all, they would go door-to-door in every American neighborhood with an extensive gang presence and arrest anyone illegally in possession of a firearm.  But Democrats have no interest in disarming known criminals.  They have no interest in infringing upon known criminals’ Fourth Amendment rights.  They prefer to target the Second and Fourth Amendment rights of Americans without criminal records.

So-called “red flag” laws aren’t used to disarm urban gangs (that’s racist!) or mentally ill men who pretend to be women (that’s transphobic!).  They are used to target law-abiding gun owners with the “wrong” political beliefs.  Democrat officials routinely ignore violent individuals with the right skin color or sexual fetishes.  Democrats look the other way when illegal aliens are found to be in possession of weapons.  Conversely, Democrats force citizens to jump through hoops to secure concealed carry permits.  Criminals get a pass; citizens are forced to fight the bureaucracy for their constitutional rights.  The more authority that Democrats obtain to confiscate Americans’ firearms, the more certain it becomes that Democrat-aligned foot soldiers will be the only people “entitled” to a weapon.  Like two-tiered “justice,” two-tiered self-defense is the Democrats’ favorite kind of “progress.”

Since the Catholic school shooting in Minneapolis, Democrats and the propaganda press have done everything they can to hide the fact that this anti-Christian attack marked another instance of “trans” terrorism and have instead exploited the tragedy by renewing calls for gun confiscation.  Democrat talking heads ignore the fact that Minnesota already has “red flag” laws that would have permitted Democrat officials to disarm the shooter had his “trans” delusions been considered a sign of troubling mental health.  Because Democrats and the propaganda press have spent the last decade trying to convince normal people that mentally ill “trans” people “deserve our respect,” they cannot now admit the obvious — that violent men who believe they are women are a growing threat to society.

On the toxic sewage dump known as Reddit, leftists are advocating for more attacks on “white Christians” in order to achieve their dream of national gun bans.  As one conservative notes, “If they are openly talking about killing you and your family WHILE you’re armed, imagine what they’ll do once they disarm you.”  Other leftists are actually happy that a “trans” terrorist murdered Catholic school children and hoping that more mass shooters target Christians.  The Minnesota Star Tribune seems primarily concerned about how “trans” terrorism and the murder of praying children will ultimately affect the “trans” community.

For all their talk that President Trump is a “dangerous tyrant,” it is Democrats who continue to embrace violence against political adversaries.  Eddie Scarry wrote an article for The Federalist last week entitled, “Democrats Keep Talking About A ‘Knife Fight’ And It’s Time To Take Them Literally.”  In that piece, Scarry argues that the political party responsible for inciting at least two assassination attempts against President Trump last year is “eager and ready to cross the point of no return.”  The Minneapolis Catholic school terror attack occurred the same day as the article’s publication.  

This is no time for vigilant Americans to disarm.  We must defend our families, neighbors, lives, and liberties.

Entertainment and politics thread for Sept 2nd

 

Somedays, you just gotta sleep in a bit. :)

The Imperial Judiciary

American  Thinker 

By now, we are getting used to lower courts misappropriating their roles, acting as if they occupied that of the chief executive. As these cases reach the Supreme Court, they are being overturned, but not without a cost to the president’s agenda or to the respect to which we’d normally accord the judiciary. The notion of a judicial coup is not far off, and people like Elon Musk suggest it’s time for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the worst offenders.

This week, there are several examples of cases where the courts have been asked by plaintiffs to assume presidential powers, and except for one case still pending (the firing of Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board), they did so.

Lisa Cook is a governor of the Federal Reserve Board. There is substantial documentary evidence that she lied on several mortgage applications. Even the left-wing . 

A public-records search by Reuters appears to confirm that on June 18, 2021, Cook obtained a mortgage from a Michigan credit union for a property in Washtenaw County, Michigan, which she said would be her primary residence. Two weeks later, she obtained a mortgage from a different credit union for a condo in Atlanta, which she also said would be her primary residence. Obviously, she could not live in two places at once.

Now sometimes people buy a house they plan to live in, then unexpectedly have to move -- a job loss, a transfer, a health crisis. That’s not fraud -- it’s life happening. But given that these two loans closed in such a short space of time… well, I’m finding it hard to tell a story where she thought she was going to be living in Michigan while applying for a mortgage on a property in Georgia, or vice versa.

I suppose it’s possible that the banks knew about the other properties and didn’t care. Or perhaps she (or her mortgage broker) accidentally checked the wrong box on one of the loan applications. But that would be a surprising mistake for a tenured professor of economics, much less a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors.

Ms. Cook has refused to depart her office and filed suit to prevent her removal. The District Court judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), which is in effect for no more than 14 days and is not appealable, to allow the parties to provide a fuller record of facts and evidence, after which the judge may issue a preliminary injunction, which is appealable, or decide to dissolve the TRO.

The history of the law regarding removal of Federal Reserve governors for “cause” is well set out here:

Congress did not rely on courts to guarantee Fed independence. It relied on institutional architecture and its own power. Fourteen-year staggered terms prevent capture by any single president. Replacements require Senate confirmation. The 12-member Federal Open Market Committee blends Washington-based governors with regional Reserve Bank presidents, so one vacancy cannot flip monetary policy overnight.

But putting the removal of Fed officials out of reach of the courts hardly makes the "for cause" provision toothless. If a president were to wage war against the Fed by removing officials for flimsy causes, the Senate would have the power to thwart an unwelcome takeover of the central bank by refusing to confirm his nominees. In theory, the Senate could demand that the president restore removed board members rather than accept new nominees. The system of checks-and-balances, in other words, ran through the Senate rather than the judicial branch.

[snip]

You don't need legislative archaeology to reach this conclusion. Just read the words, as the textualists on the Supreme Court are likely to do. [snip] Congress chose the Fed's bare-bones "for cause" standard instead. If lawmakers had wanted court-supervised procedures -- "notice," "hearing," "record," "judicial review" – they knew the vocabulary and deliberately left it out.

The president is not an administrative agency subject to the Administrative Procedure Act. There is no built-in procedural scaffold to plug into. The undefined "for cause" standard is open-textured by design, supplying a duty of reason-giving rather than a blueprint for judicial trials. From a textualist perspective, there are no statutory grounds for the judiciary to create a procedure and police what counts as cause. The question of whether the president has met the burden of removing an official for "cause" is what the Supreme Court refers to as "nonjusticiable," meaning not a matter for the courts to decide.

Even if you’re unmoved by originalism or textualism, a commonsense, functional reading points the same way. “For cause” is an open-ended standard meant to preserve the state’s capacity to govern: the president must state a reason tethered to the office’s purposes -- financial integrity, competence, public trust -- but courts shouldn’t turn that into a criminal-style proceeding or a running audit of motives. The real safeguards are structural and political, not judicial. If abuse occurs, the sensible correction is ex post and modest (declaratory relief or back pay), not an injunction that puts the court in charge of who is serving on the Fed.

Why This History Matters in the Cook Fight

Viewed through the 1935 lens, today's dispute comes into sharp focus. The Fed really is different from other agencies: the President must state cause, and at-will firing is off the table. But "for cause" here means the flexible standard Congress adopted in 1935. [snip] In 1935, a Democratic Congress facing a hostile Supreme Court and a discredited Federal Reserve wrote a removal rule that constrained naked political firings without inviting judges to micromanage presidential personnel decisions. Lawmakers restored "for cause," required written reasons, and relied on structural safeguards to protect monetary independence.

That is the standard on the books today. Measured against the history, the text, and the institutional logic, the legal ground in the Lisa Cook dispute tilts toward presidential discretion, not judicial oversight of central bank staffing.

Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans

President Trump ended the temporary protected status of 350,000 of the 600,000 people granted by Biden.

The Ninth Circuit upheld District Court judge Edward Chen and ruled that he could not do that. In relevant part, the Court held that the administration lacked the power to end this temporary status and that the plaintiffs would suffer irreparable injury if they lost it. Once again, they made their ruling applicable nationwide. The law is an ass if it means that a temporary status granted by one president becomes permanent so that his successor cannot end it. Indeed, just months ago, the Supreme Court said that pending a resolution of the matter, the Administration could strip the Venezuelans of their protected status, making them vulnerable to deportation. To a rational observer (which apparently excluded this Ninth Circuit panel) the Supreme Court has already signaled where this is going.

Tariffs

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a 7-4 ruling, upheld a decision by the Court of International Trade, which it had earlier stayed. That ruling held that the President lacked authority to issue tariffs by executive order. Yes, under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the power to collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, but six times since 1930, Congress has legislatively delegated this power to the president, allowing him to impose tariffs:

• If imports threaten or impair national security;
• If they cause or threaten serious injury to a domestic industry;
• To respond to actions that violate trade agreements, discriminate against U.S. commerce or impose undue burdens on it;
• To address serious balance-of-payments issues;
• On countries engaged in discriminatory practices against U.S. exports; and
• Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, he can take actions to respond to unusual and extraordinary threats to national security, foreign policy or the economy during a declared emergency.

The delegation of such matters by Congress to the White House seems to me to be eminently practical -- a means to deal efficiently and expeditiously with changing circumstances and needs.

The Court of Appeals dealt with the last, the IEEPA, and said that the law doesn’t authorize the imposition of these tariffs. The challenge to the imposition of these tariffs is reminiscent of the same challenge President Richard Nixon faced respecting a predecessor law to IEEPA -- the Trading with the Enemy Act. Based on that act, Nixon imposed 10% duties on imports. The U.S. Customs Court held that the laws then in existence did not permit the tariffs. On appeal, however, the tariffs were upheld based on that act. President Trump has justified the imposition of the tariffs, saying the threat came from, inter alia, trade deficits, tariff barriers, domestic production shortfalls, and a lack of reciprocity in U.S. trading relationships. Indeed, government lawyers argued that the deficit itself, when it becomes extraordinary (as ours is right now), threatens the nation’s resources upon which U.S. national security is based. In any event, the Court of Appeals order has been held in abeyance to allow the Administration to seek relief in the Supreme Court. Four members of the Court of Appeals who dissented contended that IEEPA did permit the tariffs and the president had authority to order them.

I can’t imagine why any court would feel it is up to them, not the President, to decide whether our national debt constitutes an actual emergency. Does this mean that if we had a lunatic in the White House, he could play havoc with the tariff power? Actually, no. If Congress thinks it or a judicial panel is better suited for this task, it could pass new legislation stating which branch of the government is best suited to decide such things and revise the law to make that happen.

Europe on the Path to a War Economy

American  Thinker 

In Unterlüß, Lower Saxony, Europe’s largest ammunition factory began production last week. What started clandestinely is now being publicly scaled with full firepower: the European Union is building its own war economy.

In the good old days in Germany, recessions were typically masked by state-funded infrastructure programs. The concept worked as long as the state did not overgrow, overregulate, or force the private sector into a destructive ideological agenda, as is the case with the green transformation. In other words, the economy was always able to clear away the debris left behind by the state.

Southern Europe Could Never Recover

In Southern Europe, where the state’s role has traditionally been high, monetary policy generous, and handling of public funds notoriously lax, this policy left nothing but infrastructure ruins and industrial wastelands. Local economies were never able to productively absorb the artificial credit distributed by Brussels. The fatal consequences of this pseudo-boom still shape the landscape today.

For economic historians, present-day Europe has long been a fascinating case study. Crisis followed crisis, with the public sector intervening each time with increasing volume. The attempt to install the Green Deal, a Keynesian pseudo-economy, must be understood in this context. The new Rheinmetall plant fits into this narrative.

The company invested half a billion euros to provide an annual capacity of up to 350,000 rounds by 2027. 500 new jobs are to be created, celebrated by politicians as a turning point and the beginning of a pan-European defense architecture.

Ceremony and Half-Truths

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger expressed satisfaction: “It was not easy for us to invest half a billion without orders. I am very grateful to you” -- the words were directed at Defense Minister Boris Pistorius -- “for keeping your handshake agreements. You are a man of word and deed.” A heavy dose of pathos and self-congratulation is evident here -- politics and the defense industry are long intertwined.

Of course, this is only half the truth. Beyond the usual behind-the-scenes deals, politics has made it clear that it is ready to mobilize all means to build a German defense industry and provide sector companies with guarantees and subsidies where necessary. Big business, no risk.

After the collapse of the green economy, politics is now betting everything on the next pseudo-economy. The aim is to loosen dependence on America while exploiting the media spin that stylized Vladimir Putin’s Russia over years as a potential European invader. Whether this fear campaign will work in the long term remains to be seen.

No One Will Fight for Merz or Macron

Given the deep economic depression in which Germany and large parts of the EU are stuck, the general war fatigue, and social fractures in core EU states like Germany and France, it is clear that despite the reinstatement of conscription, most citizens will rigorously reject military engagement.

A glance at EU public finances alone is enough to recognize that a war against Russia is political madness. France, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 115%, is days away from a confidence vote on the new austerity budget. Bond markets are already punishing these bankrupt states. The signs point to savings, not bellicose adventures.

Absurd and Destructive

It is absurd in this situation -- where Germany has almost fully spent the so-called Bundeswehr special fund of €100 billion and now switches to borrowing mode -- to accelerate this path. Yet Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and London are serious. In fall 2026, Rheinmetall plans to launch its next plant in Weeze, producing fuselage components for the F-35 fighter jet. Cost: €200 million, this time directly publicly funded.

Defense factories will mushroom in the coming months and years, producing far beyond civilian demand. Germany plans to raise its defense budget to up to 5% of GDP, which will worsen the impoverishment of its population as the private sector already shrinks by 4–5%, a disaster unseen in Europe since the end of the war.

A hot conflict with Russia is economically highly unlikely. Yet a new Cold War, a state of continuous armament like before 1990, seems to be Europe’s goal. They are trapped in an absurd economic theory of central planning and command economy. A new power base is forming: a corporatism between the defense industry and the political complex in Brussels.

Germany as Anchor

Germany has clearly been chosen to finance this economic disaster. The country, previously with one of the lowest debt ratios in the EU at 64%, will double its annual defense budget to €162 billion by 2029. By 2027, the special fund will be exhausted, after which loans up to €400 billion will be required.

Germany will become an active player in bond markets, where interest rates are already rising. The European Central Bank will have plenty of work to keep the rapidly growing debt pile liquid. The EU will also participate with new funds, EDIP and ASAP (a term bordering on infantilism in this context), contributing €50–70 billion annually to joint defense projects.

No Lessons Learned

While Germany’s civilian industry collapses, factories close in droves, and the country moves toward mass unemployment -- with all consequences for social funds and the domestic climate -- we now witness one grand opening after another: pompous inaugurations of defense plants, with champagne popping at our expense.

Europe has learned nothing from the green pseudo-economy disaster. It refuses to analyze how Germany and other industrial centers were deindustrialized. The fatal consequence of building a war economy is that it will siphon scarce resources from productive sectors on a massive scale, making financing and developing civilian enterprises nearly impossible.

Germany is being technologically left behind and bombing its own prosperity -- in the literal sense.

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Meet The Pivotal Figure Who Helped Resurrect The American Right

Is Frank S. Meyer’s vision of ‘fusionism’ still the best path forward for the American right?

The  Federalist 

Political commentator and American Spectator editor Daniel Flynn’s excellent biography of the late Frank S. Meyer arrives at an opportune time for conservatives. The movement is embroiled in internal disputes and has splintered into multiple factions holding many mutually exclusive positions. Today’s right must find agreement on fundamental principles, and those are exactly what Meyer, a longtime senior editor of National Review and founder or cofounder of multiple still-important conservative institutions, provided in the 1950s and ’60s.

As Flynn argues in The Man Who Invented Conservatism, Meyer really did lay the foundations for modern American conservatism, and his vision for the movement is still the best course for the American right. Meyer’s design for a politically, culturally, and intellectually viable American conservatism was called fusionism, which he developed and publicized widely through National Review magazine and individual conversations, especially by telephone, with others throughout the conservative movement, from the greats to the foot soldiers, plus his skill and delight in public meetings and debates.

Fusionism is commonly thought of as defining a political coalition comprising free-market economics, internationalism (initially anti-Communism), and traditional values. Although Meyer was the central figure in assembling that coalition, his idea of fusionism was first and foremost philosophical, arising from an analysis of the ideas of the American founding, which he undertook for a Communist organization in the 1940s. “Yes, a fervent Communist became the man who invented conservatism,” Flynn writes.

Flynn explores Meyer’s early life and Communist years at length to establish the unique mix of aptitudes and experiences that led Meyer to redefine conservatism. The biography breaks much new ground: Flynn found fifteen boxes of Meyer’s papers, including tens of thousands of letters, in a warehouse in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which had never been examined before.

Meyer, Flynn writes, grew up in a wealthy, bourgeois, liberal Jewish family in Newark, New Jersey. He emerged into adulthood as an atheist and a Communist. Egotistical, intellectually arrogant, and pugnacious, Meyer washed out of Princeton University in the late 1920s because of inattention to his studies and an apparent boost from institutional antisemitism. Meyer eventually got admitted to Oxford University, where he became a full-fledged Marxist and worked intensively for the Communist Party of Great Britain, “an instrument of the Soviet Union,” Flynn writes.

Meyer’s organizational, persuasive, and coalition-building skills were top-notch. “When Meyer entered Oxford, no Communist presence existed among students,” writes Flynn. “Now the oldest university in the world overflowed with Communists to a degree that caused notice in Parliament.” Meyer was equally successful in his other positions in the movement.

Meyer dutifully opposed the Nazis, embraced them, and rejected them as Moscow directed. In fact, Meyer took the Soviet Union’s fight against the Axis powers all too seriously: he joined the U.S. Army during World War II over his Communist superiors’ strenuous objections and interference. Inspired by his experiences with ordinary Americans in the Army, Meyer began to search for validation of Communism in the nation’s founding, “as the fusing of the ideas of the American leaders with the ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin,” he wrote to the head of the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) in 1943. “There was that word again: fuse,” Flynn writes.

After initial positive interest in his plan, the CPUSA ejected Meyer from the party. In addition, Meyer’s intensive engagement with the nation’s founding documents rapidly undermined his faith in Communism. Having married fellow American Communist worker Elsie Brown in 1935, Meyer moved the family to Woodstock, New York, always keeping a handgun nearby, even when sleeping. He supported Harry Truman in 1948 and began testifying against CPUSA leaders in criminal trials and congressional hearings a year later. “Frank, by now recognizing his past enterprise as profoundly evil, felt it his civic duty to tell the justice system what he knew,” writes Flynn.

Meyer began a career of public speaking, debates, writing in service of liberty, and attending to numerous friendships and rivalries within the conservative movement. In the wake of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II, American conservatism was at a low point in the early 1950s, with the press and academia widely characterizing conservatives as a fringe outfit touting discarded ideas such as (“rapacious”) capitalism, (“dangerous”) “isolationism,” and (“ignorant and bigoted”) religious fundamentalism, all arising from the dreaded “authoritarian personality” type.

Meyer set about to counter those accusations by tying modern-day conservatism to America’s founding, as he had earlier set out to do for Communism. Although “the ex-Marxist initially tried to invent conservatism,” Meyer ultimately discovered it instead, Flynn writes. “An American conservatism, he argued, must conserve the American tradition, which is the ordered freedom inherent in the American Founding,” Flynn writes. “Thus he fused two disparate camps—traditionalists and libertarians—into one. This fusionism was his Big Idea.”

It was indeed. Meyer emerged as an important figure as a columnist and books editor at the new magazine National Review, which launched in 1955 and quickly became the flagship publication for the conservative movement. Meyer became the champion of the magazine’s libertarian wing, which was greatly outmanned by traditionalists such as Russell Kirk and liberal Republicans such as James Burnham. (All were strongly anticommunist.)

Meyer had inadvertently made an enemy of Kirk in 1953 by offering “a respectful if mixed review of The Conservative Mind, one of the seminal texts of the postwar conservative movement,” in The American Mercury. Once again mentioning fusion, Meyer wrote, “It is perhaps because of his implicit repudiation of the American fusion of individualism and conservatism that [Kirk] is more disappointing when he deals directly with contemporary men and situations.”

Through these internecine debates, Meyer arrived at a key insight into the relationship between liberty and virtue: “a person may act virtuously only when given the freedom to choose,” Flynn writes. Coercion is antithetical to virtue, Meyer found. “Freedom means freedom; not necessity, but choice between responsibility and irresponsibility; not duty but the choice between accepting and rejecting duty; not virtue, but the choice between virtue and vice,” Flynn writes.

That is a philosophical observation, not a political system, an ideology, or a strategy for acquisition of power. It was exactly what conservatism needed at that time: a coherent position on which to base a mass movement. “The most common misunderstanding regarded fusionism as a compromise of necessity to more easily obtain power,” Flynn writes. “That conservatives more easily obtained power after essentially adopting it as the movement’s default political philosophy served as this claim’s gravamen. This perspective necessarily conceives fusionism as not only a cynical calculation but an ideology — not developing organically but something syncretical invented by a theorist and therefore outside of conservatism.”

The Kirk-led conservative antipathy to rationalism and ideology obscured the importance of philosophical coherence in political thought. Fusionism, however, was not simply “the bromidic three-legged stool of social conservatism, smaller government, and a strong national defense,” Flynn writes. “Meyer did not petition traditionalists to give here and libertarians to give there.” On the contrary, fusionism was (and still is) an acknowledgment of the premises of the American founding — and, as Meyer argues in In Defense of Freedom, the liberal tradition which can trace its premises back at least two millennia and developed into America’s formula for ordered liberty.

Meyer argued for negative liberty, but in a new and characteristically American way. He (correctly) identified virtue as dependent on liberty instead of freedom being dependent on virtue. Also of immense importance, Meyer’s definition of the relationship between virtue and liberty undercuts leftism by removing the latter’s claimed monopoly on altruism and its characterization of government as reliably neutral and innately beneficial. 

Fusionism also freed the right from the philosophical and political dead end of selfishness as a premise for liberty, as represented by Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, which has always been a political ball and chain. “Vote for us; we’re selfish!” is hardly an appealing campaign theme. For Meyer, individualism does not mean egocentrism; it means acknowledgment of the human condition, of the individual person as both “the central moral entity” and inherently social.

Meyer’s rethinking of conservatism implied a need for radical reforms, given how far the nation had drifted from its founding values and respect for individual rights. Meyer’s propensity for aggressive engagement, however, conflicted with traditionalists’ aversion to rapid change and libertarians’ antipathy toward government action. “The task of the American right involved not so much conserving as restoring,” Flynn writes. Meyer faced fierce opposition within National Review while receiving celebratory reviews of his magnum opus In Defense of Freedom, published in 1962.

Frustrated by his fellow National Review editors’ lack of enthusiasm for 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, Meyer set out to employ his great skill at organizing people around ideas and creating a mass movement. He helped found the American Conservative Union and successfully mentored leaders at Young Americans for Freedom, the Philadelphia Society, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and other organizations. “The former Stalinist organizer evangelized on the phone, from the lectern, and in his living room,” Flynn writes. “Meyer’s principles became what the conservative movement embraced, and his heresies became what it rejected. His most effective work increasingly took place outside of National Review.”

Meyer’s success became manifest in the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980. Unfortunately, Meyer did not live to see the political triumph of his vision, having died of cancer in 1972 at the age of 62, shortly after converting to Catholicism. “Ultimately, the Big Idea united the right,” Flynn writes. “The competing partisans, of freedom and individualism on the one hand and of order and virtue on the other, saw in fusion compelling reasons to reconcile their interests.” Reagan regularly praised Meyer and his ideas.

Though conservatism today is riven by intellectual and cultural divisions, its foundations, identified by Meyer, are still sound. Whereas leftism assumes that the individual exists to serve society, the United States is based on the recognition that government is made for the people, not the people for the government. Thus the right represents the real America, Meyer observed. With the progressive left having become openly anti-American in this century, the right’s response must be to embrace the nation’s founding principles, as Meyer did.

Meyer was an immensely important force on the intellectual right, giving American conservatism philosophical coherence and consistency and a historical pedigree that avoided turning the movement into an ideology. Meanwhile, Meyer strengthened conservatism’s ground game to implement policy based on those principles, not just talk about them, as Flynn’s book shows. The right can and should rally around Meyer’s formulation and judge its leaders today by the standards Meyer identified.

Another Democrat Set to Retire Amid Younger, More Progressive Push From the Base

RedState 

A longstanding member of the Democratic Party’s old guard is retiring, according to a new interview at The New York Times. His retirement marks the end of over three decades in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Jerry Nadler’s decision also comes amid a broader generational shift within Democratic leadership, following his December 2024 decision to step down from his post as Judiciary Committee Ranking Member, a move that paved the way for Representative Jamie Raskin to assume the role.

His reason? Part of it has to do with Joe Biden.

“Watching the Biden thing really said something about the necessity for generational change in the party, and I think I want to respect that,” Nadler said.

According to the Times’ piece, he added that a younger generation “can maybe do better, can maybe help us more.”

Nadler represents the “Old Guard” of the party, which has tried to fight off insurgency within its own ranks as more vocal progressives attempt to push the Democrats to their most extreme positions, a move supported by the most vocal parts of the party’s base.

However, as those older Democrats continue to fight that battle, they find themselves on the losing side. Nadler’s retirement is opens up a seat in one of the bluest parts of the country—the heart of Manhattan. As New York City wrestles with a potential full-tilt socialist as its next mayor, an election to replace the retiring Nadler will renew the focus on whether or not the party is moving too far left.

Despite his role in slowing the spread of the more rabid progressivism in his party, his leadership made him a hero to progressives but also a lightning rod for conservatives, who accused him of weaponizing the impeachment process for partisan ends. Republicans repeatedly sparred with Nadler during heated Judiciary hearings, pointing to what they saw as his overreach and obsession with bringing down Trump.

Next Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Announced, and the Meltdown on the Left Is Going to Be Epic

RedState 

President Donald Trump announced that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom award, and the meltdown from the left is going to be incredible.

In a post on X on Monday from the White House, it said that Giuliani will be given the nation's highest civilian honor that can be awarded. 

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New: Rudy Giuliani Seriously Injured in 'Freak' Auto Accident

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"As President of the United States of America, I am pleased to announce that Rudy Giuliani, the greatest Mayor in the history of NYC, and an equally great American Patriot, will receive THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM, our Country's highest civilian honor…," President Trump wrote.

"Details as to time and place to follow," the post added. "Thank you for your attention to this matter. Make America Great Again!"

As you can imagine, the reactions to Trump's news were mixed, with many very excited saying it is "well deserved," while others were clearly not.

"That's huge—Rudy Giuliani getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom is justice," one proponent wrote. The man took on the mob, cleaned up New York, stood tall on 9/11, and never stopped fighting for America. The swamp mocked him, tried to bury him, even after he's in the hospital with a fractured back, and Trump turns around and honors him as the legend he is. That's loyalty. America's Mayor deserves it more than half the frauds who ever touched that medal.”

While a critic added, "What a [...] joke. First, Trump gives the award to the godfather of propaganda, Rush Limbaugh.... now Defamer Rudy Giuliani, who lies about two citizens for his boss."

The news broke less than 24 hours after reports surfaced that "America's Mayor," Giuliani, had to be hospitalized after being seriously injured in what authorities are calling a "freak car accident."

Now 81 years old and still active, he was injured in New Hampshire on Saturday night after stopping to help a "female victim of a domestic assault who flagged down Mr. Giuliani's auto," as my RedState colleague Ward Clark reported.

The report read:

Giuliani, 81, was hospitalized with a fractured vertebra and multiple cuts and bruises, including injuries specifically to his left arm and lower leg, after his rent-a-car was hit from behind, spokesman Michael Ragusa said Sunday.

"Mayor Giuliani was flagged down by a woman who was a victim of domestic violence prior to the accident. He rendered assistance and contacted 911, remaining on scene until responding officers arrived to ensure her safety," said Ragusa, Giuliani's head of security.

Clark's report went on to point out that we don't know what happened, but it's a fair guess that the former NYC mayor's "car was struck by a motorist who wasn't paying sufficient attention."

"The accident occurred after he re-entered his vehicle, which was then hit from behind at high speed."

Ragusa said Giuilani, who was mayor from 1994 through 2021 (Note: 2001), is recovering and in good spirits.

"The mayor is in great spirits. He's a beast. He survived 9/11," Ragusa said.

He pointed out that not a lot of other information is available yet as to what happened, who the person was he was helping, or who was driving the vehicle that struck him.

"Mayor Giuliani's condition continues to improve, and he is expected to be discharged from the hospital within the next few days," Ragusa said in a statement to Fox News on Monday. "This is a man who survived 9/11—so a little car accident won't be slowing him down. He is eager to return to business and continue fighting for this country, as he has proudly done for the past 50 years."

At the time of this publication, the New York Times reported some great news: Giuliani had been released from the hospital to continue his recovery.

The Senate Is Out for Robert Kennedy Over Monarez Firing, CDC Resignations

RedState 

There is huge shakeup occurring at the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Shakeup that could only happen under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As this plays out, it becomes increasingly clear why both Democrat and Republican senators so vociferously opposed his nomination. Republicans fell in line to get him confirmed, but with this tempest still brewing, will their allegiance to the Trump and MAHA agendas hold?

Kennedy recently fired CDC Director Susan Monarez over her refusal to align with Kennedy's goals regarding removal of the COVID mRNA vaccine from the childhood vaccine schedule, and her resistance to aims of the MAHA agenda. 

Monarez lawyered up, and then took to favored legacy media, The Washington Post, to declare that she has not really been fired, and that Kennedy is a danger to public health.

Following Monarez's firing, three chief CDC officials tendered their resignation: Dan Jernigan, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Deb Houry, chief medical officer, and Demetre Daskalakis, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. 

Daskalakis, the openly gay bondage advocate also known as former President Joe Biden's "Monkeypox Czar," has been making the rounds on legacy media, trashing Kennedy and the Trump administration for making this all about politics. Apparently he failed to look in the mirror that morning. Daskalakis also needs the public to know that Kennedy is an existential threat to the survivability of the CDC and to the health and safety of Americans.

As my colleague streiff wrote:

The event was the culmination of the tumultuous 30-day reign of CDC Director Susan Monarez, during which she made it abundantly clear that she was not interested in collaborating with RFK, Jr., on his "MAHA" agenda. Once it became clear that Monarez was out and CDC was no longer a personal playground but part of the federal government, three other officials, including Dr. Monkeypox, resigned.

Last Wednesday, as sort of a prelude to today, 750 CDC employees sent a letter to RFK, Jr., and Congress accusing him of contributing to harassment and violence against government employees because someone who, rightly or wrongly, blamed CDC for his health problems, fired some 180 rifle rounds into CDC Headquarters. In the process, he killed a DeKalb County police officer before killing himself.

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Mutiny As CDC Employees Walk Out over Fired Director and Her Deputies

Biden-Era CDC Official Resigns, He Should Have Been Fired Long Ago

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The Chairman and ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee are demanding answers. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is particularly exercised, calling for an investigation into the firing.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is pushing for a bipartisan investigation into the firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez, which prompted the resignations of four other senior leaders at the agency. 

The ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee pointed to statements by the former CDC officials that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been putting political pressure on the agency. 

“[Kennedy] is pushing out scientific leaders who refuse to act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous conspiracy theories and manipulate science. Enough is enough,” Sanders wrote in a Thursday letter to Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La. “We have got to make it clear to Secretary Kennedy that his actions to double down on his war on science and disinformation campaign must end. Too many lives are at stake.”

Cassidy’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but the senator did post on X that this matter would require oversight by the committee. Cassidy, a medical doctor, had expressed reservations about the nomination of Kennedy, who has spread misinformation about vaccines for years. But he agreed to support him after receiving several commitments related to vaccines. 

Sanders specifically requested that Kennedy, Monarez and the CDC officials who resigned testify at a hearing. Kennedy is scheduled to testify next week before the Senate Finance Committee. 

Then there is a Monday opinion/guest essay published in the New York Times, signed by former acting and confirmed CDC directors. The essay, titled “We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health," aligns with the talking points coming from the Monarez camp and the disaffected CDC officials. The signees— William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle P. Walensky and Mandy K. Cohen—span Democrat and Republican administrations from the late 1970s up to the Biden Administration.

What Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months — culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago — is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced.

In this they are not wrong: Kennedy is doing something unprecedented. Namely, working to return public health back to actual care and resource for Americans, rather than one that uses Americans as experimental fodder for world agencies and their globalist agendas.

Secretary Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven “treatments” while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez — which led to the resignations of top C.D.C. officials — adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.

Actually, the CDC has been severely weakened for decades, and has failed to protect Americans health, especially the health of children. 

The chronic disease epidemic that plagues our nation has played out on all their watches, which means they have failed. This was no more apparent than during the COVID period, which occurred under former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. Monarez was also a ranking official in the CDC during this period, and she has been specifically named in a new lawsuit which targets the CDC's childhood immunization program.

Two doctors who lost their medical licenses because they questioned the CDC’s vaccine recommendations for children are suing the agency for failing to test the cumulative effect of the 72-dose schedule on children’s health.

Drs. Paul Thomas and Kenneth P. Stoller and Stand for Health Freedom filed the lawsuit last week in federal court, alleging the lack of safety testing violates federal law and children’s constitutional rights.

The lawsuit names Susan Monarez, Ph.D., in her official capacity as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Attorney Rick Jaffe, who represents the plaintiffs, said the lawsuit “goes to the heart of the CDC’s childhood immunization program — a 72-plus dose medical intervention schedule that has never been tested.”

The arrogance and self-importance of these @CDCgov bureaucrats is beyond belief. The reality is that the US would have been better off with no CDC at all during the pandemic. Their performance was a Chernobyl-level catastrophe. Their incompetence delayed the start of widespread testing at least a month, leading to panicked lockdowns. They forced useless masks over the faces of children for years. They delayed opening of schools for millions of kids. They misinformed the public on safety and efficacy of the vaccines, creating the rationale for the illegal mandates that divided the country. They rubber-stamped covid boosters for healthy kids in the absence of any science or rationale. They cannot credibly argue that the CDC saved a single life. 

And their message is still based on fearmongering. It is all that they know and all that they have. Fear of unknown infectious disease "threats." They have learned nothing at all from the pandemic. Nothing.

[...]

Eeva Mila's full response:

The CDC’s failures weren’t just about health, they carried massive financial and social costs too. Lockdowns crushed small businesses, kids lost years of education and mandates divided the nation. America needs institutions that protect both lives and livelihoods not ones driven by fear and politics.

So, this "essay," reads much like the 51 "Intelligence" officials who signed a letter confirming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. It gives the appearance of Monarez and her legal team setting the table for the oversight hearing Sens. Sanders and Cassidy will plan, along with Kennedy's scheduled Thursday meeting before the Senate Finance Committee. Ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR) is already sharpening his knives.

“After the mass firings and resignations of respected senior scientists and public servants at CDC over the last 24 hours, it is more imperative than ever that Kennedy answer to the public and their representatives about the chaos, confusion, and harm his actions are inflicting on American families,” Wyden said. “Contrary to his promises of radical transparency, federal health agencies have been shrouded in secrecy and misinformation with no accountability to the public or Congress. Amid the largest cuts to American health care in history, Kennedy’s radical secrecy is setting up the nation for a health calamity.”

Newsflash to the senator: we are already in a health calamity; but for those with an agenda, that part is conveniently ignored. In the meantime, Kennedy stands firm in the decisions he made on these matters as well as his focus on doing actual investigation of root causes, not just putting up window dressing for political purposes or adhering Band-Aids over chronic wounds.