By way of marking the western date for Christendom’s most holy celebration, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced  that “at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq.”

So much for visions of sugar-plums, etc.  Instead of surplus socks or the latest video game console beneath the tree and a day spent watching football and avoiding fruitcake, we get war  in the “Holy Land,” war in Ukraine, war in Myanmar, war in Sudan … the list goes on, covering quite a lot of territory, costing thousands, and negatively affecting millions, of lives.

Austin’s justification for the US strikes: They “are a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias.”

The US occupation of Iraq (following George W. Bush’s war of aggression based on false “weapons of mass destruction” claims) supposedly ended in 2011.

US forces supposedly vanquished the Islamic State in Syria (following Barack Obama’s illegal invasion, supposedly in pursuit of that objective, but more likely in hope of overthrowing that country’s existing government) in 2019.

Why are US troops still in harm’s way in those places?

Why does the US government continue to mind everyone’s business but its own — providing arms, “advice,” and even direct muscle to at least one side in almost every conflict on the planet, at your current financial expense and at your and your loved ones’ future risk of experiencing the same horrors now inflicted on others?

If all the talk about “democracy” means anything, the answer is:

Because you allow it.

The usual appeals against you doing so are aimed at your conscience:

Don’t you care about the lives of civilians caught in the crossfire of [insert war here]?

Don’t the mangled bodies of children disturb you?

Don’t the videos of families fleeing their homes with what little they can carry, ahead of airstrikes or within hearing of artillery fire, rouse your empathy?

The evidence says no, not really, or at least not very much.

If you DID care, the gaggle of warmongers you continue electing and re-electing to Congress and the presidency would either be in prison or, at best, out on parole and asking you if you’d like fries with your value meal to earn their livings.

Since you clearly don’t give a hoot about the lives of foreigners who may not speak the same language, worship the same god, or even sport the same skin color as you, let me instead appeal to your self-interest.

Do you remember 9/11? I’m sure many of you do. Do you want more of that action? Because this is EXACTLY how you get more of that action.

Every time “your” congressional representative or the president “you” “elected” announces US government support for atrocities abroad, he or she is threatening you and yours with death at home.

If you choose to vote, vote the warmongers out — for your own good and for your family’s safety.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On December 19, Colorado’s Supreme Court deemed former president Donald Trump ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot. In a 4-3 ruling, the court held that Trump had engaged in “insurrection” and was therefore disqualified from returning to the presidency per the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause.

Most opinion and analysis on this ruling (and other, similar cases working their way through other states’ court systems) revolves around particular questions:

Was the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot an insurrection?

If so, did Trump incite and/or support it? Did his attempts, outside the context of the riot, to invalidate the election results, constitute part of an insurrection scheme?

Is the president an “officer” “under” the United States as referred to in the insurrection clause?

Can state courts enforce that clause based on civil determinations of the answers to those questions, or is a criminal conviction and/or federal determination required?

Interesting questions indeed, and that they’re even under serious consideration seems to bolster the case that the United States may be headed for some kind of “national divorce” scenario, possibly entailing civil war.

I’ve got another question to add to the mix:

Did anyone really believe America’s “major parties” would never get around to using ballot access barriers against each other?

Those barriers began to go up in the 1890s with adoption of the “Australian ballot” — a uniform ballot printed by the government subdivision holding an election.

Prior to that, all votes were, essentially, “write-ins.” You hand-wrote your ballot, or dictated it to an election official with a witness if you couldn’t write, or cast a ballot printed by your political party or association of choice.

Once the government started printing   ballots, the government got to decide who could be ON those ballots. Ever since, the “major” parties have increasingly and enthusiastically abused that power with onerous signature requirements, filing fees, and other restrictions to ensure that only Republicans and Democrats have a very good shot at getting elected in most races.

Now Democrats and “never-Trump” Republicans want to use that same power to tell Americans — more than 74 million of whom voted for Trump in 2020 — that they’re not entitled to vote for their candidate of choice,  a former president and a “major” party front-runner.

And by the way, they’re doing it in the name of “protecting democracy.”

At some point,  a dialectical analysis might predict, “democracy” collapses under the weight of such internal contradictions.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

US Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) says he’s “angry, disappointed” at a staffer — make that former staffer — for producing video of the “adult” variety in his off hours. The Daily Caller released the video of a sexual encounter, apparently shot in a US Senate hearing room better known for judicial confirmation hearings, on December 15.

If the employer was anyone else and the workplace anywhere else, I guess I could sympathize with Cardin’s take on the incident as a “breach of trust.” In most cases, sex at the office is a bad idea and filming it is a worse one.

But the employer isn’t anyone else, and the workplace isn’t anywhere else. That staffer worked for an organization that spends every day enthusiastically doing to the American public what the staffer’s companion was doing to him (I’m sure you can figure that part out), and doing it in, among other places, that same hearing room.

The Capitol Hill complex would no doubt take first place in any ranking of America’s raunchiest BDSM clubs. It’s somewhat exclusive as far as formal membership goes (536 members), but boasts thousands of staff members to see to those members’ needs, and proudly televises many of its orgies. In fact, C-SPAN should strongly  consider adopting “A Subsidized OnlyFans for Masochists” as a tag line / branding play.

This incident may well constitute the first event in Hart 216’s history where only one person got screwed.

Unwise, immature, and inappropriate as it may have been, the whole thing didn’t rise to anywhere near the filth level embodied by Congress’s daily operations.

Remember, these are the people who seize one out of every four dollars you earn and blow the money on a never-ending bacchanal of global murder, domestic police statism, and corporate welfare.

Unfortunately, the media and public thirst for “scandal” tends more toward pearl-clutching over the peccadilloes of individuals who get caught while still low enough on the ladder to be thrown under the bus (sorry for the mixed metaphor there) than toward skeptical analysis of what our Very Special and Important rulers constantly attempt to sell as “legitimate” and “dignified” proceedings.

This story will likely enjoy a shorter shelf life than Bill Clinton’s  blue dress wardrobe malfunction or Eliot Spitzer’s escort service escapades (both among the least of those two’s sins). As it should. At least we didn’t have to see Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer naked.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY