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Posts by nathanbedford

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  • America has reached a turning point on debt

    07/10/2025 11:11:27 PM PDT · 13 of 81
    nathanbedford to SeekAndFind
    Many who count themselves among early supporters of the amendment by states movement make two points:

    first, the arithmetic of the amendment confirmation process requires such an arduous supermajority among the legislative bodies of the states, that runaway amendments are virtually impossible. It would require only 13 legislatures of 99 to defeat an amendment.

    second, the daunting arithmetic also means that no amendment of any sort has a prospect of passage unless there is a life changing national emergency, such as a fiscal death spiral. Otherwise the author is correct, the ordinary course of American politics will sadly not save us.

  • The 6 Factors That Describe China's Current State

    07/10/2025 10:56:11 PM PDT · 6 of 18
    nathanbedford to delta7
    Men in women sports is not nationally damaging, they are a vexation.

    A flood of illegal aliens overturning our constitutional system, a financial death spiral, and a war with China, are examples of things that would be truly damaging.

    Men in women sports makes for good politics for Republicans while those other issues are life and death for Americans.

  • NATO jets scrambled as Putin launches largest drone attack yet on Ukraine just hours after Trump ripped Russian prez for his ‘bulls–t’

  • Jackson Stands Alone: Is Liberal Support For Justice Waning After Trump Ruling?

    07/09/2025 11:01:09 PM PDT · 45 of 50
    nathanbedford to RummyChick
    The Supreme Court has no army or police force to enforce its decrees and must rely almost entirely on a carefully built consensus that its rulings will be respected and enforced by others. Only in rare and limited instances may a court enforce its will by the power of contempt.

    That consensus is not just carefully built, it has been painfully built over centuries going back into English constitutional history. The court, aware of its dependence on general acquiescence of its authority by others, is careful to conduct itself and operate within a normative culture, a a set of assumptions about the manner and extent of the court's decision-making role.

    The prerequisite of this culture is an assumption of the legitimacy of the court as an institution that decides the constitutionality of cases according to a commonly understood set of norms. These norms, as noted, are the products of centuries of small accretions, each one, presumably, acting with in the scope of then existing norms. Break away from this culture, defy the norms, and the court loses legitimacy and the power to enforce its decisions. Thus, the American system would lose its present capacity to decide the constitutionality of vital matters with consequences that no one can predict. Ultimately, the rule of law would be lost and a Hobbesian world result.

    Yet the Supreme Court is a place for argument, for disputation, for the assertion of conflicting ideas about how we shall govern ourselves. In that environment it is natural, even inevitable, that Independent Justices will differ on the meaning of the Constitution. But up until now virtually every Justices accepts the idea of the primacy of the Constitution and the normative system under which they operate. Except Justice Jackson.

    It is not so much that she is stupid, although she demonstrates that with virtually every opinion, the problem is she does not accept either the primacy of the Constitution or the norms of its interpretation. She rejects Chief Justice Marshall's declaration, "it is a Constitution we are expounding."

    Rather Justice Jackson is the product of a cult that has a whole different worldview that grounds its decisions on the principles of the cult. She is utterly indifferent, even hostile, to the provisions of the Constitution or the body of law nurtured over centuries that expounds it. Rather, she reasons within the closed-loop of a cult that is the toxic admixture of academic Marxism and African-American Street resentments and unquenched thirst for entitlements.

    A close analogy is the closed-loop Sharia system that is virtually impervious to logic or even science. It rules on temporal matters entirely without reference to the Constitution, laws or Western norms. It has its own constitution, its own culture, its own norms and its own rule of law.

    To appeal with reason or precedent to an Islamist of the Sharia cult is a waste of breath. Neither that cultist nor Justice Jackson is open to overtures of logic or constitutional precedent. They pursue their own goals in a different universe.

  • Russian oil executive found dead outside his window, state media says

    07/09/2025 9:15:06 AM PDT · 13 of 47
    nathanbedford to SeekAndFind
  • NATO jets scrambled as Putin launches largest drone attack yet on Ukraine just hours after Trump ripped Russian prez for his ‘bulls–t’

    07/09/2025 9:08:09 AM PDT · 7 of 15
    nathanbedford to grey_whiskers
    Very interesting point!

    But consider the implications for the credibility and integrity of America first?

    Are we covering up the Epstein scandal to protect Israel? Is that putting America first? Are we compromising our integrity for the sake of a foreign entity, even an ally? What does that do for our reputation for transparency?

    Is there something in the Epstein scandal that reflects equally badly on American intelligence agencies such as the CIA? If so, why are we defending and covering for the deep state? Are we covering for Israel, for ourselves?

    Who controls American foreign policy? Have we virtually denuded ourselves of patriot missiles on behalf of Israel? If so, how does that square with America first? With abandoning Ukraine?

    It might well be that there are sound strategic reasons to support Israel at the cost of supporting Ukraine. Let's hear those reasons, and let's acknowledge that that is in fact what we are doing – if in fact that is the case.

    In other words, broad shibboleths generally decrying American involvement in foreign wars, one that has been invoked to inhibit support for Ukraine, are only for popular consumption because they were not applied to Israel.

    Foreign policy by the selective application of maxims that are supposed to be of general applicability is no policy.

  • ICE agents targeted in 2 ambush attacks in recent days

    07/09/2025 8:31:55 AM PDT · 21 of 28
    nathanbedford to The Louiswu
    Well-thought-out perspective. It is clear that this is a fight the left wants, but is it a fight at the right time and place over an issue that favors us?

    I think it is. The left is probably acting out of weakness and is attempting in desperation to change the game. Violence and murder was always going to be part of their modus operandi.

    Since the fight is inevitable anyway, let's meet it on an issue where the differences are clear, they are violent, we are constitutionally empowered law enforcement. They see this as a step in the violent overthrow of our constitutional republic. Better to fight them now on this issue than to play defense on an issue of their choosing.

  • NATO jets scrambled as Putin launches largest drone attack yet on Ukraine just hours after Trump ripped Russian prez for his ‘bulls–t’

    07/09/2025 8:11:21 AM PDT · 4 of 15
    nathanbedford to butlerweave
    Clearly Ukraine is coming to the end of its resources and, likely, Putin is too but on a different scale and in different ways.

    There are many indications that Putin is desperately operating under increased domestic pressure. The inflation rate, the fall of the currency, the increasing shortages to the consumer, the banking crisis, the interest rates, the abandonment of Russia by Iran and to a lesser extent China, the need to hire mercenaries from North Korea, the massive battlefield casualties approaching a thousand a day, the exhaustion of the massive Soviet equipment stockpile evidenced by the use of antiquated tanks and vehicles converted into stationary artillery pieces, the equipment of soldiers with bicycles and motorcycles, the murder of Putin's own apparatchiks, the removal of his generals, the liquidation of oligarchs, and now Trump's threats of massive sanctions and renewal of arms shipments, all suggest Putin's options are narrowing at an accelerating rate.

    So the question becomes, is Putin attempting to improve a negotiating position or is he really trying with a massive aerial blitz against military and civilian targets to win the war? Attacks against civilian targets are certainly well documented in Putin's playbook.

    But civilian targeting rarely succeeds in winning wars. Military targets and infrastructure are far more productive. The observation is commonplace that the Ukraine war is similar to World War I in its static trench warfare but it is well to remember that that war began and ended as a war of maneuver. Indeed, the Germans found a way to penetrate Allied lines in a lastgasp effort and the allies in their turn subsequently found a way to roll through German defenses to bring the war to an end.

    It is difficult to make judgments from the popular press about the relative success or likelihood of success of either party; it is even more difficult to make sense, much less an intelligent judgment, out of the sweeping conclusionary but unsupported statements made on these threads, usually about the imminent defeat of Ukraine.

    It is possible that Trump's about-face is not the result solely of his frustrating conversation with Putin, it might well be that he has been thoroughly briefed by our intelligence agencies who informed him of the likelihood of a disintegration within Russia either domestically or simply of its power to wage war. So Trump has now opportunistically decided to get on the right side of history and support Ukraine.

    One can speculate that it is some other factor that has motivated Trump. For example, he might actually be motivated by the loss of life which no doubt is accelerating under these attacks. This long stated concern of Trump's might conceivably now cause him to incur resistance in his own base and some embarrassment internationally for his flip-flop, simply because it is the right and humanitarian thing to do. One must observe, however, that the facts on the ground there have not changed, except perhaps in degree, since he took office a second time. More likely, intelligences advise Trump that the matter in Ukraine cannot much longer hang in the balance, one side or the other must crack and relatively soon.

    If the parties are exhausted enough to negotiate a real cease-fire, it might be that Trump, equally with Putin, are making moves now to improve negotiating positions. Putin with his increased attacks, Trump with his about-face, no and ended sanctions, and resumption of arms deliveries.

  • US only has 25% of all Patriot missile interceptors needed for Pentagon’s military plans

    07/09/2025 1:09:01 AM PDT · 59 of 84
    nathanbedford to MinorityRepublican
    Thank you for a regrettably rare contribution here, providing actual facts in a coherent way to advance the discussion.

    I do not pretend to be an expert in this area but it occurs to me that we are entering a new age of warfare actually being pioneered and perfected by the otherwise beleaguered Ukrainians who are utterly transforming the way war is waged. Instead of a few missiles precisely aimed at important targets, war is evolving into an age of multiple attacks, perhaps equally precise, born on drones which come in droves that would tend to overwhelm both tactically and financially a patriot defense system.

    For example, we now must contend with squadrons of drones that are supposedly to be released from mother airships; we find that Ukrainians and the Russians are expending millions of drones that are dominating the battlefield, replacing conventional air and artillery. In fact, these drones are so effective that they have converted Russian offensive efforts into killing zones. They are proving as effective against personal carriers as they are against personnel.

    It seems that the Ukraine war has become a static affair in which both sides are in an arms race, focused on drones, looking for a way, a technological way, to break through and change the game and hopefully finding that way on the cheap.

    So I accept all the data that you offer, laying out the lag and expense of arming up with patriot missiles, and I ask whether we must find a new way to defend against swarms of drones?

    Since we are not going to be able to provide either the Ukrainians or the Taiwanese with sufficient drone defense by way of Patriots, should we not as a stopgap to buy time concentrate on the manufacture and development of a host of drones?

    We should be able to move into the manufacture of drones at scale, even assuming the need for chips, batteries and exotic source materials. We should be able to do so at manageable costs.

    The need in Ukraine, and the need in Taiwan, are similar in that a robust drone defense can stabilize Ukraine against Russian mass and deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan while a more optimum weapon system can be devised.

  • Analyzing Xi Jin Ping's Absence From The Latest BRICS Summit

    07/06/2025 10:44:36 PM PDT · 3 of 10
    nathanbedford to Williams
    Quite right.

    There are two schools of thought emerging about the dark maneuverings going on at the highest level in China: either xi is consolidating his power, or he is on his way out.

    A murderous dictator's lot is not a happy one. He must always fear revolution and a palace coup. Paranoia must be a constant corollary. Brazil is a long way from China and it might be hard for Xi to watch behind his back from there.

  • Vlad gave his answer to peace, Mr. President: We must re-arm Ukraine

    07/06/2025 10:01:16 PM PDT · 105 of 105
    nathanbedford to mbrfl
    … he [Trump] believes Putin wants ALL of Ukraine. Well, his telephone call of two days ago certainly should have disabused the president of any illusions about Biden's intentions.

    So now we will see if your assessment of the president's intention is accurate: "he hasn’t directly said he wants to prevent that, but I think that’s the clear implication."

    I think Trump has now been put to the test so we will see how he responds. For the record, I agree with you that the sacrifice of some of the Eastern provinces is both realistic and inevitable.

  • In Latest Term, Supreme Court’s ‘Conservative Majority’ Plays By The Left’s Rules

    07/05/2025 9:49:28 PM PDT · 7 of 7
    nathanbedford to Sparticus
    The authors concern about fighting the enemy according to the enemy's rules is well taken.

    For example, the idea that we should dispose of the Constitution by discarding the founders understanding of the true role of the state vis-à-vis religion and morality consigns conservatives to a losing argument in many cases and is destructive of constitutional norms.

    However, the facts on the ground concerning, for example, the role of religion in colonial and early constitutional America that informed the framers' understanding of constitutional principles, might not apply today, rather the facts on the ground today might lead to very serious harm to conservative causes and, by extension, to society in general.

    The Judeo-Christian assumptions about morality were assumed by the framers to be proper for the state to accept and enforce free from judicial intermingling about the desirability of those assumptions. In part, the authors advocating a return to that legal framework.

    There are increasing geographical Muslim oblasts in parts of America such as Michigan in which Islam is gaining political control. Do we want a constitutional architecture in which that Muslim political majority can inflict sharia on society? Do we want to yield control of the schools to that philosophy?

    At the time of the founding of the Constitution the argument was over Protestant vs. Catholic doctrine which certainly might ignite serious dispute, but did not threaten the essential common understanding of the proper nature of society and man's place in the world. Islam is different.

    The essential nature of Islam is different from the Judeo-Christian faith that leads to irreconcilable differences about the role of the state and the virtue of a citizen's freedom of choice. We will have to find a doctrine that somehow protects that virtue while protecting that same citizen's right to his religious conviction.

  • Vlad gave his answer to peace, Mr. President: We must re-arm Ukraine

    07/05/2025 8:32:38 PM PDT · 103 of 105
    nathanbedford to kiryandil
    Shut the war talk, neocon.

    See reply #58.

  • Vlad gave his answer to peace, Mr. President: We must re-arm Ukraine

    07/05/2025 8:19:35 AM PDT · 62 of 105
    nathanbedford to odawg
    So, Ukraine could be pressured to give up those two disputed provinces, or we could honor those commitments you referred to and make ready for the end of civilization as we know it.

    I agree, I think Ukraine (and us) would be well out of it at the cost of two provinces. However, according to reports about Putin's last phone call with Trump, it appears that Putin says, or implies, he will be satisfied with nothing less than the whole of Ukraine.

    As Ronald Reagan once said, "if they will not see the light let them feel the heat."

  • Vlad gave his answer to peace, Mr. President: We must re-arm Ukraine

    07/05/2025 7:51:46 AM PDT · 58 of 105
    nathanbedford to odawg
    Add to that European leaders who strangely have been disassembling and destroying their own nations through immigration and tyranical control of their citizens but seek to pose as having pure motives with respect to Ukraine’s well-being.

    More from the same reply:

    I have commented in this forum several times (yes, at great length) about the damage we have inflicted upon ourselves in our vital relationships with our allies around the world who crucially depend on the United States of America to keep its word. Japan is in mortal fear of China and looks to the United States to be a trustworthy ally to defend Western democratic nations in the Pacific rim from a clearly rapacious China. South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and even Vietnam cannot in good conscience trust the lives of their children to a country that insouciantly repudiates its commitment to an ally in time of war simply because it changes presidents. Full Stop!

    I cannot tell you how many Germans are beside themselves by my country's betrayal of Ukraine. No need to tell anyone in America about how the Canadians are outraged at America's belligerence. The Japanese are frankly scared. It is not our concern that the Japanese sleep well at night, it is our concern that alliances hold together when that is necessary to contain China.

    It may be that Donald Trump has taken a very sober look at America's perilous fiscal state and concluded that we must withdraw into a fortress Western Hemisphere and hunker down from Panama to Greenland because that is all we can afford to manage. It may be that he believes that the conflict with China will depend entirely on our economy for survival so Ukraine, Europe and many other countries are simply baggage we cannot carry into a new cyber/mercantilist age that provides fiscal survival.

    I don't think that Donald Trump is unaware or indifferent to the need to maintain alliances that kept us safe for most of my lifetime. I think he is acutely aware of the risk from China and that may be why he feels an urgent need to sacrifice Ukraine to advance a larger conception of a new world order that contains China and converts Russia into a trade partner, if not an ally. It appears that he will sacrifice not just Ukraine but also Europe and run the risk of alienating Japan and our allies in the Pacific, doing whatever he is trying achieve. I cannot read his mind but I know that much of the world is reading his mind and they are not happy with what they see.

    I return to the issue, can America repudiate its commitments and still maintain its alliances? It may be that many Trump followers are indifferent or even eager to see America utterly disengaged from the world. We used to call that isolationism, now apparently it has been relabeled as America First, or opposition to Globalism, or repudiation of the Neocon ideology. The people who proudly wore the description, Isolationist, until Pearl Harbor have reappeared in spirit and are rehashing the same two ocean argument in an age of nuclear tipped hypersonic missiles. Two oceans did not perfectly secure us at Pearl Harbor and afterwards and in the modern age of satellites, hypersonic missiles, EAPs, cyber warfare, and God knows what's next, two oceans leave us even less secure today. Isolationism is the path to bondage or death.

    Isolationism will fail us because, like Rome, we will ultimately fail from the inside. China will not conquer America by landing their Marines on the beaches at San Diego, China will systematically encircle its tentacles around the world gradually strangling America while it corrupts us from within. Recent events in our universities, or the riots after George Floyd, or the Wall Street riots, and the corruption of every institution by China, should have awakened us to the reality that half of America would rejoice at our destruction. America, isolated and alone, threatened by a dominant China, cringing at the thought of nuclear war and at the mercy domestically of a growing leftist majority will simply succumb. The leftists among us will open the gates and invite the barbarians through. Isolationism is the path to bondage or death.

    We have alienated much of the world and forfeited whatever advantages our alliances offer and for no apparent upside. The war in Ukraine has not ended, Russia has not been put into safe mode, Europe is disillusioned and angry, China remains as menacing as ever, our alliances are ruined and the world simply does not trust us. Can all this be rationalized as party politics, or because we got a new president?

  • Vlad gave his answer to peace, Mr. President: We must re-arm Ukraine

    07/05/2025 7:44:09 AM PDT · 57 of 105
    nathanbedford to odawg
    From a reply I posted some time ago:

    Let me start by acknowledging where I agree with you. I too see it as a Democrat war and I too see the injustice that nearly got Trump thrown out of office in 2019. But I do not believe that party animus, no matter how justified even when directed at Democrats, excuses America from honoring its commitments.

    In point of fact, commitments were made to Ukraine which we are now blatantly reneging. Some of these commitments were made clandestinely, done by the CIA that encouraged the orange revolution and other commitments were made quite officially, like laws authorizing arms and money to Ukraine. Some of the commitments were grounded in immorality, like the corruption of Joe and Hunter Biden enriching themselves in Ukraine while acting in official capacity. Some of the commitments were made by the President of the United States in the course of his duties, the abrogation of which threatens the entire interdependent alliance arrangement of America that has kept us safe for nearly 3/4 of a century.

    Some of the commitments were made by the Congress of the United States including on camera speeches by Congressman and otherwise by Congress unanimously applauding the appearance of Zelinski at the joint session. Some of the commitments were made to Ukraine directly and some were made indirectly to our allies, allies in Europe whom we induced to support Ukraine because we said we would support Ukraine.

    I could go on but the point is made, to deny the United States of America committed to support Ukraine in the war is absurd.

    Further, that commitment was made in the normal course of the operation of the United States government and it was ratified on many occasions, officially and otherwise, by prominent Republicans acting within scope of their service in Congress or otherwise publicly before the whole nation. It was ratified many times by our official acts of government. As a nation we are not relieved of those commitments simply because the electorate came to its senses and gave the presidency to Donald Trump.

  • Vlad gave his answer to peace, Mr. President: We must re-arm Ukraine

    07/05/2025 6:54:53 AM PDT · 42 of 105
    nathanbedford to backpacker_c
    You mean it's Joe Biden's war, it was Congress' war, you mean it was the official, legal, constitutional war of the United States of America.

  • Vlad gave his answer to peace, Mr. President: We must re-arm Ukraine

    07/05/2025 6:42:39 AM PDT · 35 of 105
    nathanbedford to Rural_Michigan
    Not our war. Not our circus.

    That is precisely wrong. It is our war, we wanted it and we paid for it. Now as we tire of it, we will abandon Ukrainians who have died for it.

    We inveigled the Ukrainians into rejecting opportunity to negotiate peace with Russia by promising them support. We delivered that support, encourage them to fight on, we passed laws funding that support, visited them as president of the United States and expressed continued support, feted president Zelinski at a Joint Session of Congress, when we made new promises of aid and exhortations to continue to fight the war, and, unbelievably, unilaterally conducted unauthorized negotiations with Putin on Ukraine's behalf, falsely blamed Zelinski for starting the war and lied about the amount of financial aid we had sent.

    It is our war, we helped cause it, we funded it, we trained Ukraine's soldiers and taught them how to wage it, we provided intelligence, and we imposed sanctions against Russia to help win it. Our fingerprints are all over it, yet it is not our blood but Ukrainian blood that has been shed in it.

    Knowing this, tell us again whose "circus" is it that we have created?

  • Britain 'is on the brink of becoming a "second-tier" European nation like Spain due to economic decline and a weak military that makes us no use to our allies'

    07/05/2025 12:10:22 AM PDT · 16 of 52
    nathanbedford to vikingd00d
    Nathan Bedford's maxim #5:

    Failed socialism programs are never replaced with free market solutions but with more socialism.

  • DAD, WHAT's UNABHÄNGIGKEITSTAG?

    07/04/2025 12:03:35 PM PDT · 1 of 12
    nathanbedford
    Every year my wife asks, "are you going to post your vanity about the Declaration of Independence again this year?" Her question is really rhetorical, she knows I intend to post it because it has become a tradition in the family much like whether your family opens your Christmas presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. A family tradition for us as familiar as Thanksgiving turkey.

    For us, living as we do here in Germany, it is our way of holding fast to our America. Every year we keep the tradition and then await the reactions of FReepers which have been consistently gratifying and even heartwarming.

    So the tradition goes on well into its second decade as the imperative to cling to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution The 10 year old boy in the anecdote exchanged his Tee shirt for a tie and a real suit years ago and we all went proudly off to his German high school graduation, his Abschluss from Gymnasium. Our parental expectations had been, to paraphrase John Kennedy, to send him into the world and onto college equipped with the best of both worlds, a German education and an American birthright, bequeathed to him by the founders in the Declaration of Independence. Some years ago, he graduated from University.

    He has a piece of paper, written out in German, certifying his accomplishment of the course of study laid out in an elite German high school. There is a piece of parchment reposing in the Library of Congress drafted by Thomas Jefferson but written in blood at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Chosen Reservoir, Tet, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan.

    Both belong to him.... If he can keep them.