We Need To Ban Idiots From Using Historical Analogies

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If there’s one person who can give David French a run for his money as the self-absorbed “principled Christian” who’s actually a cankerous blight on the conservative movement as a whole, it’s the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today — Russell Moore.

We’ve chronicled Moore’s moral bankruptcy many times here at The Federalist, from his refusal to celebrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade because Trump achieved it to his advancement of regime propaganda during the Covid-19 pandemic and his involvement in the push for amnesty for illegal aliens.

In short, he’s an oafish clown no one should look to for spiritual or political guidance. Though entertaining to mock, dimwits can become dangerous to the health of public discourse when they manage to fail upward into a position of prominence and begin to believe that they truly earned that spot.

No doubt believing that his “expertise” gives him the right to comment on such matters, Moore decided to weigh in on the ongoing efforts by President Donald Trump to broker a peace deal in the Russo-Ukraine War with a piece pretentiously titled, “The Moral Cost of Murdering Ukraine.” Moore, an unrepentant Never Trumper, wasted no time equating Trump’s attempts to bring both sides to the table to end this destructive three-year war with “abandoning Ukraine.”

“As many have noted, the geopolitical, military, and diplomatic costs of attacking allies and appeasing enemies are incalculable. As American Christians, though, we should also consider the moral cost of abandoning Ukraine,” Moore writes. (Read more from “We Need To Ban Idiots From Using Historical Analogies” HERE)

Zelensky Isn’t Serious About Making A Peace Deal

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CNN and MSNBC are going to spend this weekend hosting a parade of Democrats to say how ashamed they are to be Americans — what’s new? — and what a hero Volodymyr Zelensky is after that thorough reality check he just received from President Trump and Vice President Vance. But the most important thing to take away from the Oval Office clash between the three on Friday is that Zelensky just wasted his country’s time, and he is to blame for every Ukrainian death that happens between now and the end of his war.

The Ukrainian president was in Washington to supposedly sign an agreement with the U.S. that would initiate an economic partnership between both parties and also set in motion a peace settlement of the war with Russia. It’s impossible to believe he came to town sincere about any of it after he attempted to lecture Vance on the war and rebuffed the administration’s diplomatic efforts with Russia.

“What kind of diplomacy, J.D., [are you] speaking about?” Zelensky said, leaning forward in his chair toward the vice president. “What do you mean?” When Vance proceeded to answer, Zelensky interrupted him. And then the little international welfare recipient suggested that the U.S. is just as much on the hook in his war as he is. “First of all, during the war, everybody has problems,” he said. “Even you, but you have [a] nice ocean and don’t feel [it] now, but you will feel it in the future.”

What followed was a “Scared Straight”-style verbal beat down with Zelensky playing the part of the out-of-control delinquent and Trump and Vance as the hardened inmates in his face. It was fun to watch, but the lack of grace from Zelensky was astounding. He was a guest in someone else’s home. That he would use the opportunity to speak to his host like he runs the show, while continuing to ask that very host for money, is wildly offensive and speaks to some degree of sociopathy. (Read more from “Zelensky Isn’t Serious About Making A Peace Deal” HERE)

China’s Tech Infiltration Poses an Urgent National Security Risk

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Totalitarian regimes cannot tolerate criticism, and China is no exception. The Chinese Communist Party’s Great Firewall is not just about restricting information within its borders — it is a deliberate effort to suppress dissent worldwide.

Now, China has a new tool for repression: DeepSeek, an AI model built using U.S. chips. Weak export controls under the Biden administration allowed China to achieve an artificial intelligence breakthrough once thought to be years away.

Like TikTok, DeepSeek is poised to become a propaganda tool for the CCP. The model is already censoring content deemed a threat to “state power,” including references to Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, and even Winnie the Pooh. This level of content control — extending beyond information to influence minds — poses a direct and urgent threat to U.S. national security.

The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly used technology to target U.S. interests. For years, Americans have downloaded TikTok, unaware that the app functions as Chinese spyware. This malware collects and shares user data with the CCP, tracking contacts, photos, search histories, and even keystrokes. As a result, Beijing has access to vast amounts of Americans’ metadata. From a national security standpoint, this is alarming. The CCP now holds data on military installations, population centers, and critical infrastructure — essentially a detailed map with targets marked.

Even more troubling are the cybersecurity risks uncovered in DeepSeek. An Epoch Times investigation found that DeepSeek stores user data on China-based servers. One company discovered the AI model transmits information to China Mobile, a state-owned telecom giant. A separate analysis by cybersecurity firm Wiz revealed that DeepSeek suffered a major data breach, exposing chat histories, secret keys, and other sensitive information. These security failures make clear that China cannot be trusted with our advanced technology. (Read more from “China’s Tech Infiltration Poses an Urgent National Security Risk” HERE)

President Trump’s Idea of Replacing the Income Tax With Tariffs Is Sound and a Great Advancement in the Restoration of Freedom

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Prior to 1913 the US government was financed by tariffs. It was under tariffs, not free trade, that the United States industrialized and became a manufacturing nation. Indeed, the Union invaded and destroyed the Confederacy in order to impose the Morrill Tariff on the South that enabled the North to industrialize. The North could not compete with British industry and required the protection of a tariff.

It is extraordinary to me that it has gone unremarked for 112 years that the income tax, which required a constitutional amendment, resurrected slavery. In actuality, white people voted to impose slavery on themselves.

Americans did not realize what was happening. The income threshold for being subject to the tax was so high that few qualified to be taxed. Moreover, the first tax rate was 1% and the progression halted at 7%. To be taxed at 7% you had to have a phenomenal amount of income for those days of more than $500,000, the equivalent of multi-millions today. In the US in the 1900s a person who made $70,000 a year was considered extremely wealthy. When Henry Ford’s innovation of the moving assembly line was introduced in 1913, he raised his workers’ pay from $2.34 per day to $5, producing an annual income of $1,300.

Only 3% of the US population was subject to the income tax. Many years ago I wrote an account of how the income tax amendment passed. In Georgia the state legislative leader said Georgia had no objection to the amendment as no one in the state of Georgia had an income high enough to be subject to the tax.

Everyone overlooked that once an income tax was in place, the thresholds could be lowered and the rates raised. By 1918, that is, within 5 years, the top tax rate had jumped to 77%, dropping to 25% in 1925.

When the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, slavery was resurrected. Historically, the definition of a free person is a person who owns his own labor. Serfs and slaves did not own their own labor. Serfs were not owned by feudal lords, the the lords had use rights to as much as 30% of a serf’s labor. The labor of an enslaved person belonged to the slave’s owner.

An income tax establishes government ownership over part of your labor. How much depends on your income and the tax rate at the time. If you fail to deliver the government’s share of your income, you are severely punished and can spend many years in prison. Every American income taxpayer is partly enslaved and partly free.
A tariff is a tax on consumption, the preferable means of taxation according to the classical economists. It establishes no government ownership rights in your income. An income tax not only gives government a part ownership of your working time, it is also a tax on factors of production — labor and capital. Taxing factors of production reduces economic growth and Gross Domestic Product. It is a counter-productive tax that suppresses output.

The substitution of a tariff for an income tax is a pro-growth policy that will produce higher incomes and raise living standards. Free labor is always more productive because you are working for yourself and your family.

Out-of-date neoliberal economists argue wrongly that tariffs violate free trade and reduce economic growth. In the Lionel Robbins Lecture in 2000, published by the MIT Press, Ralph E. Gomory and William J. Baumol proved that the case for free trade was false and that at best the notion that free trade was mutually beneficial was an occasional special case. Paul Samuelson found their proof convincing, but overall the economists have preferred their free trade indoctrination to the effort it takes to master a new understanding.

The information from DOGE of the enormous fraud, abuse, and self-dealing that the US budget contains as a slush fund for insiders and for bribing foreign politicians and overthrowing foreign governments indicates that sufficient reductions are possible to establish a tariff at a reasonable rate.

To rescue Americans from the slavery of an income tax would be one the greatest achievements in history. Let’s achieve it. See this.

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Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how americans lost the protection of law, has been released by Random House. Visit his website.

The Federal Reserve Killed the Penny. Is MAGA Next?

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President Trump recently issued an executive order instructing the US Mint to stop producing pennies. The reason for this is it costs nearly four cents to produce one penny. That’s right: the US government can’t even make pennies without losing money! President Trump may have signed the death certificate, but the Federal Reserve is the penny’s true killer. Since the Fed’s creation, the US dollar has lost over 97 percent of its value!

President Trump’s hopes for a successful presidency may be the Fed’s next victim. According to the government’s data, which is manipulated to understate price inflation, consumer prices rose by 0.5 percent in January, the biggest monthly increase since August of 2023. The public’s continued anger over price inflation —and the government’s response — is reflected in recent polling data. According to a February 19th Reuters-Ipsos poll, 53 percent of Americans think the economy is on the wrong track, while a mid-February Gallup poll found that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of President Trump’s handling of the economy. A reason for public dissatisfaction with President Trump’s economic performance is that, according to an early February survey by CBS, 66 percent of Americans think the Trump administration is not focused enough on lowering prices. Unfortunately, President Trump’s tariff policies will cause the prices of many consumer goods to increase.

President Trump can turn price inflation from a losing issue to a winning issue by following the lead of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk (and 2016 Presidential candidate Donald Trump) and push for an audit of the Federal Reserve. Mr. Musk has not only endorsed auditing the Fed — he has suggested I should be in charge of the audit.

Federal law prohibits the Government Accountability Office (GAO) from auditing the Federal Reserve’s conduct of monetary policy. This means the American public and Congress are kept in the dark regarding monetary policy that impacts every American’s economic well being. The Dodd-Frank Act, which passed in response to the 2008 market meltdown, authorized a limited audit of the Fed’s response to the meltdown. The audit found that between 2007 and 2010 the Fed committed over 16 trillion dollars to foreign central banks and private companies. Imagine what a full audit would uncover — and the reaction when the American people finally learn the truth about the central bank. Allowing a full audit of the Federal Reserve requires passage of the Audit the Fed bill.

President Trump should call on the House and Senate to pass the Audit the Fed bill so he can sign it into law. President Trump and Congress should also remove a major disincentive to the use of alternate currencies by adding to the tax bill Congress will consider later this year a provision exempting precious metals and cryptocurrencies from capital gains taxes. In addition, the Fed should be stopped from monetizing federal debt via legislation forbidding it from purchasing Treasury bonds.

Inflation is not caused by labor unions, illegal immigrants, or greedy businesses. It is the inevitable result of a fiat money system managed by a secretive central bank. By passing the Audit the Fed bill this year, President Trump and Congress can take the first step toward restoring a free-market money system. (For more from the author of “The Federal Reserve Killed the Penny. Is MAGA Next?” please click HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

‘White’ House Scandal: Faith Office Needs Biblical Christianity — Not Paula White

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President Trump’s appointment of Paula White as head of the newly established White House Faith Office is the worst decision of his young presidency.

I say this as someone who has voted for him three times (in separate elections) and is thrilled with practically everything he has done thus far. He is exceeding my expectations in every regard — except this one.

In addition to her new position, Paula White is the “pastor” of StoryLife Church and the host of her own television show titled “Paula Today.” Her relationship with President Trump began over 20 years ago when he saw one of her television programs and contacted her, telling her that she had “the ‘It Factor.’” He later made appearances on her show. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family ministry, said that Paula White led Trump to Christ.

White, however, is one of the most visible proponents of Word of Faith theology, more commonly referred to as the health and wealth, or prosperity, gospel. The Word of Faith movement is not merely wrong in secondary matters of Christian theology, but it represents a dramatic departure from some of the basic tenets of historical Christianity. A thorough treatment of the heresies of this movement is beyond the scope of this article, but at its heart is the belief that if you are a Christian, you are a “little god.”

Many in this movement even believe that as a Christian you are “as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth.” (Read more from “‘White’ House Scandal: Faith Office Needs Biblical Christianity — Not Paula White” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Why ‘Education Experience’ Makes An Education Secretary Worse

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President Trump’s education secretary nominee Linda McMahon began her confirmation hearings the morning of Feb. 13. One of the chief attacks against her is bemoaning “a thin resume on education,” as industry lobbying outfit Education Week puts it.

“McMahon’s background in education is limited. She served for about one year on Connecticut’s State Board of Education,” says government-funded mouthpiece NPR. The government-funded New York Times notes “critics” highlighting “a relative lack of experience in education.”

“Unlike President Joe Biden’s education secretary, McMahon has little experience working in schools,” USA Today bleats. Formerly government-funded Politico says she “has minimal education experience.” . . .

Homeschool parents are better teachers than the average person with a teaching degree. Now, it shouldn’t make any sense that people with zero experience or preparation for a field significantly outperform people with experience and preparation. That is not true of just about any endeavor — except education.

Almost everywhere, homeschool parents need no college or even high school degree. They need to take no classroom management or even parenting classes. They need to demonstrate no knowledge whatsoever. Despite this, the children educated by homeschool parents constantly outperform the children educated by state-certified teachers — and on just about every measure, not just academically. (Read more from “Why ‘Education Experience’ Makes An Education Secretary Worse” HERE)

‘Something of Biblical Proportion’ Will Happen Under Trump in Mideast

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Mike Huckabee, the incoming U.S. ambassador to Israel, is optimistic about the future of the Mideast, believing “something of biblical proportion” will happen in the region under the leadership of President Donald Trump.

“I’m personally optimistic that we’re going to see something bold,” Huckabee said on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.

“I will use this term, Maria. I think we will see something of biblical proportion happen with his leadership in the Middle East.”

His remarks come in the wake of last week’s announcement by Trump that the U.S. will take over the troubled Gaza Strip to help transform it from a “demolition site” to a Riviera-style region.

“President Trump did something bold,” Huckabee said.” He looked into the future and said kind of a what if. We don’t know exactly what might happen in Gaza, but here’s what could have happened in Gaza. (Read more from “‘Something of Biblical Proportion’ Will Happen Under Trump in Mideast” HERE)

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Open Letter to President Trump: You MUST Pardon Thomas Caldwell (and the other J6’rs with commuted sentences)

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Dear President Trump:

Shortly after being inaugurated, you pardoned virtually all January 6 defendants (J6ers), ordered that the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismiss other pending cases, and commuted the sentences of 14 higher profile defendants including my client, Retired Navy Lt. Commander Thomas E. Caldwell. Thank you for taking such bold and decisive action on this issue. While I understand that you are now working non-stop to clean up Joe Biden’s mess, I respectfully request that you take a few minutes to consider granting Tom Caldwell a full and unconditional pardon. Let me explain.

Tom is a 100% disabled veteran who was wounded by communist insurgents in the Philippines in 1974 while stationed at Subic Bay. The shrapnel that pierced Tom’s body eventually led to debilitating back and neck fusion surgeries and a plethora of other health issues. Now 70 years old, Tom lives in pain every single day of his life resulting from service to his country. This patriot’s treatment by a partisan DOJ over the last four years is an outrage that needs to be corrected.

On January 6, 2021 Tom and his wife, Sharon, left their hotel to attend your speech, but arrived too late to secure seats, so they watched the speech on jumbotrons on the National Mall. Like countless others, after your speech the Caldwells marched to the U.S. Capitol, where they rested at the Peace Monument on the Capitol’s west side for nearly an hour.

They subsequently walked up a public sidewalk towards the Capitol, climbed a flight of stairs, and eventually “escaped the crowd” by exiting on to a temporary balcony, where they stayed for 4 minutes before exiting the stage and the Capitol grounds. Multiple security videos proved that all “no trespassing” signs and barricades had been removed from the Caldwells’ path by protestors 20 minutes before they arrived at the Peace Monument. Notably, Congress had already evacuated Capitol Hill before they even stepped on Capitol grounds. Tom provably broke no laws, committed no acts of violence, and wasn’t even on Capitol grounds when Congress was ordered to evacuate the Capitol Building.

The FBI’s rush to judgment

Despite provably breaking no laws, two weeks later the FBI executed a Waco-style raid on the Caldwells’ farm in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Approximately 20 agents armed with machine guns, a battering ram, and a tank surrounded the house. Tom witnessed seeing laser dots on Sharon’s forehead as she was ordered out of the house in her nightgown. While interrogating Tom, FBI agents accused him of leading a group of Oath Keeper members into the Capitol in a military-style attack. Why? In ferreting through Tom’s Facebook Messenger account, the FBI noted that his contacts, some of whom were Oath Keeper members he had recently befriended, referred to him as “Commander Tom.”

The FBI, however, was unaware that Tom is a retired Navy “Commander” and had never been a member of the Oath Keepers organization.

At Tom’s trial, the lead FBI agent admitted on the witness stand that he mistakenly believed: 1) that Tom was a Commander in the Oath Keepers organization; 2) that Tom commanded a group of Oath Keepers into the Capitol; and, 3) that Tom and his wife entered the Capitol Building. Comically, the FBI’s “proof” that Tom entered the Capitol was a photo of Tom and Sharon inside a temporary construction tunnel located underneath outside scaffolding. The lead FBI agent further admitted that, in hindsight, the FBI lacked predication to even open up a case up on Tom Caldwell, as he was not an Oath Keepers member and he provably did not enter the Capitol on January 6.

The Progressives at the DOJ take over

For several weeks post-January 6, left-wing commentators speculated that the “protest gone wild” at the Capitol was actually a seditious conspiracy, i.e., a pre-planned plot by right-wing militias to “attack the Capitol.” When FBI and DOJ sources anonymously leaked to the media in the summer of 2021 that there was no evidence to support “seditious conspiracy” charges against any J6ers, Progressives across the country wigged-out. In response, the DOJ and FBI literally launched a second investigation to find evidence—any evidence—to support the political narrative of a seditious conspiracy that involved right-wing militias pre-planning an attack on “our Democracy.”

The conspiracy that never was.

Under political pressure, the DOJ filed seditious conspiracy and related charges against a dozen Oath Keepers and Caldwell in January 2022, alleging an 8-week, post-election plot to forcibly stop the certification of Joe Biden as President of the United States.

What the DOJ actually did was reverse engineer a conspiracy by selectively editing political hyperbole contained in social media messages and tying it to the fact that Congress was forced to evacuate the Capitol. For example, the oft-stated “We need to take our country back” was, according to the Progressive prosecutors, code for “Let’s attack Congress.” On my cross-examination, the FBI’s lead agent admitted that of the hundreds of witnesses that had been interviewed who were familiar with Caldwell and the Oath Keepers, not one person was aware of any pre-planned plot to disrupt Congress on January 6, let alone an armed attack on Capitol Hill. The “seditious conspiracy” was not based upon solid evidence, but rather the hypothesis of a group of progressive millennial DOJ prosecutors who were virulently anti-Trump.

Had Caldwell and his Oath Keeper defendants been tried in Indiana or Utah, the jury would have recognized the political nature of the case and laughed it out of court. Unfortunately, they were tried in Washington, D.C. At the time of Tom’s trial, D.C. juries, notorious for being the defense-friendliest juries in America, had convicted seven January 6 defendants in seven separate trials of every count in every case—65 guilty findings, 0 acquittals.

Despite these odds, however, the jury in Tom’s case acquitted him of the three major conspiracy counts lodged against him (a fourth count was dismissed by the Court), but found him guilty of evidence tampering for deleting his January 6 “selfies” contained in one Facebook thread two weeks after January 6. At the time of his arrest, however, Tom still possessed on his phone and on a separate hard drive the originals and copies of the same photos that were contained in the deleted Facebook thread.

Tom Caldwell’s verdict and sentence suggest that a pardon is appropriate

Tom was sentenced on January 10, 2025 to 53 days of time he had already served after his arrest in 2021, a special assessment of $100, and no probation. Accordingly, Tom was not only cleared by a progressive D.C. jury of the most serious charges against him, but an Obama-appointed federal judge handed down a punishment more lenient than that meted out against the typical speeder in traffic court. When it comes to individuals who deserve pardons, Tom Caldwell is first among equals.

President Trump, please end this four-year American nightmare. Tom and Sharon are your biggest supporters. Instead of enjoying a well-earned retirement, Tom was used as pawns in a DOJ public relations strategy that pushed the myth that January 6 was an orchestrated “insurrection” to take over Capitol Hill. Like you, Tom was not only singled out for prosecution for political reasons, but he also is facing two civil suits filed by Soros-backed law firms. Thank you for your consideration. And thank you for doing your best to make America great again.

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Mr. Fischer is a Maryland-based attorney who has represented more than 5,000 defendants in his career, including several defendants charged in relation to January 6.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Christians Who Opposed Trump Should Examine Their Hearts After His Week Of Big Biblical Wins

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Only 10 days into President Donald Trump’s second term it’s abundantly clear that Christians who opposed his presence in the White House and condemned their brethren for supporting it have some repenting to do.

Never Trumpers spent the last decade weaponizing their faith to demonize Christian Trump supporters. By the time the 2024 election rolled around, they had proudly endorsed the radical, openly anti-Christian Joe Biden stand-in for president. According to them, mean tweets and a bad spray tan were far worse than a regime that made a point out of throwing praying grandmas in prison.

Concerns about Trump’s personal conduct 10 years into his entrance to American politics are simply not a legitimate reason to oppose his presidency — especially when juxtaposed with the Biblical wins his presidential actions have brought. Pretending that his penchant for off-the-cuff commentary and history of failed marriages are disqualifying was always a bad argument because most politicians, especially the Biden and Harris families, are the complete opposite of upstanding, moral folks.

Thankfully for the country, Christian and secular voters alike didn’t buy the propaganda. And because Trump won in November, current people of faith and future followers of Christ are better off. Look at his first week back in the White House for proof.

The Republican kicked off his second administration by freeing political prisoners, including the faithful pro-lifers who were thrown in prison for peacefully worshipping and praying at abortion facilities. He followed that with a sweeping executive order condemning and defunding the forced mutilation and sterilization of children. (Read more from “Christians Who Opposed Trump Should Examine Their Hearts After His Week Of Big Biblical Wins” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr