Last week, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said that 80-year-old President Joe Biden is likely to die within the next five years, and that his supporters would have to assume VP Kamala Harris would take his place.

“He announced that he’s running again in 2024, and I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” the 51-year-old Haley told Fox News.

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley predicts Biden would not make it through a second term:

“If you vote for Joe Biden, you really are counting on a President Harris. Because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely.” pic.twitter.com/4rMNo5O6gp

— The Recount (@therecount) April 26, 2023

No so fast, according to the Financial Times, which – citing actuaries, say an 82-year-old Biden wouldn’t be too ancient to start a second term, which he would of course finish at the ripe young age of 86.

According to UK actuarial firm Club Vita, Biden has a life expectancy of another 11 years, taking him to 91, while former President Donald Trump has 14 more years to look forward to.

The model’s inputs include affluence, marital status, and employment. These key demographics for both Biden and Trump put them in the same favourable categories for the main factors, including addresses in the top category for life expectancy: the analysts used Trump’s Palm Beach address and Biden’s Delaware home.

Erik Pickett, a New Jersey-based actuary for Club Vita, said a wide range of factors could prove its model wrong, from whether the candidates “are in significantly different health to the average of someone with the same characteristics” to the fact that presidents have “access to higher quality medical treatments” than the typical American. -Financial Times

The average American male born on the same day as Biden can expect to live another 8.5 years, according to the Social Security Administration. 

“I would say that both Biden and Trump are likely to have substantially higher life expectancy than the average, for their age, because they have high socio-economic status, access to the best healthcare in the US, and they do not smoke,” said Georgetown University senior research investigator, Dana Glei.

“The president will have access to the highest-quality medical care and will remain physically, mentally and socially active whilst in the job — all factors that improve lifespan,” said Pickett, adding that this will be “at least partially countered by a high-stress environment and possibly a greater exposure to external risk factors.”

And of course, Kamala Harris is ready for whatever might come…

SEN. CHRIS COONS: “The Vice President’s ready to run & ready to be President should that ever happen…” pic.twitter.com/NeQBd7RFHQ

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 30, 2023

Comforting, no?

Submitted by Adam Andrzejewski, author of OpenTheBooks substack

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com recently determined from official Federal Freedom of Information Act filings that we pay Beltway bureaucrats in the federal executive agencies outside of the Defense Department and the U.S. Post Office some $576 million per day.

That’s more than $210 billion per year for the 1.44 million employees of 125 rank-and-file general administrative, civil enforcement and federal law enforcement agencies.

Economic uncertainty might surround many taxpayers, but for federal workers, we are funding lavish and perk-filled lifestyles.

In 109 of the 125 federal agencies in Washington, the average employee salary is more than $100,000.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average real median wage for the average employee was $54,339 in 2021.

The average salary at the Census Bureau is $67,656. That’s just a small example of the ‘private-sector’ versus ‘public-sector’ pay disparity.

After working just three years for the federal government, employees have 44 days of paid time off. Can you skip work for nine weeks and still have a job?

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average number of paid vacation days for U.S. workers is 11 days, or a day more than two weeks.

Furthermore, most federal employees worked from home for years due to the recently concluded Covid “emergency.” Congress incentivized this with a $570 million “paid-to-stay home” fund at Treasury. If your child wasn’t back to school, you could collect $21,000 over 15 weeks in paid family leave.

Congressional testimony shows Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja still has no clue how many federal employees returned, or where the people we pay actually do their jobs.

(Watch the answer starting at 3:00.)

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, normally a staunch ally of the Biden Administration, had to call for getting federal employees back to work to revive the city’s economy.

President Biden suggested he would soon ask workers to report for duty, but many desks remain empty because “flexibility” still prevails.

Then, President Biden asked for the biggest pay raise in more than 40 years. His 2023 budget includes a 5.2% pay hike for the 1.4 million executive agency employees.

We all had to pay our taxes when they were due a few weeks ago. For many federal employees, that rule is being flouted.

In March 2023, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that “The number of delinquent Federal civilian employees has increased by 32 percent from Fiscal Years (FY) 2015 to 2021.” Some 149,000 federal employees owe $1.5 billion in back taxes!

In the private sector, pay is typically associated with performance. But in the federal government, performance appears not to figure into the compensation equation.

Take the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). We were all reminded of its importance earlier this year with the implosions of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The FDIC is there to insure depositors for up to $250,000, helping Americans trust that the banking system is reliable.

Well, there are 58,000 employees at the FDIC—many of them auditors. Average salary? $160,000. None of them seemed to notice stress on the banking system. The two banks that failed were highly regarded institutions. But in fact, they had veered away from solvency.

One might ask if we taxpayers – who will pick up the tab for this debacle according to the Administration’s plan — are getting what they we are paying for at the FDIC?

Such disparities between pay and performance, and they are legion, are making an impact in Congress. Senator Joni Ernst (R.-Iowa) has joined our organization at OpenTheBooks.com in demanding answers to three questions that should be simple: Who is working? Where are they? What on Earth are they doing for us?

As recent testimony by OPM Director Ahuja shows, the feds just don’t want us to know.

For example, unlike its predecessors, the Biden Administration has redacted key information on federal workers.

In the Biden Administration 2022 payroll, 350,861 worker names are redacted. Under the Obama Administration, in FY 2016, that figure was 2,300. Stunning.

The administration has also redacted 281,656 worker locations.

Our auditors estimate some $36 billion worth of taxpayer-funded salary, benefits and bonuses are hidden from Americans. Even worse, they are headed to mystery people in mystery locations.

That means no scrutiny of performance versus pay. It means no oversight by Congress. It means no chance to cut bloat during the budget process.

We don’t know who these workers are, what they do, where they work, or how much each of them makes.

Like Senator Ernst, we plan to find out. At $576 million per day, it’s time we knew.

Additional details found at Newsweek in a co-authored editorial “Where’s Waldo At Club Fed” with U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst and Adam Andrzejewski, CEO, OpenTheBooks.com.

By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

“The Policy on Counterparties for Market Operations has been updated to clarify that, in addition to implementing monetary policy, broader policy goals including fostering financial stability and ensuring bank safety and soundness, are considered when reviewing a prospective or existing counterparty,” wrote the NY Fed on their website.

And of course, on the surface, that’s the most boring quote I’ve ever opened with. Truly. But how about this?

“SEC registered 2a-7 funds that, in the sole judgement of the New York Fed, are organized for a single beneficial owner, or exhibit sufficient similarities to a fund so organized, generally will be deemed ineligible to access reverse repo operations.”

More boring. For sure.

They concluded with this beauty: “These updates are intended to clarify the New York Fed’s existing counterparty management practices and do not impact the participation of current reverse repo counterparties.”

My favorite word here is “clarify,” which suggests their policy was misunderstood. In fact, it was perfectly understood.

So understood that the Fed needed to clarify to investors that accelerating the banking crisis is in nobody’s interest, especially not the Fed.

But to appreciate such subtleties you must waste decades of the most productive years of your life reading these intentionally mind-numbing statements. Like I have. Do it long enough, you succumb to Stockholm Syndrome.

So, to save you a life of torture, let me translate: The Fed introduced the reverse repo policy (RRP) in 2014 when they lost control of market operations at the zero lower bound. But after losing control of inflation, they hiked interest rates so fast it sparked a bank run.

Now, investors are pulling cash from banks to buy money-market funds that invest in risk-free high-yielding reverse repos.

This exacerbates the bank run, and contracts credit in the economy. Which scares investors into selling risk assets to park more cash in reverse repos.

And our central bankers wish they’d seen this coming and shut the program years ago. But they didn’t and it’s too late. So instead, they “clarified” their intent, and will probably build another complex program on top of something that should no longer exist. And/or slash interest rates. In the hope of regaining control.

Even as it slips away.

The northern hemisphere experienced higher-than-average temperatures this past winter, which helped alleviate energy crunches and sent liquefied natural gas prices tumbling from record-high levels. Now the world’s largest gas buyer expects another price spike this year. 

In an interview with Bloomberg, Yukio Kani, the chairman and CEO of Jera Co., expressed his concerns about another potential surge in LNG prices, attributing this to the increasing import capacity in Europe and China, along with potential severe weather risks.

Here’s part of the interview:

This winter, with import capacity in Europe rising and China potentially increasing demand after it ended pandemic restrictions, prices could spike again if severe weather strikes, he said. There’s no opportunity for buyers to “let their guards down,” Kani said.

Jera, a venture between Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. and Chubu Electric Power Co., announced on Friday that it agreed to a 20-year deal to buy LNG from Venture Global LNG Inc.’s proposed terminal in Louisiana. While the company expects Japanese LNG demand to decline over the next decade, it could surprise by staying flat as more data centers and semiconductor factories are built, Kani said.

“Those two facilities guzzle electricity, making it hard to read the demand outlook,” he said.

Jera is also working to support Japan’s plans to use ammonia and hydrogen to decarbonize existing thermal power plants. The strategy has gotten pushback from other countries, most recently at the Group of Seven energy and environment ministers meeting. –Bloomberg 

Kani’s comments come as Asian spot LNG futures are down 83.5% from last September’s high, touching lows not seen summer of 2021. 

On the other side of the world, US NatGas and European NatGas futures are hovering at multi-year lows. 

Kani’s prediction of severe weather could be linked to the likely return of the El Nino climate phenomenon this year, which may contribute to higher global temperatures and a subsequent rise in cooling demand, resulting in an increased need for gas. Additionally, as Europe rejiggers its energy supply chain away from Russia and relies more on US LNG shipments, supplies may face further tightening. Moreover, an uptick in China’s economic recovery could also boost LNG demand. 

Casualties have risen after intense shelling of a Russian village in the Bryansk region near the Ukrainian border, an attack which happened Saturday, with emergency responders initially citing two killed. 

The casualty count as been revised as rescuers comb through rubble of a residential building. Four civilians have died and another two wounded “as a result of the actions by Ukrainian nationalists,” governor Aleksandr Bogomaz announced Sunday.

Authorities declared a state of emergency in the village of Suzemka, where the strike took place. It lies a mere 10km from Ukraine.

The governor further said the wave of Ukrainian strikes hit a residential area, according to CNN: 

Unverified video posted on Bogomaz’s Telegram channel shows people emerging from a damaged building at night.

A person can be heard on the video saying, “They pulled a woman out. They’re still checking for a kid. Not sure. Horrible.”

Attacks, including with drones, on Russian territory have increased of late as Ukrainian forces are reportedly preparing for a spring counteroffensive. 

The biggest weekend attack was deep inside Crimea. Multiple drones hit a fuel depot early Saturday, unleashing a huge multiple-hours long blaze which could be seen for miles.

It appeared a retaliation strike in response to Friday’s major Russian cruise missile and drone attacks against several Ukrainian cities, particularly in the central part of the country.

Additionally, international reports indicate over the weekend cited Moscow-installed officials in eastern Ukraine who said “Ukrainian shelling had killed nine people, including an eight-year-old girl in the city of Donetsk.”

By Mish Shedlock of Mishtalk

For 2009 there were 118 bankruptcies through April. In Covid-impacted 2020, there were 71 bankruptcies. In 2023 there have been 70.

This is the third worst start to the year since 2000. Here’s the Tweet.

2023 Bankruptcy Spotlight 

• Bed Bath & Beyond: April 2023: Home goods, baby goods
• David’s Bridal: Date: April 2023: Bridal apparel
• Boxed: April 2023: An e-commerce platform selling wholesale consumer goods
• Independent Pet Partners: February 2023: Pet supplies
• Tuesday Morning: February 2023: Discount home goods
• Serta Simmons Bedding: January 2023: Bedding and accessories
• Party City: January 2023: Party supplies
• Forma Brands: January 2023: Beauty products 

The bankruptcy spotlight list is condensed from a detailed report by CBInsights. 

Spotlight Bed Bath and Beyond

NBC reports Bed Bath and Beyond Prepares for Store Closings

“Thank you to all of our loyal customers,” Bed Bath & Beyond said in a message posted to social media on Monday. “We have made the difficult decision to begin winding down our operations. Bed Bath & Beyond and buybuy BABY stores remain open to serve you.”

According to the retailer’s website, “deep discount” store closing sales are expected to begin in stores and online beginning Wednesday, and “all purchases during our store closing sales will be final.”

According to the retailer, Bed Bath & Beyond websites, along with 360 brick-and-mortar stores and 120 buybuy BABY locations will “remain open and continue serving customers as the Company begins its efforts to effectuate the closure of its retail locations.”

In Illinois, only eight Bed Bath & Beyond stores remain open, along with five buybuy BABY stores. Earlier this year, Bed Bath & Beyond announced closures of 19 stores across Illinois, many of them in the Chicago area.

Deep Discounts, No Coupons

Bed Bath and Beyond is no longer accepting coupons. Gift cards and loyalty certificates are still valid. All sales are final. 

Spotlight David’s Bridal 

CNN reports One in four brides wear David’s Bridal to their wedding. Now, it’s filing for bankruptcy

“An increasing number of brides are opting for less traditional wedding attire, including thrift wedding dresses,” David’s Bridal said in a bankruptcy filing. “These shifting consumer preferences have significantly exacerbated” the company’s financial crunch.

“The demand for formal wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, and related accessories has decreased substantially in the current environment,” the company said in its filing.

David’s Bridal will keep its nearly 300 stores and website operating and fulfill all customer orders as it searches for a buyer for the company. It will also honor gift cards, returns and exchanges. But if David’s Bridal is not able to find a buyer, it could have to close all stores and liquidate.

The company has around 10,000 full and part-time employees, but last week it said it was laying off 9,000 workers.

David’s Bridal, the successor to a bridal retailing business that began as a single bridal salon in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, in 1950, said approximately 25% of brides in the United States wear one of its gowns at their wedding.

Nonstore Retail Sales as Percent of Advance Retail Sales

To create the chart I subtracted food, gasoline, motor vehicles, and items one does not normally buy online, then took the nonstore percentage of what remained. 

Not only have consumer preferences shifted on what people buy, preferences have shifted in the way people buy. 

The percentage of shopping online has been steadily rising but the Covid pandemic goosed the trend. It’s about four percentage points above the prior trend. 

Amazon was the big beneficiary. It explains Amazon’s earnings report. Nonetheless, not all is well with Amazon.

Amazon Layoffs

On April 26, Geekwire reported Latest round of Amazon layoffs begins today, impacting AWS and human resources

Amazon began notifying Amazon Web Services and human resources employees impacted by its latest round of layoffs on Wednesday, as the company continues to trim headcount to cut costs.

The layoffs are part of the 9,000-person corporate workforce reduction announced by the company in March. The cuts mostly affect AWS, human resources (which Amazon calls PXT, for People Experience and Technology), Amazon Advertising, and Twitch.

Amazon in January announced a 18,000-person layoff, the largest in the Seattle company’s history. The additional 9,000 layoffs bring the total to 27,000 job cuts, about 8% of Amazon’s corporate workforce, which previously numbered around 350,000 people.

The company has trimmed back and eliminated several products, services, and entire businesses over the past year to help cut expenses, including its Scout neighborhood delivery robots, its Amazon Care primary healthcare business, bricks-and-mortar Amazon bookstores, and others. Amazon said Wednesday that it was shutting down its Halo health devices and service.

M2 Money Supply Declines 8 Straight Months, ODL Down 12 Straight Months

On April 12, I commented Fed Minutes Now Predict a Recession This Year Along With Higher Unemployment. Also note M2 Money Supply Declines 8 Straight Months, ODL Down 12 Straight Months.

The economy is slowing fast. A rise in unemployment will follow,

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Gold isn’t raining from the sky in California, but it might be flooding into the rivers by summer.

“Nugget Nick” Prebalick expects the record snowpack in northern California to deposit even more gold in Woods Creek in Tuolumne County, where he shares a claim with his father and son near Jamestown. The family has been offering tours to those who want to experience gold mining and learn about the history of the gold rush in the state.

“I’m already finding more gold,” Prebalick told The Epoch Times. “I’ve been finding gold every tour.”

The Prebalicks, who own California Gold Panning, usually find about an ounce of gold a day when they take guests to pan for nuggets on their claim. The most he and his father have found was 127 ounces in one day.

As this year’s snow melts from the Sierra Nevada and other mountains, the runoff will wash away silt and deposit more gold in rivers and streams, prompting some to predict a modern-day gold rush this summer.

California’s first gold rush in 1848 brought fortune seekers from all over the world. More than 300,000 came to the territory, and gold was worth $20.67 per ounce, according to the National Museum of American History.

Today, each ounce is worth about $2,000.

“I think this summer. I’m going to be swamped,” he said. “We’ll probably get 10 groups a day.”

Mark Keene, who owns the mining equipment company Keene Engineering in Chatsworth—about 30 miles northwest of the city of Los Angeles—with his brother, told The Epoch Times he also anticipates a big increase in gold mining activities when the snow starts to melt.

“In my lifetime, I don’t remember this much snowpack in the mountains,” Keene said, adding that he expects to see a superflood. Keene sells gold pans, sluice boxes, and other tools used by armatures and professionals.

“When you have a catastrophic flood like that all the riverbanks and the mountainsides wash down in the river and you see a lot of gold,” he said. “It could be one of the best years in decades for mining.”

Keene and his family have a secret mining spot and they visit on the weekends, he said.

“It’s not always about the gold,” he said. “It’s about the journey and the adventure of it, too.”

First-timers need to know the rules before heading out to look for treasures, though, said Dickey Melton, manager of The New 49’ers Prospecting Association, a gold mining club based about 20 south of the Oregon border in Happy Camp, California.

“What we have now is a whole bunch of hand miners,” Melton said, as state law prohibits any type of mining other than panning, sluice boxes, or shovels.

Even with restrictions, many people come out to the club’s 63 claims on 83 miles on the Klamath River, which flows more than 250 miles through Oregon and northern California.

“We get people from all over the world who come here,” Melton said. “Right now, all of that snow is melting, and the rivers are running really high. We’re seeing some hand miners coming in with some pretty good gold.”

According to Egypt’s antiquities ministry, an upcoming four-part drama-documentary produced by Netflix has made a serious error regarding the race of one of Egypt’s pharaohs. It appears that ‘woke capital’ is distorting history. 

“Queen Cleopatra,” released May 10, has Black actor Adele James featured as the legendary leader. The move by Jada Pinkett Smith, the producer and narrator of the series, has infuriated Mostafa Waziri, head of the Supreme Antiquities Council, who said: portraying Cleopatra as Black is “a falsification of Egyptian history.”

Waziri said nothing was racist about his comments, which were entirely motivated by “defending the history of Queen Cleopatra, an important part of the history of Egypt in antiquity.”

Egyptian experts insist Cleopatra had “white skin and Hellenistic characteristics.” But don’t tell ‘woke Netflix’ this… 

An online petition on Change.org titled Cancel Netflix’s “Queen Cleopatra” has nearly 8,000 signatures. It alleges:

“Afrocentrism is a pseudoscience that is pushing a group’s agenda to claim Egypt’s history and rob the actual Egyptians of it. By using false articles and zero evidence, they are still attempting to falsify history.”

“Cleopatra was born in Alexandria, Egypt in the Ptolemaic dynasty to Greek descent. She was NOT black. This is in no way against black people, and is simply a wake up call to preserve the history and the integrity of the Egyptians and the Greeks.”

“The show is clearly done to complement the Afrocentric movement, which claims to be the owner of the ancient Egyptian civilization, and to consolidate what the movement promotes. Egypt was never black and it was never white, Egypt is just Egypt. There are many great African/black civilizations, but Egypt was/is NOT one of them. Sign the petition to stop the falsification of history!” 

Meanwhile, Egypt has been critical of Netflix’s content. It recently demanded the online streaming platform to drop content that runs counter to its “societal values,” such as Western-produced television shows featuring gay and lesbian characters onscreen. 

So, in Egypt’s view, woke Netflix is distorting history. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In a major victory for gun rights advocates, U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn has granted a preliminary injunction of Illinois’ ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines. The decision comes after two other district courts ruled in favor of the law — sending this issue to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and potentially the Supreme Court.  These long-awaited challenges will test the Democratic calls for removing all AR-15s and similar weapons, including calls from President Joe Biden.

I have previously raised doubts over some of these laws, which are based on questionable factual claims and distinctions between weapons. Indeed, President Biden has made dubious constitutional and historical claims about the Second Amendment and AR-15s.

Illinois and New York have previously supplied gun rights advocates with huge victories by drafting facially unconstitutional laws. Moderate efforts at gun control are often ramped up in the legislative process to become more and more sweeping.

McGlynn recognized that gun bans are popular in states like Illinois but noted that “even legislation that may enjoy the support of a majority of its citizens must fail if it violates the constitutional rights of fellow citizens.”

The court tackles the argument made by many gun control advocates that states can ban “non-essential accessories” like magazines because they are not themselves “arms” under the Second Amendment.

PICA outlaws possession of a “semiautomatic pistol” with a detachable magazine if it is equipped with any of the following: “a threaded barrel,” “a shroud attached to the barrel or that partially or completely encircles the barrel,” “a flash suppressor,” or “arm brace.” PICA further outlaws possession of a magazine for a handgun capable of holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition and of “[a] semiautomatic pistol that has a fixed magazine with the capacity to accept more than 15 rounds.” Defendants contend that such items are not necessary to the functioning of a firearm and are thus not “arms” and therefore not protected by the Second Amendment.

Defendants’ argument is not persuasive. The Seventh Circuit has recognized the Second Amendment as extending to “corollar[ies] to the meaningful exercise of the core right to possess firearms for self-defense.” It is hard to imagine something more closely correlated to the right to use a firearm in self-defense than the ability to effectively load ammunition into the firearm. The Third Circuit recognized the importance of this corollary and held that “a magazine is an arm under the Second Amendment.”

McGlynn also stated that it is “bordering on the frivolous” to claim that neither large capacity magazines nor assault weapons are protected because they were not in common use when the Second Amendment was ratified. He cited the long-standing rule that “the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”

The court also rejected the claim that the standard is whether a weapon was in common use for self-defense:

Bruen clearly holds that the Second Amendment protects “possession and use” of weapons “in common use” not just weapons in common use for self-defense as Defendants’ argued. Even if there was a requirement that the “common use” of an “arm” be self-defense, AR-15 style rifles would meet such a test considering that 34.6% of owners utilize these rifles for self-defense outside of their home and 61.9% utilize them for self-defense at home.

The court further noted that large capacity magazines are commonly owned and used by sporting enthusiasts and there are more AR-15s than F150s in this country.

Judge McGlynn also noted that these weapons are commonly used for self-defense and that there are up to 2.5 million instances each year in which civilians used firearms for home defense. He added:

“In no way does this Court minimize the damage caused when a firearm is used for an unlawful purpose; however, this Court must be mindful of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. While PICA was purportedly enacted in response to the Highland Park shooting, it does not appear that the legislature considered an individual’s right under the Second Amendment nor Supreme Court precedent. Moreover, PICA did not just regulate the rights of the people to defend themselves; it restricted that right, and in some cases, completely obliterated that right by criminalizing the purchase and the sale of more than 190 “arms.” Furthermore, on January 1, 2024, the right to mere possession of these items will be further limited and restricted Accordingly, the balance of harms favors the Plaintiffs.

The Court recognizes that the issues with which it is confronted are highly contentious and provoke strong emotions. Again, the Court’s ruling today is not a final resolution of the merits of the cases. Nothing in this order prevents the State from confronting firearm-related violence. There is a wide array of civil and criminal laws that permit the commitment and prosecution of those who use or may use firearms to commit crimes. Law enforcement and prosecutors should take their obligations to enforce these laws seriously. Families and the public at large should report concerning behavior. Judges should exercise their prudent judgment in committing individuals that pose a threat to the public and imposing sentences that punish, not just lightly inconvenience, those guilty of firearm-related crimes.”

Here is the opinion: 2023-04-28-Order-Granting-MPI

Authored by Bob Maistros via American Greatness,

A Great American Opt-Out, the partition of the world’s foremost superpower into separate red and blue nations, is certainly not a subject to be taken – nor a suggestion to be made – lightly. 
 

But a superpower won’t remain super when, as Victor Davis Hanson lately lamented, it must “fixate only on the irrelevant that we think we can address while ignoring the existential.” 

These existential yet insoluble problems? They are self-inflicted wounds like weakened security, economic ruin, dysfunctional cities, nonexistent borders, transgender tyranny, and the weaponization of our justice system. 

And add as a coup de grace—the ultimate point past the point of no return—Joe Biden’s diktat disappearing the internal combustion engine. This will accelerate a death spiral for automakers and power producers already overwhelmed by renewable mandates. It will accentuate energy poverty, lead to decreased private ownership of soon-to-be-unaffordable automobiles, and ultimately actuate a forced flight from capacious suburbs to cramped spaces in family-unfriendly urbs—and a crimped American Dream.

Why are these problems insoluble? Because any dissent from the ruling class narrative risks persecution, prosecution, “peaceful” (read riotous) protests, lawsuits, suspensions, canceling, and cutoffs of livelihoods and necessities. 

Moreover, all meaningful avenues to counter mendacious, monolithic misrule by out-of-touch elites remain stubbornly blocked.

Today’s executive branch is a pen-and-phone and deep state-dominated operation, utterly disdainful of the people it is ostensibly devoted to serve.

Our justice system systematically weaponizes itself against that citizenry and the judiciary injudiciously generates inventive subversions of its will (See: Obamacare, DACA, transgender rights). 

Corporate America co-opts portfolios and pension funds to undermine investors’ and workers’ interests in the service of a woke ideology, an even more woke corporate media colludes with one political party, and our woke culture devalues core American values. 

We have a solve-nothing, spend-everything (and more) Congresses. 

We have an electoral process that—whether or not irretrievably tainted by systemic fraud and rigged by an elite “cabal”—dubiously delivered not just the White House but also net midterm senatorial, gubernatorial, and state legislative gains to the party of the most decrepit, degenerate, disdained and disaster-inducing presidential incumbent in history. 

Stein’s Law (as in Herbert) posits, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” America’s paralysis in fixing existential problems cannot go on at all, much less forever, without a ceding of its superpower status—if not a Weimar-level collapse.

It must stop. Soon. But how? 

Just as Issues & Insights has documented millions of citizens fleeing blue-state economic, political and social rot, the sole solution for Red America is to simply vote with its feet. 

That is, walk. Opt out.

Some suggest the union’s geographically dominant red counties could lead such an exodus. But a more likely route is for red states—perhaps the 18 that unsuccessfully banded together to challenge the 2020 election results—to declare the union dissolved, whether due to that illegitimate outcome or because of the unceasing, extraconstitutional thwarting of sovereignty in the swamp. Perhaps invite red counties in blue jurisdictions to be annexed into neighboring jurisdictions, or even form new states. 

In either event, it’s not difficult to conceive the formation of a provisional government, pending a new constitution and elections, including current members of Congress and federal judges from departing states, and an executive of existing governors. 

Nor is it difficult to conceive the negotiation of dissolution terms, as previously suggested, including a joint defense pact and shared assumption of responsibility for unfunded liabilities. (Division of “trust funds?” A mere fiction in a nation $31 trillion in debt.) 

An overwhelmingly conservative government could otherwise set about dismantling the nanny state in its jurisdictions while instituting the remedies to current maladies Victor Davis Hanson also identified.

In short, the logistics and implementation of partition are imaginable and manageable. The musts to muster? The willingness to admit that “out” is the only sustainable avenue to making America great again, given the hijacking of its commanding heights. The willfulness to advocate and agitate for that result. And the will to see a separation through. 

Those elements may seem far off and unattainable given the lack of seriousness with which partition suggestions have been regarded to date, even among conservatives, and its regrettable association with the ill-fated and immoral Confederate cause. 

But where was the transgenderism now darkly gripping America even a few years back? Who foresaw Black Lives Matter’s rapid rise and the rule of law’s sudden suspension? Or the Green New Deal’s nanosecond-long advance from political punch line to administration policy? 

Opt-out must proceed, to succeed, with the same insistence, sense of urgency and level of volume as those efforts. Starting with igniting and incessantly fanning a fire in forums like these. Making it a theme of an unceasing series conservative gatherings and marches and hearings. Confronting candidates for every office at every level at every opportunity and thereby choosing and encouraging champions. 

At America’s accelerated rate of decline, there is not a moment to waste. And with every elite political, economic, social, cultural, and judicial institution mobilized against its citizenry, no further “point of no return” to be passed.