My ‘Fake News’ Odyssey: A European Journalist's Experiences

 Guest Column 

My ‘fake news’ odyssey: How I learned the media prefer narratives over facts and never tell the whole story

 by

       Nebojsa Malic*

      With just days left to go before a US election everyone deservingly regards as pivotal, a battle is raging over ‘fake news’ and even the meaning of words. It’s a battle I’ve already watched being fought, in another war long ago. Today, outlets like CNN would have you believe ‘fake news’ began with President Donald Trump five years ago, and that he weaponized the term against the good and honest media serving as the guardians of ‘our democracy’, or some such.

      One doesn’t have to be a Republican (I am not) to reject this as misinformation at best, or at worst deliberate gaslighting. It was in fact the mainstream outlets, led by CNN, that weaponized the term ‘fake news’ against Trump, first to block his election and then to delegitimize it with the likes of the ‘Steele Dossier’.

      The reason I know this, however, goes back 25 years, to Sarajevo. To most of you, the name may only be familiar in the context of the First World War, or the Bosnian War of the 1990s. It happens to be my home town. I grew up on the street where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, and almost got killed at least three times during that other war, fourscore years later.

      After the war, when I came to the US to study, I remember reading with incredulity the newspaper archives at my university library. They depicted a war that never happened, a politically correct fiction totally divorced from reality, often thanks to simple omission of relevant facts and ‘editorial guidance’ telling people what they should think instead.

      It was the age of ‘advocacy journalism’, led by the likes of CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. So Western adventurers flocked to the war zone, to do advocacy disguised as journalism. I should know – I worked with many of them, as the translator and local fixer in Sarajevo for the better part of 1995.

      One story in particular stuck with me, in a ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ sort of way. It was October, and a ceasefire had just been declared. Most of us there didn’t expect it to last, but it would turn out to be the war-ending armistice. I joined a trio of journalists to visit an apartment building, the morning after a gas explosion.

      We found a square hole in the building, as if some giant hand had punched right through. The contents of the apartment were scattered about in the parking lot outside. The neighbors told us what happened: like many others in Sarajevo, the family that lived there had installed a makeshift gas hookup, using garden and water hoses. One of the hoses had sprung a leak and filled the apartment with gas. Then power sputtered back on during the night. When one of the sons flipped the light switch… Boom.

      The Washington Post version of the story was mostly fair, actually – except for what it omits. For example, it says “the natural gas supplied to Sarajevo by Russia is not odorized, so nobody notices when it leaks,” as if that’s to blame. Except it wasn’t Russia’s fault, as the odor agent is supposed to be added by the local distributor, not the country of origin.

       The story also doesn’t mention why most gas hookups were pirated – including the one my family had set up – and that’s because all the metal pipes normally used for the purpose had been diverted to make weapons. So was much of the gas, for that matter: I remember it suddenly running out in the mornings, only to come back sometime at night. If you left your vents open… Boom.

      The explosions were so frequent, we quickly learned their specific sound, just as we had learned to recognize if we were shelled by mortars, howitzers, tanks or rocket launchers.

      I told the reporters all this. None of it made it into the stories. It didn’t fit ‘the narrative’. The gas explosions simply couldn’t be a story of civilians suffering from incompetence and greed of their own government, but had to be blamed on the ‘besieging’ Serbs. Even Russia, which provided the gas at a special humanitarian price at a time when it could least afford to, was made to look bad for it.

      The is just one story. There were many more. Bosnian War propaganda has radicalized millions around the world, from jihadists and liberal interventionists in the 1990s – as Brendan O’Neill has documented – to domestic militants in places like Norway and New Zealand, as I wrote before.

      So it is with anxiety that I watch the same media outlets using the same kind of propaganda now, this time in a battle for power within the US. The same people who insisted the infamous Steele Dossier had been proven true (fact check: wrong) and constantly cite unverifiable anonymous sources, all of a sudden insist that even mentioning a laptop allegedly belonging to a candidate’s son is “unverified” or “Russian disinformation.”

      These are the same people who insist any criticism of them is a danger to freedom of the press, but go out of their way to get dissenters doxxed and deplatformed by social media networks, insisting it’s not censorship when it’s private Big Tech companies doing it.

      Just like the gas leaking out of the makeshift hoses in Sarajevo, this sort of poison is slowly filling up America. Next thing you know, someone will flip a switch. And then… Boom.

*Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator

 

AMERICAN VOTER ROLLS FILLED WITH ERRORS, DEAD VOTERS, AND DUPLICATE REGISTRATIONS

 by

 

George Sontag 

       The most comprehensive report on the state of the vote and it's accuracy or not has been released by the Public Interest Legal Foundation. It is 56 pages of detailed voter problems generally and in specific areas.This is a follow up to their 2016 report. Just a glance at their many charts will give you to troubling news on our coming election.

 

                                 CRITICAL CONDITION

 AMERICAN VOTER ROLLS FILLED WITH ERRORS, DEAD VOTERS, AND DUPLICATE REGISTRATIONS

 

 

https://publicinterestlegal.org/files/Report-Critical_Condition-Web-FINAL-FINAL.pdf 

 

 

The Most Important Election in the History of the United States.

by

 

       M. Richard Maxson

      For those of us who see the global situation it is disturbing to see what others in the world think of us. The most amazing thing to other cultures is that Americans don’t care about facts and reality. What is most important to most Americans, from the world view, is that all we care about is feelings. They are shocked at our current wave of immaturity, short-shortsightedness, and selfishness. Feelings, not about the rule of law or any governmental statues, but feelings. Consequences to others don’t matter because this is how they “feel” about it. If the law says what they feel is wrong or illegal, they just change the law.

      Many on the Left have said, including the last president, that the Constitution stands in the way of progress. They won’t or can’t get what they want constitutionally so they try to get it done through the courts. We see them outraged now with a real American Constituionalist being put on the Supreme Court because that will be a roadblock to slow their agenda down again. The term “court-packing” has been brought up by the Left because they want their way by hook or crook.

      It is right for them, but who decides? The elite, of course. They own the media that sends the message 24/7 in America. An MSNBC producer has recently quit the network, lamenting an editorial process that chases approval and ratings rather than presenting facts. When even employees label the MSM as a “cancer with no cure”, we should all be concerned…..and many are.

      We are facing the most important election in the history of the United States. A decision will be made as to whether to continue with the great experiment or to change America into a sort of Democratic Socialist society. If they succeed we will have country with some constitutional laws somewhat in effect with overlapping judicial precedents constantly changing with how they feel and it will be all wrapped up in red, white, and blue so the faithful and under educated will still believe that America exists while the rich rule as they always have.

Guest Column

 

Forward by

       Phillip Todd*

      The Baldingsworld China Data Newsletter is a daily independent newsletter covering insights into the Chinese economy, financial markets, and society, as well as perspective on broader trends, stories, and events. This is an unbiased report giving you the real facts without any political spin. The American Constitutionalist has already stated that the previous administration violated the Espionage Act. You, our reader using critical/analytical thinking, will come to your own conclusion on this presidential candidate.

Report on Biden Activities with China

      A number of months ago, I was approached by an individual I had known for the better half of a decade. I had known this individually professionally and enjoyed their company and deep insight into our overlapping professional interests. Consequently, I would not infrequently seek out their professional opinion. They had written a research report for a client worried about political risk that involved background on the Biden’s in China. This individual believed that the information that had been discovered, and with the approval of the client, needed to make its way into the public domain.

      They asked my help in putting the research report in the hands of press asking them just to use the information for their own professional purposes leaving the report anonymous.  Knowing this individual and the quality of work they do, I agreed after reviewing in detail the report that was produced. There are a couple of key points about the report.

      First, it is almost exclusively taken from public sources and documentation. Everything from Chinese news reports to corporate records. The report is immaculately cited so that anyone who wishes to replicate where a specific piece of information was found or see the underlying documentation can do so.

      Second, the complexity of the overall story, attempts have been made to break down the key points about what happened, who was involved, with timelines and indexes.

      Third, only three human sources are used in the report. Two human sources only confirmed top line information in the acknowledgement of an individual and no other information. The third human source was not consulted for the story but agreed to let the information be used for the story after the importance of the information became apparent.

      For two months I have worked on behalf of my colleague to ensure that this report helped others report on the documented evidence of Biden activities with regards to China. I want to emphasize a couple of things about my own involvement.

      First, I did not write the report and I am not responsible for the report. I have gone over the report with a fine tooth comb and can find nothing factually wrong with the report. Everything is cited and documented. Arguably the only weakness is that we do not have internal emails between Chinese players or the Chinese and Bidens that would make explicit what the links clearly imply.

      Second, I will not be disclosing the individual who did write this report. They have very valid reasons to fear for both their personal safety and professional risks. Throughout the years that I have known this individual we never discussed politics. I have never heard them criticize any political party other than the CCP. They are not a Republican.

      Third, it was my very real wish that the press would have reported on the documented evidence in this report and left me and the author entirely out of this situation. I did not vote for Trump in 2016 and will not vote for him in 2020. This information however is entirely valid public interest information that the press has simply refused to cover due to their own partisan wishes. I have serious policy differences with President Trump. I am pro-immigration. I would like to see more free trade efforts to shift trade away from China and into partner countries from Mexico to Vietnam and India. I believe that institution building in Asia is vital and America needs to take that lead. However, I cannot in good conscience allow documented evidence of the variety presented here go unreported by partisans who are simply choosing to hide information.

      Finally, I will not be answering any questions about the report. I had no wish to be involved in Presidential politics. I do not want to be on the news. I will not be answer any questions about who wrote the report. We need to return the focus to the known documented facts.

 

Key Points of the Report:

1. Joe Biden’s compromising partnership with the Communist Party of China runs via Yang Jiechi (CPC’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission). YANG met frequently with BIDEN during his tenure at the Chinese embassy in Washington.

2. Hunter Biden’s 2013 Bohai Harvest Rosemont investment partnership was set-up by Ministry of Foreign Affairs institutions who are tasked with garnering influence with foreign leaders during YANG’s tenure as Foreign Minister.

3. HUNTER has a direct line to the Politburo, according to SOURCE A, a senior finance professional in China.

4. Michael Lin, a Taiwanese national now detained in China, brokered the BHR partnership and partners with MOFA foreign influence organizations.

5. LIN is a POI for his work on behalf of China, as confirmed by SOURCE B and SOURCE C (at two separate national intelligence agencies).

6. BHR is a state managed operation. Leading shareholder in BHR is a Bank of China which lists BHR as a subsidiary and BHR’s partners are SOEs that funnel revenue/assets to BHR.

7. HUNTER continues to hold 10% in BHR. He visited China in 2010 and met with major Chinese government financial companies that would later back BHR.

8. HUNTER’s BHR stake (purchased for $400,000) is now likely be worth approx. $50 million (fees and capital appreciation based on BHR’s $6.5 billion AUM as stated by Michael Lin).

9. HUNTER also did business with Chinese tycoons linked with the Chinese military and against the interests of US national security.

10. BIDEN’s foreign policy stance towards China (formerly hawkish), turned positive despite China’s country’s rising geopolitical assertiveness.

 

Summary:

      Lost among the salacious revelations about laptop provenance is the more mundane reality of influence and money of major United States political figures. Ill informed accusations of Russian hacking and disinformation face the documented reality of a major Chinese state financial partnership with the children of major political figures. A report by an Asian research firm raises worrying questions about the financial links between China and Hunter Biden.

      Beginning just before Joe Bidens ascendancy to the Vice Presidency, Hunter Biden was traveling to Beijing meeting with Chinese financial institutions and political figures would ultimately become his investors.  Finalized in 2013, the investment partnership included money from the Chinese government, social security, and major state-owned banks a veritable who’s who of Chinese state finance.

      It is not simply the state money that should cause concern but the structures and deals that took place. Most investment in specific projects came from state owned entities and flowed into state backed projects or enterprises. Even the deals speak to the worst of cronyism. The Hunter Biden investment firm share of a copper mine in the Congo was guaranteed with assets put at risk by the larger copper company to ensure deal flow to Hunter’s firm.

      In another instance, Bank of China working on an IPO in Hong Kong gave its share allocation to the BHR investment partnership. They were able to do this because even though the Hunter Biden firm completed no notable work on the IPO, it is counted as a subsidiary of the Bank of China. The Hunter Biden Chinese investment partnership is literally invested in by the Chinese state and a subsidiary of the Bank of China owned by the Chinese Ministry of Finance.

      The entire arrangement speaks to Chinese state interests. Meetings were held at locations that in China speak to the welcoming of foreign dignitaries or state to state relations. The Chinese organizations surrounding Hunter Biden are known intelligence and influence operatives to the United States government. The innocuous names like Chinese People’s Institute for Foreign Affairs exist to “…carry out government-directed policies and cooperative initiatives with influential foreigners without being perceived as a formal part of the Chinese government.”

      Interestingly the CPIFA is under the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When the investment partnership was struck in 2013, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was Yang Jiechi. Yang would have been very familiar with Hunter Biden from his days in Washington as the Chinese Ambassador to the United States from 2001 to 2005 during which he met regularly with Joe Biden chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Today the same individual who oversaw institutions helping shepherd Hunter’s investment partnership as the Minister of Foreign Affairs is Xi Jinping’s right hand man on foreign affairs and member of the powerful Politburo.

      Most worrying is the financial leverage this gives the Chinese state over a direct member of the Biden family.  Despite the widely reported $1-1.5 billion of investment the reality is likely much higher. A co-founder of the investment firm reports the total assets under management as $6.5 billion.  While this number cannot be completely replicated, given that two deal alone were worth in excess of $1.6 billion this number is not unrealistic at all.  A 2% annual fee on assets under management would generate $130 million annually. Add in the 20% fee on capital gains the firm would recognize and it is not difficult to see Hunter’s stake being worth in excess of $50 million.

      According to Hunter’s attorney, he did not invest his $400,000 in the company until 2017. Even assuming the veracity of this statement, this raises a major problem. Founded in 2013, the firm had large amounts of revenue and assets under management by 2017. In other words, his $400,000 stake would have already been worth far more than what he paid for it. This paltry $400,000 investment worth more than $50 million now would have realized a gain of more than 12,400% in three years.

      The difficulty in eluding these concerns is their documentability by anyone who cares to look.  There is no potential for hacking because it is all public record in China. Any journalist who wishes to look can go review IPO prospectuses, news reports, or corporate records. There is no secret method for discovering this data other than actually looking. There is simply no way to avoid the reality that Hunter Biden was granted a 10% stake worth far in excess of what he paid for a firm that is literally operated and owned by the Chinese state.

      I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016 and have significant concerns about his policies in areas like immigration. Having lived in China for nine years throughout the Xi regimes construction of concentration camps and having witnessed first hand their use of influence and intelligence operations, the Biden links worry me profoundly.

      Whether Joe Biden personally knew the details, a very untenable position, it is simply political malpractice to not be aware of the details of these financial arrangements. These documentable financial links simply cannot be wished away.

* Phillip Todd is the foreign correspondent for The American Constitutionalist

Time For The Democrats To Put “Country Before Party”

Guest Column

by

       Charles Faddis

      No rational person can any longer have any question about the corruption of Hunter Biden and his father Joe. Even the most skeptical must admit in light of the recent revelations produced by the New York Post and Breitbart that President Trump’s use of the term “Biden Crime Family” is completely appropriate.

      Hunter was the bag man for a family enterprise. He traveled the globe collecting the payoffs necessary to secure meetings with his father and his father’s intervention on behalf of the world’s thugs, dictators, and communist regimes.

      And, yet, incredibly these are no longer our biggest concerns. We are not simply faced with the possibility of a crook being elected to the highest office in the land. We are facing the very real possibility of having a man, Joe Biden, who is owned by the Chinese Communist Party sit down in the Oval Office.

      The amounts of money that are involved are staggering. In one meeting with Communist Chinese officials, Hunter Biden secured $1 Billion. That sum was later upped to $1.5 Billion. No one – at this stage – can even begin to assess the total amount of money provided by Beijing to the Bidens. No one at this stage can even begin to quantify the number of “deals” Hunter made with the Communist rulers of China.

      We have known for some time that Chinese businesses implicated in espionage on American soil have been connected directly to Hunter Biden. They stole American nuclear secrets. They targeted sensitive technology used in the F-22 program. We have also known that at a minimum Joe Biden, watched all this happen and did nothing.

      Now we see more clearly exactly how all this worked. Recent revelations by Breitbart concerning a visit by a Chinese delegation including Chinese Communist Party officials to Washington, D.C. spell out in stark detail the staggering amount of money the Chinese represented, and the role Hunter played in getting them the meetings they wanted with senior American officials. Those meetings included a visit to the White House itself, where the Chinese met directly with then Vice-President Biden in a meeting deliberately kept off the official White House calendar.

      The Bidens seem to have taken a lot of cash from a lot of people around the world. None of that seems to have come anywhere close to the amount of cash the Chinese forked over. In fact, viewed through the lens of what we now know perhaps the first question we need to ask is what has Joe already done at the behest of his Chinese masters.

      When he convinced Barack Obama to back off on plans to push back on Chinese expansionism in the South China Seas was he simply demonstrating a lack of backbone or was he delivering for his Communist co-conspirators?

      When Joe stands in front of audiences and tells them that the Chinese Communist Party is no threat to the United States is he simply demonstrating almost pathological naivete or is he following Chinese United Front talking points?

      When Joe stood up and opposed Donald Trump’s shutdown of travel from China in February and Joe branded him a xenophobe was he simply incompetent and indecisive or was he saying what he had been paid to say?

      We need to know the answers to those questions – not months or years from now – but before anyone even considers entrusting a man who may be completely compromised with control of our nuclear arsenal and the fate of the free world. We won’t get answers in the time remaining before the election. Even were the FBI not compromised by Christopher Wray it could not possibly hope to resolve these matters in two and a half weeks.

      Wray should be fired. The FBI, under the direction of someone with integrity and competence, should run this matter to the ground, and any number of individuals including Joe Biden should go to prison. That won’t solve the immediate problem though.

      To do that, we need the Democratic Party to stand up and do the right thing. The senior levels of that machine are filled largely with hard-nosed political functionaries for whom abstractions like country and patriotism are meaningful only as lines to use in manipulating the great unwashed to their benefit. We must hope, though, that there remain men and women within the party that recognize there are things that are more important than partisan advantage.

      Biden cannot remain the candidate of the Democratic Party for the office of President of the United States. He is not simply corrupt. He is now potentially a threat to the national security of the United States of America. The Democrats spent years trying to convince us Donald Trump was a Russian asset based on a dossier with all the substance of a comic book. The information now presented against Joe Biden dwarfs that by comparison.

      We cannot risk having a Chinese agent take control of the White House.

      Joe Biden cannot be allowed to be President. It is time for the Democratic Party to do the right thing, put “country ahead of party,” and remove Biden as their nominee.

The Western Elite and Communist Oligarchs Join Forces

 by

       Zeno Potas

      The western elite and a number of oligarch run communist countries are on maximum overdrive to get President Trump out of the White House and a new order installed. It can be seen here in the overwhelming one-sided attack through every available media outlet. Even a supposed town hall turned into an interrogation by the NBC representative who made it perfectly clear beforehand that she did not want to be there and did not like the president – It showed.

      The western elite want him out because he is killing their cash cow – WAR. He is pulling U.S. troops out and making peace between nations and my friends – That is not good for the business of manufacturing weapons. The facts are that the U.S. is world’s top arms exporter, with Russia a distant second according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). “The U.S.A. has further solidified its position as the world’s leading arms supplier,” said Aude Fleurant, director of the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure Program. “The U.S. exported arms to at least 98 countries in the past five years; these deliveries often included advanced weapons such as combat aircraft, short-range cruise and ballistic missiles, and large numbers of guided bombs.” We have been a “war for profit” nation since WWII.

      In the United States the media, ALL of which are owned by Leftist groups and individuals and most of whom are not U.S. citizens. From our once over 300 news outlets we now have 6 narrative steams. The foreign dark money pours in though hundreds of embedded groups and organizations that pretend to support liberty and constitutional rights funded from those who hate America, such as George Soros and his kind. Half of the American public who think they would never be lied by their precious newscasters to are buying just that – LIES.

      There are no true news outlets in the United States. They are all narrative and mostly Leftist opinions being presented as fact. Pro-Leftist messages are hidden in almost every television show and film. Leftist political ads with proven and widely known untruths continue repetitiously spewing false facts into the public psyche. The subtle indoctrination has half of the country choosing, not the good of their country, but a popularity contest based on opinionated half-truths.

      The world’s elite goal has always bee a one-world government run by Corporate Democratic Socialism system. This western nationalism push back began with the election of Donald Trump and they feel it will end when he is gone. A meeting of the elite is scheduled in Europe in January right when a new president is sworn in. At least that’s their plan.

      What is their plan? A massive arms influx into Ukraine with the possibility of troops to further attack Russia. The elite have not forgotten about the untapped natural resources of Russia. A gem they have been after since the fall of the Soviet Union. They also want more munitions and troops, especially if they are U.S. troops, in every NATO country close to the Russian border as possible.

      Communist China has a different reason for getting rid of the U.S. president – MONEY. They want back to business with Biden. They have used the massive trade imbalance to modernized and greatly expand their military. They fear no one.

      A group of constitutional scholars have stated their fear that without a landslide victory for Joe Biden, there well may be riots(more?) in the streets. Even a close win will not be acceptable to the Left. The western elite and the Communist oligarch’s also realize the fact that Joe Biden is senile and won’t last long. They refer to his speeches as “meandering” or not with it. They make the valid assumption that the 25^th Amendment will be brought in and then they will deal with the Leftist Kamala Harris as president. That suits them just fine.

Authorities Raid Politicians Homes

 by

       Phillip Todd*

      President Trump is being attacked for not doing enough to stop the covid pandemic. He is being blamed, by the Democratic party for all the deaths registered up to this point. They say they were not “trusting the science.” Never-mind the great Dr. Fauci stated twice in late January, that Americans shouldn’t worry about the virus. Never-mind the sight of Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi-D in Chinatown stating that there is nothing to worry about and that the President was a racist for closing down travel to foreign countries. Since then, closing borders has become a practice that the whole world is doing.

      So are you surprised that the police searched the homes of multiple top officials on Thursday as part of an inquiry into the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis?

      No? This happened because critics have accused the government of being too slow to roll out large-scale Covid-19 testing and playing down the importance of wearing masks at the start of the pandemic, when face coverings were in short supply and being reserved for health workers. Here is the full story.

French authorities search homes of health minister, ex-PM in inquiry into handling of Covid-19

      French police searched the homes of Health Minister Olivier Véran, former prime minister Edouard Philippe and other officials on Thursday as part of an inquiry into the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis, the ministry said. 

Link Below

      Véran is one of several current or former ministers under investigation over their response to the coronavirus pandemic following complaints by victims of Covid-19 that they were too slow to act.

      Prime Minister Jean Castex is also a subject of the investigation, as are his predecessor, Edouard Philippe, and Véran's predecessor at the health ministry, Agnès Buzyn. The home of Sibeth Ndiaye, a former government spokeswoman, was also searched on Thursday.

      Yes, this is happening in France and in Great Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is under attack for the same thing. In fact almost EVERY LEADER in every free country in the world are under attack for the same thing, not doing enough. In the United States it is a different narrative.** There is only one person responsible for all these deaths. It is ALL the fault of President Trump.

      As always, the American Constitutionalist encourages readers to read news from outside the US propaganda sphere and to use critical/analytical thinking to find the truth in this world of lies.

 

 

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20201015-homes-of-health-minister-ex-pm-among-those-searched-in-inquiry-into-handling-of-covid-19-crisis

* Phillip Todd is our foreign correspondent.

**Narrative = We no longer use the word “news” when describing reporting in the  United States.

Originalism Is the Law of the Land.

 by

       M. Richard Maxson

      The Constitution’s grant of essentially unlimited power springs forth in its opening phrases: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

 

      There are those on the left of the political spectrum that believe that the Constitution can be “adjusted” at will rather than through the process set forth. These are known as “textualists or living constitutionalists.” Clayton J. and Henry R. Barber Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, argues that “Originalists believe that the constitutional text ought to be given the original public meaning that it would have had at the time that it became law… Living constitutionalists believe that the meaning of the constitutional text changes over time, as social attitudes change, even without the adoption of a formal constitutional amendment pursuant to Article V of the Constitution.”

•  “I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation.”  - James Madison

      James Madison made it quite clear that textualism was NOT the way the Constitution should be interpreted. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution.” In an 1824 letter to Henry Lee: “With a view to this last object, I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that be not the guide in expounding it, there can be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers. If the meaning of the text be sought in the changeable meaning of the words composing it, it is evident that the shape and attributes of the Government must partake of the changes to which the words and phrases of all living languages are constantly subject. What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense. And that the language of our Constitution is already undergoing interpretations unknown to its founders, will I believe appear to all unbiassed Enquirers into the history of its origin and adoption. Not to look further for an example, take the word “consolidate” in the address of the Convention prefixed to the Constitution. It then and there meant to give strength and solidity to the Union of the states. In its current & controversial application it means a destruction of the states, by transfusing their powers into the government of the Union.”

      This comment might suggest Madison was merely making a theoretical observation, when he was actually launching a full-throated attack on what we would call “living constitutionalism.” The complete passage forces the question: Why should we apply to Madison’s constitution an interpretative technique he so roundly repudiated?

       Today we rather than the intent of the makers, but originalism remains the prevailing rule of documentary construction throughout the law. In contrast, the Left views the role of the Supreme Court as activist, usually referring to the “the intent of the parties,” to advance their agenda (regardless of whether or not it meets constitutional muster)

       Anti-originalists sometimes contend that originalism is a creation of modern conservatives. History renders this claim laughable. “It is up to us to reclaim our heritage of equal and impartial justice. It is up to us to re-dedicate ourselves to the traditions and wisdom of our Founders,” said President Trump in 2019.

       Originalists need to emphasize that the “intent of the makers” standard is not unique to constitutional interpretation. It is, and long has been, the standard for interpreting documents generally. Pre-Founding-era and Founding-era legal sources show the “intent of the makers” guiding construction of documents of all kinds. According to a White House Fact Sheet, “President Trump is committed to appointing judges who set aside their personal views and political prejudices to do what the Constitution and the law demand. This work is especially important due the left-wing’s push to throw away legal precedent and to abandon the Constitution in order to impose its own radical agenda.”

       The Constitution is set up so that power is shared between the president, Congress and the courts, and between the federal government and the states. This cuts down on vacuums where no one has clear authority, instead creating situations where multiple people or institutions are empowered to act. Serious constitutional crises occur when our institutions are rendered ineffective, which is usually about politics more than process, and often has less to do with how institutions were designed than with how legitimate they are perceived to be.

The Epidemic That Almost Killed The Nation

 by

       M. Richard Maxson

      George Washington was a tall man, taller than his peers. He had a vigorously sturdy constitution but his immune system was weak. He lived longer than both his father and his beloved half brother, Lawrence, who both died young of infectious diseases. He wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette in a 1784 letter, “Tho’ I was blessed with a good constitution, I was of a short lived family.” Throughout his life, he was regularly struck with illnesses and brought to the brink of death. And one of those severe illnesses, a bout of the flu in May 1790, nearly threw the new country into chaos.

      The influenza epidemic was very first observed in September 1789 in New York. We know this as fact as Noah Webster, of future dictionary fame, kept a detailed journal of epidemics, such as smallpox, in the young nation. He wrote, “Dr. [Benjamin] Rush informs me, that it was brought to Philadelphia by the members of Congress,” he wrote. From there “It overspread America, from the 15th to the 45th degree of latitude in about 6 or 8 weeks.”

      In 1790, Washington had served as the nation’s first president for just two years, and the temporary capital was in New York. The city was already crowded, by colonial standards, and its streets were positively septic. The president didn’t catch the flu the first time it came around. But after a mild winter, there was a second wave in late spring 1790. James Madison, then a member of Congress and an adviser to Washington, caught it. On April 27, Washington unwisely asked Madison to stop by for a visit at his residence anyway.

      He became ill almost immediately. Indisposed with a bad cold and in a “undesirable chilly” home all day writing letters on private business,” Washington last wrote in a journal on May 9. Soon, he was bedridden, suffering from labored breathing, sharp pains in his side, harsh coughing, and blood in his spittle.

      Then, it worsened into pneumonia. First lady Martha Washington stayed by his side constantly. The city’s best doctors were brought in to consult. Then they called in from Philadelphia the personal physician of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin had just died of an infection of the lungs. After dark, they brought the doctor into Washington’s residence so as not to alert and panic the public but rumors swirled anyway when the street around the residence was closed.

      The “new” Constitution had lacked detailed instructions on how to treat presidential incapacitation and death. Had he died then, the United States might have died with him. (It wasn’t until the 20th century that this was remedied by the 25th Amendment). Vice President John Adams, a brilliant but polarizing figure, would never have been the unifying figure needed to launch this new constitutional experiment.

       As the infighting began, Washington’s personal secretary basically ran the government for a few weeks.,” Chernow wrote. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton acted like a “de facto head of state,” while simultaneously accusing Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of positioning himself to assume the presidency.

      On May 15, Sen. William Maclay of Pennsylvania wrote in his journal: “Called to see the president. Every eye full of tears. His life despaired of.” But on May 16, the next day, Washington took a turn for the better. Within days, his fever had faded, and he sat up in bed. Still, Washington remained in a weakened state, so drained of energy that he did not resume his daily diary until June 24^th.

      He survived, the nation survived, his immune system was still genetically weak. Washington was less than two years into his retirement when, just like his father had more than 50 years earlier, he rode his horse in the rain, caught a fast-moving illness and the Father of our country died in December 1799.

Confession and Confusion of a Progressive

As Told To,

       George Sontag*

      Most of my life I identified as a Liberal. I was an ardent supporter of Bill Clinton, a critic of George W. Bush and later was absolutely enamored with Barack Obama. In fact, in early 2008, I felt that the Obama presidency might be historic so I went to see the man in person. I was not disappointed. Not only did I find him to be even more charismatic and articulate than I even thought he was, I was even more convinced that he was about to bring “Change We Can Believe In.” The moment was electric, as it felt like I was seeing into the soul of one of the greatest and most sincere leaders the world has ever known. I may have been willing to give him my left arm right then and there if he asked for it.

      Twelve years later, much has changed–and it is not the ‘change we can believe in’ that Obama was touting in 2004 but a change within me. As an intelligent person I subscribe to the notion that if our thinking is to continue to grow and evolve, we must always subject our own cherished beliefs to scrutiny, especially in the face of events that contradict them. While I found many of Obama’s early speeches to be inspiring and captivating, some of the policies coming out of his administration were a bit disturbing.

      During his second term I could see that his actions in the world appeared contradictory to his promise of peaceful collaboration, while his rhetoric, always measured, became more serious and less heartening. However, I went along with the popular theory that Obama was highly compromised, as all presidents are, and that he had to ‘play ball’ with the powerful forces behind American politics instead of really doing what he wanted if he was to avoid the fate of JFK.

      Today, I believe I have been fooled. I can’t say that I know for sure who Barack Obama is, or ever was. There is mounting evidence that seems to show that he has been part of criminal activity like massive illegal domestic surveillance, unjust violence abroad under the fog of war and terrorism, a reduction of protections for whistle-blowers, and huge cover-ups of the illegal activities of people connected to his administration.

      Anyone who paid any attention at all to what was going on during the Obama years would know that what happened in the summer of 2016 within Obama’s Justice Department was the climax of an eight-year crescendo of partisan corruption, intent on protecting Obama’s legacy From the earliest days of the Obama administration, the Obama/Holder/Lynch Justice Department protected political allies from justice. Obama blocked a corruption probe that implicated former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D) for bribery. He also illegally fired an inspector general who was investigating an Obama friend and donor. Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder worked in concert to protect each other. Holder would stonewall congressional investigations into Obama administration corruption and Obama would assert executive privilege to keep damaging information away from the eyes of investigators, such as crucial documents in the Fast and Furious investigation.

      Was this American Constitutionalist right? Was he a Manchurian candidate of the Leftist elite from the start, or was he an idealistic community organizer who rose to great heights only to get the hammer of reality dropped on him when he was inaugurated? Did he succumb to threats, bribes, and other such enticements to become ideologically and morally aligned with dark forces? He currently portrays himself, as a good person and a great president whose administration, in his words, ‘didn’t have a scandal’?  Since his net worth has gone up by 163 times since he left the White House that alone bears investigation. Was he paid off as a puppet of the Leftist elite as we have stated for over 10 years and now reaps the windfall promised him? If the Democrats win in November  it will probably never be addressed but if they loose, much more will be revealed. 

Let’s see where the evidence leads. 

 

 * This is the 400th post in this edition of The American Constitutionalist