The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
Hurricane Helene makes the ILA action ‘simply unacceptable.’
Florida’s Governor is launching a potential end-run around a work stoppage by the International Longshoremen’s Association, saying cargo ships bringing imports that aren’t being offloaded can bring their goods to Florida.
“There are ships that have nothing to do with these negotiations. They may need a place to be able to come and we just want to send the message: You can come to the state of Florida,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a media availability in Anna Maria.
The Governor said the Florida National Guard and Florida State Guard “will be deployed to critical ports, affected to maintain order and if possible, resume operations which would otherwise be shut down during this interruption.”
Additionally, the Florida Department of Transportation “is coordinating calls with seaport rail and trucking partners to ensure that all are prepared and positioned appropriately to limit disruptions to the supply chain and other areas,” per DeSantis.
As he did during comments Wednesday on the labor stoppage by dockworkers, DeSantis argued that it was “simply unacceptable” to strike given that action “could negatively impact people” who are working to rebuild after Hurricane Helene with imported goods.
He also blamed the White House for not intervening against the interests of the union, saying Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should “do everything in their power to ensure that these goods are where we need to be, that people are not left hanging out in the cold, waiting for these goods if they’re sitting in the ocean somewhere and they’re not being able to be used here in the state of Florida or in Georgia or North Carolina or where people are going t
The Trump campaign blasted Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday over the lack of funds at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), saying that the Democrat presidential nominee prioritized spending on illegal aliens over American citizens.
“FEMA has run out of money for the rest of hurricane season because Kamala Harris used the funds for free giveaways to illegal immigrants,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign said in a statement. “This is inexcusable and yet another example of Kamala Harris putting Americans LAST!”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters on Wednesday that FEMA can meet immediate needs in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, but does not have enough money in its coffers to make it through hurricane season.
“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have. We are expecting another hurricane hitting,” Mayorkas said on Air Force One. “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season.”
The federal agency is being stretched thin as it works with states to assess the storm damage and provide food, water, generators and other much-needed supplies. After making landfall in Florida last week, Helene cut a path of destruction through several other states in the Southeast, triggering cataclysmic flooding and killing upwards of 160 people.
While Mayorkas did not specify how much additional money FEMA may require, his remarks echoed concerns voiced by President Joe Biden and some lawmakers earlier this week that Congress may need to pass a supplemental spending bill to assist states with their recovery efforts.
Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, but most hurricanes occur in September or October.
Congress recently made $20 billion available for FEMA’s disaster relief fund as part of the stopgap spending bill that will fund the federal government through Dec. 20. The bill also provided FEMA with the flexibility to access the money more quickly as needed.
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are scheduled to be in their home states and districts until after the November election, however, as they focus on campaigning.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., gave no indication he was considering changing that schedule during a speech on Tuesday. He said that Congress just provided FEMA with the funds it needs to respond to the disaster and that lawmakers would ensure those resources are appropriately allocated.
A bipartisan group of senators from affected states wrote their leadership this week saying it is clear that Congress must act to meet the needs of constituents. They said that may even require Congress to return to Washington ahead of schedule in October.
Complicating the issue, the Biden-Harris administration fears that Trump could scuttle its green agenda if he wins the presidential election and is racing to spend the tens of billions of dollars earmarked for climate initiatives.
“The Biden-Harris administration is trying to get this money out the door and get it fully obligated,” Katie Harris, of BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of union and environmental groups, said.
J.D. Vance will be a great candidate for 2028…if there’s still an America.
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Kamala’s husband reportedly knocked his ex-girlfriend around brutally. Of course he did. He’s a parasite married to a professional parasite. They’re totalitarians. They rely on the use of force against others, and the submission of others, to get everything they desire. Their souls are stone cold. That’s why they’re in government, and why they are career politicians. To glorified mobsters with few or no human values, knocking around a romantic partner is nothing.
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Will Tim Walz be their next puppet in 2028 or 2032? Don’t laugh. They installed Biden.
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A meme says:
“You are voting for Kamala Harris because you hate Donald Trump.
We are voting for Trump because we love our country.
That’s the difference.
We are not the same.”
Amen.
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The Biden administration’s approach to Iran destabilized the Middle East and led to the October 7 Hamas attack and subsequent regional chaos.
When Joe Biden became president, the Middle East was calm. Now it is in the midst of a multifront war. So quiet was the inheritance from the prior Trump administration that nearly three years later, on September 29, 2023—and just eight days before the October 7 Hamas massacre of Israelis—Biden’s national security advisor Jack Sullivan could still brag that “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
So, what exactly happened to the inherited calm that led to the current nonstop chaos of the present?
In a word, theocratic Iran—the nexus of almost all current Middle East terrorism and conflict—was unleashed by Team Biden after having been neutered by the Trump administration.
The Biden-Harris administration adopted a 5-step revisionist protocol that appeased and encouraged Iran and its terrorist surrogates Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
The result was a near guarantee that something akin to the October 7 massacres would inevitably follow—along with a subsequent year of violence that has now engulfed the Middle East.
First, on the 2020 campaign trail, Biden damned long-time American ally Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.”
Almost immediately followed continuous Houthi attacks on international shipping, Israel, and U.S. warships—rendering the Red Sea, the entryway to the Suez Canal, de facto closed to international maritime transit.
Worse still, by the time of the 2022 midterms, when spiraling gas prices threatened Democratic congressional majorities, Biden opportunistically flipped and implored Saudi Arabia to pump more oil to lower world prices before the November election. Appearing obnoxious and then obsequious to an old Middle East ally is a prescription for regional chaos.
Second, Biden-Harris nihilistically killed off the Trump administration’s “Abraham Accords.” That diplomatic breakthrough had proven a successful blueprint for moderate Arab nations to seek détente with Israel, ending decades of hostilities to unite against the common Middle East threat of Iran.
Third, Biden begged Iran to reenter the appeasing, so-called Iran Deal that virtually had ensured that Iran would eventually get the bomb.
Worse yet, it dropped oil sanctions against the theocracy, allowing a near-destitute Iran to recoup $100 billion in profits. And it greenlighted $6 billion in hostage ransoms to Tehran.
An enriched Tehran immediately sent billions of dollars in support and weapons to the anti-Western terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to attack Israel, Americans, and international shipping. Iran soon began partnering with China and Russia to form a new anti-American axis.
Biden-Harris also fled abruptly from Afghanistan, abandoning billions in weapons and American contractors. The humiliation thus virtually destroyed American deterrence in the Middle East, inciting enemies and endangering friends.
Fourth, Biden-Harris restored hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the West Bank and Gaza, but without any guarantees that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas would desist from their past serial terrorist acts.
In the case of Hamas, U.S. and Western “humanitarian aid” simply freed up more fungible dollars in Gaza to arm Hamas and to expand its subterranean tunnel complex essential to its October 7 massacres and hostage-taking.
Fifth, from the outset of the ensuing increased tensions, Biden-Harris began pressuring the Israelis to act “proportionally” in responding to the massacre of some 1,200 Israelis and nearly 20,000 missiles, rockets, and drones launched at their homeland from Iran, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
Such straitjacketing of our closest Middle East friend further signaled the Iranian-backed terrorists that there was now “daylight” between the U.S. and its closest regional ally. That opportunity provided still further incentives for Iran to test just how far it could safely go in attacking Israel.
But why did Biden-Harris so foolishly ignite the Middle East?
In part, the administration naively tried to resurrect the old, discredited Obama administration notion of ‘creative tension’—of empowering a rogue Iran and its terrorists to play off Israel and the moderate Arab regimes, as a new sort of balance of power in the region.
In part, Biden-Harris was caving to increased anti-Semitism at home and the rise of powerful, pro-Palestinian groups on U.S. campuses and in critical swing Electoral College states.
In part, Biden-Harris was naïve and gullible. The two bought into the anti-Americanism and anti-Israel boilerplate of our enemies. So, they thought to make amends by seeing Iran and its terrorists as the moral equivalent of democratic, pro-American Israel.
Their malignant legacy is the current Middle East disaster.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O’Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.
Notable Replies
Maximus-CassiusOctober 3, 2024Good, concise analysis by Professor Hanson, but toward the end he uses the words “naivete” and “naively” to define the Biden-Harris motivations behind their insane and malevolent Middle-East policy.Whatever else may be driving this administration’s policies–both domestic and foreign–it most assuredly is not naivete or gullibility. In fact, the driving force behind everything the Biden-Harris junta does is the inverse to Hanlon’s Law which states; Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
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He overturned the policies of both the previous Obama and Trump administrations by siding with the Iranian-supplied terrorist Houthis in their war on Saudi Arabia.
Biden accused the kingdom of war crimes, warning it would “be held accountable” for its actions in Yemen. Biden-Harris took the murderous Houthis off the U.S. terrorist list.
Biden-Harris also fled abruptly from Afghanistan, abandoning billions in weapons and American contractors. The humiliation thus virtually destroyed American deterrence in the Middle East, inciting enemies and endangering friends.
Fourth, Biden-Harris restored hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the West Bank and Gaza, but without any guarantees that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas would desist from their past serial terrorist acts.
In the case of Hamas, U.S. and Western “humanitarian aid” simply freed up more fungible dollars in Gaza to arm Hamas and to expand its subterranean tunnel complex essential to its October 7 massacres and hostage-taking.
Fifth, from the outset of the ensuing increased tensions, Biden-Harris began pressuring the Israelis to act “proportionally” in responding to the massacre of some 1,200 Israelis and nearly 20,000 missiles, rockets, and drones launched at their homeland from Iran, the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
Such straitjacketing of our closest Middle East friend further signaled the Iranian-backed terrorists that there was now “daylight” between the U.S. and its closest regional ally. That opportunity provided still further incentives for Iran to test just how far it could safely go in attacking Israel.
But why did Biden-Harris so foolishly ignite the Middle East?
In part, the administration naively tried to resurrect the old, discredited Obama administration notion of ‘creative tension’—of empowering a rogue Iran and its terrorists to play off Israel and the moderate Arab regimes, as a new sort of balance of power in the region.
In part, Biden-Harris was caving to increased anti-Semitism at home and the rise of powerful, pro-Palestinian groups on U.S. campuses and in critical swing Electoral College states.
In part, Biden-Harris was naïve and gullible. The two bought into the anti-Americanism and anti-Israel boilerplate of our enemies. So, they thought to make amends by seeing Iran and its terrorists as the moral equivalent of democratic, pro-American Israel.
Their malignant legacy is the current Middle East disaster.
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O’Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.
The air raid alerts in Israel came after a day of rocket and missile attacks from Lebanon, where Israel said it had begun limited ground operations against Hezbollah.
Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire pounded southern Lebanese villages where people were ordered to evacuate, and Hezbollah militants responded by firing a barrage of rockets into Israel. There was no immediate word on casualties as fighting intensified and concerns of a wider regional war grew.
A senior White House official warned of “severe consequences” should Iran launch a ballistic missile against Israel. U.S. ships and aircraft are positioned in the region to assist Israel in the event of an attack from Iran. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.
He urged the public to stay close to sheltered areas. “The Iranian strike could be widespread. Following Home Front Command guidelines can save lives,” he said.
Iranian officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel in April, but few of its projectiles reached their targets. Many were shot down by a U.S.-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed in flight.
While Hezbollah denied Israeli troops had entered Lebanon, the Israeli army announced it had also carried out dozens of ground raids into southern Lebanon going back nearly a year. Israel released video footage purporting to show its soldiers operating in homes and tunnels where Hezbollah kept weapons.
If true, it would be another humiliating blow for Iran-backed Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the Middle East. Hezbollah has been reeling from weeks of targeted strikes that killed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.
On Tuesday morning, Israel warned people to evacuate to the north of the Awali River, some 36 miles from the border and much farther than the Litani River, which marks the northern edge of a U.N.-declared zone intended to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah after their 2006 war.
The border region has largely emptied out over the past year as the two sides have traded fire. But the scope of the evacuation warning raised questions as to how deep Israel plans to send its forces into Lebanon.
An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building near Beirut on Tuesday, causing damage but with no immediate reports of casualties. The strike appeared to hit an apartment about 100 meters from the Iranian Embassy.
Anticipating more rocket attacks from Hezbollah, the Israeli army announced new restrictions on public gatherings and closed beaches in northern and central Israel. The military also said it was calling up thousands more reserve soldiers to serve on the northern border.
A reporter saw Israeli troops operating near the border in armored trucks, with helicopters circling overhead, but could not confirm ground forces had crossed into Lebanon.
Ahead of the Israeli announcement of an incursion, U.S. officials on Monday said Israel had described launching small ground raids inside Lebanon as it prepared for a wider operation.
Neither the Lebanese army nor a U.N. peacekeeping force that patrols southern Lebanon have confirmed that Israeli forces entered. The U.N. force said a cross-border operation would be a violation of Lebanese sovereignty.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif dismissed what he said were “false claims” of an Israeli incursion. He said Hezbollah is ready for “direct confrontation with enemy forces that dare to or try to enter Lebanon.”
Hagari claimed troops were conducting “localized ground raids” on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon to ensure Israeli citizens could return to their homes in the north.
“We’re not going to Beirut,” he said.
Israel has said it will continue to strike Hezbollah until it is safe for citizens to return. Hezbollah has promised to keep firing rockets into Israel until there is a cease-fire in Gaza.
He said Israel had carried out dozens of small raids inside Lebanon since Oct. 8, when Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel after the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
Hagari said Israeli forces had crossed the border to collect information and destroy Hezbollah infrastructure, including tunnels and weapons. Israel has said Hezbollah was preparing its own Oct. 7-style attack into Israel. It was not immediately possible to confirm those claims.
An Israeli military official said troops participating in the latest incursion were within walking distance of the border, focused on villages hundreds of yards rom Israel. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said there had been no clashes with Hezbollah fighters.
The Israeli military was accused of lying to media in 2021 when it released a statement implying ground troops had entered Gaza. The military played down the incident as a misunderstanding, but well-sourced military commentators in Israel said it was part of a ruse to lure Hamas into battle.
The Israeli military official said Hezbollah had launched rockets at central Israel, setting off air raid sirens and wounding a man. Hezbollah said it fired salvos of a new kind of medium-range missile at the headquarters of two Israeli intelligence agencies near Tel Aviv.
The Israeli military official said Hezbollah had also launched projectiles at Israeli communities near the border, targeting soldiers without wounding anyone.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel ignited the war in Gaza. Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes and the conflict has steadily escalated. In recent weeks Israel has unleashed a punishing wave of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon.
Hagari said the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war had not been enforced and that southern Lebanon was “swarming with Hezbollah terrorists and weapons.”
That resolution called for Hezbollah to withdraw from the area between the border and the Litani River and for the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers to patrol the region. Israel says those and other provisions were never enforced. Lebanon has long accused Israel of violating other terms of the resolution.
The military statements indicated Israel might focus its ground operation on the narrow strip along the border, rather than launching a larger invasion aimed at destroying Hezbollah, as it has attempted in Gaza against Hamas.
Hezbollah and Hamas are close allies backed by Iran, and each escalation has raised fears of a wider war in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and the United States, which has rushed military assets to the region in support of Israel.
Israeli strikes have killed over 1,000 people in Lebanon over the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry. Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
Hezbollah is a well-trained militia, believed to have tens of thousands of fighters and an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles. The last round of fighting in 2006 ended in a stalemate, and both sides have spent the past two decades preparing for their next showdown.
Recent airstrikes wiping out most of Hezbollah’s top leadership and the explosions of hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah indicate Israel has infiltrated deep inside the group’s upper echelons.
The group’s acting leader, Naim Kassem, said in a televised statement Monday that Hezbollah commanders killed in recent weeks have already been replaced.
As the fighting intensifies, European countries have begun pulling their diplomats and citizens out of Lebanon.
President Biden was fed a series of gentle softballs over the weekend by Robert Costa of CBS News. He mumbled through his responses in what felt like an exit interview.
After his debate debacle at the end of June, Biden publicly and privately stated that he was staying in the presidential race. It would take the “Lord Almighty” telling him to step aside for him to go, he told George Stephanopoulos. He held a press conference on July 11 that seemed to assuage concerns by some in his party. And then, 10 days later, he dropped out, in a letter posted to his social media accounts.
In the end, it didn’t take the Lord Almighty — unless that’s Biden’s nickname for former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In a media tour for her new book, Pelosi has been careful not to take too much credit for Biden’s withdrawal, but she did give a bit of a window into the process with Ezra Klein of the New York Times. She told Klein that Biden’s note to Democrats in Congress that he was staying in “didn’t sound like Joe Biden,” hinting that he was pressured into sending it. And she made it clear that the only thing that mattered was beating Trump.
As Biden noted to Costa, he ultimately left the race because he didn’t want to be a distraction, citing his bad poll numbers. But if he’s not up for running for president, how is he capable of actually being president right now?
Pelosi and her fellow Democratic elite operatives successfully waged a pressure campaign focused on reputational blackmail to push Biden out of the race. It worked.
But they also have a final lever that can be pulled before Election Day — a true “break glass in case of emergency” strategy. They could force Biden to resign as president, and elevate Kamala Harris to the Oval Office so that she can run as the incumbent.
Now, while the scenario may seem a little far-fetched, I’ve got a decent predictive track record in this column during the chaos of 2024. In February, I laid out how the Democrats and media could work together to push Biden out of the race, and later wrote specifically how the debate could be the catalyst that puts the plan into motion. I also predicted that Trump would pick JD Vance as his running mate. (They haven’t all been winners — in January I called 2024 “the Court TV election,” and while Trump’s and Hunter’s trials have been relevant, they haven’t been the overriding storyline they looked to be at the beginning of the year.)
So imagine it’s a couple weeks after the Democratic National Convention, and the Harris glow is starting to wear off. The vibes campaign could only last so long before reality set in. Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck, and Trump is trending in several key swing states.
“I have no reason to think President Biden will step down, unless he has absolutely no choice,” Mark Halperin, editor-in-chief and host of 2WAY, told me. “He wants to run through the tape. Well, at least, walk purposefully if haltingly through the tape.”
So perhaps Biden is convinced to exit the White House with the promise of a long, ceremonial celebration of his life and career on the way out. He could announce he’s resigning Sept. 1 to bury it before the Labor Day weekend, or on Sept. 13 to bury it after the ABC debate. He could give “two weeks’ notice” and get the long runway of puff pieces and retirement pageantry.
“I think this very much falls into the category of things that one might be able to take advantage of if events present themselves, but would be impossible to plan for a reliable outcome,” Chris Stirewalt of NewsNation told me. “But it may not matter what Democrats want. If Biden continues to have public struggles, he may be forced to go. It could be a scenario like the one we watched play out in July.”
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A Biden exit in September or October would be particularly useful as a distraction from the race. The establishment media would get sidetracked with the Biden resignation, as well as the next phase — the introduction of President Kamala Harris. The history associated with the first female president, plus the bevy of stories about what it even means to have this massive transition, would allow for weeks of relatively substance-free coverage.
And what would Harris gain from being elevated to the top job? First, she’d get to run as an incumbent, which has historically helped presidential candidates. And she can make the case that she’s just getting started in the job and needs the vote of America to begin her real work.
She also could find herself in a crisis, however minor — real or manufactured — during the final weeks of the race, in mid-to-late October, that allows her to shine. She could showcase her prowess in her new role of president and ride it into Election Day — with the compliant Acela media, full of partisan journalists who want to keep Trump away from the White House, by her side.
The last-minute presidential swap then plays well for the Democrats on two distinct but related levels. A President Harris could have a leg up over a Vice President Harris, even marginally. It surely wouldn’t hurt. And any little bit helps in what will likely be a very close election.
“She certainly would make history adding to her resume that she would be the first woman president in American history,” Halperin told me. “Perhaps for some voters, it would be more appealing to vote for an incumbent, but I don’t think the upside is all that great.”
But the whole final chaotic twist in the 2024 electoral cycle would provide a brilliant diversion from whatever policy and substantive discussions and debates are bubbling up in those final few weeks. What better misdirection for the public than to ensure the story that’s on people’s minds in the days leading up Nov. 5 is not the economy or immigration, but the excitement of a new president installed at the last minute?
So don’t be shocked if this cycle’s October Surprise is a new occupant in the White House — even before we get ourselves to Jan. 20, 2025.
Steve Krakauer, a NewsNation contributor, is the author of “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People” and editor and host of the Fourth Watch newsletter and podcast.
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(Editor’s Note: The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party, or candidate, on the part of Newsmax.)
There’s No Getting Around Losing Free Speech Means We’ve Lost It All
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and others have said that left-wing media outlets such as MSNBC and CNN must stop inciting political violence by referring to former President Donald Trump as an existential threat to democracy.
The words “inciting violence” are dangerous — no matter who’s claiming it.
And it’s particularly dangerous from the left, because the left dominates essentially everything: government, the large corporations, the media, universities, primary and secondary schools, and all of culture, including the entertainment industry.
But it’s still dangerous no matter who says it. When conservatives claim, “Kamala Harris incites violence by spreading hatred of Trump supporters,” it logically implies, “They shouldn’t be permitted to do this. They should be held legally accountable for their speech.” It’s like saying: “You’re making people violent by saying things they dislike.”
Let’s be clear: You cannot incite me to do anything just because you express strong opinions. I can’t incite you to do anything just because I express strong opinions.
You’re free to ignore me, and I’m free to ignore you. Unless or until you initiate an act or threat of force against me, the law is not in play. Or at least, it should not be.
Conservatives are understandably frustrated by everything happening globally.
However, we all must understand a basic principle of psychology: It’s not possible to make someone say or do something merely because of your words.
The left today claims that certain speech is “hateful” (never defined) and a “threat to democracy,” (never defined) — and therefore can be punished on that basis alone.
Yes, we still have a First Amendment in America — at least for now — and those on the left must tread more carefully than tyrants otherwise would; but for all practical purposes, left-adherents and Democrats no longer recognize free speech.
They merely pretend to do so because they realize they might lose the support of the confused swing state voters on Election Day.
Comedian Ricky Gervais says it well, “Everyone agrees with free speech until they hear something they don’t like.”
The left seemingly is not held accountable for their contradictions.
The minute not just President Trump, but anyone critical of leftism expresses disagreement with any of their views, they make the charge, “Hate Speech! Hate Speech!”
Then they turn around, loudly proclaiming, “The First Amendment doesn’t protect Hate Speech.”
Oh, it doesn’t?
“You can’t shout fire in a crowded theater!” they exclaim.
That’s because the theater owner doesn’t want his customers annoyed or terrorized.
It’s bad for business.
The reason you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater is because of property rights, not because there are exceptions to freedom of speech.
Free speech neither endorses nor condemns any specific type of speech.
It merely upholds the right to speak freely. Of course, in a fully free society, you can’t speak freely without the consent of the person on whose property you’re speaking.
The right to free speech doesn’t permit Kamala Harris supporters to put signs on the lawn of a Trump supporter.
Why are the people who scream the loudest about “hate speech” the ones most riddled with hatred and venom?
Woke leftists preach self-importantly that they hate hatred. They’re against hatred on principle. But what about their own hatred — of those they want silenced? It’s self-refuting. Yet nobody ever calls them on it.
The left lives in a cultural, legal, and political vacuum.
They reinforce and agree with each other on absolutely everything.
They shun those who even hint at crossing the party line.
They rarely face the dissension of right wingers, because they refuse to listen; and increasingly, they attempt to shut down the opposition either by screaming and waving their fists or, more recently, with imprisonment and even guns.
The mentality of the left is characterized by anger and rage.
Often, anger and rage are a mask for fear and terror.
Psychologically, most people would rather feel angry than petrified.
Anger (rather than fear) makes them feel stronger and like they haven’t been defeated.
It’s perfectly understandable.
However, the terror that many on the left feel at the prospect of living in a world where anyone — absolutely anyone at all, especially one as unapologetic as Donald Trump — disagrees with them now converts into rage and a desire to imprison people who dissent from left propaganda.
This is genuinely a most dangerous point we now find ourselves in; it means we’re rapidly approaching some modern equivalent of Nazi Germany (1933-1945).
Want to try objecting to any of this? You’re guilty of “hate speech.”
“Off with your head!” Or the 21st century equivalent.
Being cancelled or (in Donald Trump’s case) indicted or possibly assassinated.
Beyond the current election season, free speech faces perhaps its most chilling times.
That “chill” will transmute to an ice-age level freeze, unless we stand up to for our First Amendment, now with all the passion, integrity, and conviction we possess.
And if we don’t have those qualities, we need to learn to acquire them fast, to preserve our nation’s future.
Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology. He is the author of “Grow Up America” and “Bad Therapy, Good Therapy,” available exclusively at www.DrHurd.com. He has been quoted in and/or appeared on over 30 radio shows/podcasts (including Rush Limbaugh and Larry Elder), on Newsmax TV, and writes two self-help columns weekly. Dr. Hurd resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Read more of Dr. Hurd’s reports — Here.
Something I don’t understand: Our election laws say you can’t promote a candidate for office unless you register as a campaign, and follow all the rules related to elections (such as spending or donation limits). I don’t agree with these laws. In a free country, people should be permitted to speak out as often or with as much money as they wish, for any candidate they choose. Of course, in a free country, the government would not have all the power our government enjoys, either.
However, here’s the thing I really don’t understand. When Hollywood celebrities speak out through the characters in their shows, or when Jimmy Kimmel or Saturday Night Live promotes a candidate through mockery, satire or outright advocacy, then why aren’t these activities considered part of a campaign? Why aren’t presidential debates that are clearly sponsored by the same people running one of these campaigns (always the Democrat) considered as on the campaign’s payroll? Why aren’t the “news” stories — which are actually opinion pieces — on networks and websites like CNN, MSNBC, ABC News and all the others not considered (under the law) advocacy for a campaign — since they clearly, openly are?
Isn’t it possible that the laws I’m not defending are being broken right and left — and none of the lawbreakers are held remotely accountable?
Happy “election” season, comrades!
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Below is my column in the Wall Street Journal on the growing counter-constitutional movement in the United States. This assault on the Constitution is being led by law professors who have lost their faith in the defining principles and institutions of our Republic.
Here is the column:
Kamala Harris declared in Tuesday’s debate that a vote for her is a vote “to end the approach that is about attacking the foundations of our democracy ’cause you don’t like the outcome.” She was alluding to the 2021 Capitol riot, but she and her party are also attacking the foundations of our democracy: the Supreme Court and the freedom of speech.
Several candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination, including Ms. Harris, said they were open to the idea of packing the court by expanding the number of seats. Mr. Biden opposed the idea, but a week after he exited the 2024 presidential race, he announced a “bold plan” to “reform” the high court. It would pack the court via term limits and also impose a “binding code of conduct,” aimed at conservative justices.
Ms. Harris quickly endorsed the proposal in a statement, citing a “clear crisis of confidence” in the court owing to “decision after decision overturning long-standing precedent.” She might as well have added “because you don’t like the outcome.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) has already introduced ethics and term-limits legislation and said Ms. Harris’s campaign has told him “that your bills are precisely aligned with what we are talking about.”
The attacks on the court are part of a growing counterconstitutional movement that began in higher education and seems recently to have reached a critical mass in the media and politics. The past few months have seen an explosion of books and articles laying out a new vision of “democracy” unconstrained by constitutional limits on majority power.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, is author of “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States,” published last month. In a 2021 Los Angeles Times op-ed, he described conservative justices as “partisan hacks.”
In the New York Times, book critic Jennifer Szalai scoffs at what she calls “Constitution worship.” She writes: “Americans have long assumed that the Constitution could save us; a growing chorus now wonders whether we need to be saved from it.” She frets that by limiting the power of the majority, the Constitution “can end up fostering the widespread cynicism that helps authoritarianism grow.”
In a 2022 New York Times op-ed, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for liberals to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Others have railed against individual rights. In my new book on free speech, I discuss this movement against what many professors deride as “rights talk.” Barbara McQuade of the University of Michigan Law School has called free speech America’s “Achilles’ heel.”
In another Times op-ed, “The First Amendment Is Out of Control,” Columbia law professor Tim Wu, a former Biden White House aide, asserts that free speech “now mostly protects corporate interests” and threatens “essential jobs of the state, such as protecting national security and the safety and privacy of its citizens.”
George Washington University Law’s Mary Ann Franks complains that the First Amendment (and also the Second) is too “aggressively individualistic” and endangers “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare.”
Mainstream Democrats are listening to radical voices. “How much does the current structure benefit us?” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in 2021, explaining her support for a court-packing bill. “I don’t think it does.” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said at the Democratic National Committee’s “LGBTQ+ Kickoff” that “we’ve got to reimagine” democracy “in a way that is more revolutionary than . . . that little piece of paper.” Both AOC and Ms. Robinson later spoke to the convention itself.
the current structure benefit us?” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) said in 2021, explaining her support for a court-packing bill. “I don’t think it does.” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said at the Democratic National Committee’s “LGBTQ+ Kickoff” that “we’ve got to reimagine” democracy “in a way that is more revolutionary than . . . that little piece of paper.” Both AOC and Ms. Robinson later spoke to the convention itself.
The Nation’s Elie Mystal calls the Constitution “trash” and urges the abolition of the U.S. Senate. Rosa Brooks of Georgetown Law School complains that Americans are “slaves” to the Constitution.
Without countermajoritarian protections and institutions, politics would be reduced to raw power. That’s what some have in mind. In an October 2020 interview, Harvard law professor Michael Klarman laid out a plan for Democrats should they win the White House and both congressional chambers. They would enact “democracy-entrenching legislation,” which would ensure that “the Republican Party will never win another election” unless it moved to the left. The problem: “The Supreme Court could strike down everything I just described, and that’s something the Democrats need to fix.”
Trashing the Constitution gives professors and pundits a license to violate norms. The Washington Monthly reports that at a Georgetown conference, Prof. Josh Chafetz suggested that Congress retaliate against conservative justices by refusing to fund law clerks or “cutting off the Supreme Court’s air conditioning budget.” When the audience laughed, Harvard’s Mr. Doerfler snapped back: “It should not be a laugh line. This is a political contest, these are the tools of retaliation available, and they should be completely normalized.”
The cry for radical constitutional change is shortsighted. The constitutional system was designed for bad times, not only good times. It seeks to protect individual rights, minority factions and smaller states from the tyranny of the majority. The result is a system that forces compromise. It doesn’t protect us from political divisions any more than good medical care protects us from cancer. Rather it allows the body politic to survive political afflictions by pushing factions toward negotiation and moderation.
When Benjamin Franklin said the framers had created “a republic, if you can keep it,” he meant that we needed to keep faith in the Constitution. Law professors mistook their own crisis of faith for a constitutional crisis. They have become a sort of priesthood of atheists, keeping their frocks while doffing their faith. The true danger to the American democratic system lies with politicians who would follow their lead and destroy our institutions in pursuit of political advantage.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 