Cheney rushed to judgement, Lummis finding the facts

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, Rep. Elizabeth Cheney

Both women of Wyoming’s congressional delegation are in the national news. Only weeks after Liz Cheney’s re-election as the GOP conference chair, she faces a removal petition signed by 107—over half—of her colleagues. Lummis, on the hand, was publicly criticized by 78 members of the Wyoming Bar who published an open letter claiming that the very first vote of Wyoming’s first female senator, Cynthia Lummis, was “wrong.”

Both the recall petition and the open letter are related to former President Donald Trump. But that is where the similarity ends. Cheney’s troubles stem from her decision to defy 70 percent of her constituency and vote to impeach Trump only seven days before the end of his term. Lummis, in effect, did the opposite. She voted against the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes pending an investigation.

Much ink has been spilled on both sides of the issue. Was the election legitimate or illegitimate? Were President Trump’s actions in contesting it right or wrong? Kip Crofts, former U.S. Attorney for Wyoming, published a thorough and thoughtful article on the subject in the Cowboy State Daily. If his reasonable call for investigation ever comes to pass, America will learn the answers to these questions. If not, only the historians will know. Either way, time will tell.

My concern, however, is the present. Will we have the patience and self-discipline to find the facts that can allow us to rise above the frenzy? Or will we abandon rationality for mob rule.

The bloody streets of France’s reign of terror are the real-world consequences of mobs that ride the wave of emotion and rage. Such irrational destruction is denounced in the world’s best literature: Beauty and the Beast, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Rigoletto, to name a few. Harper Lee wrote of the injustice of the southern lynch mob in, To Kill a Mockingbird. All these warnings recall the hasty trial of Jesus and his unjust treatment in the courts of Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.

Wise Solomon warned us, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Proverbs 18:17). Western jurisprudence has spent centuries developing procedures and traditions designed to slow the rush to judgment enough that truth might prevail. Look back on recent history and remember how many lives and livelihoods were destroyed by rioting mobs chanting slogans that were, too late, proved false in a court of law.

Against this measure, Cheney’s vote is indefensible. The articles of impeachment make numerous assertions about “facts” that are by no means proven. Take this portion, for instance: “…incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had addressed, in an attempt to, among other objectives, interfere with the Joint Session’s solemn Constitutional duty to certify the results of the 2020 election…” In the space of a few lines, there are at least three unproved assertions.

First, breaches to Capitol security barriers began nearly a half-hour before—and two miles away from—where the President finished speaking at the Ellipse. Were these people motivated by words that they could not have heard? Second, these provocateurs were obviously not “members of the crowd he had addressed.” Third, do we know their objectives? Where they the same as—or even compatible with—the objectives of those who arrived later to find the security barriers already moved aside?

On the day that Cheney claimed to know these facts, the FBI was only seven days into its investigation. Since then, evidence to the contrary has mounted. It took a special counsel 30 months to disprove the “Russia collusion” theory. That, alone, should have cautioned Cheney from trusting the week-old accusations from her party’s opponents.

Cynthia Lummis, on the other hand, took a more careful posture. Her vote against the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes judged them to be neither fraudulent nor legitimate. She voted for more investigation, not less. It was a vote for a 10-day emergency audit to establish facts and address the legitimate concerns of tens of millions of voters.

Those who signed the open letter invoked the rules of the Wyoming Bar in their criticism. Does the Wyoming State Bar agree with them? Is it true that Lummis has a duty to “publicly affirm the legitimacy” of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes before she hears any answer to the legitimate concerns raised by Pennsylvania’s own lawmakers? Or is Lummis right in saying, “Each of us has a solemn duty to ensure that the slate of presidential electors we certify is beyond reproach, respecting the people’s voice and upholding the Constitution.”

Cheney condemned before there was even the possibility of investigation. Lummis’ critics want her to “publicly affirm the legitimacy of the results of the 2020 Presidential election” without investigation. Both fall into the same frenetic rush to judgment.

Mob rule is based on snap judgments. Civilization requires time for the deliberative process to find out the truth. Only then can justice prevail.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, 1/29/21.

...and the Cowboy State Daily, 2/2/21.

The Federalist: How The Supreme Court Made It Easier To Smear People As Racists And Scream The F-Word In Public

 

Instead of protecting true free speech, we’ve crushed the speech that matters most: the articulation and testing of the truth.

For the first time since Thomas Jefferson, Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited nonsensical and irrelevant ad hominem attacks to be both spoken on the floor of the House and to be entered into the permanent congressional record. Sadly, her invitation was eagerly accepted. Freshman Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., called President Trump “a white supremacist president,” and “white supremacist-in-chief,” while Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., called him “racist-in-chief.”

How did we get to this disgraceful state of affairs? The answer goes back to 1942.

Continue reading on the Federalist.

Free Speech is for all ideas, not all words

Author’s note: It is an uncomfortable exercise for this author to discuss obscene speech on paper. Nevertheless, because of the importance of the topic, it is attempted here in the most decorous way possible.

Walter Chaplinsky was a Jehovah’s Witness street preacher holding forth in downtown Rochester, New Hampshire. His message for the day was a general screed against organized religion. As the streets were blocked and the turmoil grew, authorities arrived to restore order. At this point, Chaplinsky turned his ire to the town marshal saying, “You are a G-d d-mned racketeer,” and “a d-mned fascist.”

Chapter 378, paragraph 2 of the New Hampshire Public Laws made it illegal for anyone to address “any offensive, derisive or annoying word to anyone who is lawfully in any street or public place ... or to call him by an offensive or derisive name.” Chaplinsky was arrested and cited for breaking this law. He contested New Hampshire’s public obscenity law claiming that it violated the First Amendment.

Eventually, his case worked its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Frank Murphy wrote the majority opinion against Chaplinsky. The Court held that “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words—those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”

This landmark decision established the “fighting words doctrine” on March 9, 1942. It is one thing to express an idea. It is quite another to do so using words which are not intended to serve “as a step to truth,” but “to inflict injury or to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” The First Amendment protects the expression of all ideas. It does not protect the public utterance of all words.

Notice that public obscenity laws harmoniously existed with the First Amendment for more than 150 years before the Supreme Court even thought it necessary to formulate a doctrine to explain why this is so. This is common sense. It does not require a linguistic scholar to know the difference between “the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting [words]” on the one hand, and words that convey thoughtful content on the other. The least-educated dolt knows the distinction as well as the university professor.

“Fighting words” attack the person without addressing the argument in the slightest. We learn this in the schoolyard from the earliest days. When the bully is called out for cutting in line, he is not likely to offer a reason why it was justified. He is more likely to say, “shut up, stupid.” Whether you are stupid or not, it remains wrong to cut in front of you. His response makes no sense.

This is so obvious that we rarely take the time to point out the irrationality of fighting words. It was so obvious to the Supreme Court that the prohibition and punishment of fighting words had “never been thought to raise any constitutional problem.” Their landmark decision stood until America lost its common sense.

On April 26, 1968, Paul Cohen was arrested in a corridor of the Los Angeles Courthouse for wearing a jacket that said, “F--- the Draft.” Like Chaplinsky, he contested California’s offensive conduct law on First Amendment grounds. Cohen was convicted according to California Penal Code. This conviction was upheld on appeal and denied review by the California Supreme Court.

The Warren Court

The case went to U.S. Supreme Court. On February 22, 1971 Chief Justice Warren Burger instructed Cohen’s lawyer, Melville Nimmer, that the offensive word in question need not be uttered in the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court. Seconds later, in an act of calculated defiance, Nimmer said, “What this young man did was to walk through a courthouse corridor wearing a jacket on which were inscribed the words, ‘F--- the Draft.’” Presumably, this was the first time in history that such a vile word was uttered in that setting.

Nimmer was not cited for contempt of court. Rather, he walked away with a 5-4 ruling that overturned 180 years of First Amendment jurisprudence. Justice John Harlan famously wrote for the majority, "...while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man's vulgarity is another's lyric."

This ruling unleashed a flood of obscenities and verbal injuries on the innocent public. It was not that Americans lost their common sense and decided that they wanted lewd, obscene, profane, libelous, and insulting words to become part of the public discourse. It happened, rather, because five men in black robes lost their common sense.

Have you ever wondered how American culture has gotten to the point that total strangers are permitted legally to scream vile obscenities to your face while policemen in riot gear stand by passively? This was brought to you by the same court that gave you Roe v. Wade. Nor was it always the case.

BLM mob accosts a diner in Washington, D.C.

Were this the only sad consequence of Cohen v. California, it would be bad enough. But things have devolved further still. In 1977 Cohen was cited as a reason to permit Nazis to carry their flag through a community of holocaust survivors while screaming insults. In 1978, the Federal Communications Commission lost its ability to keep obscenities off the air; and in 1986 public schools lost their authority to prevent students from screaming “F--- you,” in the halls of education.

Today, in the cruelest irony of all, “hate speech laws” have completely turned the table. Now there are certain ideas that cannot be expressed without public penalty. Florists, bakers, clerks and printers have been devastated by lost business, government fines and legal costs just for expressing the idea that male and female are not interchangeable. Meanwhile, the law permits them to be assailed with nonsensical words like, “hater,” “bigot,” and “Nazi.”

Such words do not serve as a “step to the truth.” Rather, they are meant to insult and incite economic and social violence against their targets. In 1942 Justice Murphy articulated, as a matter of timeless common sense, that the First Amendment protects the expression and defense of every idea as a valuable step towards discovering the truth. But the First Amendment does not protect the utterance of every possible obscenity because it does not elucidate the truth.

Now, only 80 years later, the case is reversed. Nonsensical, vile and intentionally injurious words are fully protected speech while the expression of certain ideas—even in the kindest possible terms—is strictly forbidden.

SCOTUS’ 1971 scuttling of obscenity laws was supposed to protect free speech. Instead, it has crushed the speech that matters most: the articulation and testing of the truth.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, 1/22/21.

...and the Cowboy State Daily, 1/20/21.

Architecture of the human spirit

Lincoln Memorial, Wahington, D.C.

Standing on Capitol Avenue in front of the Diocese of Cheyenne, visitors to Cheyenne can take in a wide-ranging sample of Capitol architecture. Look to the left and you see the stately lines of the Wyoming Supreme Court. Farther left you will see ennobling and inspiring Capitol Dome framed by the trees of Capitol Avenue. Continue sweeping left until your back is to the Diocese and your view is obstructed by the imposing concrete mass of the Joseph C. O’Mahoney Federal Center.

Built in 1964, the Federal Center is typical of the modernist buildings that the federal government began to impose on cities across America after World War II. Architectural purists may scorn me for saying so, but the building is neither beautiful nor inspiring. Those with a trained eye will surely point out a thousand interesting details, but none of them can draw the eye and command immediate respect like the Capitol or the Supreme Court Building.

That’s the objective nature of beauty. The common man can recognize it immediately even while a lifetime of study may fail to define it fully. The same is true of inspiration, nobility and respect. Like other common senses, the common man has the capacity to perceive transcendent qualities even if he lacks the vocabulary to define them.

The founding fathers knew this and planned accordingly. According to President Trump’s Executive Order on Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture, signed December 21, 2020, “They wanted America’s public buildings to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue.” That’s an objective and measurable goal that they wanted to accomplish through the art of architecture.

To accomplish this, “President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson consciously modeled the most important buildings in Washington, D.C., on the classical architecture of ancient Athens and Rome. They sought to use classical architecture to visually connect our contemporary Republic with the antecedents of democracy in classical antiquity, reminding citizens not only of their rights but also their responsibilities in maintaining and perpetuating its institutions.”

Pantheon in Athens, Greece

Before reading these lines, I must confess that I had given little thought to the purpose and function of public architecture. Perhaps I took it for granted. Was the look of Washington, D.C. merely a thoughtless whim? It turns out that our founding fathers were not prisoners of their own times and personal tastes. On the contrary, they deliberately chose the appearance of federal buildings “to inspire the American people and encourage civic virtue.”

Public buildings are the kind of art that is impossible to avoid. You can choose not to see a movie, or to patronize an art gallery. You can spend your entire life and never go to a concert. But government buildings are unavoidably public monuments. There is no choice but to see them, and to see them is to be affected by them.

Your heart is affected differently when approaching a massive concrete block than it is when passing through tall marble columns. You may not notice it until the experience is brought to your attention, but architects have studied these effects and design buildings with these principles in mind.

For the first century and a half of America’s existence, an unbroken tradition followed the intention of Washington and Jefferson. America’s public buildings called forth the nobility of the Roman republic and the Greek citizen. These familiar shapes filled hearts with pride, lifted minds to noble thoughts and assured individuals that their God-given rights would be recognized.

But, shortly after the second World War that changed. America had just defeated the brutal modernist governments that reduced their citizens to mere machines. Fifty million humans had been crushed under the wheels of war. Yet, in bitter irony, we brought their architecture home and began to design public buildings that looked more like crushing factories than ennobled halls.

The Executive Order signed before Christmas is a deliberate reversal of more than six decades of inhuman architecture. It is a return to the ethics of the founding fathers. It embodies the simple assertion: “Federal public buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, and command respect from the general public.”

As we stand on the threshold of a new year, my heart is encouraged and inspired to know that a new generation of architects will be unleashed to construct buildings for our children and grandchildren that speak to the common man about uncommon virtues. They promise to draw on the wisdom of the past while guiding our way into the future.

Pres. Trump signing the Order

Beauty, inspiration, nobility and respect resonate in every human heart. They should not be set aside as relics of the past but celebrated as beacons of the American spirit. I applaud President Trump’s architectural vision for bringing federal architecture back to its roots.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, 1/1/21.

WTE: How Christmas brings the world together

Christmas is, without a doubt, the greatest unifying holiday on the world’s calendar. In these days of turmoil and division we cannot do better than to think on this blessed unity during these holy days.

First, consider how Christmas unifies us on a cultural level. It remains one of the few holidays that all Americans celebrate together. Globally it stands with Easter as the only two holidays that are celebrated on every continent. On December 25th of each year people from Siberia to South Africa to San Francisco set their minds on a singular event that forever changed the world.

Christ’s birth made such an impact around the globe that nearly every person alive can name the number of years since his birth without a moment’s hesitation. While scholars may quibble about whether the ancient calculations were completely accurate, it cannot be denied that the year 2020 intends to count the years since Jesus’ birth.

For all the time before Christ, civilizations marked time by the establishment of a new local kingdom. Judea might note the year as, “the 39th year of King Uzziah.” Next door, Israel had a different king; and that same year was called the first year of King Jabesh (See 2 Kings 15:13).

With rare exceptions, that is no longer the custom. Rather, nations the world over all count back to the date of Jesus’ birth. We acknowledge this every time we put the letters “A.D.” after the year. These initials stand for the Latin words “anno domini,” which are translated, “in the year of our Lord.”

This reveals the second of Christmas’ unifying qualities. It declares that Jesus is the king of all the earth. While the ancient world knew of great and sprawling empires like those of the Persians, Greeks and Romans, never was there a single man ruling over the entire globe. The birth of Christ changed all that.

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder” (Isaiah 9:6). The “King of kings and Lord of lords” was born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger (see Revelation 17:14 and 19:16).

Of course, the principalities and powers of this world are always attempting to achieve a one-world government. By the exercise of raw power through vast stores of wealth, they believe that they can solve the world’s problems if only they can control one more lever of power. Yet, the more power they gain, the more misery spreads.

Jesus’ lordship is not like that. He rules not by raw power, but by self-sacrifice. The Creator was born as a man to give His life as a ransom for the sins of the world. What sets Jesus apart from every other king and lord is that he knows the true cause of the world’s division.

The hate, anger and lust that destroy and divide us are not caused by the differences among us. They are caused by the sin within us. So, the unity that Jesus brings to the world is not accomplished by the mere shuffling of power, wealth and status. The unity that is the true hope for the world is brought about by addressing the problem of sin. For Christendom, that means repentance.

This is what makes Christmas truly unifying. Unity begins when each of us, individually, stops blaming others for the evils around us. When we face up to the greed, lust, anger and ill will in our own hearts, the Christ-child comes with His forgiveness to reconcile us to all those who are around us.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it well. “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.” Jesus brings reconciliation not by forcing others to treat us differently, but by changing our own hearts. This permits us to love and be loved despite our sins.

When sins are real and cause real harm, forgiveness cannot be mere sentimentality. Real forgiveness comes at a high price. That is why Jesus’ lordship over the world was brought about by his own self-sacrifice. By paying the debt that we cannot pay, He reconciles us to one another by restoring what others stole from us by their sin and by restoring to others what we stole from them. This, and this alone, brings unity and good will to the world.

As you celebrate the birth of Jesus, seek out the true unity that He came to bring.

“O come, Desire of Nations, Bind in one the hearts of all mankind; Bid Thou our sad divisions cease, And be Thyself our King of Peace. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to Thee, O Israel.”

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, December 25, 2020.

...and the Cowboy State Daily, December 24, 2020.

WTE: China’s attack requires an immediate bipartisan response

Foreign policy is not a high priority for the average American. But an international storm has broken that requires immediate attention. Wyoming’s lone representative, Liz Cheney, took to the airwaves last Wednesday to say that “the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], the Chinese government, is on the attack against the United States of America.”

Earlier John Ratcliffe, the U.S. director of national intelligence (DNI), wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point [as DNI], it is that the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.”

“The intelligence is clear,” Ratcliffe continued, “Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Only days later, video surfaced showing a professor from Beijing bragging to a November 28 conference of approving communists that “we have people at the top” of American institutions. Embarrassed by the candor, the CCP immediately censored the video.

Most recently, documents unmasking millions of CCP members embedded in corporations and governments around the world were leaked to the public. According to the New York Post, each has sworn to, “fight for communism throughout my life, be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party and the people, and never betray the party [and] guard party secrets, be loyal to the party.” Nearly two million of these oath-takers sit in positions of power in international corporations from Boeing to Pfizer, communication giants and governments around the world.

All of this should put into perspective the recent revelations about Eric Swalwell and the Chinese spy who helped fund his meteoric rise to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. It should be borne in mind as the Department of Justice investigations into James and Hunter Biden’s China deals are reported.

Everybody knows that graft and corruption are crimes. But fewer people consider how selling one’s influence for financial gain harms anyone. After all, if some politician or corporate huckster can leverage his position to earn a few million bucks, isn’t that the American dream? How does that hurt me?

For starters, remember that bribes are money with strings attached. Those who give lucrative deals to American corporations and politicians want something in return—and they have ways of making sure they get it. What they want are domestic and foreign policies that favor them and disadvantage their enemies.

Here's the rub. Anyone who speaks, assembles and worships freely is considered an enemy by the CCP. The recent arrest and imprisonment of Agnus Chow, Joshua Wong and Ivan Lam demonstrate this point. They were betrayed by the globalist corporations and politicians that should have fought alongside of them.

These young heroes led the citizens of Hong Kong to stand up for the rights that the CCP guaranteed to them in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Beijing made a promise to the world and the world should have held them to that promise.

Instead, through money and power lavished on private individuals and corporations, the CCP persuaded the world to turn their backs on the Chinese people. The civil rights of Hongkongers, protected by international treaty, evaporated in the span of a single decade. Now these young people are in prison for legal activities that were deemed “crimes” retroactively.

International corporations and corrupt politicians sold the human rights of seven million Hong Kong citizens for personal enrichment. We who support these corporations and politicians are complicit in the betrayal. And unless America acts with resolve today, still more human beings will be sold into slavery tomorrow. The 24 million people of Taiwan are next in the crosshairs of the CCP.

America fought a bloody war to end slavery. And yet, the Apple corporation recently lobbied congress against the “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act” which is designed to stop the CCP from using the slave labor of three million citizens to make products for American corporations. This is shameful.

All Americans—across the political spectrum—must demand the vigorous investigation and prosecution of graft and corruption on Wall Street and in Washington, in Silicon Valley and wherever it may be found. We must not allow political considerations to shield one party or another. We must not give in to corporate greed that would protect our favorite name-brands from investigation and prosecution.

Ratcliffe is right. The CCP poses “the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.” The hour is late. The time to act is now.

 Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, December 19, 2020.

Graft and corruption are not victimless crimes

Agnes Chow, Joshua Wong and Ivan Lam convicted November 22, 2020

Agnes Chow was only 14 years old when the Chinese Communist Party tried to impose a law in Hong Kong that Christian schools must teach communist “moral and national education.” Communist morals are designed to undermine families, religion, property rights and community cohesion.

A Roman Catholic, attending Holy Family Canossian College, she joined a sit-in to protest the law. As a citizen of Britain and a resident of Hong Kong she was exercising the right to speak that was guaranteed by the Sino-British Joint Declaration signed in 1984.

When Beijing backed down, that should have freed her to be a child again. But it didn’t. As the CCP kept violating its commitments to Hong Kong’s seven million British citizens, Chow kept joining greater and greater numbers of fellow citizens to protest Beijing’s injustices.

In June of 2019 two million people flooded the streets of Hong Kong to speak against an extradition arrangement. That law would have permitted the CCP to arrest political enemies in Hong Kong and bury them in the secret prisons and labor camps on mainland China.

The extradition proposal was withdrawn but came back with a vengeance. On July 1, 2020, Beijing unilaterally imposed a new “security law.” This law enables the CCP’s secret police to operate in Hong Kong. It is written vaguely enough that virtually any speech or assembly protesting communist policies can be deemed a crime. And it criminalized actions that took place before the law went into effect.

Soon afterwards, the arrests began. Chow and several others who were prominent in the June 2019 protests were charged with organizing an “unlawful assembly.” On Monday, December 2, the day before her 24th birthday, she was sentenced to spend ten months behind bars. In ten short years Hong Kong went from China’s guaranteed haven of free speech to a police-state.

Chow is among the first to be imprisoned. But more, many more, will follow. Moreover, the threat of aggression from the CCP will not end when Hong Kong’s freedoms are devoured. Across a narrow strait of sea sits the independent island of Taiwan. The CCP does not recognize the independence of Taiwan. If it is successful in imposing communism on Hong Kong, Taiwan will be next in its crosshairs.

President Richard Nixon visits China in 1972

Five decades of trade with the Chinese communists have lulled most Americans into thinking that they are a benign business partners with the same goals as Wall Street—to make money. But as should be obvious by their treatment of Hong Kong, Beijing is quite willing to sacrifice the prosperity created by freedom in pursuit of power.

John Ratcliffe, the U.S. director of national intelligence (DNI), published a column in the Wall Street Journal the day after Chow was sentenced. He wrote, “If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point [as DNI], it is that the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.” These are strong words.

“The intelligence is clear,” Ratcliffe wrote, “Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.”

As if any more corroboration was needed, a November 28 video of Di Dongsheng, a Chinese communist official surfaced soon afterwards. It showed him bragged to an audience of CCP elites that “we have people at the top” of American institutions.

Di Dongsheng, November 28, 2020

Days later, a 2015 database file was leaked showing 1.95 million members of the Chinese Communist Party that have infiltrated corporations and governments around the world. They sit in positions of power at places like Boeing, Pfizer and other international corporations. Others are employed in government. All present serious threats to America’s national security.  

All of this should put into perspective the recent revelations about Eric Swalwell and the Chinese spy who helped fund his meteoric rise to the U.S. House Intelligence Committee. It should be born in mind as the mainstream media finally begins to report on the Department of Justice investigations into James and Hunter Biden.

Everybody knows that graft and corruption for financial gain are crimes. But fewer people spend time thinking about why they are crimes. After all, if some politician or corporate huckster can leverage his position to earn a few million bucks, isn’t that the American dream? How does that hurt me?

For starters, we should remember that bribes are not free money. They have strings attached. Those who give lucrative deals to American corporations and politicians want something in return—and they have ways of making sure that they get it. What they want are domestic and foreign policies that favor them and disadvantage their enemies.

Agnus Chow is considered an enemy by the CCP—as is anyone who speaks, assembles and worships freely. Every deal of graft and corruption with the CCP that lines the pocket of someone lucky enough to have connections is paid for by innocent people like Agnes.

Selling out the human rights of Chinese nationals does not only affect China. It spills over to Taiwan and into America itself. The selling of public influence for private gain is as evil as it gets. It betrays the American public and every good thing that America should be doing in the world.

America fought a bloody war to end slavery, had momentous struggles to secure civil rights for all people, and continues to stand against oppression wherever it may be found. Yet, the Apple corporation recently lobbied congress against the “Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act” which is designed to stop the Chinese Communists from using the slave labor of three million citizens to make products for American corporations. Similarly, the National Basketball Association stifles public criticism of the CCP’s mass arrests and genocide of the Uyghur people.

All of this, and much more, makes millions for American and Chinese financial elites at the expense of both countries’ citizens. It is outrageous that American business is so deeply entangled with the CCP that they regularly turn a blind eye to injustice and actively fight against policies that would protect the basic human rights of people under the thumb of the Chinese communists.

All American people—across the political spectrum—must demand a vigorous investigation and prosecution of graft and corruption on Wall Street and Washington, in Silicon Valley and wherever it may be found. We must not allow political considerations to shield one party or another. We must not give in to corporate greed that would protect our favorite name-brands from investigation and prosecution.

If America is to remain a beacon of freedom to the world, it must stand up to China now. The hour is late. The freedom of America itself is now in jeopardy.