The Founding Fathers Greatest Error. Lifetime Appointments to the Federal Judiciary!

By Rich Kozlovich

How many Founding Fathers were there?  There were 115 Founding Fathers.  Shocked me also.  I ask this because I read the article, by Andrea Widburg, Biden is establishing radical leftist, anti-Constitution control over the federal judiciary, and commented on the need for a 28th Amendment, and listed what should be in it saying:

It's time to fix the one really big error made by the Founding Fathers, lifetime tenure of the federal judiciary. It's time to pass a 28th Amendment creating age and term limits for the federal judiciary, and if possible, all federally elected officials. If we can't have both, at least get age and term limits for the federal judiciary.

There are three levels of the federal judiciary- the District level, the Appeals level and the Supreme Court. Each level should have a ten year limit with a review after five years requiring a majority approval by the Senate. At each level each nominee would have to go through the same process, even if nominated to a higher court before they finish their term in a lower court. If their term runs out and they’re not nominated to a higher court they may be nominated at some point in the future.

No jurist can return to a lower court if their term runs its course at a higher level, and no jurist can ever be appointed to a court if their nomination to any court has ever been rejected by the Senate. No jurist may serve after the age of seventy. And make 9 Justices a Constitutionally fixed number to avoid the kind of court packing Joe Biden and the Democrats are attempting to do.

Pass this 28th Amendment, repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments, and everything else will fall into place.

A reader came back saying:  

It wasn't really an error when average lifespan was less than 40.

Well, depending on the situation, I'm not impressed with average lifespan arguments because average lifespan is misleading.  Well up into the 20th century Child mortality was high. My grandmother had seven children and two died before the age of three from pneumonia.  So while he was right about the "average" lifespan, normally, the lifespan was, and is,  the "Biblical four score and ten", and a lot of people lived that long. However, as I said, his argument intrigued me so I took some time to find out how long the Founding Fathers lived, all 115 of them.

Many of the Founding Fathers lived long lives, however, two died in their thirties, the youngest 30 dying at sea.

• 15 died in their forties. 
• 24 died in their fifties.
• 37 died in the sixties,. 
• 20 died in their seventies.
• 12 died in the eighties.
•  4 died in their nineties,  the oldest being 96. 

Their average life span is rounded off at 64. 

• If you eliminate all those who died in their thirties, forties and fifties, that leaves 74 Founding Fathers with an average life span of 73. 
• If you eliminate those who died in their sixties, that leaves 37 with an average lifespan rounded off at 77.  
• If you eliminate those who died in their seventies, that leaves 16 with a rounded off lifespan of 86. 
  

As I said, his argument intrigued me, however, in none of the arguments presented in the Continental Congress for or against lifetime appointments, was life span ever bought up. The argument was all about unbridled power.  

That was the argument.  That was the issue, and it was fought vigorously, and the arguments used by those who fought against lifetime appointments were absolutely prescient.    It's time to put age and term limits on the federal judiciary. 

 

It Was a Special Military Operation. Now it's a War!

By Rich Kozlovich

Putin never declared war on Ukraine, because it was a Special Military Operation.  Why is that important? 

Okay, to explain that I'm going to cover what I've been reading regarding the Russo/Ukrainian War in this piece, but I'm going to go back in time and lay more foundation, and I think my six rules about understanding geopolitics, which blend naturally, are essential in such a discussion. 

1. My First Rule of Geopolitics: All geopolitics is about geographics, demographics and economics. 
   
2. My Second Rule of Geopolitics:  Everything is about the basics.  
3. My Third Rule of Geopolitics:  History is everything. 
4. My Fourth Rule of Geopolitics:  People are like nations, and will act in their own best interests, unless they don't.  
5. My Fifth Rule of Geopolitics: Nothing is ever as it appears.  Look behind the curtain.
6. My Sixth Rule of Geopolitics:  Everyone lies.    
   

There's been all this talk about Putin using nuclear arms in his war with Ukraine.  Initially I thought that was never going to happen.  Then as the war turned against Putin, I thought maybe he will use them in a small strategic way.  Then, as it got worse, I began to think if Putin's rationalized using them in a small way he might adopt the mentality, "in for a dime in for a dollar", and go all out, although even China and India, which are considered allies of a sort, have warned against such an action.  

One of the things I wrote about 10 years ago or so was Russia's very real and primary problem.  Demographics!  Russia believes it has seven defensive gaps it must maintain, and two of them were around Ukraine.  Ten years ago they only had the manpower to maintain three of them.  At that time it was estimated by 2040 ethnic Russians may well be a minority in their own country, and strange is it sounds, I think Putin loves Russia and wants to save Russia.  But there's the rub.  

There's a reason they call Russia "Mother Russia".  In the United States you've never heard the terms Father America, or Mother America because in America the people are America, and America is the people.  In Russia they don't have that mentality, and most assuredly Putin most certainly doesn't have that mentality now, and Russian rulers never have going back to Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union.  Russia, as a land and a nation is what's sacred, and the people merely have the privilege of occupying that nation, and would be used as they saw fit.  

That's what Putin loves, Russia, not the people of Russia.  We find that kind of thinking to be totally alien to us, and that's why we make so many mistakes in dealing with Russia, and China for that matter, as their leaders have much the same mentality.

“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.” Joseph Stalin

After the fall of the Berlin wall, the collapse of the Warsaw pact, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and long before Putin came to power the Russian leadership knew it needed Ukraine to be part of Russia in some form for a number of reasons, but the number one reason was demographics. Russia's demographic  decline is dramatic and with so many fleeing Russia to avoid conscription, it's worse than ever.  They're allegedly planning a new push, which I don't think will happen, and in order to meet their needs they've been using non-Slavic migrants.  But the fact remains their army is demoralized, ill trained, ill equipped, and worse yet, led by an incompetent corrupt military hierarchy. 

Napoleon once noted:

In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.

If that's true, and considering he fought and won more battles over more diverse terrain than anyone in history, I think we can be assured it is.  That can only mean one thing.  Any future Russian initiatives will be in trouble. 

Ukrainians and Russians are of the same Slavic ethnic stock, and the Russian leadership at the collapse of the Soviet Union, attempted to form a "New Soviet Union" out of the 15 former Soviet Republics, but they didn't desire to have the non-Slavic nations become more powerful in this "New Soviet Union", so they needed Ukraine.  Yeltsin, a typical communist thug,  thought they could intimidate all these Republics into agreeing to this new "looser" tyranny, but they needed a Slavic Ukraine to agree to this new tyranny.  While President George H.W.  Bush tried to persuade Ukraine to accept this new union, they didn't.  All the threats backfired.  

 "Bush delivered his infamous “Chicken Kiev” speech as a result, hoping to prevent Ukraine from pulling out. “Freedom is not the same as independence,” Bush lectured the Ukrainian parliament. “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism.” The irony of the speech was sharp: a U.S. president was actively trying to prolong the existence of the country that had been, until recently, the United States’ greatest foe."

So, with Ukraine refusing to join Yeltsin's "new and improved" Soviet Union, he realized other republics would do the same, so, what to do?  All of a sudden Moscow and Washington were allies, what in the world would cause such a scenario? 

Ukraine had a massive stock pile of nuclear arms, the third largest stockpile in the world with 1,900 nuclear warheads and 2,500 tactical nuclear arms, large  uranium deposits.  They also had a large technical and production capacity to manufacture such missiles.  In fact every one of the ballistic missiles delivered to Cuba in 1962 were manufactured in the Ukraine.  There were also nuclear arms in Belarus and Kazakhstan, and in short, and according to Secretary of State Jim Baker, that amounted to: 

“A Yugoslavia-type situation with 30,000 nuclear weapons presents an incredible danger to the American people—and they know it and will hold us accountable if we don’t respond.”

The last thing the U.S. wanted was more nuclear armed independent nations and no one controlling the switch, so they supported Ukraine giving up their nuclear arms to Russia, even offering....sort of....some kind of NATO assurances, which the Russians would have never agreed to.  We'll come back to that.

What followed?  Negotiations, lot's of negotiations! 

They argued over denuclearization, Crimea, the Soviet Black Sea fleet, financial compensation, formal recognition of Ukraine’s borders, security guarantees, and eventually what followed was what has been called the Budapest Memorandum, where if Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons they would get "assurances" for their territorial integrity.  No "guarantees", just assurances, and the Russians agreed to that!!!  

That's important to remember. Secretary of State Baker agreed not to expand NATO, but that agreement was with the "Soviet Union", it was an unofficial agreement, and the Soviet Union no longer exists.  "Russia" made "assurances" to honor Ukraine's borders, that agreement was official and that agreement still exists. 

So, after all the bickering and bargaining why did Ukraine agree to this?  They were broke, badly broke. They signed away much to avoid isolation and bankruptcy.  While this agreement, now signed by Bill Clinton, seemed like a triumphant moment as a final end to the cold war, and peace in Europe, the Ukrainian government had no delusions about Russian compliance with any agreement, but this agreement gave them time!!!

Also, Yeltsin made it clear they would never accept Ukraine joining NATO, which shocked Clinton, effectively ending the Partnership for Peace initiative, but efforts to expand NATO went ahead.  

That's important to remember. 

As for the Ukraine government, it went it's merry corrupt way, and the consequences of only having assurances of their border security and independence has now come to fruition, all of which the Russians understood all during those negotiations.  And what exactly did Russia understand?   Ukraine belongs to Russia, and nothing must stand in the way.  That's why he didn't declare war on Ukraine, in his mind and the minds of his myrmidons, Ukraine isn't an independent nation.  It's just a province of Russia, and one with an attitude problem, that makes it a Russian internal issue not requiring any silly declaration of war, hence, a Special Military Operation.  Ukraine disagreed.  And now it's a war.

All this clabber about how Putin had to attack because of NATO expansion, and their need for "much-needed strategic depth" justified this invasion as "an act of premeditated self-defense", is nothing but a load of horsepucky.  Not one of the NATO, or non-NATO countries bordering Russia had any intention of attacking Russia and absolutely didn't have the resources to do so.  Putin knew that. 

This attack was blatant revanchism, plain and simple, and the foundational foreign policy of Russia for centuries, and if Ukraine joined NATO they couldn't risk such an attack as that would trigger a military response from NATO members, preventing their planned revanchist aggression.  Russia understood the war to be against the West from the beginning, not because the west wanted to attack them but to keep nations from joining NATO, which would prevent Russia from invading them as they saw fit.  They were not going to stop until they absorbed all of Ukraine and officially make it a part of Russia.  That's Russia now, just as it was in the past.

So, will Putin resort to nuclear war?  As I said, Putin loves Russia, but cares little for the Russian people.  But he has to know if he resorts to nuclear war, he will have destroyed Ukraine, and he will have failed in his primary objective, that being gaining the Ukraine population.   In the course of this he has seriously undermined his own demographics, as he's probably lost up to 200,000 young Russians, people are fleeing Russia to avoid conscription, and that includes the best and brightest, which is being called a "brain drain", and he cannot possibly rebuild the Ukraine's infrastructure and cities he's destroyed.  He can't even build his own military equipment, as he's having to buy them from other nations, including the Taliban, Iran ,and now China has agreed to sell him military hardware.  And he's broke.  Even if he wins, he loses, and China will be ascendant on his border, which will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Also, Putin must be convinced the west will retaliate with nuclear weapons.  But he lives in a bubble of isolation, hearing only what he wants to hear, and what he wants to hear is what he believes, and anyone who detracts from his "visions" is eliminated.   All the upper military ranks in Russia are nothing but Putin's yes men, flunkies and sycophants.  So, I'm not convinced Putin believes the west will retaliate.   

However, I do believe Putin knows if all these failures continue to mount, he's personally doomed.  If he's overthrown, it won't be a kind overthrow as it was with Khrushchev, who didn't play the monster role Stalin did while in power, which is what I think saved him. 

Putin has been a vile murderous KGB thug, and modern Russian history is replete with coups and the violent elimination of political opponents, and I'm of the opinion there's a Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg cabal within the Russian military.  If he attempts to go nuclear, I think that may well trigger a coup. 

 

Let Me Tell You About Sisyphus, and Our National Debt

By Rich Kozlovich 

In Greek Mythology Sisyphus was the first King of Corinth, and was known for his cleverness, deviousness, and callous disregard for others, but worse yet, he really offended Zeus because he thought he was more clever than Zeus.  Imagine that. Now that's just unforgivable.  

But in no way was that all he did, he was guilty of committing a lot of crimes, so Hades published him in Tartarus by making him push a boulder up a hill, and then cast an enchantment that made it roll down as soon as he got to the top, and this was an eternal punishment.  Hence the term, Sisyphean Task.

Currently our national debt is over 30 trillion dollars, and no matter how much money the federal government takes in, it's never enough to pay all the bills so it keeps borrowing, and borrowing, and borrowing.  

Now, this isn't a new problem, it was decided in the past all this borrowing and debt wasn't a good thing, and in .....watch out now.....here in comes......in 1917 they created something called a national debt limit which would prevent the federal government from borrowing over a certain amount.  If that was installed in 1917, how in the world did the debt get so high?  

Well, I'm sure everyone is shocked to hear they found ways around that limit, and in recent years they resolved this problem with something called the '"Gerhardt Rule," a parliamentary rule that deemed the debt ceiling raised when a budget was passed", which was really convenient.  But it was decided that was a bad thing, and when the Republicans took over and Gingrich became Speaker of the House in 1995 that rule was a done away with.  But just like Hades' enchantment that made the rock keep rolling back down hill, it was resurrected when the Democrats took over. 

It's claimed the debt limit has been raised: 

"at least 90 times in the 20th century and 74 times from March 1962 to May 2011, including 18 times under Ronald Reagan , eight times under Bill Clinton , seven times under George W. Bush , and five times under Barack Obama. In practice, the debt ceiling has never been reduced, even though the public debt itself may have reduced."

Let’s try and get this right. National debt isn’t the problem. It’s the symptom of the very real problem, and that problem is spending. Spending money we don’t have, money we're borrowing. The United States recorded a Government Debt to GDP of 129 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2022, according to initial estimates."

Worse yet, we’re printing money that has no value, which inflames inflation, a cancer that eats away at the very fabric of a stable economy, and destroys society.  Let’s also understand this isn’t a partisan issue, it’s an issue that encompasses both parties and the nation’s leaders.

Mitch McConnell wanted to give Ukraine another 45 billion dollars, Biden gave away $858 billion American taxpayers hard earned money “subsidizing prosperous, populous Europeans, superfluous Middle Eastern monarchs, and cheap-riding Asian defense dependents.” Biden Secretary of State Blinken wants to give Turkey $185 million aid because they had an earthquake.  And they don't even like us.  As Senator John Kennedy (R) Louisiana asks, "Why are we giving money to countries that hate America? They should be able to hate us for free."

"The total interest payments on the government’s debt could come in at nearly $580 billion this fiscal year, up from $399 billion in recently-completed fiscal 2022.” "The Peter G. Peterson Foundation figures that interest payments will run $8.1 trillion over the coming decade. That’s an average of $810 billion a year. By 2032 interest payments will be about $1.2 trillion a year, above expected military outlays."

In 2022 the federal government confiscated over $5.0 trillion dollars, and most would think that should be more than enough to pay for everything, but not in the fantasy world of Washington.  They spent 6.5 trillion, and don't think that's sufficient, in either taxation or spending.  

This has become our ultimate Sisyphean task, only this isn't mythology, its reality, and unlike that mythical characterization, this can't, and won't keep going on eternally. 

No matter how much the federal government takes in there will never be enough.  Making drunken sailors look fiscally responsible they spend wildly, irrationally, acting as if there are no consequences, and there's no need to pay that money back. 

Spending, that's the Sisyphean curse, and it's time the Republican's did something they're not very good at.  Standing firm! This is the time to force the Senate and the President to either make some massive cuts in spending, or shut down the government and be prepared to defend that position, and that position is defensible.

The federal government has assets so massive one has to be astounded, and this was in 2013.

The Institute for Energy Research estimated the worth of the government’s oil and gas technically recoverable resources to the economy to be $128 trillion, about 8 times our national debt.Further, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that state and national coffers could generate almost $150 billion over a 10 year period from royalties, rents, and bonuses if these resources were immediately opened to oil and gas leasing. 

The CBO study estimates are considered to be conservative when compared to historical data and estimates by other analysts and do not consider the earnings from taxes paid by these industries. IER estimated the government’s coal resources in the lower 48 states to be worth $22.5 trillion for a total worth to the economy of fossil fuels on federal lands of $150.5 trillion, over 9 times our national debt.

Most of the coal resources in Alaska are deemed to be federally owned and are estimated to be 60 percent higher than those in the entire lower 48 states but are not included in these estimates. 

If they have the guts they can refuse to increase the debt limit, and they can demand the federal government liquidate some it's 150 trillion in assets.  With that money they could pay back the money they've taken from Social Security to fund social programs, fund Medicare and easily pay off the national debt. Otherwise, the national debt is the Sisyphean boulder that will keep rolling down the hill, eventually crushing all in its path. 

The curse is spending.  The cure is guts!