Political Pistachio
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Free economies are subject to the law of supply and demand and the concept of incentives. For free markets to prosper, government intervention in markets must remain at a minimum. Government interference, after all, alters human and business behavior.
“If you tax something, you will get less of it.” The economic saying is a direct consequence of how taxes impact the cost of goods and services.
The Law of Demand states that, all else being equal, as the price of a good or service increases, the quantity demanded for that good or service decreases. A tax is effectively an increase in price.
For Consumers, when a government imposes a tax on a product (like a gasoline tax or a cigarette tax), the price that consumers pay goes up. Faced with a higher price, some consumers may make the decision to buy less of the product, switch to cheaper alternatives, or stop buying it altogether. A high tax on cigarettes, for example, is designed specifically to make smoking more expensive and thus reduce consumption.
For producers a tax becomes an increase in the cost of doing business. The price they receive for their product is effectively lower (after the tax is paid to the government) which ultimately reduces their profit margin, making the production of the good less attractive. Some producers may then work to offset the cost by reducing their workforce, reducing the quality, or they might reduce their output. Other producers may exit the market entirely to pursue more profitable ventures.
Taxes create a disincentive. They make an activity more costly, whether that activity is working, investing, or producing a good.
Income taxes work the same. High marginal income tax rates can disincentivize individuals from working more hours or seeking higher-paying jobs, as a larger portion of their additional earnings goes to the government.
The existence of capital gains taxes, or increasing them to a high level, can disincentivize people from investing their capital, which can reduce the funds available for businesses to expand and innovate.
The degree to which a tax reduces activity depends on its “price elasticity of demand.” If demand for a product is sensitive to price changes, like with restaurant meals, a tax will cause a significant drop in quantity. If people are not very sensitive to price, like with gasoline or insulin, the reduction in quantity will be smaller, but the government will collect more revenue unless the tax becomes so burdensome that people are simply unable to continue to purchase the product.
Progressives believe that fossil fuel energy must be reduced to save the planet, so they’ve increased taxation across the board to reduce the use of these fuels. They’ve added taxes on carbon emissions which are also intended to make fossil fuel energy more expensive, thereby encouraging a shift toward cleaner, renewable energy sources. The problem is, the alternative products would need to be less expensive in order for consumers to make the switch, and those products are not – so, to get people to abandon fossil fuels they’ve used subsidies to make the alternatives more affordable, which then creates a whole new problem.
The subsidies cost money, and since the usage of fossil fuels has been reduced as hoped (though perhaps not to the level hoped for), the tax revenue has been reduced as well. So, to replace the falling revenue progressives are calling for mileage taxes and a scheme to increase taxes on the wealthy and larger corporations. They figure the rich have plenty of money, so that’s a pool of money they can keep going to in order to fund their subsidies that they can no longer afford using other funding sources.
Sweden chased a similar concept of “Tax on the Rich” in the 1990s, and the result for that country was catastrophic. Sweden imposed extremely high taxes (up to 85%) on top earners. This led to a significant brain drain, where wealthy individuals and high-earning professionals left the country, and many entrepreneurs simply stopped expanding their businesses to avoid entering the highest tax bracket. The government eventually had to reverse course.
The subsidization of progressive pipedreams also run against basic economic principles. As the old saying goes, “If you subsidize an industry, you will kill the industry.”
The saying might seem counterintuitive. How can giving money to an industry kill it? The answer lies in how subsidies distort market signals and create dependency.
In a free market, prices act as signals. A high price for a product signals that it is in high demand or that it is scarce, encouraging more producers to enter the market and increase supply which then will lower the price and then encourage more consumption. A low price that gets too low signals the opposite and then the system self-corrects until the cost changes direction, or other factors change course. Subsidies corrupt these signals.
A subsidy allows inefficient companies to survive. In a competitive market, a company that cannot produce a good or service at a low enough cost to make a profit would go out of business. Its resources (labor, capital, land) would then be freed up and reallocated to more productive and efficient industries. A subsidy masks this inefficiency, allowing the weak company to continue wasting valuable resources and negatively influencing the market.
When a company knows it will receive a government check regardless of its performance, the incentive to innovate, cut costs, improve quality, or respond to consumer demands is severely reduced. Why go through the difficult work of becoming more efficient when the government will cover your losses? This leads to stagnation.
Industries that become reliant on subsidies often lose the ability to compete on their own. They focus their energy on lobbying for more subsidies rather than on improving their products. This creates a vicious cycle where the industry’s survival depends entirely on continued government support, not on its own merits. This is a form of moral hazard, where the industry is insulated from the consequences of its own bad decisions, and government artificially holds up a market. The longer that goes on, when reality finally causes it to adjust the burst of the bubble becomes more severe the longer the artificial support by government lasts.
Private investors are less likely to invest in an industry that is heavily subsidized. They know they will have to compete with companies that have an unfair advantage from the government, and the long-term health of the industry is questionable due to the distortions caused by the subsidies.
Before its collapse, Venezuela’s oil industry was a source of massive subsidies for the entire economy. The government used oil revenue to subsidize everything from gasoline to food. When oil prices fell, the entire system collapsed because the underlying industries had become completely dependent on the government’s handouts and were not efficient or sustainable on their own. The industry itself was starved of reinvestment as money was diverted elsewhere.
Free markets work best when prices reflect reality. Taxes distort reality by making things seem more expensive than they are, and subsidies distort reality by making things seem cheaper and more viable than they are. Both interventions by government, while often well-intentioned, lead to unintended negative consequences by disrupting the natural incentives that drive efficiency, innovation, and prosperity.
Which brings us to the Electric Vehicle Industry. Automakers are pulling back from the Electric Vehicle industry. It is costing them tens of billions of dollars. That’s a lot of money for any major industry to lose. This brings us back to the iron law of economics we just discussed: If you want to kill an industry, subsidize it.
The green energy industry (solar and wind power), which has been heavily boosted with taxpayer dollars for almost 50 years now, is still an inconsequential form of overall energy supply. Dozens of allegedly promising firms collected billions of taxpayer dollars and were supposed to be the energy companies of the future. Now they have vanished, never to rise again.
Electric Vehicles are proving to be an even larger bust. Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars have been thrown into the EV industry by former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Market growth was never achieved, and now it is all falling apart at the seams.
While in a competitive market EVs and hybrids may possess a niche for certain buyers, progressives so obsessed with ending fossil fuel consumption overnight used bad economic principles to kill the very industries they believed government could create and sustain. For them, to save the planet from the highly questionable concept of Climate Change, they demanded an immediate transition to electric cars. They called upon Americans to obey their plans for a new industry because the government says so, and because if you don’t the coastal cities will all be under water, soon.
The coastlines are fine, and what they were doing from an economic point of view was that they were sowing the seeds of the industry’s own destruction. The industry rose because it was hooked on the fool’s profits of taxpayer handouts for EVs, including $7,500 tax credit to entice people to buy an EV, billions of dollars of manufacturing subsidies, free charging stations, choice parking spaces, and other special treatments.
As with Obamacare, the large corporations got sucked in with a promise of new customers and the promise that government will keep funding it whether it succeeds or fails. In truth, they were building cars for the politicians, not the car buyers. That’s not how free markets succeed. But, if they truly understood economics, the arrogant collectivist politicians in Washington would have never followed such a folly-laced path. Free markets abhor government intervention, government interference kills competition and incentive, and Americans love our cars and our freedom of choice in a free market. We were never going to allow the politicians to dictate to us what kind of car to buy and drive.
EV sales also had to endure tales of drivers being stranded in the mountains with no juice left in the battery, or cars not starting on frigid winter mornings. This made car buyers wary. Also, there have been legitimate concerns about putting the entire transportation system on the strained electric grid system that still runs on a foundation that is based on nineteenth century ideas.
So, despite all the federal and state handouts to the industry, EV sales fell by half in 2025 once the tax credit expired last year. Sales have fallen to their lowest level in four years. Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis all lost money thanks to overinvestment in EVs. The unsold cars are now piling up on the dealer lots because few want them, nor can afford them without the subsidies attached.
Someday, perhaps, electric cars may be the vehicles of choice in the future. That will depend on the incentive of innovation that may eventually lead to battery technology improving. The cost of the batteries, and the cars in general, still remains too high, and the reliability for any driving beyond around town is just not where it needs to be if anyone is going to be convinced to spend that kind of money on a vehicle.
The growth of the industry, and the incentive by consumers to participate in the market will never develop as long as government sticks its subsidies and regulations into the auto industry. As economists have been saying ever since the ideas of a free market first appeared in history, the power to tax and the power to subsidize is the power to destroy.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
As the Epstein Files continue to be released, a few truths are beginning to become known. Jeffrey Epstein didn’t have much education or a strong business background, yet rose to become a wealthy person through shady “financier” dealings. He operated a sophisticated sex trafficking and abuse ring, yet aside from Ghislaine Maxwell, nobody seems to know anything about how he ran it and who was a part of it. Through his connections among wealthy elites from around the world he was able to prey on underage girls for years, using properties in Palm Beach, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Paris for his criminal locations.
The case regarding Epstein goes way beyond the operations of a lone man and his crimes. The whole thing is about a systemic failure of the justice system and the alleged complicity of a powerful network of individuals. Judges looked the other way and officials took actions that circumstantially looks like they were complicit as Epstein recruited and sexually abused an unknown number of minor girls. He created a web of exploitation that included using girls to help him recruit other victims, and a payment system that compensated girls for things that included massages that turned sexual.
In 2008, despite a mountain of evidence from a federal investigation, Epstein received a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida. After pleading guilty to a single count of soliciting prostitution from a minor, he was sentenced to a mere 18 months in a county jail. The deal granted him and any potential co-conspirators immunity from federal prosecution. While the experts call it a monumental failure of justice, the average onlooker comes to one simple conclusion: who was it inside the system that had enough levers to pull to protect him, and ultimately to hide and bury the deep dark secrets surrounding the man?
In 2019, after years of investigative journalism by a number of outlets, the 2008 deal was brought to light, so federal prosecutors reopened the case. Epstein was arrested in July of 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges, and a month later was found dead in his jail cell. While the experts called it a suicide, too many questions remained regarding how he died. Recent revelations are revealing a number of things that makes one consider that he may have been murdered inside his jail cell.
Over the years the massive trove of documents that have accumulated regarding Jeffrey Epstein have come to be known as the “Epstein Files.” The files largely regard a defamation lawsuit brought by one of his prominent victims, Virginia Giuffre, against Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. The files, along with other court documents and flight logs, have been revealing a view into Epstein’s operation that seems to be providing more questions than answers.
In the documents a number of high profile individuals – politicians, business leaders, academics and royalty – are named as associating with Epstein. While being mentioned in the files does not necessarily serve as proof of any wrongdoing, the list of people named definitely illustrates the kind of powerful elite circles Epstein moved in and used for protection and legitimacy.
The Epstein Files reveals Ghislaine Maxwell’s role in Epstein’s operations, and even cement her role as his indispensable partner. She was his girlfriend, and an active participant in the recruitment, grooming, and abuse of victims. In 2021, she was convicted on federal charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
According to victim testimony inside the documents girls were trafficked not only to Epstein, but also to his powerful friends, revealing the abuse was widespread and that it was a service he provided to his network. Those who could be considered enablers include a circle of staff, recruiters, and financial professionals – individuals who helped facilitate the abuse and keep the operation running.
The Epstein case has emerged as a stark example of how wealth and power can be, and has been, used to evade justice. It highlights how the sickness of a dark world goes so deep that our legal and social institutions are somehow filled with people who are either complicit or a part of a failing system that could be interpreted as “looking the other way.” The “predator” we know as Jeffrey Epstein operated for decades without even a worry because he was not only ignored by the people who should have been investigating him, but he was assisted by inside people along the way. Yet, no matter how massive his network was, nobody knows details or have come forward to break the case wide open. It’s a chilling reminder that there are some people who are so rich and connected that they use the system knowing that they will be treated differently because of their position in society.
The most sickening part of the whole thing is not only that the truth seems to be unable to completely reveal itself, but that the very people who may be the most guilty are the same ones trying to pin the Epstein world on President Donald Trump. Many of those people are allegedly progressive leftist Democrats, and they and their left-wing allies, for political reasons that surround their hatred of Trump, are doing all they can to plant seeds to make the public believe that Trump was somehow involved with Epstein, or knew about the man’s sick operation. Before she died, victim Virginia Giuffre testified that Trump was not a part of Epstein’s world. Ghislaine Maxwell has also testified that Trump was not a part of the inner-circle, and only knew Epstein because they moved around in a few of the same circles. At one point, Donald Trump kicked Jeffry Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club, a story supported by multiple accounts. Trump’s action followed an incident where Epstein harassed the teenage daughter of a Mar-a-Lago member at the club’s pool in either mid-2006 or late 2007 (the exact date has been unclear), before Epstein’s 2008 “sweetheart deal” that led to federal prosecutors backing off, and Epstein’s arrest in 2019 (which, by the way, happened during Trump’s presidency). Trump’s action to kick Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago includes a comment by Trump that Epstein was “being a creep.” One file documents Trump telling Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter in 2019 that “people in New York knew he [Epstein] was disgusting” and that Ghislaine Maxwell was “evil” and that police should “focus on her.”
The Democrats, however, are persistent. Their hatred of Trump reaches beyond reason. So, even though every indication reveals that Trump had little to do with Epstein, and that Trump even kicked the man out of Mar-a-Lago and left instructions that if Epstein showed up at the gates of Mar-a-Lago, he was to be turned away immediately, they continue to insist that Trump was somehow on the inside of Epstein’s sick dark world. I’ve heard a number of leftist media people and politicians call Trump a “pedo,” and images from the 1990s and early 2000s of Trump and Epstein at the same parties and events keep circulating the internet. They want desperately for voters to believe there is some kind of connection because they know they can’t win in the arena of ideas, and the election-cheat they tend to rely on is being tainted by election integrity efforts, so they have to continue with their effort to besmirch Trump’s name.
Which brings me to the point of this article. My wife told me she keeps seeing images of Trump and Epstein together on social media. “Is there any truth to them?” she asked me.
When we lived in Southern California, I was very involved politically. I am in a number of pictures taken with people I don’t necessarily agree with politically, some of them who I thought were allies at the time. I knew them, I bumped into them at gatherings and political meetings, but that does not necessarily mean that they were my allies or that I was “buddies” with them. After explaining this to my wife, it helped her understand the images that have emerged of Trump in the same room as Epstein. As a businessman, Trump’s business included seeking investors for his projects. Epstein, operating as an alleged financier, moved in the same circles as the folks with position and money that Trump was around. They were bound to be in the same room as each other on a number of occasions. But, as we should very well know if we are to use our logic and reasoning skills, proximity does not always indicate complicity.
They are just pictures.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
| Tuesday Online Constitution Class |
  3:30 PM Pacific Online Constitution Class |
| Online Mr. Constitution Class www.mr-constitution.com Arrival of the Saxons and Protestantism on British Shores. Untold History Channel – (locate the shows labeled “Learn the Constitution”): https://rumble.com/c/UntoldHistoryChannel |
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Once the United States achieved independence, one of the consequences was that American shipping lost British protection. Presidents George Washington and John Adams paid about $1.25 million in tribute money (protection tax from Muslim harassment) to the Barbary States, nearly a fifth of the U.S. annual budget, by the end of the eighteenth century. Both presidents preferred appeasement and payment of the tribute in the hope of protecting American shipping from piracy rather than military confrontation, but their attempts to avoid war simply led to broken treaties and additional monies paid as ransom for American captives – often sailors of the American ships captured who were then enslaved by the Muslims. While President Washington signed the Naval Act of 1794 authorizing a navy to counter threats directly, and signed treaties, the attacks continued. President Adams’ attempt to appease the Islamic maritime predators concluded with a 1799 treaty with Tripoli where he provided $18,000 in additional payments and denied in writing America’s Christian foundation in the hopes of satisfying the anti-Christian “Musselmen.”
By the time President Thomas Jefferson achieved the presidency, the failures of the previous presidents had led to a very expensive situation that had done nothing but delay conflict. President Thomas Jefferson determined that a weak position against Muslim military forces taking advantage of America, and crippling America’s foreign trade efforts, posed a threat to American interests and the lives of Americans on the high seas. Unwilling to give in to the Islamic states of North Africa and the Middle East, he sent the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps to the Mediterranean Sea to resolve the issue.
President Thomas Jefferson believed that the best way to handle it was to hit the Barbary States with a hard “shock and awe” style campaign. His decision was a deliberate and radical departure from the policy of appeasement practiced by his predecessors. Jefferson loathed the policies of the previous administrations believing that appeasement and paying a tribute only emboldened the enemy and was fundamentally incompatible with American sovereignty and honor.
Jefferson believed that bowing to extortion made a nation weak. He famously stated, “The taste of being forever humbled before an enemy is not a pleasant one.” He argued that the millions paid in tribute over the years could have funded a permanent navy capable of ending the threat for good. He believed a republic, unlike the monarchies of Europe, could not and should not engage in such debasing practices. It was a matter of national character. Jefferson’s vision was that true, lasting peace was not purchased but secured through credible military strength. He was willing to incur the short-term costs of war to establish a long-term principle: the United States would not be bullied.
When Jefferson took office in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli, Yussif Karamanli, sensing a change in administration, demanded a larger tribute. When Jefferson refused, the Pasha declared war by chopping down the flagpole at the U.S. consulate. Jefferson was ready.
His response had all the hallmarks of a shock and awe campaign, designed to overwhelm the enemy with a sudden, decisive, and unexpected application of force.
Instead of sending diplomats with money, Jefferson dispatched a naval squadron; the very thing his predecessors had avoided. He sent Commodore Richard Dale with three frigates (the President, Philadelphia, and Essex) and a schooner (Enterprise) across the Atlantic. This was a monumental logistical undertaking for the young U.S. Navy and a stunning message.
The American ships immediately established a blockade of the Barbary coast. In August 1801, the USS Enterprise, a much smaller vessel, engaged and soundly defeated the Tripolitan corsair Tripoli in a one-sided battle. This was a powerful psychological blow, demonstrating that American naval technology and skill were superior.
The war continued for four years, longer than Jefferson had hoped, but he realized it was necessary in order to destroy the offensive abilities of the enemy. The U.S. Navy relentlessly bombarded the fortified cities of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis. They captured enemy vessels and supported local allies against the Pasha.
Then came the ultimate “Shock and Awe” moment – the Derna Operation. This is the clearest example of shock and awe among Jefferson’s military operations. In 1805, Jefferson authorized a land operation. A force of about 500 U.S. Marines and mercenaries (led by William Eaton and Marine First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon) marched 500 miles across the desert from Egypt to surprise the port of Derna.
On April 27, 1805, in conjunction with naval gunfire from the USS Argus, Nautilus, and Hornet, this force launched a coordinated assault and captured the city of Derna. It was the first time the American flag was raised in victory on foreign soil. The sheer audacity of a cross-desert march and a successful amphibious-assault-style attack was a profound shock to the Barbary leaders.
Jefferson’s strategy was a deliberate use of overwhelming and unexpected force to achieve a psychological and strategic break from the past. It was designed to shock the Barbary States out of their assumption that the U.S. was a weak, easy target and to awe them with American resolve and capability.
The First Barbary War did not end the threat entirely, but it fundamentally altered the dynamic. The United States proved it would fight for its principles and its commerce. It established a precedent of using the navy to protect national interests abroad that would define American foreign policy for the next two centuries. Jefferson’s decision was a rejection of the old-world diplomacy of appeasement and the birth of a new American doctrine of projecting power to defend its sovereignty.
While Jefferson’s war had demonstrated American resolve, it did not completely end the Barbary threat. The situation reignited during James Madison’s presidency when the Dey of Algiers, exploiting the United States’ preoccupation with the War of 1812, seized American ships and resumed the practice of holding crews for ransom. Unlike his predecessors, Madison now commanded a more seasoned and powerful U.S. Navy, hardened by its victories against the Royal Navy. Unwilling to return to the discredited policy of tribute, Madison dispatched a formidable two-squadron naval force under the command of Commodores Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge to decisively end the Algerian aggression.
The resulting Second Barbary War of 1815 was a swift and overwhelming campaign, another textbook example of “shock and awe.” Decatur’s squadron arrived off Algiers and, in a stunning display of naval power, captured the flagship of the Algerian fleet, the Mashouda, and forced another Algerian warship, the Estedio, to surrender. This immediate and crushing military success left the Dey of Algiers with no choice but to capitulate. On June 30, 1815, he signed a treaty that not only released all American prisoners without payment but also permanently renounced the practice of tribute or any future payments from the United States. The campaign was so effective that Decatur’s squadron then sailed to Tunis and Tripoli, where they quickly secured similar treaties, compelling them to abandon their demands for tribute and release any European prisoners they held.
Madison’s decisive action effectively ended the two-century-old practice of state-sponsored piracy by the Barbary States. The war was short, lasting only a few months, and achieved all of its objectives with minimal American casualties. It cemented a new American foreign policy doctrine: that the nation would defend its commerce and its citizens with force rather than appeasement. By demonstrating that the U.S. Navy could project overwhelming power at will, Madison finished the job Jefferson had started, ensuring American ships could sail the Mediterranean in peace and establishing the United States as a rising power that would not be extorted.
Operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury are President Trump’s modern Barbary War, with the American President using the same kind of “shock and awe” that Presidents Jefferson and Madison used a little over two hundred years ago. Past presidents have appeased, and given money, to Islamic powers like Iran in the past, and Donald Trump said, “No more.” Now, as the 2026 version of what two of our Founding Father presidents accomplished approaches its most violent stages, and is approaching its completion, certain realities have emerged. The once believed Iranian supreme leader is dead, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been weakened almost to the point of impotency, Middle Eastern neighbors are turning against Iran as the country lashes out, and as the American and Israeli bombs drop on Iran the country’s citizens are dancing in the streets with glee. Meanwhile, China is flummoxed, Russia has been exposed as a secret puppeteer behind Iran’s madness, and Trump’s numbers are rising faster than Iranian leaders are falling – and in fact Trump’s favorability numbers according to polls are higher than any previous president ever. The demoralized remnants of the regime which includes Khameinei’s son are trying to keep everything afloat, but their previous government structure and internal communications are all in disarray.
Iran’s decision to launch missiles against its neighbors has been disastrous. Iran hoped it would unify the region against Israel and the United States, but instead a coalition is forming against Iran. The Abraham Accords, under stress since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, have not only held, but have solidified in ways Iran never expected. Meanwhile, Iran’s terrorist proxies have been remarkably inactive, with only Hezbollah firing some rockets of which have been met with a powerful Israeli response.
President Trump is handling the Middle East in a manner considered impossible by the experts, and is accomplishing something not achieved since the Barbary Wars.
The big difference between the Barbary Wars and Trump’s crusade is the “regime change” idea that once Iran’s regime is removed, America must rebuild it. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the “Pottery Barn Rule” (you break it, you buy it) dictate failed miserably. In Venezuela, Trump didn’t change the regime – he just convinced the new leaders to play nice or they will receive the same kind of end as Maduro. Iran, it looks like, may be treated the same – with one change. Trump plans to make sure that no matter who’s in charge in Iran after this is all over, they won’t have a military to do anything with any foul plans they may be mustering in their minds.
Along the way, the Space Force, which the Democrats once ridiculed, has played a crucial role in Operation Epic Fury. They deployed heat-seeking infrared beams that detect missiles upon launch, giving American forces time to neutralize them before they become a danger. Space Force has played a vital role in guiding and protecting air and naval operations, tracking enemy missile locations and determining for the U.S. Military when and where to strike using infrared sensors on satellites.
Other new technologies have also assisted in saving America tons of money. The U.S. Navy has allegedly been using a new High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system that can concentrate an intense, tightly focused beam of energy to eliminate flying drones without spending millions on missiles to eliminate them. While the U.S. and Israeli militaries are neither confirming nor denying the use of the lasers, the precision strikes made possible by new technologies reveal that the lasers are likely in use. The use of these technologies have changed warfare for the better, for sure, allowing the U.S. to avoid deploying ground troops and resulting in only seven casualties at this point.
President Trump, so far, has run Operation Epic Fury like he runs construction projects: under budget and ahead of schedule. The President recently told CBS News that this operation is nearly a wrap. If Iran doesn’t unconditionally surrender, and the IRGC continues to threaten shipping in the Hormuz Strait, however, President Trump has warned the assaults will intensify.
President Trump said, “If Iran does anything to [block the strait], they’ll get hit at a much, much harder level…” adding the United States is not targeting Iran’s energy-production infrastructure to avoid economically crippling the nation when the conflict is over. “We’re not looking to do that if we don’t have to. We are waiting to see what happens before we hit them.”
Trump posted on Truth Social: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”
Among the world’s most critical maritime shipping chokepoints, the 100-mile-long Hormuz Strait is where 20 percent of the world’s oil is exported from the Persian Gulf.
Since the United States and Israel launched their Feb. 28 attack on Iran, traffic through the strait (which at its narrowest points traces Iran’s coast) has come to a near standstill with up to 250 ships, including around 150 oil tankers, stacked in the Arabian Sea.
While gasoline prices in the United States, after dropping steadily over the last year, has jumped significantly during the war, President Trump says the war will end “very soon,” and with that end of the conflict the oil prices will drop, as well.
Either they are ignorant of history, hate Trump beyond their ability to reason, or both – naturally, the Democrats are against President Trump’s actions against Iran. The Iranian regime, after all, has backed an estimated 1,000 major terror attacks, and their fingerprints are on the deaths of over 600 American service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. Iran supplied weapons, including explosively formed penetrators, to Iraq. Since that war, from 2019 to present, Iranian-backed militias have launched more than 180 rocket, missile and drone attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. In Afghanistan, Iranian armed Taliban attackers also killed and wounded American troops. In short, Iran has been bankrolling worldwide Islamic terror on an industrial scale, killing thousands of American lives along the way.
Of course there was risk involved in attacking Iran, but with the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran on the horizon, and the breakdown of diplomacy with the regime as they basically declared they would cause chaos no matter the cost, the move was necessary. During the conflict, while Europe stays out of it, with their lefties crying almost as loudly as the Democrats, the only true ally in the effort has been Israel – which of course has been drawing distorted criticism from a left-leaning population smoldering with the early embers of anti-Semitism, and a crowd of not-so-left-leaning folks that have also fallen for anti-Israel propaganda largely spread by Islamic and progressive sources. To be honest, regardless of how important this effort means to the protection of Israel, since coming to power in 1979 the number of Americans killed by the Islamic Revolutionary government of Iran is a far greater number than that of Israelis. And because of Israel’s assistance, the boots on the ground that are involved in Operation Epic Fury are those of Israel, not the United States. And, of course Israel is on board, and maybe even running much of the logistics and heavy labor of the operation. They’ve been surrounded by Islamic neighbors who have constantly called for the genocide of the Jews since their rebirth in 1948 as the Nation of Israel. And don’t forget that Iran’s leadership has vowed, if they were to develop nuclear weapons, to destroy Israel with just a single bomb. Israel is involved with us, and they are our ally in bringing down Iran, and it makes sense because taking down the Iranian regime is not only good for the more than 90 million people in Iran, but also for the over 10 million who live in Israel.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has decided to push a countrywide constitutional carry firearms bill which would by federal law eliminate concealed carry permits, fees and criminal penalties for legal gun owners if they wish to conceal carry a gun in public. The National Constitutional Carry Act follows a trend of constitutional carry laws that have emerged around the country, currently approved by twenty-nine states. The new federal law would require that all fifty states “protect the right to carry without a permit.”
The bill was originally proposed by Thomas Massie (R-KY) last year, and would prohibit state and local governments from requiring licenses that impose fees and other conditions on public carry and would bar states from criminalizing public carry for eligible citizens. The law would also respect private property rights and government properties who decide that they wish to not allow an individual from carrying a firearm onto the premises. Individuals who are not legally allowed to own a firearm would remain prohibited from carrying one.
The bill is supported by the National Association for Gun Rights and Gun Owners of America.
I support the idea behind it, but if one carefully examines the original intent of the Constitution of the United States, the bill may face one major obstacle – it is unconstitutional.
Don’t get me wrong. There are few people more supportive of gun rights and the right to keep and bear arms than me. The word “bear” in the Second Amendment means, if one was to reference the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary as a resource, “to bear arms in a coat.” The right to keep and bear arms is a God-given Natural Right and every single federal gun law is unconstitutional due to the language of the Second Amendment and the Preamble of the Bill of Rights.
In a discussion regarding this bill on my radio program, Constitution Radio on KMET 1490-AM (Saturdays 1-3 PT), I offered to the panel on air with me an alternative way of looking at this to see what the response would be. The final words of the Second Amendment are “shall not be infringed.” Does Senator Lee’s bill “infringe” on the right to keep and bear arms? Or is it designed to actually do the opposite?
One of the members of the panel considered the viewpoint as reasonable, but doubted it was constitutional. The other two individuals pushed back recognizing that the Enumeration Doctrine is pretty clear. The right to keep and bear arms, or any other issue directly associated with the ownership or bearing of arms, must be expressly enumerated in the Constitution as an authority if the federal government was to have the authority to pass any legislation regarding guns. The Tenth Amendment is clear: if a power is “not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States,” the powers are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In Federalist Paper #45, James Madison also explains that our Natural Rights are a state issue, not a federal one.
Which brings us to a concept known as the “Incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States.”
The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified a few years after the conclusion of the War Between the States, was designed to disallow the States from passing laws or take actions that would unfairly treat the newly emancipated former slaves.
The primary author of the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, John Bingham of Ohio, intended for his clauses to authorize the federal government to enforce the Bill of Rights against the states, and to effectively ensure that the southern states never act in a rebellious manner ever again. The intent Bingham searched for, an Incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the States, has since taken hold and in the legal, academic and political communities the Incorporation Doctrine is considered to be the law of the land. Based on that belief, Senator Mike Lee sees no problem with the federal government policing the states regarding the Bill of Rights, and passing legislation to instruct the states regarding how they pass laws that involve any of our Natural Rights.
The problem is, when Bingham testified to Congress his intent, the legislators of the time rejected the Incorporation Doctrine. The Fourteenth Amendment was proposed with both Houses of Congress providing that the language of the Fourteenth Amendment did not support any idea of an incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states, and the states ratified the amendment with that in mind. In short, the Incorporation Doctrine is unconstitutional.
The Enumeration Doctrine demands that the only powers authorized to the federal government are expressly enumerated in the Constitution. Without a power being listed in the Constitution, the federal government does not possess that power. Guns are not listed anywhere in the Constitution as an authority of the federal government – and the only place arms are discussed, it is followed by the words “shall not be infringed.”
All federal gun laws are unconstitutional – period. Mike Lee’s bill, no matter how well intentioned, does not have any constitutional support. Only the states may make laws regarding guns. But, even then, the states have limits. They may only make necessary laws that are fully within the Rule of Law.
Let the states make their decisions. After all, 29 of them have constitutional carry laws. They are popular and the states are falling in line with the concept. Any states that don’t will probably pay the price, largely by suffering from the reality that residents of their states will be more than happy to vote with their feet. It is up to the states to make it happen, not the federal government.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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