theamericanconservative--2020-10-19--Big Tech’s End-Run Around the First Amendment

Twitter and Facebook are the censors the Founders feared when they wrote the First Amendment .
None of those men could have envisioned a day when global tech corporations would overshadow the power of governments to control information .
But that day is here , and @ jack and his colleagues are trying to steal an election for Joe Biden in real time .
The social media giants tried to disappear a story from the New York Post claiming Hunter Biden sold access to his father to a Ukrainian company .
I ’ m afraid to include a link to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article too will be made to disappear .
See , you can ’ t tweet a link to the Post ‘ s story or send it as a direct message on Twitter and you can ’ t post it on Facebook without some sort of red flag .
If you try and you ’ re an unimportant person , your message will just be blocked .
If you are important , like the White House press secretary , @ TeamTrump , or a conservative journalist trying to report out the fuller story , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NY Post , one of the largest mass-circulation dailies , can ’ t RT its own article on Twitter .
Orwell anticipated some of this , creating the term “ unperson ” for someone erased from society .
But he , too , did not anticipate the power of the electronic media companies or he would have likely also coined the term “ unthought.
” The goal of Twitter and Facebook is unthought , to make the NY Post story go away to the extent possible , and to delegitimize it as much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not yet control , all because it will hurt Biden ’ s chances in the election .
Free speech is to them a liability to democracy .
This is sadly consistent with another blow to democracy , the media ’ s abandonment of any commitment to objectivity in favor of ideological activism .
This election , there is a Right Candidate and an Evil Candidate and it is the media ’ s job to use the tools of censorship , propaganda , and now unthought to direct your vote accordingly .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this to be unconstitutional or illegal , the denial has to come from the government .
Facebook and others can deny speech rights anytime they want .
We now know the argument that only the government is covered by the 1A has reached its limit .
Technology and market dominance give great power with no responsibility to a handful of global companies even as the law hides behind the simplicity of the 18th century .
That way of thinking requires you to believe that Facebook , et al.
, would never act as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a politician who would not be allowed to do it himself .
Don ’ t act surprised .
While the NY Post story being disappeared caught the public ’ s eye , this has been going on for a long time .
After hazy accusations that Russians tried to influence the 2016 presidential election , Twitter and Facebook banned advertising by RT and Sputnik .
Senator Chris Murphy ( D-CT ) followed by demanding social media censor even more aggressively on the government ’ s behalf for the “ survival of our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Google , GoDaddy , and Cloudflare collectively ended their relationships with the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer , “ effectively booting it off the Internet.
” Google noted that , “ while some free speech advocates were troubled by the idea that ‘ a voice ’ could be silenced , others were encouraged by the united front the tech firms put up.
” Google blocks users from their own documents on Google Drive if the service feels the documents are abusive .
Twitter suspends those who promote what it defines as violence , shadow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their audience , and tweaks its trending topics to push certain political ideas and downplay others .
It purges users and bans “ hateful symbols.
” There are near-daily demands by increasingly organized groups to censor specific users , with Trump at the top of that list .
Users can snitch out other users so that Twitter can evaluate whether they should be suspended .
The motivation is always the same : to limit the ideas people can choose to be exposed to in favor of others .
Google has basically added its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A leaked document from the tech giant argues that , because of a variety of factors including the election of Donald Trump , what it dismissively calls the “ American tradition ” of free speech may no longer be viable .
The report lays out how Google can serve as the world ’ s “ Good Censor , ” protecting us from harmful content and , by extension , dangerous behavior , like electing the wrong president again .
Google sees itself at the nexus of history , declaring , “ Although @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and hateful in many other ways , they weren ’ t empowered by the Internet to recklessly express their views with abandon.
” Google is , for the first time in human history , in a position to do something about it .
After all , via 90 percent market dominance , they “ now control the majority of online conversations , ” so the Internet is whatever they say it is .
We are approaching a time when the freedom to speak will no longer exist independent of the content of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to say could depend on media ’ s opinion of how it will affect others , in this case , candidate Joe Biden .
Maybe you like Joe , but do I really have to include here “ but what about the next time they use this power , maybe against something you believe in ?
” For those still muttering “ it can ’ t happen here , ” look how American tech companies are already employing their tools to serve the China market ’ s social control needs .
Companies exist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t count on them past that .
Handing over free speech rights to an entity whose core purpose has nothing to do with free speech means it will inevitably quash ideas when they conflict with profits .
It just happens to be going your way right now and you don ’ t live in China .
Those who celebrate how @ jack and Zuck can censor at will seem to believe they will always yield power in the way “ we ” want them to .
And trading away a little free speech @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the NY Post seems reasonable compared to another four years of Trump .
It makes sense to unabashedly mainstream unthought and censorship Because Trump .
Never before have such a large number of Americans feared a politician more .
Trump isn ’ t just against what you are for , he is someone literally out to kill you , via COVID , via some war—your life is in danger .
He is not just bad , he is a pure strain of evil without goodness , like a pedophile .
Google first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : to stop child predators .
The Internet giant tweaked its search results to block sites it believed linked to child porn .
It went on to do the same for terrorist sites , and sites that encouraged suicide .
But Google can skew search results any way it wants .
It knows that the higher an item appears on a list of search results , the more users will click on it .
Placing links for one candidate above another in a rigged test search increased the undecided voters who chose that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea can have a similar effect ; 21st century free speech is as much about finding an audience as it is about finding a place to speak .
There will soon be no need to lock up dissident thinkers in some old-timey prison ; impose new Terms of Service and they are effectively dead .
As are their ideas .
The argument that Twitter , Facebook , and Google are private companies , that no one forces you to use their services , and in fact you are free to switch to MySpace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end-runs around the First Amendment .
Platforms like Twitter are the public squares of the 21st century and must be governed by the same principles or the First Amendment is in practical terms irrelevant .
Pretending a corporation with the reach to influence elections is just another company that sells stuff is to pretend the role of unfettered debate in a free society is outdated .
These corporations understand their power .
They feel morally justified using it .
They have exercised it for Joe Biden .
When that happens , elections can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ watch .
Peter Van Buren is banned for life from Twitter .
He is also a 24-year State Department veteran , and the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People , Hooper ’ s War : A Novel of WWII Japan , and Ghosts of Tom Joad : A Story of the 99 Percent .

Twitter and Facebook are the censors the Founders feared when they wrote the First Amendment. None of those men could have envisioned a day when global tech corporations would overshadow the power of governments to control information. But that day is here, and @jack and his colleagues are trying to steal an election for Joe Biden in real time.
The social media giants tried to disappear a story from the New York Post claiming Hunter Biden sold access to his father to a Ukrainian company. I’m afraid to include a link to the story, for fear that this article too will be made to disappear. See, you can’t tweet a link to the Post‘s story or send it as a direct message on Twitter and you can’t post it on Facebook without some sort of red flag.
If you try and you’re an unimportant person, your message will just be blocked. If you are important, like the White House press secretary, @TeamTrump, or a conservative journalist trying to report out the fuller story, your account will be locked. The NY Post, one of the largest mass-circulation dailies, can’t RT its own article on Twitter. Orwell anticipated some of this, creating the term “unperson” for someone erased from society. But he, too, did not anticipate the power of the electronic media companies or he would have likely also coined the term “unthought.”
The goal of Twitter and Facebook is unthought, to make the NY Post story go away to the extent possible, and to delegitimize it as much as possible in those spaces the giants do not yet control, all because it will hurt Biden’s chances in the election. Free speech is to them a liability to democracy. This is sadly consistent with another blow to democracy, the media’s abandonment of any commitment to objectivity in favor of ideological activism. This election, there is a Right Candidate and an Evil Candidate and it is the media’s job to use the tools of censorship, propaganda, and now unthought to direct your vote accordingly.
We have no protection. For something like this to be unconstitutional or illegal, the denial has to come from the government. Facebook and others can deny speech rights anytime they want. We now know the argument that only the government is covered by the 1A has reached its limit. Technology and market dominance give great power with no responsibility to a handful of global companies even as the law hides behind the simplicity of the 18th century. That way of thinking requires you to believe that Facebook, et al., would never act as a proxy, barring viewpoints on behalf of a politician who would not be allowed to do it himself.
Don’t act surprised. While the NY Post story being disappeared caught the public’s eye, this has been going on for a long time.
After hazy accusations that Russians tried to influence the 2016 presidential election, Twitter and Facebook banned advertising by RT and Sputnik. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) followed by demanding social media censor even more aggressively on the government’s behalf for the “survival of our democracy.” Following racial violence in Charlottesville, Google, GoDaddy, and Cloudflare collectively ended their relationships with the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, “effectively booting it off the Internet.” Google noted that, “while some free speech advocates were troubled by the idea that ‘a voice’ could be silenced, others were encouraged by the united front the tech firms put up.”
Google blocks users from their own documents on Google Drive if the service feels the documents are abusive. Twitter suspends those who promote what it defines as violence, shadow bans others to limit the size of their audience, and tweaks its trending topics to push certain political ideas and downplay others. It purges users and bans “hateful symbols.” There are near-daily demands by increasingly organized groups to censor specific users, with Trump at the top of that list. Users can snitch out other users so that Twitter can evaluate whether they should be suspended. The motivation is always the same: to limit the ideas people can choose to be exposed to in favor of others.
Google has basically added its terms of service to the First Amendment. A leaked document from the tech giant argues that, because of a variety of factors including the election of Donald Trump, what it dismissively calls the “American tradition” of free speech may no longer be viable. The report lays out how Google can serve as the world’s “Good Censor,” protecting us from harmful content and, by extension, dangerous behavior, like electing the wrong president again.
Google sees itself at the nexus of history, declaring, “Although people have long been racist, sexist, and hateful in many other ways, they weren’t empowered by the Internet to recklessly express their views with abandon.” Google is, for the first time in human history, in a position to do something about it. After all, via 90 percent market dominance, they “now control the majority of online conversations,” so the Internet is whatever they say it is.
We are approaching a time when the freedom to speak will no longer exist independent of the content of speech. What you’re allowed to say could depend on media’s opinion of how it will affect others, in this case, candidate Joe Biden. Maybe you like Joe, but do I really have to include here “but what about the next time they use this power, maybe against something you believe in?”
For those still muttering “it can’t happen here,” look how American tech companies are already employing their tools to serve the China market’s social control needs. Companies exist to make money. You can’t count on them past that. Handing over free speech rights to an entity whose core purpose has nothing to do with free speech means it will inevitably quash ideas when they conflict with profits. It just happens to be going your way right now and you don’t live in China.
Those who celebrate how @jack and Zuck can censor at will seem to believe they will always yield power in the way “we” want them to. And trading away a little free speech, especially that of an unfashionable tabloid like the NY Post seems reasonable compared to another four years of Trump. It makes sense to unabashedly mainstream unthought and censorship Because Trump. Never before have such a large number of Americans feared a politician more. Trump isn’t just against what you are for, he is someone literally out to kill you, via COVID, via some war—your life is in danger. He is not just bad, he is a pure strain of evil without goodness, like a pedophile.
Google first introduced censorship in the most well-intentioned way: to stop child predators. The Internet giant tweaked its search results to block sites it believed linked to child porn. It went on to do the same for terrorist sites, and sites that encouraged suicide. But Google can skew search results any way it wants. It knows that the higher an item appears on a list of search results, the more users will click on it. Placing links for one candidate above another in a rigged test search increased the undecided voters who chose that candidate by 12 percent. Burying an idea can have a similar effect; 21st century free speech is as much about finding an audience as it is about finding a place to speak. There will soon be no need to lock up dissident thinkers in some old-timey prison; impose new Terms of Service and they are effectively dead. As are their ideas.
The argument that Twitter, Facebook, and Google are private companies, that no one forces you to use their services, and in fact you are free to switch to MySpace, is an out-of-date attempt to justify end-runs around the First Amendment. Platforms like Twitter are the public squares of the 21st century and must be governed by the same principles or the First Amendment is in practical terms irrelevant.
Pretending a corporation with the reach to influence elections is just another company that sells stuff is to pretend the role of unfettered debate in a free society is outdated. These corporations understand their power. They feel morally justified using it. They have exercised it for Joe Biden. When that happens, elections can be stolen in real time. Just watch.
Peter Van Buren is banned for life from Twitter. He is also a 24-year State Department veteran, and the author of We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, Hooper’s War: A Novel of WWII Japan, and Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the 99 Percent.


theamericanconservative--2020-10-19--The Eternal Insight of John C. Calhoun

The Eternal Insight of John C. Calhoun

“ By the death of Mr. Calhoun , ” wrote Henry Clay , eulogizing his dead Senate colleague , “ one of the brightest luminaries has been extinguished in the political firmament.
” An even greater rival of John C. Calhoun , Daniel Webster called him a “ man of undoubted genius and of commanding talent.
” Yet many , if not most , students of the American tradition believe they know better .
The latest casual dismissal of Calhoun ’ s political thought comes from Cameron Hilditch at National Review .
Responding to Hunter DeRensis ’ essay on Calhoun @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he informs readers not only that Calhoun was misguided on certain points ; not only that his political philosophy was flawed in some way ; but that he was a “ Hegelian Jacobin ” and “ no one of sound mind and moral fiber .
.
.
could possibly share Mr. DeRensis ’ s conclusion that [ Calhoun ] was ‘ one of the first-rate minds of the nineteenth century , ’ a man from whom conservatives today can ‘ find guidance.
’ ” In addition to Clay and Webster , Hilditch will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his list of those “ not of sound mind ” : Calhoun ’ s brilliance as a political theorist was also recognized by figures such as Orestes Brownson , John Stuart Mill , Lord Acton , and ( as he acknowledges ) Russell Kirk , who , even if they did not embrace every element of his thought , praised Calhoun ’ s defense of liberty , his theory of diffused political authority , and the ability of his “ federal representative ” government to provide for a robust form of popular rule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ considerable time and energy studying Calhoun ’ s ideas , Mr. Hilditch ’ s assertions are frustrating not because this one essay is likely to result in any great shift of opinion , but because of how persistent the misrepresentations are , despite scholarship like our own , that has shown their inadequacy .
For decades , warmed-over talking points of Harry Jaffa and the former Stalinist Richard Hofstadter have been uncritically circulated , distorting the insight of Calhoun ’ s intellectual legacy , from which conservatives should , indeed , be able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these claims proves once again the wisdom of Clyde Wilson , the editor of Calhoun ’ s Papers , who has observed that “ The literature [ about Calhoun ] does not so much progress as go round in circles.
” At a time when conservatives are rethinking many key principles , perhaps this is an opportunity to recognize Calhoun ’ s insights anew .
Some of Hilditch ’ s points are hardly worth refuting , such has his tenuous linkage of Calhoun to the specifics of southern secession ordinances that took place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because they both subscribed to a compact theory of the Constitution that was already well-established by the time Calhoun was a teenager ) .
Nevertheless , other points , because of their persistence , are worth examining .
We will allow Mr. DeRensis to speak for himself , if he so chooses , on the substance of his original essay , but we think it worthwhile to add our voices on some general points about Calhoun and his context , so that his place in the conservative pantheon can be more accurately assessed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claim that , unlike Calhoun , “ The Founders permitted democratic majorities to decide questions of government policy so long as their decisions did not infringe upon .
.
.
inalienable , individual rights.
” Quote whatever Madison essay you like , the Constitution simply does not do this , as Calhoun himself ably demonstrated in his brilliant “ Speech on the Veto Power.
” To the consternation of today ’ s majoritarians , the Senate , by representing each state equally , could theoretically be held by a tiny fraction of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the weight of each state ’ s senators into its allotment so that , as 2016 showed us , an Electoral College landslide is quite possible without a popular vote majority .
Even the House of Representatives , divided as it is by state lines and district lines , does not reflect any national numerical majority .
And of course , all three must concur on legislation .
Moreover , the method of adoption was not majoritarian : No state—even the tiniest—was forced into the Constitution without its own consent .
And the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even persistent majorities , unless they have broad-based support across the states .
As Calhoun put it , “ Can facts more clearly illustrate the total disregard of the numerical majority ?
” Second , somewhat shockingly , Mr. Hilditch believes Calhoun should be excised from conservatism for believing that rights are “ claimed through membership in a community ” ( farewell , Burke ) , and for holding that the political and social state is mankind ’ s natural condition ( arrivederci , Aristotle , au revoir , Cicero ) .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gets Calhoun right on this point—he was one of the greatest American exponents of a political philosophy rooted in mankind ’ s natural sociality , standing in impressive historical company .
But by this account ( and its influence is not insignificant ) , conservatism is now defined by adherence to the absolute , abstract , pre-political rights of man , perceived by Reason , which serve as the only legitimate limit to the power of the majority .
Who was the Jacobin , again ?
But Mr. Hilditch gets Calhoun very wrong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ human sociality means that “ For Calhoun , the community has rights and privileges , not the individuals that make it up.
” This is blatantly incorrect .
Indeed , Calhoun ’ s Disquisition on Government makes the powerful argument that liberty , which “ leaves each free to pursue the course he may deem best to promote his interest and happiness , ” is the primary spur to the improvement of civilization and the development of mankind ’ s intellectual and moral faculties .
The “ groups , not individuals ” canard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an organized society inevitably defines and refines the limits of liberty , and if the majority ’ s preferences are not checked by the organized and recognized minority , liberty and rights will inevitably be defined in the way that suits the majority interest .
This does not , however , mean that individual liberty is absent .
The conservative tradition of Burke , Calhoun , Kirk and others was founded in a realism that recognized that neither individual nor communal liberty will last long if it is not rooted in the social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ community .
This insight is , evidently , in great need of revival .
Third , Mr. Hilditch argues that Calhoun ’ s concurrent majority was influenced by Rousseau and reflects something like the latter ’ s “ general will.
” This is probably the most ludicrous of his claims , as even a cursory glance at the Disquisition reveals a strong antipathy to anything smacking of Rousseau .
Rousseau believed that understanding political life required a pre-political understanding of man ; Calhoun believed man was a political and social animal .
Rousseau @ @ @ @ @ @ @ majoritarianism ; Calhoun sought checks on the majority .
Rousseau saw society as a monolith composed of rootless , identity-less , interest-less “ citizens ” ; Calhoun sought a way to institutionalize and protect the differences within society .
Rousseau ’ s general will was an avowedly simple regime , which saw evolved , complex constitutional institutions as amounting to “ chains ” on the will of the people ; Calhoun explicitly rejected such “ simple and absolute ” regimes , preferring the “ complex ” institutions of the concurrent majority which develop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and practice .
Finally , Mr. Hilditch refers to Calhoun as a “ Hegelian Jacobin.
” Setting aside the painfully oxymoronic character of this formulation , Calhoun is the least Hegelian political thinker in the American political tradition .
As we have noted , Calhoun , like Aristotle , St. Thomas , Burke , and the great pantheon of conservative thinkers , believed humankind was by nature social and political , and Hegel ’ s dramatic transition from a rather nebulous social state to an idealized political regime was an impossibility .
More @ @ @ @ @ @ @ community as consisting of highly autonomous parts or divisions cooperating together for the welfare of the whole .
The societal realm described in all of Calhoun ’ s writings should be understood as the extension of smaller community units , represented by individual states , who serve as examples of how the larger society could be organized and political authority diffused throughout an extensive regime .
For Calhoun , the United States of America did not exist as an aggregate , only as assemblage of communities , ultimately forming states and eventually contributing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dream of popular rule is Hegel ’ s political nightmare .
So , was Calhoun ’ s thought simply a “ post hoc rationalization of slavery ” ?
Obviously , we would answer that question in the negative .
A proof would require more than this essay can provide ( though we have addressed this question , directly and indirectly , in our books ) .
Calhoun did offer a moderate defense of slavery that was thoroughly mainstream for his day , viewing the slavery situation as part of a larger discussion of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But it was neither the most important nor most consuming aspect of his political thought .
In most of the great debates of his lifetime , including a myriad of concerns from nullification to slavery , Calhoun should be understood as a source of moderation amid seas of extremism .
Because of Calhoun ’ s own complex views and long-standing regional tensions , some of his critics attempt to use slavery as a means of distracting students of Calhoun ’ s political thought from a more complete examination of his work and its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would suggest that the interested reader make up his own mind on the question by picking up Calhoun ’ s Disquisition , in which slavery is never mentioned , with an open mind .
While it rewards careful and repeated readings , it can also be read in an afternoon .
We believe honest engagement with Calhoun ’ s ideas dispels this misunderstanding .
Calhoun was not perfect , and he unfortunately shared the misguided racial opinions of his time and place .
But his political and constitutional theory is powerful and often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Conservatives don ’ t need to make Calhoun their only star and compass , but the mental gymnastics required to excise him from the conservative tradition , as Mr. Hilditch shows , demand the distortion of his thought and the complete remaking of the tradition .
Apparently , that ’ s a price some are willing to pay .
John Grove is associate editor of Law & Liberty and a former professor of political science .
He is the author of John C. Calhoun ’ s Theory of Republicanism .
H. Lee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Political Science and the former Dean at East Georgia State College , and a Senior Fellow of Alexander Hamilton Institute .
He is also a United Methodist minister and former U.S. Army chaplain .
His books include Calhoun and Popular Rule and Confronting Modernity , among others .

“By the death of Mr. Calhoun,” wrote Henry Clay, eulogizing his dead Senate colleague, “one of the brightest luminaries has been extinguished in the political firmament.” An even greater rival of John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster called him a “man of undoubted genius and of commanding talent.” Yet many, if not most, students of the American tradition believe they know better.
The latest casual dismissal of Calhoun’s political thought comes from Cameron Hilditch at National Review. Responding to Hunter DeRensis’ essay on Calhoun and counter-majoritarianism at The American Conservative, he informs readers not only that Calhoun was misguided on certain points; not only that his political philosophy was flawed in some way; but that he was a “Hegelian Jacobin” and “no one of sound mind and moral fiber . . . could possibly share Mr. DeRensis’s conclusion that [Calhoun] was ‘one of the first-rate minds of the nineteenth century,’ a man from whom conservatives today can ‘find guidance.’”
In addition to Clay and Webster, Hilditch will have to add several other luminaries to his list of those “not of sound mind”: Calhoun’s brilliance as a political theorist was also recognized by figures such as Orestes Brownson, John Stuart Mill, Lord Acton, and (as he acknowledges) Russell Kirk, who, even if they did not embrace every element of his thought, praised Calhoun’s defense of liberty, his theory of diffused political authority, and the ability of his “federal representative” government to provide for a robust form of popular rule.
To two scholars who have spent considerable time and energy studying Calhoun’s ideas, Mr. Hilditch’s assertions are frustrating not because this one essay is likely to result in any great shift of opinion, but because of how persistent the misrepresentations are, despite scholarship like our own, that has shown their inadequacy. For decades, warmed-over talking points of Harry Jaffa and the former Stalinist Richard Hofstadter have been uncritically circulated, distorting the insight of Calhoun’s intellectual legacy, from which conservatives should, indeed, be able to learn much. The persistence of these claims proves once again the wisdom of Clyde Wilson, the editor of Calhoun’s Papers, who has observed that “The literature [about Calhoun] does not so much progress as go round in circles.” At a time when conservatives are rethinking many key principles, perhaps this is an opportunity to recognize Calhoun’s insights anew.
Some of Hilditch’s points are hardly worth refuting, such has his tenuous linkage of Calhoun to the specifics of southern secession ordinances that took place a decade after his death (presumably because they both subscribed to a compact theory of the Constitution that was already well-established by the time Calhoun was a teenager). Nevertheless, other points, because of their persistence, are worth examining. We will allow Mr. DeRensis to speak for himself, if he so chooses, on the substance of his original essay, but we think it worthwhile to add our voices on some general points about Calhoun and his context, so that his place in the conservative pantheon can be more accurately assessed.
First is Mr. Hilditch’s claim that, unlike Calhoun, “The Founders permitted democratic majorities to decide questions of government policy so long as their decisions did not infringe upon . . . inalienable, individual rights.” Quote whatever Madison essay you like, the Constitution simply does not do this, as Calhoun himself ably demonstrated in his brilliant “Speech on the Veto Power.” To the consternation of today’s majoritarians, the Senate, by representing each state equally, could theoretically be held by a tiny fraction of the American population. The Electoral College incorporates the weight of each state’s senators into its allotment so that, as 2016 showed us, an Electoral College landslide is quite possible without a popular vote majority. Even the House of Representatives, divided as it is by state lines and district lines, does not reflect any national numerical majority. And of course, all three must concur on legislation.
Moreover, the method of adoption was not majoritarian: No state—even the tiniest—was forced into the Constitution without its own consent. And the Amendment process is obviously designed to thwart even persistent majorities, unless they have broad-based support across the states. As Calhoun put it, “Can facts more clearly illustrate the total disregard of the numerical majority?”
Second, somewhat shockingly, Mr. Hilditch believes Calhoun should be excised from conservatism for believing that rights are “claimed through membership in a community” (farewell, Burke), and for holding that the political and social state is mankind’s natural condition (arrivederci, Aristotle, au revoir, Cicero). For what it’s worth, he gets Calhoun right on this point—he was one of the greatest American exponents of a political philosophy rooted in mankind’s natural sociality, standing in impressive historical company. But by this account (and its influence is not insignificant), conservatism is now defined by adherence to the absolute, abstract, pre-political rights of man, perceived by Reason, which serve as the only legitimate limit to the power of the majority.
Who was the Jacobin, again?
But Mr. Hilditch gets Calhoun very wrong in his claim that this priority of human sociality means that “For Calhoun, the community has rights and privileges, not the individuals that make it up.” This is blatantly incorrect. Indeed, Calhoun’s Disquisition on Government makes the powerful argument that liberty, which “leaves each free to pursue the course he may deem best to promote his interest and happiness,” is the primary spur to the improvement of civilization and the development of mankind’s intellectual and moral faculties. The “groups, not individuals” canard surrounding Calhoun springs from his recognition that an organized society inevitably defines and refines the limits of liberty, and if the majority’s preferences are not checked by the organized and recognized minority, liberty and rights will inevitably be defined in the way that suits the majority interest. This does not, however, mean that individual liberty is absent.
The conservative tradition of Burke, Calhoun, Kirk and others was founded in a realism that recognized that neither individual nor communal liberty will last long if it is not rooted in the social consensus and constitutional institutions of a real community. This insight is, evidently, in great need of revival.
Third, Mr. Hilditch argues that Calhoun’s concurrent majority was influenced by Rousseau and reflects something like the latter’s “general will.” This is probably the most ludicrous of his claims, as even a cursory glance at the Disquisition reveals a strong antipathy to anything smacking of Rousseau.
Rousseau believed that understanding political life required a pre-political understanding of man; Calhoun believed man was a political and social animal. Rousseau’s general will emerged from absolute majoritarianism; Calhoun sought checks on the majority. Rousseau saw society as a monolith composed of rootless, identity-less, interest-less “citizens”; Calhoun sought a way to institutionalize and protect the differences within society. Rousseau’s general will was an avowedly simple regime, which saw evolved, complex constitutional institutions as amounting to “chains” on the will of the people; Calhoun explicitly rejected such “simple and absolute” regimes, preferring the “complex” institutions of the concurrent majority which develop along with a country’s history and practice.
Finally, Mr. Hilditch refers to Calhoun as a “Hegelian Jacobin.” Setting aside the painfully oxymoronic character of this formulation, Calhoun is the least Hegelian political thinker in the American political tradition. As we have noted, Calhoun, like Aristotle, St. Thomas, Burke, and the great pantheon of conservative thinkers, believed humankind was by nature social and political, and Hegel’s dramatic transition from a rather nebulous social state to an idealized political regime was an impossibility.
More importantly, Calhoun viewed a rightly ordered community as consisting of highly autonomous parts or divisions cooperating together for the welfare of the whole. The societal realm described in all of Calhoun’s writings should be understood as the extension of smaller community units, represented by individual states, who serve as examples of how the larger society could be organized and political authority diffused throughout an extensive regime. For Calhoun, the United States of America did not exist as an aggregate, only as assemblage of communities, ultimately forming states and eventually contributing to a union. Calhoun’s dream of popular rule is Hegel’s political nightmare.
So, was Calhoun’s thought simply a “post hoc rationalization of slavery”? Obviously, we would answer that question in the negative. A proof would require more than this essay can provide (though we have addressed this question, directly and indirectly, in our books). Calhoun did offer a moderate defense of slavery that was thoroughly mainstream for his day, viewing the slavery situation as part of a larger discussion of the evolving nature of Southern society. But it was neither the most important nor most consuming aspect of his political thought. In most of the great debates of his lifetime, including a myriad of concerns from nullification to slavery, Calhoun should be understood as a source of moderation amid seas of extremism. Because of Calhoun’s own complex views and long-standing regional tensions, some of his critics attempt to use slavery as a means of distracting students of Calhoun’s political thought from a more complete examination of his work and its continuing importance to American politics.
We would suggest that the interested reader make up his own mind on the question by picking up Calhoun’s Disquisition, in which slavery is never mentioned, with an open mind. While it rewards careful and repeated readings, it can also be read in an afternoon. We believe honest engagement with Calhoun’s ideas dispels this misunderstanding.
Calhoun was not perfect, and he unfortunately shared the misguided racial opinions of his time and place. But his political and constitutional theory is powerful and often convincing. It is also thoroughly conservative. Conservatives don’t need to make Calhoun their only star and compass, but the mental gymnastics required to excise him from the conservative tradition, as Mr. Hilditch shows, demand the distortion of his thought and the complete remaking of the tradition. Apparently, that’s a price some are willing to pay.
John Grove is associate editor of Law & Liberty and a former professor of political science. He is the author of John C. Calhoun’s Theory of Republicanism.
H. Lee Cheek, Jr., is Professor of Political Science and the former Dean at East Georgia State College, and a Senior Fellow of Alexander Hamilton Institute. He is also a United Methodist minister and former U.S. Army chaplain. His books include Calhoun and Popular Rule and Confronting Modernity, among others.


theamericanconservative--2020-10-19--Biden Inc. Is More Corrupt Than Cronyism

The Biden family has always capitalized on Joe 's influence .
A pause during campaign season is par for the course , and it does n't mean anything has changed .
Sep 29 , 2015 : U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during a meeting with President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko in New York .
( By Drop of Light/Shutterstock ) It was almost exactly one year ago that Joe Biden stood on the primary debate stage and was confronted for the first time about Hunter Biden ’ s decision to accept a lucrative position at a Ukrainian energy company while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ region .
“ My son made a judgment .
I ’ m proud of the judgment he made.
” The answer came only hours after his son admitted to ABC News that his judgment was , in fact , off .
“ In retrospect , I wish that my judgment… ” Hunter Biden said on ‘ Good Morning America ’ before trailing off .
“ Did I make a mistake ?
Well , maybe in the grand scheme of things , yeah.
” Today , Biden , Inc. , is back in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and others continue to publish a series of articles revealing that the former vice president was much more intimately involved in the younger Biden ’ s business dealings than previously known .
The strategic response from the Democrat ’ s allies has been an intentional blackout .
Twitter prohibited users from sharing a link to the Post ’ s investigation and locked the newspaper out of its own account .
George Stephanopoulos conducted a two-hour ‘ town hall ’ with Biden , during which the anchor failed to ask a single question about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the nominee finally ventured outside to get ice cream , the toughest question that the media in attendance asked was : “ Mr .
Biden !
Mr. Biden !
What flavor did you get ?
” A CBS News reporter attempted to solicit a response on the tarmac , but Biden blew him off .
“ I know you ’ d ask it , ” the candidate said .
“ I have no response .
It ’ s another smear campaign .
Right up your alley.
” The campaign ’ s response devolved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least bit curious about the vice president ’ s role in Hunter Biden ’ s unusual business relationships is part of a foreign intelligence effort—and it ’ s just going to get worse .
Unfortunately , this is a play we ’ ve seen before .
The Bidens have been doing this shady work , and ‘ exiting ’ from it when convenient , for a very long time .
In 2001 , fresh off a plum job in the Clinton administration , Hunter Biden was named founding partner at Oldaker , Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose website Biden touted his status “ a presidential appointee ” of Bill Clinton—quickly took on a scattershot of clients ranging from hospitals to universities and , according to Delaware ’ s News Journal , was known for “ specializing in the sort of earmarks doled out by Sen. [ Joe ] Biden.
” Hunter Biden would go on to personally shape appropriations bills on behalf of clients , and in a short period donate more than $ 35,000 to federal candidates , including $ 10,000 to his father ’ s colleagues who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the time he was lobbying them .
And it was no secret why Hunter Biden ’ s first client chose him : Napster , the file-sharing service , was facing a barrage of attacks from Congress—a fight in which his father was expected to play a major role .
Joe Biden was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee , two powerful entities with unique interests in copyright laws that Napster was under fire for flouting .
The company tapped Manus Cooney and Karen Robb @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strangely , Hunter Biden .
Whereas Cooney and Robb had extensive experience—serving as the judiciary committee ’ s most recent chief counsel ( including during Napster ’ s appearance before it two months earlier ) and as a staff director , respectively—the younger Biden ’ s only qualification appeared to be his biological tie to the committee ’ s former chairman .
Just one month after Hunter Biden registered to lobby for Napster on the issue of “ compulsory licensing , ” the service ’ s chief executive officer appeared before the judiciary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a member , and called on members “ to provide a compulsory license for the transmission of music over the Internet.
” It was clear what was going on , and Team Obama , running on an anti-corruption platform , wasn ’ t happy about it .
The Illinois senator chose Biden as his running mate on Aug. 23. , 2008 .
Two days later , Hunter Biden wrote a letter to Congress stating that “ I no longer expect to act as a federal lobbyist.
” There was no moral epiphany .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ longer politically tenable while running for the White House .
But after the election , as ‘ senator ’ became ‘ vice president , ’ Biden , Inc. , opened back up for business , and Hunter Biden pivoted from congressional lobbying to international consulting , violating the spirit of his pledge as soon as Election Day passed .
That violation would continue for years .
In December 2013 , Hunter Biden accompanied the vice president on an Air Force Two flight to Beijing and , upon arrival , arranged for him to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bohai Capital , Li ’ s firm , would go on to partner with Rosemont Seneca Partners—co-founded by Biden six months after his father took office—to form a foreign investment fund called BHR Partners .
Corporate records for BHR Partners were completed 12 days after the Bidens ’ trip to Beijing .
Even a former senior aide in the Obama White House later said that the younger Biden appeared to be “ leveraging access for his benefit.
” In May 2014 , Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings , a Ukrainian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ father traveled to Kiev to urge parliament to “ fight the cancer of corruption.
” In fact , Burisma was being investigated for corruption by Ukraine ’ s prosecutor general , who was fired at the insistence of Vice President Biden under the threat of withholding U.S. loan guarantees .
Burisma paid Hunter Biden $ 50,000 per month , the purpose of which , as the Eurasia Group ’ s Ian Bremmer said , was “ clearly to be selling influence , because otherwise no one would ever pay him that kind of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seat until April 2019 , the same month his father announced his candidacy for president .
This is barely the tip of the iceberg .
Just as it was in 2008 , Biden , Inc. , may be on a temporary hiatus , but it will be back .
Joe Biden has long embraced the business of selling access until it becomes politically untenable—and recent reports from the New York Post and other institutional newsrooms suggest that the Biden family ’ s overlap of business and public office became something much more serious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inappropriate or insensitive for the American people to question how ( time and time again ) someone with Hunter Biden ’ s troublesome background became , at a moment ’ s notice , an expert in copyright enforcement , Ukrainian geopolitics , and other complex policy issues at precisely the same moment that his father began to oversee them in government .
The media ’ s refusal to demand an answer before Election Day is journalistic malpractice , and the Democrat ’ s failure to have done so already is disqualifying in and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Saguaro Group , an Arizona-based research firm..

It was almost exactly one year ago that Joe Biden stood on the primary debate stage and was confronted for the first time about Hunter Biden’s decision to accept a lucrative position at a Ukrainian energy company while his father oversaw foreign policy in the region.
“My son made a judgment. I’m proud of the judgment he made.”
The answer came only hours after his son admitted to ABC News that his judgment was, in fact, off. “In retrospect, I wish that my judgment…” Hunter Biden said on ‘Good Morning America’ before trailing off. “Did I make a mistake? Well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah.”
Today, Biden, Inc., is back in the news, as the New York Post and others continue to publish a series of articles revealing that the former vice president was much more intimately involved in the younger Biden’s business dealings than previously known.
The strategic response from the Democrat’s allies has been an intentional blackout. Twitter prohibited users from sharing a link to the Post’s investigation and locked the newspaper out of its own account. George Stephanopoulos conducted a two-hour ‘town hall’ with Biden, during which the anchor failed to ask a single question about the corruption allegations. And, when the nominee finally ventured outside to get ice cream, the toughest question that the media in attendance asked was: “Mr. Biden! Mr. Biden! What flavor did you get?”
A CBS News reporter attempted to solicit a response on the tarmac, but Biden blew him off. “I know you’d ask it,” the candidate said. “I have no response. It’s another smear campaign. Right up your alley.” The campaign’s response devolved from there—surrogates insist that anyone even the least bit curious about the vice president’s role in Hunter Biden’s unusual business relationships is part of a foreign intelligence effort—and it’s just going to get worse.
Unfortunately, this is a play we’ve seen before. The Bidens have been doing this shady work, and ‘exiting’ from it when convenient, for a very long time.
In 2001, fresh off a plum job in the Clinton administration, Hunter Biden was named founding partner at Oldaker, Biden & Belair LLP. The lobbying firm—on whose website Biden touted his status “a presidential appointee” of Bill Clinton—quickly took on a scattershot of clients ranging from hospitals to universities and, according to Delaware’s News Journal, was known for “specializing in the sort of earmarks doled out by Sen. [Joe] Biden.”
Hunter Biden would go on to personally shape appropriations bills on behalf of clients, and in a short period donate more than $35,000 to federal candidates, including $10,000 to his father’s colleagues who were members of the appropriations committees at the time he was lobbying them.
And it was no secret why Hunter Biden’s first client chose him: Napster, the file-sharing service, was facing a barrage of attacks from Congress—a fight in which his father was expected to play a major role. Joe Biden was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, two powerful entities with unique interests in copyright laws that Napster was under fire for flouting.
The company tapped Manus Cooney and Karen Robb to lead its lobbying efforts… alongside, strangely, Hunter Biden.
Whereas Cooney and Robb had extensive experience—serving as the judiciary committee’s most recent chief counsel (including during Napster’s appearance before it two months earlier) and as a staff director, respectively—the younger Biden’s only qualification appeared to be his biological tie to the committee’s former chairman. Just one month after Hunter Biden registered to lobby for Napster on the issue of “compulsory licensing,” the service’s chief executive officer appeared before the judiciary committee, of which Joe Biden was a member, and called on members “to provide a compulsory license for the transmission of music over the Internet.”
It was clear what was going on, and Team Obama, running on an anti-corruption platform, wasn’t happy about it. The Illinois senator chose Biden as his running mate on Aug. 23., 2008. Two days later, Hunter Biden wrote a letter to Congress stating that “I no longer expect to act as a federal lobbyist.”
There was no moral epiphany. His conflict of interest simply was no longer politically tenable while running for the White House. But after the election, as ‘senator’ became ‘vice president,’ Biden, Inc., opened back up for business, and Hunter Biden pivoted from congressional lobbying to international consulting, violating the spirit of his pledge as soon as Election Day passed.
That violation would continue for years.
In December 2013, Hunter Biden accompanied the vice president on an Air Force Two flight to Beijing and, upon arrival, arranged for him to shake hands with businessman Jonathan Li. Bohai Capital, Li’s firm, would go on to partner with Rosemont Seneca Partners—co-founded by Biden six months after his father took office—to form a foreign investment fund called BHR Partners. Corporate records for BHR Partners were completed 12 days after the Bidens’ trip to Beijing.
Even a former senior aide in the Obama White House later said that the younger Biden appeared to be “leveraging access for his benefit.”
In May 2014, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy firm, one month after his father traveled to Kiev to urge parliament to “fight the cancer of corruption.” In fact, Burisma was being investigated for corruption by Ukraine’s prosecutor general, who was fired at the insistence of Vice President Biden under the threat of withholding U.S. loan guarantees.
Burisma paid Hunter Biden $50,000 per month, the purpose of which, as the Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer said, was “clearly to be selling influence, because otherwise no one would ever pay him that kind of money.” He would retain the board seat until April 2019, the same month his father announced his candidacy for president.
This is barely the tip of the iceberg.
Just as it was in 2008, Biden, Inc., may be on a temporary hiatus, but it will be back. Joe Biden has long embraced the business of selling access until it becomes politically untenable—and recent reports from the New York Post and other institutional newsrooms suggest that the Biden family’s overlap of business and public office became something much more serious than simple cronyism.
It is not inappropriate or insensitive for the American people to question how (time and time again) someone with Hunter Biden’s troublesome background became, at a moment’s notice, an expert in copyright enforcement, Ukrainian geopolitics, and other complex policy issues at precisely the same moment that his father began to oversee them in government.
The media’s refusal to demand an answer before Election Day is journalistic malpractice, and the Democrat’s failure to have done so already is disqualifying in and of itself.
Brian Anderson is founder of the Saguaro Group, an Arizona-based research firm..


theamericanconservative--2020-10-20--Donald Trump Is No ‘Phony’ Populist

Donald Trump Is No ‘Phony’ Populist

The president is often denounced as a fake ally of the working class , but important data suggest that he 's done right by them .
As made clear by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ’ s claim that “ The President can only see the world from Park Avenue , ” the portrayal of Donald Trump as a phony populist is as popular among his opponents nowadays as during the 2016 presidential election .
Back then , no less a critic than former President Obama charged that candidate Trump was selling “ ordinary people ” a bill of goods @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” showing “ any regard for workers.
” Sincerity is always tough to measure .
But with Mr. Trump having nearly completed his first term in office , does any evidence show that the everyday Americans who comprise so much of his base should be feeling buyer ’ s remorse ?
Has their lot worsened under a flim-flam man whose real priority is his fellow One-Percenters ?
Not according to one set of official figures that ’ s especially good at gauging the fortunes of Mr. Trump ’ s core supporters over time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ County Employment and Wages series .
The final 2019 figures are out , and reveal a striking pattern when matched with the list of counties that voted for Mr. Obama in both 2008 and 2012 and then flipped for Mr. Trump : Average annual private-sector pay in most of these flip counties rose faster during the first three years of the Trump administration than during the last three years of the Mr. Obama ’ s presidency .
Moreover , this improvement didn ’ t simply stem from a single good year dragging up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was even greater as of the end of 2018 , as reported in this TAC piece .
The flip counties are good proxies for Trump ’ s working- and middle-class supporters because their salary levels generally trail the national average ( $ 59,202 ) considerably .
And due to their consistent support for Mr. Obama , their voters overall couldn ’ t have been attracted by whatever racist or xenophobic dogwhistles the President is often accused of issuing .
Surely , most saw Mr. Trump ’ s populist economic message as the biggest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ county salary data stop with 2019 , and therefore say nothing about their voters ’ pandemic-era circumstances , these latest available figures speak volumes about their populations ’ well-being during the most recent period of national pre-virus normality .
Also important—the two time periods involved were right next to each other during the same ( expansionary ) economic cycle phase .
So the numbers are as apples-to-apples as possible .
According to the updated 2018 data , of the 194 flip counties for which statistics are available , 131 ( 67.53 percent ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sector rise faster during the first two years of the Trump administration than during the last two years of the Obama administration .
( Figures including public-sector pay are kept by the Labor Department , but this compensation says relatively little about a region ’ s economic fundamentals because the levels are set by politicians ’ decisions , not market forces . )
In 2019 , the Trump administration ’ s margin diminished—undoubtedly due in part to slower national economic growth .
Even so , 59.79 percent of the flip counties ( 116 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pay growth during the first three Trump years than during the last three Obama years .
A closer examination reveals that a net of 22 of these counties moved from the Advantage Trump to the Advantage Obama column , while seven went in the opposite direction .
The bottom line politically of these developments is less clear for the President , even if he can still persuade most flip county voters nationally that he can restore pre-China virus prosperity .
For no fewer than 108 of these counties are located in nine states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Georgia , Iowa , Michigan , Minnesota , North Carolina , Ohio , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin .
And the split between those that prospered more during the first three Trump years than during the final three Obama years is just that : 50-50 ( 54 counties in each category ) rather than the nearly 60-40 Trump margin nation-wide .
More fortunately for the president , the number of battleground-state counties that switched paycheck-wise from Advantage Trump to Advantage Obama in 2019 is small ( 15 ) .
And except for Minnesota—which contains @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tip any of these states into the Biden column all by themselves , even in a nail-biter election .
Election 2020 politics aside , though , according to the crucial measure of income , these years worth of county data clash loudly with the Trump-as-phony-populist charge , and the common companion depiction of the last Democratic administration as a working- and middle-class champion .
And they indicate that if Republicans want to keep these voters in their camp going forward , continuing a Trump-like approach to the economy will be imperative .
Alan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a public policy blog focusing on economics and national security , and the author of The Race to the Bottom .

As made clear by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s claim that “The President can only see the world from Park Avenue,” the portrayal of Donald Trump as a phony populist is as popular among his opponents nowadays as during the 2016 presidential election. Back then, no less a critic than former President Obama charged that candidate Trump was selling “ordinary people” a bill of goods that belied his record of “never” showing “any regard for workers.”
Sincerity is always tough to measure. But with Mr. Trump having nearly completed his first term in office, does any evidence show that the everyday Americans who comprise so much of his base should be feeling buyer’s remorse? Has their lot worsened under a flim-flam man whose real priority is his fellow One-Percenters?
Not according to one set of official figures that’s especially good at gauging the fortunes of Mr. Trump’s core supporters over time: the Labor Department’s quarterly County Employment and Wages series. The final 2019 figures are out, and reveal a striking pattern when matched with the list of counties that voted for Mr. Obama in both 2008 and 2012 and then flipped for Mr. Trump: Average annual private-sector pay in most of these flip counties rose faster during the first three years of the Trump administration than during the last three years of the Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Moreover, this improvement didn’t simply stem from a single good year dragging up harder times. For the Trump-era edge was even greater as of the end of 2018, as reported in this TAC piece.
The flip counties are good proxies for Trump’s working- and middle-class supporters because their salary levels generally trail the national average ($59,202) considerably. And due to their consistent support for Mr. Obama, their voters overall couldn’t have been attracted by whatever racist or xenophobic dogwhistles the President is often accused of issuing. Surely, most saw Mr. Trump’s populist economic message as the biggest draw.
Meanwhile, although the annual county salary data stop with 2019, and therefore say nothing about their voters’ pandemic-era circumstances, these latest available figures speak volumes about their populations’ well-being during the most recent period of national pre-virus normality. Also important—the two time periods involved were right next to each other during the same (expansionary) economic cycle phase. So the numbers are as apples-to-apples as possible.
According to the updated 2018 data, of the 194 flip counties for which statistics are available, 131 (67.53 percent) saw average annual pay in the private sector rise faster during the first two years of the Trump administration than during the last two years of the Obama administration. (Figures including public-sector pay are kept by the Labor Department, but this compensation says relatively little about a region’s economic fundamentals because the levels are set by politicians’ decisions, not market forces.)
In 2019, the Trump administration’s margin diminished—undoubtedly due in part to slower national economic growth. Even so, 59.79 percent of the flip counties (116 of 194) experienced stronger private sector pay growth during the first three Trump years than during the last three Obama years. A closer examination reveals that 22 of these counties moved from the Advantage Trump to the Advantage Obama column, while seven went in the opposite direction.
The bottom line politically of these developments is less clear for the President, even if he can still persuade most flip county voters nationally that he can restore pre-China virus prosperity. For no fewer than 108 of these counties are located in nine states identified as 2020 battlegrounds: Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And the split between those that prospered more during the first three Trump years than during the final three Obama years is just that: 50-50 (54 counties in each category) rather than the nearly 60-40 Trump margin nation-wide.
More fortunately for the president, the number of battleground-state counties that switched paycheck-wise from Advantage Trump to Advantage Obama in 2019 is small (15). And except for Minnesota—which contains seven—they could be too thinly spread to tip any of these states into the Biden column all by themselves, even in a nail-biter election.
Election 2020 politics aside, though, according to the crucial measure of income, these years worth of county data clash loudly with the Trump-as-phony-populist charge, and the common companion depiction of the last Democratic administration as a working- and middle-class champion. And they indicate that if Republicans want to keep these voters in their camp going forward, continuing a Trump-like approach to the economy will be imperative.
Alan Tonelson is the founder of RealityChek, a public policy blog focusing on economics and national security, and the author of The Race to the Bottom.


theamericanconservative--2020-10-20--How the Polls Hide Trump’s Lead

How the Polls Hide Trump’s Lead

On October 23rd , 2016 , ABC News inaugurated its tracking poll with a Hillary Clinton advantage of 12 points .
It was a lead , ABC News noted , signifying the “ broad disapproval ” of Donald Trump .
Around the same time , the Associated/GfK poll was giving Clinton +13 percent , USA Today/Suffolk +10 and CNBC +10 .
Of course , there were some other polls at the time , most often ranging from +2 % to +7 % for Clinton—and two outliers , IBD/TIPP tracking giving Trump +2 percent and the LA Times/USC Tracking giving him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton ahead until the end , with the final lead at 3.2 percent .
The most notable numbers in 2016 came from state polls which gave Clinton a decisive advantage in the battleground states .
Models incorporating various data gave Hillary Clinton a 71 to 93 % chance to win the White House .
Circulating the conventional narrative to explain what happened with the polls in ’ 16 , Tom McCarthy wrote in The Guardian last month that “ While some key state polls were off in 2016 , the national polls in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton three points ahead at the end ; she won the popular vote by two points but lost in the electoral college.
” That is a misleading picture about the polls at the national level .
If we are to exclude the perennial outlier ( LA Times/USC Tracking ) that gave Trump a consistent and incorrect lead , and if we also exclude the nearly 900,000 extra votes that came from California for Clinton—an outcome which no one polled , predicted or even speculated about—then the national polls were off to a comparable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the national polls seemed to be less erroneous for all the wrong reasons .
A glaring misunderstanding like this invites the question whether the mainstream pollsters and poll readers have learned anything since 2016 .
Two pollsters who got 2016 right think that the mainstream polls are wrong again , and although they grant that the election is very close , at this point they predict a Trump electoral college victory .
Patrick Basham of the Democracy Institute predicted a Trump win in ’ 16 and also got the Brexit referendum right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ latest poll for 2020 predicts an easy electoral college victory for Trump with all battleground states ending up in Trump ’ s column .
Robert Cahaly of Trafalgar Group in his 2016 polls predicted the exact number of electors awarded to Trump .
Now Cahaly predicts that most battleground states will go for Trump with an electoral college victory in the mid-270s .
What both these pollsters are aiming to tackle is what is called social desirability bias in the polls .
Social desirability bias is when a poll interviewee gives an answer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ considers socially acceptable , rather than his true opinion on the subject .
It has been observed that voters were more likely to choose Trump in a poll that felt more anonymous , such as a poll that used an automated , interactive voice response system instead of a live caller .
Cahaly thinks that the social desirability bias is even more prevalent now than 2016 .
The people who were called deplorables in 2016 are now called racists and white supremacists .
Groups like white women in the suburbs are particularly sensitive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percentage of them will give pollsters the socially acceptable answer , even if that is not their actual choice .
This attitude might not change the winner of a particular demographic , such as white suburban women or working class blacks , but it could prove crucial in a close election .
Robert Barnes is a trial lawyer with a number of notable clients , from Wesley Snipes to the Covington Catholic students , Ralph Nader and Alex Jones .
But he is also the most formidable and comprehensive critic of the polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by putting some “ skin in the game ” —namely , betting against the polls when he thinks they are wrong .
In 2016 The Times of London reported that Mr. Barnes “ won a combined total of €470,000 by betting on Mr Trump in London and Dublin.
” Mr. Barnes claims that there are numerous problems with the polls .
A very important issue is how difficult it is for the polls to reach working class whites , blacks and Hispanics .
The difficulty is even more pronounced when pollsters try to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In an email exchange , Barnes gave me the example of Greene county in Pennsylvania , where a recent New York Times poll had it “ going 2 to 1 for Biden ( a county Biden is likely to lose 3-1 ) ” .
Greene county went 62 % -36 % for Trump in 2016 .
The county is heavily unionized and is dependent on its steel mills .
One has to assume , in order to believe the numbers of the poll , that the white rural steel workers have turned massively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has imposed a 25 % steel tariff and seems to embody in his positions their values and concerns .
Mr. Barnes argues that “ polling is now more art than science , and all the artists are talentless artists.
” You are not a good pollster if you don ’ t know the demographics , culture , and political history of the place you are trying to poll .
“ Few pollsters could tell you the difference between the Polish vote in Pittsburgh , the Italian vote in south Philly , the mainline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of coal miners in Wilkes Barre , and the large rural working class spread throughout the state , with their differences between coal mining country , old industry , and pastoral economics/society.
” It ’ s a nowheres trying to poll the somewheres problem .
Apart from the issue of social desirability bias , Mr. Barnes believes that this will be an election sharply divided by class .
And when that happens , polls go very wrong .
The most dramatic example of an election of that kind was 1948 , when President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls predicting the opposite outcome .
When the political preferences of an upper class female , who is much more likely to answer the phone call and complete a poll questionnaire , differ from those of a male laborer , then you are in trouble .
One of the biggest problems with polls is that 98 % of the people refuse to take them .
It ’ s hard to get a representative sample of a group when so few people answer pollsters ’ calls .
For Barnes , a more accurate indicator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the one we are having now is to check for “ division within the incumbent party , as measured by early primary vote share.
” Or how charismatic the opposition candidate is .
Has the incumbent President started any new wars ?
What is the “ primary participation rate in historically low-propensity voter groups ?
” What is the answer to the question “ are you better off than you were four years ago ?
What are the “ between-presidential-election 4-year voter registration trends in key states ?
” What is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the 6 months prior to the election in swing states ?
” The answers to these questions , and a few others that he considers , point to a Trump win this year .
Then there is the Primary Model of professor Helmut Norpoth of Stony Brook University .
It has predicted the winner of 25 out of 27 elections , missing 1960 , when the walking dead were voting for Kennedy in Illinois , and 2000 , where the election ended up in the Supreme Court ’ s lap .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on presidential primaries and , in addition , on an election cycle as predictors of the vote in the general election ” .
In the five cases where Norpoth ’ s model gave a different result than what the polls predicted , Norpoth ’ s model won 5-0 .
This year Norpoth ’ s model predicts a decisive electoral college victory for Trump in November .
Thomas Dewey , certain of his victory in 1948 , limited himself to inane platitudes of the type : “ You know that your future is still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with a similar attitude , has his own don ’ t-rock-the-boat strategy for the last few weeks of the election .
He hopes to “ run out the clock , ” as the Hill reported : Even the few pollsters who see President Trump as the favorite to win admit that this is a close election .
It could definitely go Biden ’ s way .
But perhaps it is telling that the Democratic strategist quoted in The Hill viewed his statements as risky enough to require anonymity .
What if we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blunders in history ?
We ’ ll see .
The future is still ahead of us .
Napoleon Linarthatos is a writer based in New York .

On October 23rd, 2016, ABC News inaugurated its tracking poll with a Hillary Clinton advantage of 12 points. It was a lead, ABC News noted, signifying the “broad disapproval” of Donald Trump. Around the same time, the Associated/GfK poll was giving Clinton +13 percent, USA Today/Suffolk +10 and CNBC +10. Of course, there were some other polls at the time, most often ranging from +2% to +7% for Clinton—and two outliers, IBD/TIPP tracking giving Trump +2 percent and the LA Times/USC Tracking giving him +4.
The RCP average would register Clinton ahead until the end, with the final lead at 3.2 percent. The most notable numbers in 2016 came from state polls which gave Clinton a decisive advantage in the battleground states. Models incorporating various data gave Hillary Clinton a 71 to 93% chance to win the White House.
Circulating the conventional narrative to explain what happened with the polls in ’16, Tom McCarthy wrote in The Guardian last month that “While some key state polls were off in 2016, the national polls in aggregate were right on target, showing Clinton three points ahead at the end; she won the popular vote by two points but lost in the electoral college.” That is a misleading picture about the polls at the national level. If we are to exclude the perennial outlier (LA Times/USC Tracking) that gave Trump a consistent and incorrect lead, and if we also exclude the nearly 900,000 extra votes that came from California for Clinton—an outcome which no one polled, predicted or even speculated about—then the national polls were off to a comparable degree to the battleground polls. Namely, the national polls seemed to be less erroneous for all the wrong reasons. A glaring misunderstanding like this invites the question whether the mainstream pollsters and poll readers have learned anything since 2016.
Two pollsters who got 2016 right think that the mainstream polls are wrong again, and although they grant that the election is very close, at this point they predict a Trump electoral college victory. Patrick Basham of the Democracy Institute predicted a Trump win in ’16 and also got the Brexit referendum right as well. Basham, in his latest poll for 2020 predicts an easy electoral college victory for Trump with all battleground states ending up in Trump’s column. Robert Cahaly of Trafalgar Group in his 2016 polls predicted the exact number of electors awarded to Trump. Now Cahaly predicts that most battleground states will go for Trump with an electoral college victory in the mid-270s.
What both these pollsters are aiming to tackle is what is called social desirability bias in the polls. Social desirability bias is when a poll interviewee gives an answer to a question based on what he considers socially acceptable, rather than his true opinion on the subject. It has been observed that voters were more likely to choose Trump in a poll that felt more anonymous, such as a poll that used an automated, interactive voice response system instead of a live caller.
Cahaly thinks that the social desirability bias is even more prevalent now than 2016. The people who were called deplorables in 2016 are now called racists and white supremacists. Groups like white women in the suburbs are particularly sensitive to those kind of charges. A percentage of them will give pollsters the socially acceptable answer, even if that is not their actual choice. This attitude might not change the winner of a particular demographic, such as white suburban women or working class blacks, but it could prove crucial in a close election.
Robert Barnes is a trial lawyer with a number of notable clients, from Wesley Snipes to the Covington Catholic students, Ralph Nader and Alex Jones. But he is also the most formidable and comprehensive critic of the polls. He has trained for that role by putting some “skin in the game”—namely, betting against the polls when he thinks they are wrong. In 2016 The Times of London reported that Mr. Barnes “won a combined total of €470,000 by betting on Mr Trump in London and Dublin.”
Mr. Barnes claims that there are numerous problems with the polls. A very important issue is how difficult it is for the polls to reach working class whites, blacks and Hispanics. The difficulty is even more pronounced when pollsters try to get representative samples in rural areas. In an email exchange, Barnes gave me the example of Greene county in Pennsylvania, where a recent New York Times poll had it “going 2 to 1 for Biden (a county Biden is likely to lose 3-1)”. Greene county went 62%-36% for Trump in 2016. The county is heavily unionized and is dependent on its steel mills. One has to assume, in order to believe the numbers of the poll, that the white rural steel workers have turned massively against the president, even though he has imposed a 25% steel tariff and seems to embody in his positions their values and concerns.
Mr. Barnes argues that “polling is now more art than science, and all the artists are talentless artists.” You are not a good pollster if you don’t know the demographics, culture, and political history of the place you are trying to poll. “Few pollsters could tell you the difference between the Polish vote in Pittsburgh, the Italian vote in south Philly, the mainline Episcopalian in Montgomery, the Welsh son of coal miners in Wilkes Barre, and the large rural working class spread throughout the state, with their differences between coal mining country, old industry, and pastoral economics/society.” It’s a nowheres trying to poll the somewheres problem.
Apart from the issue of social desirability bias, Mr. Barnes believes that this will be an election sharply divided by class. And when that happens, polls go very wrong. The most dramatic example of an election of that kind was 1948, when President Truman defeated Thomas Dewey decisively despite all polls predicting the opposite outcome. When the political preferences of an upper class female, who is much more likely to answer the phone call and complete a poll questionnaire, differ from those of a male laborer, then you are in trouble. One of the biggest problems with polls is that 98% of the people refuse to take them. It’s hard to get a representative sample of a group when so few people answer pollsters’ calls.
For Barnes, a more accurate indicator of the direction of an incumbent election like the one we are having now is to check for “division within the incumbent party, as measured by early primary vote share.” Or how charismatic the opposition candidate is. Has the incumbent President started any new wars? What is the “primary participation rate in historically low-propensity voter groups?” What is the answer to the question “are you better off than you were four years ago? What are the “between-presidential-election 4-year voter registration trends in key states?” What is the “partisan differential in voter registration trends in the 6 months prior to the election in swing states?” The answers to these questions, and a few others that he considers, point to a Trump win this year.
Then there is the Primary Model of professor Helmut Norpoth of Stony Brook University. It has predicted the winner of 25 out of 27 elections, missing 1960, when the walking dead were voting for Kennedy in Illinois, and 2000, where the election ended up in the Supreme Court’s lap. “It is a statistical model that relies on presidential primaries and, in addition, on an election cycle as predictors of the vote in the general election”. In the five cases where Norpoth’s model gave a different result than what the polls predicted, Norpoth’s model won 5-0. This year Norpoth’s model predicts a decisive electoral college victory for Trump in November.
Thomas Dewey, certain of his victory in 1948, limited himself to inane platitudes of the type: “You know that your future is still ahead of you.” Now Joe Biden, with a similar attitude, has his own don’t-rock-the-boat strategy for the last few weeks of the election. He hopes to “run out the clock,” as the Hill reported:
“They don’t want to break anything in the last three weeks,” said one Democratic strategist. “If the election were held today, they would win. They know it, and more importantly, Trump knows it.” “To put it simply, they’re winning,” the strategist added. “And they don’t need to do much. They need to firm up their support and call it a game.”
Even the few pollsters who see President Trump as the favorite to win admit that this is a close election. It could definitely go Biden’s way. But perhaps it is telling that the Democratic strategist quoted in The Hill viewed his statements as risky enough to require anonymity. What if we are witnessing one of the biggest political blunders in history?
We’ll see. The future is still ahead of us.
Napoleon Linarthatos is a writer based in New York.


theamericanconservative--2020-10-21--Remembering Hunter’s First Big Scandal

Remembering Hunter’s First Big Scandal

Well , it came a little later than most people expected , but Hunter Biden ’ s colorful resume has turned into a campaign issue after all .
The New York Post ‘ s bombshell report last week—evidence that Hunter , as was long suspected , had capitalized on access to his VP father while serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company—is likely to hurt Quid Pro Joe ’ s campaign in these final , crucial stages .
What ’ s more , major online platforms ’ blatant attempts to censor that reporting are sure to spark backlash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re not openly running interference by blocking links to sourced exposés , powerful media and cultural institutions rely on simple spin to aid the Biden campaign .
The prodigal son ’ s misdeeds—from influence-peddling to crack-smoking to paternity disputes—are cast as youthful indiscretions .
What this generous bit of gaslighting invites us to forget is that Hunter Biden is not some twenty-something screwup just trying to find his way—Hunter Biden is 50 years old , with a long , established track record of ethical violations stretching back over much of that half-century @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a protracted saga of apparent corruption and cover-ups .
Let ’ s look back on the beginnings of the pattern .
In the last years of the last millennium a 26-year-old Hunter Biden , fresh out of Yale Law and the son of a 24-year-incumbent U.S. senator , got a gig as deputy campaign manager for his dad ’ s reelection bid , and also took a cushy job at a bank holding company that happened to be one of his father ’ s biggest campaign funders .
After less than three years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ company ’ s executive vice president—Hunter headed to the U.S. Department of Commerce for the last 3 years of the Clinton administration , hired on the orders of Commerce Secretary William Daley ( who happened to have worked on Joe ’ s first presidential campaign ) .
As Clinton was about to leave office , Hunter left government and turned to lobbying—becoming , as Brian Anderson observed here at TAC , “ an expert in copyright enforcement , Ukrainian geopolitics , and other complex policy issues at precisely the same moment that his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ( He was hired on to a skyrocketing startup firm by cofounder William Oldaker—another Biden ’ 88 adviser . )
In 2006 , it was time for Hunter to get out of lobbying .
( The fact that Joe once again had his eyes set on the White House may well have influenced this decision . )
Joe ’ s younger brother , James stepped in to help .
James has been more successful and more audacious even than Hunter in cashing in on family ties .
In one incident , James @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vice president 3 weeks before the firm snagged a $ 1.5 billion contract to rebuild houses in war-torn Iraq while Joe was in the White House helping wage the war .
( James had no previous experience in the construction business . )
He was , in many ways , the perfect mentor for Hunter .
Given the Biden family ’ s humble , middle-class character—so proudly touted on the campaign trail—the obvious career move was to buy a hedge fund .
James brokered the deal , and by year ’ s end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partner named Anthony Lotito had bought Paradigm Global Advisors , a fund of funds .
Hunter was installed as CEO .
The deal was reported on extensively in 2009 by finance blogger John Hempton , who had noticed some oddities and discrepancies in a number of documents related to PGA .
That ’ s a bit of an understatement : virtually every aspect of the fund , and of the process by which it came into the Bidens ’ possession , raises serious concerns .
For one thing , Hunter and James seem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their business partner , or the lawyer he brought on board .
It became apparent that Lotito was scamming them—which James readily admitted in a sworn affidavit in the spring of 2007—as was the lawyer , John Fasciana .
The affidavit is almost comical in its professed naivety .
For instance : Nor were the personnel problems limited to the Bidens ’ business partners .
At the fund itself , founder James Park , JD , PhD , who was primarily responsible for the fund ’ s management , was known to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been an absentee manager for several years .
( Dr. Park has now left the hedge fund game , and wears a number of different hats , including that age-old magnet for the virtuous and good : college admissions consultant . )
It ’ s hard to believe that any of these things would have been very difficult to find out .
One would think that , say , making sure your lawyer is not a convicted felon awaiting sentencing would be the absolute bare minimum required of due diligence in acquiring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in assets .
Ditto on the drug-addicted deadbeat boss .
Well , there ’ s another of the problems with PGA .
As it turns out , Hunter and James weren ’ t acquiring a hedge fund comprising $ 1.5 billion in assets—it was actually somewhere between $ 200-300 million .
This raises a host of other issues .
As Hempton has pointed out , for instance , there is no way PGA in 2006 could have supported its professed 28 employees , on three continents , with the meager revenue from these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ annually when all was said and done .
Whether any fraud was perpetrated on the clients before or during the Bidens ’ tenure is unclear .
What is certain is that James and Hunter made a massive , easily avoidable mistake .
The concerns only multiply from there .
Hempton also uncovered troubling ties between PGA and Ponta Negra , a suspicious hedge fund ( i.e .
Ponzi scheme ) whose manager later pled guilty to fraud charges .
Among the things shared by PGA and Ponta Negra are , at the very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number , and a marketer .
The Bidens have maintained that Ponta Negra were merely subtenants , introduced through the shared marketer ( who also has “ a history of marketing what [ Hempton ] politely deems ‘ scuzzy product ' ” ) .
Nor is Ponta Negra the only Ponzi scheme in PGA ’ s orbit : after the Biden acquisition , PGA was reported by The Wall Street Journal to have collaborated on a fund with notorious fraudster Allen Stanford .
Hunter didn ’ t last long as CEO , likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he had gotten himself into , but he and James maintained ownership of PGA at least as late as 2009 .
Exactly how Hunter managed to extricate himself from the PGA imbroglio ( and land on the board of one of Ukraine ’ s largest energy companies ) is not entirely clear .
We do know how he defrayed the debt accrued in the process : with a small loan of a million dollars , leveraged against his house .
If that seems like a generous sum , it may have something to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bank , which provided the note , was cofounded by one William Oldaker .
In the most generous possible reading of the situation , Hunter and James Biden—after years of capitalizing on their connection to Joe—fell for a massive scam , losing well over a million dollars in the process .
That they managed to get out of hot water at all may well have been owed to their last name also .
This assumes , again , the rather charitable concession that neither of them ever misrepresented the state of affairs at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had any knowledge at all of the myriad shady dealings of multiple associates .
Concede all that , and this is still a massive problem .
Assuming the Paradigm Global debacle is exactly what it looks like—the media ’ s habitual blind eye leaves us relying on an incomplete picture—then the biggest story of the Biden family hustle may not be their simple willingness to cash in on the name ( this has been common knowledge for years ) but just how easily and summarily certain Bidens can be taken for chumps .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ least , a concerning background for the son and brother of a potential president of the United States—two men who will be sure to cash in on that position if it comes about ( or at least to try ) .
The next time the Bidens get taken in , the stakes are likely to be much , much higher .

Well, it came a little later than most people expected, but Hunter Biden’s colorful resume has turned into a campaign issue after all. The New York Post‘s bombshell report last week—evidence that Hunter, as was long suspected, had capitalized on access to his VP father while serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company—is likely to hurt Quid Pro Joe’s campaign in these final, crucial stages. What’s more, major online platforms’ blatant attempts to censor that reporting are sure to spark backlash among voters next month.
When they’re not openly running interference by blocking links to sourced exposés, powerful media and cultural institutions rely on simple spin to aid the Biden campaign. The prodigal son’s misdeeds—from influence-peddling to crack-smoking to paternity disputes—are cast as youthful indiscretions. What this generous bit of gaslighting invites us to forget is that Hunter Biden is not some twenty-something screwup just trying to find his way—Hunter Biden is 50 years old, with a long, established track record of ethical violations stretching back over much of that half-century. Burisma is just one episode in a protracted saga of apparent corruption and cover-ups. Let’s look back on the beginnings of the pattern.
In the last years of the last millennium a 26-year-old Hunter Biden, fresh out of Yale Law and the son of a 24-year-incumbent U.S. senator, got a gig as deputy campaign manager for his dad’s reelection bid, and also took a cushy job at a bank holding company that happened to be one of his father’s biggest campaign funders. After less than three years there—in which he managed to become the company’s executive vice president—Hunter headed to the U.S. Department of Commerce for the last 3 years of the Clinton administration, hired on the orders of Commerce Secretary William Daley (who happened to have worked on Joe’s first presidential campaign). As Clinton was about to leave office, Hunter left government and turned to lobbying—becoming, as Brian Anderson observed here at TAC, “an expert in copyright enforcement, Ukrainian geopolitics, and other complex policy issues at precisely the same moment that his father began to oversee them in government.” (He was hired on to a skyrocketing startup firm by cofounder William Oldaker—another Biden ’88 adviser.)
In 2006, it was time for Hunter to get out of lobbying. (The fact that Joe once again had his eyes set on the White House may well have influenced this decision.) Joe’s younger brother, James stepped in to help. James has been more successful and more audacious even than Hunter in cashing in on family ties. In one incident, James joined construction giant HillStone International as executive vice president 3 weeks before the firm snagged a $1.5 billion contract to rebuild houses in war-torn Iraq while Joe was in the White House helping wage the war. (James had no previous experience in the construction business.) He was, in many ways, the perfect mentor for Hunter.
Given the Biden family’s humble, middle-class character—so proudly touted on the campaign trail—the obvious career move was to buy a hedge fund. James brokered the deal, and by year’s end he, Hunter, and a third partner named Anthony Lotito had bought Paradigm Global Advisors, a fund of funds. Hunter was installed as CEO. The deal was reported on extensively in 2009 by finance blogger John Hempton, who had noticed some oddities and discrepancies in a number of documents related to PGA. That’s a bit of an understatement: virtually every aspect of the fund, and of the process by which it came into the Bidens’ possession, raises serious concerns.
For one thing, Hunter and James seem to have done no due diligence regarding their business partner, or the lawyer he brought on board. It became apparent that Lotito was scamming them—which James readily admitted in a sworn affidavit in the spring of 2007—as was the lawyer, John Fasciana. The affidavit is almost comical in its professed naivety. For instance:
Lotito failed to inform Hunter or me that Fasicana: (1) had been convicted in federal court of participating in a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars and to launder that money through his attorney trust account; (2) had exhausted all his appeals; and (3) was merely awaiting sentencing for his crimes. Had we known of Fasciana’s conviction and prior criminal conduct, we would not have retained Fasciana for any purpose. We also would not have formed LLB [the holding company the three partners used to buy PGA], and would not have engaged in any further business dealings with Lotito.
Nor were the personnel problems limited to the Bidens’ business partners. At the fund itself, founder James Park, JD, PhD, who was primarily responsible for the fund’s management, was known to have a serious substance abuse problem and to have been an absentee manager for several years. (Dr. Park has now left the hedge fund game, and wears a number of different hats, including that age-old magnet for the virtuous and good: college admissions consultant.)
It’s hard to believe that any of these things would have been very difficult to find out. One would think that, say, making sure your lawyer is not a convicted felon awaiting sentencing would be the absolute bare minimum required of due diligence in acquiring a hedge fund comprising $1.5 billion in assets. Ditto on the drug-addicted deadbeat boss.
Well, there’s another of the problems with PGA. As it turns out, Hunter and James weren’t acquiring a hedge fund comprising $1.5 billion in assets—it was actually somewhere between $200-300 million. This raises a host of other issues. As Hempton has pointed out, for instance, there is no way PGA in 2006 could have supported its professed 28 employees, on three continents, with the meager revenue from these investments—probably netting less than $3 million annually when all was said and done. Whether any fraud was perpetrated on the clients before or during the Bidens’ tenure is unclear. What is certain is that James and Hunter made a massive, easily avoidable mistake.
The concerns only multiply from there. Hempton also uncovered troubling ties between PGA and Ponta Negra, a suspicious hedge fund (i.e. Ponzi scheme) whose manager later pled guilty to fraud charges. Among the things shared by PGA and Ponta Negra are, at the very least: an address, a phone number, and a marketer. The Bidens have maintained that Ponta Negra were merely subtenants, introduced through the shared marketer (who also has “a history of marketing what [Hempton] politely deems ‘scuzzy product'”). Nor is Ponta Negra the only Ponzi scheme in PGA’s orbit: after the Biden acquisition, PGA was reported by The Wall Street Journal to have collaborated on a fund with notorious fraudster Allen Stanford.
Hunter didn’t last long as CEO, likely due to a rude awakening on what he had gotten himself into, but he and James maintained ownership of PGA at least as late as 2009. Exactly how Hunter managed to extricate himself from the PGA imbroglio (and land on the board of one of Ukraine’s largest energy companies) is not entirely clear. We do know how he defrayed the debt accrued in the process: with a small loan of a million dollars, leveraged against his house. If that seems like a generous sum, it may have something to do with the fact that Washington First Bank, which provided the note, was cofounded by one William Oldaker.
In the most generous possible reading of the situation, Hunter and James Biden—after years of capitalizing on their connection to Joe—fell for a massive scam, losing well over a million dollars in the process. That they managed to get out of hot water at all may well have been owed to their last name also. This assumes, again, the rather charitable concession that neither of them ever misrepresented the state of affairs at PGA, and that neither of them had any knowledge at all of the myriad shady dealings of multiple associates. Concede all that, and this is still a massive problem.
Assuming the Paradigm Global debacle is exactly what it looks like—the media’s habitual blind eye leaves us relying on an incomplete picture—then the biggest story of the Biden family hustle may not be their simple willingness to cash in on the name (this has been common knowledge for years) but just how easily and summarily certain Bidens can be taken for chumps. This would be, to say the least, a concerning background for the son and brother of a potential president of the United States—two men who will be sure to cash in on that position if it comes about (or at least to try).
The next time the Bidens get taken in, the stakes are likely to be much, much higher.