By Robert Wenzel
Almost from the day Donald J. Trump announced his presidential run after gliding down an escalator in the pink marble lobby of his Trump Tower, I have been a strong critic.
Although I consider him a savvy New York City street hustler, perhaps one of the best ever, that talent doesn't necessarily transfer well to the four-year White House throne and it hasn't in the case of Trump.
He comes off as a buffoon. He is intellectually shallow and appears to have no deep principles concerning freedom or the way a large nation should be run. His trade battles are horrific and his calls for lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve are alarming. He appears to be an immigrant-hater. His style is that of a bully. There is never a diplomatic touch.
Whatsmore, there is no way to predict what step he might take next. He is the ultimate erratic man. Mr. Maggo looks like an accomplished strategist next to him.
And now the Democrats are circling based on sketchy charges that Trump tried to get Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden. Biden appears to have done a crony deal in Ukraine by trading on the fact that his father was Vice President. But the Democrats will ignore the more serious charges against Biden and once again attempt to get Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced a formal impeachment inquiry of the President. Libertarians should not support this inquiry. Not because Trump is sound on anything. And not even because one believes in the current system (I don't, see: Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person).
I call for support of Trump against the impeachment inquiry strictly for tactical rearguard reasons. Important tactical rearguard reasons.
It is extremely dangerous for the Democrats to advance their political edge and that is what this inquiry is all about.
The best that a libertarian can hope for is disarray in the political ranks, and Trump after doing much damage by pushing the country towards socialism, is the person who creates the much-needed disarray at this time.
A united Democratic Party in control of both chambers of Congress and the executive branch would result in across the board attacks on freedom. The impeachment of Trump would be one more major step in that direction.
If the Senate would come out against Trump after a House impeachment, despite the Republican majority, and convict the President, it is over as far as any Republican roadblocks to Democratic advances following the 2020 elections.
And don't think for a minute it couldn't happen. Senators watch poll numbers as much as House members, if the Democrats are able to dirty Trump with the masses, Trump will be done and so will the Republican party. The first sign of trouble in the Senate for Trump is that they voted 100-0 in favor of a resolution late on Tuesday calling for the whistleblower complaint involving Trump to be turned over to congressional intelligence committees.
Because of these conditions, libertarians should stand against impeachment and impeachment hearings and inform anyone who will listen that Trump was merely doing business as usual as a politician during his call to Zelensky and it appears that what Joe Biden's son, Hunter, was up to was much worse. Not to mention all the dirty deeds of presidents past. See, for starters: The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, The Clintons' War on Women and The Bush Crime Family: The Inside Story of an American Dynasty. And what the hell was Russigate if not Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama working overseas officials and other contacts to get phony dirt on Trump?
Here is Michael S. Rozeff on the corrupt Hunter Biden deals:
Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden are as openly corrupt as they come. They rival the Clintons, Bushes and the Obamas.
Hunter Biden pulled down about $50,000 a month for 5 years as a director of a Ukrainian gas company, according to the New York Times. That’s $600,000 a year for sitting on the Board of Directors.
How much do directors get paid typically? For the really major companies in the S & P 500, the median pay in 2016 was $254,700. Hunter Biden’s deal brought him more than double the median director compensation.
Compare, for example, the gas company named Spire. Its directors are paid in the range of $173,480 to $358,517 a year for the Chairman of the Board.
The fact that he was added to the board while his daddy dealt with Ukraine officials was corrupt to start with. The grossly inflated pay is frosting on the cake, but it is a definite indication of the corruption.
Hunter Biden made a sweetheart deal with China too. In that case, his daddy was also dealing with Chinese officials. Son Biden ended up as a principal in an investment management company with $1 billion in assets, later to become $1.5 billion.
How much did Hunter Biden pull down from this sweetheart deal? He gets director fees and/or investment management fees. A management fee of 0.5 percent a year is typical, or even on the low side. Even at that rate, the amount of income is $5 million dollars a year on assets of $1 billion.
Hunter Biden exemplifies an establishment leech, someone with the “right” credentials who can be counted upon not to betray establishment mores and ways. He exemplifies the corruption of this do-nothing class of people who build wealth, power and position for themselves by using government positions.It should be pointed out that Trump is a boy scout compared to the others and that what is really going on with the Democrats is an attempt to gain full power over the government, in cahoots with the Deep State, and that with Trump gone the Deep State/socialist advance will roll along.
It should also be pointed out that any loyal American should be outraged by this power grab attempt by the Democrats who, especially the lefty extreme ones, want to advance a second destructive Mao-style cultural revolution, this time in the United States.
The lefty advance must be stopped. The protection of this buffoon President against them is one very important tactical effort to roadblock the socialist advance at this time.
It is very difficult to determine in advance how this impeachment inquiry turns out. It is possible it could be bad for Trump or it could just as well be bad for the Democrats. They have miscalculated before. That said, Trump must be supported here and the inquiry shouted down.
UPDATE
Speaker Pelosi’s decree changes absolutely nothing. As I have been telling Chairman Nadler for weeks, merely claiming the House is conducting an impeachment inquiry doesn’t make it so. Until the full House votes to authorize an inquiry, nobody is conducting a formal inquiry.— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) September 24, 2019
UPDATE 2
The White House has released the transcript of Trump's call to Ukranian leader Zelensky. My reaction here.
Robert Wenzel is Editor & Publisher of EconomicPolicyJournal.comand Target Liberty. He also writes EPJ Daily Alert and is author of The Fed Flunks: My Speech at the New York Federal Reserve Bankand most recently Foundations of Private Property Society Theory: Anarchism for the Civilized Person Follow him on twitter:@wenzeleconomics and on LinkedIn. His youtube series is here: Robert Wenzel Talks Economics. More about Wenzel here.
Lessor of 2 evils? That’s not a choice. Certainly not a choice I pick between. Trump is a murderer. Has Hunter Biden murdered anyone? He may have, don’t know, but I know Trump has. There’s nothing good about Trump and nothing to defend. Let the democrats and republicans waste as much energy and time as possible on impeachment. It would be great if this went on for years. Let each side dig in and fight to the bitter end. Whoever wins in the end, the fate of Liberty isn’t in their hands. It will be, as it always has been, in ours.
ReplyDeleteThis wins stupid post of the day. Who has he murdered? He is imperfect but has actually tried to do something for the country. He pulled the US out of that stupid climate accords and the firearms one as well. Granted he is no fiscal conservative or a civil libertarian.
DeleteA little 8 year old American girl, Nawar al-Alwaki. That’s who he murdered.
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/01/yemen-strike-eight-year-old-american-girl-killed-al-awlaki
Climate accords? Who cares. And firearms? Isn’t he the idiot that banned bump stocks? Doesn’t he want to use social media to help decide who can/can’t own a weapon?
Hunter Biden is a direct and intended beneficiary of the violence from Obama administration's interventionist foreign policy.
DeleteWell said, Joshua. To paraphrase what Malice said recently, Republicans are just Democrats driving at the speed limit (although as time goes on, they seem to be pushing harder on the gas pedal). And the multi-million-man bureaucracy continues crushing our liberties regardless of who's in power, and the national-security state doesn't really care who's in power when it comes to killing folks around the world and poking at bees' nests.
DeleteBut for the fact that they consume our tax dollars, I enjoy these internecine battles; every minute that they're fighting among themselves is another minute that they're not passing more liberty-crushing legislation.
Nice post, Lab Manager.
ReplyDeleteHow did you get Bob to run it?
Seriously, Our Very Own Great Socialist Cultural Revolution has been going on for some time now. Ronald Grump has his own problems as an unprincipled and pragmatic authoritarian himself, but the revolutionary alternative is not encouraging. The Dims and the Never Grumpers are the totalitarian Team Leviathan. The despicable resistance is all for throwing a monkey wrench like Ronald into the works - though granted, it could boomerang. Red flag laws anyone?
Still the rule of law is all about precisely these kind of maneuvers and power plays. This is pretty brazen on the part of the Shadow Government and their tools/lackeys on the Hill.
Yeah, at least Trump didn't weaponize the IRS against American citizens, like Obama did. At least he didn't rape women, like Clinton did, or use our Intelligence Agencies against political opponents or sell-off uranium to the Russians like Hillary Clinton did. At least he didn't fry hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in an act of terrorism like Truman did, or commandeer our private sector in fascist fashion like FDR did.
ReplyDeleteTrump is had played this game before with these miscreants. They tried pulling the general election card, the Russian hoax, the Stormy Daniels, and others. The Democrats do not realize how stupid they look. Romney saw fit this week to come out an open his ignorant mouth and it seems other Republicans are keeping quiet.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, Biden should be on trial followed by a jail term though execution would be better.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/09/james-howard-kunstler/the-odor-of-desperation/
This "investigation" for impeachment will quietly go away unless the dems are willing to sacrifice the Bidens and the perception of Obama with it. Remember the president gets to defend against impeachment and it is material to defense what these prominent democrats did in the Ukraine.
DeleteBob you have identified most of the reasons why some of us, in 2016, reluctantly (very reluctantly) wanted Trump to win in the first place. The "lefty advance must be stopped"...exactly, and given current political options, Trump is the only game in town.
ReplyDeleteIf the Democrats take the Presidency and both houses of Congress in 2020, you can expect the hammer to come down hard on all Right Wingers and Right leaning Libertarians.
ReplyDeleteWho cares? So we support a pos like Trump cause we are scared of the left? As soon as I saw this post, I knew so many people would be jumping on so excited feeling like they can support The Great Orange guilt free. Even libertarians, who just can’t leave the political crap behind them. “Oh I hate the State, except when I’m scared and participate in their religious rites”(voting). Granted, presidents do affect my life to a certain extent, like Trumps tariffs, but I certainly don’t live my life afraid of who will be president, or who will be in charge of the State today or tomorrow. I figure out what’s going on, who wields the gun, and proceed with my life accordingly. The State is our enemy, no matter who is supposedly in charge. This is pathetic. Nothing will change as long as we love our wealth better than our liberty.
DeleteIt's totally lost on RW that at best his sites would have been blacklisted or at worst he himself would already be in a re-education camp by now.
DeleteTrump could flake anytime on guns or immigration or other issues, but what was the alternative when you consider him and the voting public?
Libertadians are going to have to do better than Bob Barr, open borders, and free trade with communist.
So Walter Block was right about Trump all along!
ReplyDeleteAccording to the RON PAUL Liberty Report, this whole thing has already fizzled. As usual it’s blown up in the Democrats face. Hahaha. That’s great. And we didn’t have to proclaim loyalty to the Great Orange after all.
ReplyDeleteOddly, nowadays the means of unearthing the unethical or illegal acts seems to matter more than the unethical or illegal acts themselves. Remember when all the focus was on the hacking of Hillary's emails, rather than the unethical and illegal conduct of Hillary that those emails divulged (or would divulge if allowed to be scrutinized)---? That seems to be what's happening here with Trump: "Pay no attention to Biden's bribery and extortion of a foreign leader, and instead focus on the means and manner of how that information was being revealed or obtained."
ReplyDeleteDon't agree with every point in your analysis, but this is certainly excellent advice for libertarians.
ReplyDeleteAmash and Judge Nap have really sold their souls to the devil. Trump just as a foil against the neocons, deep state, far left commie Demmycrats, etc. is worth keeping around.