“Charge all Past and Present Members of the Cato and Mercatus Institutes with Treason”

The Cato Institute ^ | October 18, 2022 | Colin Grabow and Scott Lincicome

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

It’s not every day you find a government document calling for Cato Institute employees to be charged with treason, but as a new article in The Dispatch details, here we are:

"In March 2020, a maritime shipping advisory panel offered a simple suggestion to the government: Charge all past and current members of two libertarian think tanks with treason.

"It is certainly not the first time a bunch of libertarians angered members of a bureaucratic panel. But this backlash stemmed from criticism of the Jones Act, a century‐​old law that imposes requirements for shipping between American ports."

Haley Byrd Wilt’s story($) provides a good overview of the situation, but this post provides a few noteworthy details that were left on the cutting room floor.

For many months Cato’s Patrick Eddington and Colin Grabow have been collecting internal emails from the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process. Unfortunately, responses from MARAD have often been incomplete, with the agency citing various exemptions from the law to justify withholding information. While some exemptions are no doubt legitimate, other, less‐​convincing ones pushed us to challenge MARAD’s recalcitrance. After months of appeals, repeated missed deadlines to provide promised information, and threats of legal action on our part, MARAD finally sent the required materials last month.

After reading through what MARAD sent, we now can understand why the agency was so reluctant to comply with the law.

Almost at the end of the 41‐​page document is what appears to be a set of recommendations related to a March 2020 meeting of the Marine Transportation System National Advisory Committee (MTSNAC)’s International Shipping Subcommittee. Among them: “Charge all past and present members of the Cato and Mercatus Institutes with treason.”

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

It's a good article. While I'm personally fine with the Jones Act -- as long as it can be suspended in actual emergencies -- Cato isn't committing treason by expressing their institutional belief that port-to-port domestic shipping should be opened to foreign competitors.

This stuff is so Bidenesque and leftoid, that it's a surprise that it started up under the Trump administration. Somebody needs to be fired from MARAD and then blacklisted, even though this little tyrant wannabe and I would probably be in agreement on the underlying issue of the Jones Act.

[dynachrome]

Any opinion that differs from the stalinist ‘current thing’ is treasonous.

[SuperLuminal]

The Communist Purge Continues To Grow Exponentially & Nothing Is Being Done About It!

More proof that:
The only good communist is a dead communist...
It is our duty as citizens to help everyone be as good as they can be...

[Hostage]

> “This stuff is so Bidenesque and leftoid, that it’s a surprise that it started up under the Trump administration.”

A few things:

First when President Trump began at the White House, he became the head of all executive agencies totalling over 2 million federal employees.

It is easier to beat cancer than it is to fire a federal employee.

The only easy option is to freeze hiring and let the ranks shrink through attrition.

Second, most of the agency upper ranked employees were promoted under Obama. That tells us President Trump walked into a leftist camp and he couldn’t fire them easily.

Third, all cabinet appointments had to be approved by the Senate which is largely an old boys club. Hence, people like Jeff Sessions slipped in because he had the inside track with the Senate.

That left only one option for President Trump, he could hire directly specialist advisors to form his executive circle. Most of these picks were outstanding. They numbered in the hundreds.

Now, if President Trump was not subjected to a Coup d’Etat, he would be serving the 3rd year of his 2nd term. That would allow for much of the Obama federal faction to diminish and be replaced by those promoted over the Trump years.

That’s how it rolls.

[oldguy1776]

“Now, if President Trump was not subjected to a Coup d’Etat”...you do know this is right?? Violent in most cases and done by the military. That was not the case here.

[Hostage]

Coup d'Etat is French for "hitting the state". It is used in various contexts. Your context is but one context. Don't bully your view onto other contexts.

Coup d'état
A coup d'état, also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, military, or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.

A Coup d'Etat is sometimes by force but doesn't have to be. In the case of President Trump, it was an ILLEGAL overthrow.

You get the last word piss. Have at it.

[4Liberty]