How About A Tariff On Talent?

There is no issue in the United States that is in greater need for resolution and reform than our immigration policy.

U.S immigration policy has been broken for decades.

Combine that with the nonexistent enforcement of the laws that we have and it adds up to the disaster at the border we have seen over the last four years.

This has resulted in an enormous shift in popular opinion on the immigration issue that is evident in looking at recent polling.

First, look at the shift in who voters trust more on the immigration issue between April, 2017 (early in Trump's first term) and January, 2025 in a recent CNN poll.

Democrats were +11 in 2017.

The GOP is now +23 on the immigration issue amounting to a staggering 33 point shift in popular opinion.

Link: https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1883908900061389061

Moreover, look at the polling between December, 2024 (under Biden) and just one month later (under Trump) on whether the nation is on the right or wrong track on immigration.

Under Biden, only 14% of voters thought we were on the right track with immigration. 

That view has increased by 23 points in one month under Trump.

Link: https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1883908900061389061

It all adds up that Trump' has a 46%-39% approval rating advantage on what he is doing on immigration (deportations and all) at the present time.

Link: https://x.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1883908900061389061

All of this tells me that the political environment to overhaul U.S. immigration policy is more favorable today than it has been in over 30 years.

More importantly, President Trump has the political capital and influence to finally get it done.

However, what could President Trump do to make our immigration policy more equitable and less likely to be the product of more bureaucracy and red tape while also generating revenues for the federal government?

Scott McNealy, the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, has suggested that the federal government use a market-based auction system to determine who gets a green card, H-1B or guest worker visa.

The federal government would set annual quotas for all visa categories and there would be monthly auctions for employer or citizen sponsors to bid for the right to sponsor an immigrant to come into the country.

As such, it would act as a 'tariff on talent" in much the same way that Trump's favored tariffs operate on importing goods and services into the country.

Since the United States is allowing the immigrant talent to enter the country why should the country at large not be compensated in some way?

The pure form of McNealy's idea is that the visa market auction would be used for all visa categories. However, my view is that green cards for immediate family members should continue as they are today. I would focus the market auction most particularly on all employment, investor or guest worker visa programs.

Quota limits would be set based on an analysis of domestic labor supply and demand in job sectors and the allowed visas would be purchased in a market auction to the highest bidder.

If Google needs to hire IT talent they would need to bid for the visa spot against other employer sponsors.

The greater the need the higher the bid should be.

If a MLS team wants to bring in a Brazilian soccer player for their team they would have to bid for the spot.

The "talent tariff" auction could also be used for the "Red Card" guest worker proposal. that I have outlined in these pages before.

If a meat packer in Iowa or a strawberry farm in California needs labor they would have to get the visa for their sponsored worker in the talent tariff auction.

Beyond paying the talent tariff, the employer sponsor would also have to be a guarantor of the conduct of the immigrant in the United States. Should the sponsored immigrant commit a crime or cause damage or harm to someone, the employer sponsor would be responsible for paying restitution.

This common sense idea would help insure a more level playing field and also limit the potential for abuse. Most importantly, it would help protect American worker opportunities and wages so as to not be undercut by immigrant labor.

Trump believes strongly in tariffs on foreign made goods. One of the reasons for that is to level the playing field for US manufacturers. 

Countries with lower labor costs, fewer environmental regulations, lower social costs and taxes should not be able to undersell U.S. manufacturers indiscriminately.

Trump wants to incentivize the purchase of U.S. sourced goods through the tariff system while also raising necessary government revenue.

The same can be said for U.S. workers.  A talent tariff would incentivize the hiring of U.S. workers but still provide employers the ability to source foreign talent if there is a true economic justification based on market principles.

If an employer believes that they cannot find the talent they need in the United States they should be willing to pay a tariff for the talent.

This helps insure that the employer is not merely going overseas for the talent to take advantage of lower wages which then, in turn, depresses opportunity and wages for American workers.

In effect, it is a market-based approach to limit abuse in the system that seems to be occurring with the H-1B program today and creates a more even playing field with labor.

However, this approach carries with it a substantial additional benefit in that it would raise badly needed federal government revenues and take pressure off of reliance on the income tax. This would seem to be especially attractive to President Trump who has stated his longer-term goal is to actually replace the income tax completely with a tariff-based approach.

The bottom line is that Trump and the Republicans have never been in a better position to enact sensible immigration reform.

The Democrats have never been put in a weaker negotiating position.

What is still needed are some transformative ideas to modernize and make our immigration laws more in tune with market realities.

Donald Trump has single handedly given the Republicans a lot of leverage on immigration reform.

Of course, Joe Biden has to be given an assist for his abysmal performance on the issue.

Could a tariff on talent be the missing link to pull all of it together?

I like the idea.

Donald Trump should like it even more.

Wayback Wednesday---January 29, 2025

I have been writing BeeLine for almost 15 years.

I have covered a lot of territory in that time.

Times have changed but some topics are timeless.

What was I writing about 10 years ago?

I have a lot more readers and subscribers today than then.

Here is a blog post from January, 2015 on a topic that is as relevant today as it was at that time.

"Predictions Are Perilous".

How many times were we told that Donald Trump could never be elected President in 2016?

How often did we hear he had no chance to win again in 2024?

How many poor predictions did we hear during Covid?

Or how how inflation was going to be transitory.

What happened to the weather forecast that this winter would be mild with little snow?

Predictions are indeed perilous.

The topic works in 2025 as well as it did in 2015.

New information for newbies. Nostalgia for the long-time readers in today's blog post.

Enjoy.

Predictions Are Perilous (originally published January 15, 2015)

One of my favorites movies of all-time is Back to the Future. The 1985 film starred Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd in which Marty McFly (played by Fox) accidentally is sent back in time to 1955 and must get back to 1985 before damaging his own future while he is in the past.

A sequel, Back to the Future II, was released in 1989 and picks up where the original film left off with the main plot involving Marty McFly travelling forward in time to the distant year 2015.

That distant year is now upon us and I thought this article comparing 2015 as Director Robert Zemeckis envisioned it to how things have turned out was interesting.

Did the film get it right? Not exactly. 

While it predicted Skype calls and virtual-reality headsets, the film got plenty wrong — including hoverboards.

Other misses were self-lacing sneakers, robotic gas stations and hologram ads.

However, it came close to a number of items we see today.

This scene shows something pretty close to a big flat screen display with multiple channels.

Pretty close on Skype or iChat as well.

And Google Glass.

However, nowhere to be seen in the movie is the internet, emails or mobile phones.

Of course, predicting the future is hazardous duty.

Even Zemeckis was not comfortable having to depict the future in the movie as he explained in this Business Insider article.

"I never really ever wanted to go to the future in the 'Back to the Future' movie because I don't like seeing the future in any movie," said Zemeckis. "The only kind of future that the audience ever actually accepts is a Orwellian dark future."

"The problem with doing movies in the future is that you always are wrong," he continued. "You underestimate it. You can't be right. Even Stanley Kubrick has always mispredicted the future in his movies."

Zemeckis said they found a workaround for the movie by making light of what they thought the future would be like.

He knew his limitations a little better than these folks that Robert J. Szczerba recently profiled in Forbes magazine as being responsible for what he considers the "15 Worst Tech Predictions Of All Time".


1876: “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — William Preece, British Post Office.

1876: “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” — William Orton, President of Western Union.

1889: “Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” — Thomas Edison

1903: “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.” — President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Company.

1921: "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio.

1946: “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” — Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox.

1955: “Nuclear powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality within 10 years.” — Alex Lewyt, President of the Lewyt Vacuum Cleaner Company.

1959: “Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.” — Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General.

1961: “There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television or radio service inside the United States.” — T.A.M. Craven, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner.

1966: “Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop.” — Time Magazine.

1981: “Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems.” — Marty Cooper, inventor.

1995: “I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” — Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com.

2005: “There’s just not that many videos I want to watch.” — Steve Chen, CTO and co-founder of YouTube expressing concerns about his company’s long term viability.

2006: “Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.’” — David Pogue, The New York Times.

2007: “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” — Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.

Predictions are perilous. Something to remember as we begin the new year and the "experts" are making their 2015 prognostications of what to expect in the future.

Can We End Birthright Citizenship?

President Trump signed an executive order last week changing the policy of providing birthright citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil to illegal alien parents and those whose parents are here on temporary visas. These babies are popularly referred to as "anchor babies".

It does not apply to babies born to immigrants who are lawful permanent residents.

Is is also important to note that the Trump order only applies to future anchor babies. It does not attempt to strip citizenship from past anchor babies.

This is an issue I wrote about in these pages ten years ago entitled, "An Anchor Around Our Necks" detailing the compounding costs of birthright citizenship.

This was before Donald Trump even started making headlines about the issue when he first ran for President in 2016.

President Trump's executive order has already been challenged in federal court by 22 Democrat-led states and several civil rights organizations. This undoubtedly is no surprise to Trump. However, this now sets the stage for this important issue to be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court which has never been directly confronted on the issue.

Let's take a deeper look at the issue of birthright citizenship. 

The United States is decidedly in a distinct minority in providing citizenship this way. Among developed countries, Canada is the only other country in the world to provide birthright citizenship.

In fact, the trend in recent years has been to eliminate birthright citizenship. Ireland was the last European Union country to eliminate it in 2005. France did away with it in 1993. The UK in 1983.

Australia (1986) and New Zealand (2006) are other countries that eliminated birthright citizenship in recent years.

The common narrative repeated by many is that birthright citizen is a fundamental right for anyone born in the United States provided by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and therefore can only be eliminated by constitutional amendment. However, as stated above, this question has never been directly decided by the Supreme Court.

What does the 14th Amendment actually say which was enacted originally to insure that slaves would be recognized as citizens?

Amendment XIV, Section 1, Clause 1:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." (emphasis added)

That seems fairly clear except for the words I underlined above..."and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

Is a child born in the United States to parents who are illegal immigrants "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" when those parents are unlawfully present in our country?

This is the foundational argument behind Trump's executive order that the 14th Amendment does not automatically confer birthright citizenship to children of illegal immigrants. These individuals are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States as they are citizens of other countries.

Even if one believes that Trump cannot do this through executive order many believe that Congress has the right to define what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means. It has already been accepted that this means that children born to foreign diplomats do not gain U.S. birthright citizenship nor do members of certain Indian tribes.

I would further argue that the very actions of the federal government in not enforcing the immigration laws means that illegal immigrants that are here have effectively not been "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" by the consistent failure of our government to enforce the country's jurisdictional borders. 

How can an illegal immigrant be considered to be subject to the jurisdiction of our country if they are here illegally but our government is doing nothing about it?

The Center for Immigration Studies did a study in 2018 that estimated 300,000 children were born in the United States that year to mothers who are illegal immigrants. To put that in perspective, that is about 1 out of every 12 births in this country!

It is hard to believe that the numbers are not higher today especially considering the surge of illegals into the country over the last four years.

Aa result of the prevailing interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution each of these children are considered to be United States citizens.

500,000 additional children were born to legal immigrants. It should be noted that children born to legal immigrants would still be considered U.S. citizens under the Trump order in that they "are subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States.

Taken together, births to immigrants made up about 20% of all U.S. births in 2018 according to that study.

This overall estimate seems still accurate today in that the foreign-born population is now 15.6% of the U.S population (a higher percentage that it has ever been). In that this immigrant population is younger and has generally higher fertility rates than the native population it follows that about 20% of all births in any year are to immigrants.

Source: https://cis.org/Report/ForeignBorn-Population-Grew-51-Million-Last-Two-Years

U.S.-born children of illegal aliens are also eligible to sponsor the immigration of family members once they come of age. At 18, an “anchor baby” can sponsor an overseas spouse and unmarried children of his own. At full majority age at 21, he or she can sponsor parents and siblings under our "chain migration" laws.

Can you imagine anyone who voted for the 14th Amendment in 1866 at the federal or state level thinking that we would be conferring citizenship to this many as a result of this provision?

Or to even consider the fact that people could transport themselves within a day from any point in the world to the United States?

Michael Anton of the Claremont Institute wrote what I have found to be the best overall argument for why citizenship birthright should be ended. He has extensively researched the legislative history behind the 14th Amendment deliberations in 1866.

It seems that those who wrote and voted on the 14th Amendment had no intention that they would be conferring birthright citizenship on anyone whose parents were unlawfully in the United States.

It is also not debatable that the American people were never brought into the conversation as Anton observes.

The American people did not willingly, knowingly, or politically adopt birthright citizenship. They were maneuvered into it by the Left and by the Left-allied judiciary. They’ve never debated it or voted on it. They’ve simply been told that it’s required by the Constitution.

What is in the legislative history to support the view that birthright citizenship was never intended by the 14th Amendment?

Senator Jacob Howard was one of the authors of the 14th Amendment and specifically offered the amendment language that added the words, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof". This is his explanation of the reasons for that language and its import.

This suggests that to acquire birthright citizenship a person has to be born within the limits of the United States and be fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

This was made even clearer by the clarifying comment of Senator Johnson of Maryland during the debate about the 14th Amendment.

Now, all this amendment provides is, that all persons born in the United States and not subject to some foreign Power—for that, no doubt, is the meaning of the committee who have brought the matter before us—shall be considered as citizens of the United States. That would seem to be not only a wise but a necessary provision. If there are to be citizens of the United States entitled everywhere to the character of citizens of the United States there should be some certain definition of what citizenship is, what has created the character of citizen as between himself and the United States, and the amendment says that citizenship may depend upon birth, and I know of no better way to give rise to citizenship than the fact of birth within the territory of the United States, born of parents who at the time were subject to the authority of the United States. (emphasis added)

Of course, the slaves that were the primary focus of the 14th Amendment met both of these requirements. They had been born in the United States and they were not subject to the sovereign authority of any other country. 

In my mind the most persuasive argument that the 14th Amendment does not confer birthright citizenship is understanding the reasons that the citizenship clause was included therein to begin with.

Earlier in 1866 Congress had passed into law "The Civil Rights Act of 1866"  in order to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected under the law. Of course, this was primarily intended to make clear that slaves were citizens and had all the rights of any other citizens.

However, Congress became concerned that the law could be overturned sometime in the future or that it could be declared unconstitutional on the basis that there was no authority for Congress to confer particular rights to all citizens rather just outlawing discrimination.

Therefore, the leading proponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 proposed the 14th Amendment with the intention of eliminating all doubts about the law's constitutionality.

As a result, the Citizenship Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment parallels the citizenship language in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Equal Protection Clause parallels nondiscrimination language in the 1866 Act.

Of note, Representative John Bingham of Ohio, who is sometimes referred to as the "Father of the 14th Amendment", stated that the Citizenship Clause in the 1866 Civil Rights Act was meant to require that someone not only be born in the United States but also not owe allegiance to any foreign sovereign.

I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen..

I also doubt that Senators Howard, Johnson and Representative Bingham or others at that time could have envisioned a time in which Chinese, Russian, Mexican or Honduran women would come to the United States and have a child that would be a U.S. citizen.

That child could then as a U.S. citizen at age 21 sponsor their parents and siblings to become U.S. citizens under our "chain migration" policies.

It sets in motion a compounding effect that increases exponentially over time.

What is "chain migration"?

Under the United States’ current immigration system, most migrants receive a green card simply because they are the relative of an earlier migrant, not because of what they can contribute to American society. 

This creates a “chain” of immigrants who can then sponsor other immigrants in the same manner. These, in turn, may sponsor more immigrants, and so on.

As more and more immigrants are admitted to the United States, the population eligible to sponsor their relatives for green cards increases exponentially. This means that every time one immigrant is admitted, the door is opened to many more.

As long as birthright citizenship is continued it will be a magnet for illegal immigration. It incentivizes people from all over the world to break our laws to come here. The longer the practice continues the more illegal immigration we are likely to get.

If we are ever to get meaningful immigration reform it is necessary to cease providing birthright citizenship or it will undermine almost anything else we do.

Trump deserves credit for having the courage and personal constitution to be willing to elevate this issue to public debate. It is an issue that deserves public scrutiny and discussion. Whether it goes anywhere in the near term will likely be determined by the United State Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court is unwilling to end the policy, it may require a constitutional amendment which will be next to impossible to achieve in the short term considering the current political divide in the country.

However, the fact remains that until birthright citizenship is terminated, a wall is built to staunch the flow of illegals, and strict enforcement policies are adhered to, it will continue to be difficult to reach the goal of the sensible and sustainable immigration reform the United States desperately needs.

A Two-Sided Coin

Joe Biden said and did a lot of crazy stuff in his four years in the White House.

I don't think any of it was crazier than this statement.

Source:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-10/biden-says-climate-change-poses-greater-threat-than-nuclear-war?embedded-checkout=true

President Joe Biden said the sole threat to humanity’s existence is climate change, and that not even nuclear conflict poses a similar danger.

“The only existential threat humanity faces, even things more frightening than a nuclear war, is global warming,” Biden said Sunday during a news conference in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The only existential threat humanity faces is global warming?

Greater than a nuclear holocaust?

How about a few other risks that seem to be much greater threats to humanity than a few degrees of warming that the most pessimistic of climate alarmists predict will occur over the next 75 years.

A pandemic that is 1,000x worse than Covid?

A bioweapon being unleashed on the world (the most likely scenario for a pandemic)?

Birth rates around the world similar to what we are now seeing in South Korea (.72 per woman) that would slowly and inextricably result in the demise of humanity.?

Artificial intelligence running amok?

An asteroid or comet striking the earth?

A super volcanic eruption that would blast enough dust and debris into the atmosphere to block the sun and lead to worldwide crop failures and famine?

Over the years, I have listened to the claims about human created global warming.  Without even spending a lot of time on the science, these claims never seemed to make sense to me.  The planet is known to have warmed and cooled over the years.  

Even if the data shows it is warming, how do we know it is caused by man when you look at past history?  We know there was an ice age.  We also know the ice melted.  How did it ice up? How did the ice melt?

I can't help but be a little skeptical when I also see the changing explanations about the climate.  In fact, it does not even seem to be global warming we are worried about any more, it is climate change.  

We also heard a few years ago that we would see far less snow because of global warming.  When we got more snow, we were then told this was caused by the warming. It is all very confusing for something that is supposed to be so settled in science.

I also remember in the 1970's all of the talk from scientists was concern that the planet was cooling. What happened?  That was only a generation or two ago- a speck of time in the history of the earth.

Source: https://gary-bernstein.medium.com/global-cooling-in-the-1970s-to-global-warming-the-1-5-trillion-climate-industry-b73118b1af8d

When you consider past history you also quickly realize that God dwarfs anything that man can do.  For example, the year 1816 was considered "The Year Without a Summer" after Mount Tambora erupted and the ash seemed to veil the sky across large swaths of earth.  

Crops failed around the world and famine followed.  Riots and political unrest were not far behind. People tend to get really angry when they are hungry.  How much did the average global temperature fall that year? - only about 1 degree!

It is also instructive to look back at what was going on in the world in the 17th century.

I know of two books that were written about this chaotic period of human history.

Global Crisis by Geoffrey Parker.

Nature's Mutiny by Philipp Blom.

Both books suggest that the wars, catastrophes and transformative developments in the 17th century (Pilgrims coming to America, Thirty Years War in Europe, the growth of the British East India Company etc) were shaped in many respects by climate change.

However, the climate change involved was not global warming, it was global cooling that caused longer and harsher winters and cooler and wetter summers. This resulted in disrupted growing seasons that caused famine, malnutrition, death, disease and fewer births.

This period in the 17th Century is now referred to as a Mini Ice Age that saw temperatures fall by just a few degrees compared to historical norms.

The stories about Mount Tambora and 17th Century Europe have always made me much more concerned about global cooling than warming.  A rise in temperatures is actually beneficial for food production.  It can extend the growing season further north. Cooler temperatures do the exact opposite. Given a choice there is little doubt where I come down.

It has been proven time and time again that you are much more likely to see unrest and unruliness in human beings when they are cold and hungry than when they are hot and well fed.

What was the cause of the climate change in the 17th Century?

There is no clear consensus but one theory is that the sun was going through a period with an unusually low number of sun spots leading to a decrease in solar radiation that lowered temperatures.

This period was called the "Maunder Minimum" that persisted through almost all of the 17th Century.

The long term trend today is that sun spot activity has been declining compared to what we saw in most of the 20th Century which is referred to as the "Modern Maximum" period.

Source: https://x.com/FinanceLancelot/status/1849929751852466545

NOAA is predicting that sun spot activity will likely decline over the next 25 years.

Source: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

In addition to this, the Atlantic ocean has been in a warming cycle the last 40 years but it is predicted that it will move into a cooling cycle beginning in 2025 that will last for 40 years.

The combination of low sun spot activity and a cool cycle for the Atlantic ocean has not been seen since the early 1600's.

Biden, AOC and others who want you to believe global warming is an existential threat to humanity may not be paying attention to these developments but there are those who are deeply involved in the financial and commodity markets that are.

Link: https://x.com/FinanceLancelot/status/1878502375729643916

Some see this combination of factors leading to shorter growing seasons, drought, lower crop yields, food shortages and higher costs for food around the world.

I don't know whether all of this is in our future.

However, it is difficult to not have some questions after witnessing the weather events of January, 2025 to this point.

Consider that temperatures at the North Pole this month are -20C below historical averages..

The arctic cold pushed down through North America with temperatures reaching -25F (-50F wind chill) in Duluth, Minnesota this week. A good part of the Midwest saw sub-zero temperatures.

Pensacola, Florida received 8.9 inches of snow in the storm this week.

That is more than has fallen in that city in the last 124 years COMBINED.

Link: https://x.com/accuweather/status/1882112355557089318

An hour east in Miramar Beach, Florida you could find a snowman on the beach as the sun rose yesterday morning. Six inches of snow fell there during the storm.

Snowfall records were shattered across much of the South.

In fact, this year has seen very few counties in the United States that have not seen any snowfall this winter.

However, it was only a little over a month ago that the NOAA forecast that the southern United States would be warmer than normal as well as have below average precipitation.

Credit: https://x.com/TonyClimate/status/1882083192175485048

This is what actual temperatures have been in January compared to the norms.

Credit: https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1882270963393511895

If weather and climate forecasters can be this far off on a 30 day forecasts how much confidence should we have in predictions of the climate five, ten or twenty years in the future?

This is even more true when it also being suggested we need to spend trillions of dollars to prevent "climate change" based on those forecasts and projections based on "models".

History does show that climate change can have profound effects on human beings and society.

That is not debatable.

However, the real risk is not understanding that there are two sides to that coin.

There is also a profound arrogance is believing that human beings can overcome the forces of nature.

The entire narrative and all of the money is being spent on the assumption that the earth's temperature is rising and we somehow can control the outcome.

All of the chips have been placed on the table based on a single assumption.

What if it proves to be the opposite where the risks to humanity might be many times higher?

We may discover we need all of the fossil fuels we can find just to keep humanity warm and well fed.

The weather over the last two weeks should hopefully cause a few to think a little deeper about this subject.

What might also be true is that the greatest existential threat to humanity are those who believe they know it all.

Unpardonable

There have been few long-term political careers that blew up as spectacularly as Joe Biden's did over the last four years.

The best line I saw delivered that described Biden's departure after Monday's Inauguration was from The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro.

Link: https://x.com/realDailyWire/status/1881408765439996407

It was bad enough that Biden presided over a long list of policy failures.

Afghanistan, Covid vaccine mandates, inflation, the border invasion, social media censorship, Ukraine and Mideast Wars, woke policies on steroids and all the rest.

It was compounded by the concerted effort by his staff and the media to cover up Biden's declining physical and mental capabilities.

It ended with a mass of pardons the likes that have never been seen before in the history of the United States.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/timkennedymma/p/DDp-sfcxdx0/?img_index=1

If the pardons that Biden handed out previously (his son Hunter, Chinese spies, child pornographers death row inmates, etc)  were not bad enough, on his last half day in office he granted sweeping pardons for people who have not yet even been investigated or indicted for a crime let alone convicted of one.

These included so-called "preemptive" pardons for Dr. Tony Fauci, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and all the members and staff of the Congressional Committee that investigated January 6.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/20/politics/joe-biden-preemptive-pardons/index.html

Literally minutes before Donald Trump took the oath of office, Biden pardoned six members of his own family. These included his two brothers, his sister and two spouses of his siblings.

Biden claims that the last minute pardons were protective measures against potential politically motivated legal actions rather than admissions of guilt.

Biden stated that all of the pardons on the last day were given even though none of the individuals had done anything wrong.

Of course, he said the same thing about his son before Hunter was convicted on both tax and gun charges last year.

Despite Biden claiming that all of those he provided pardons for were innocent, the Supreme Court has ruled previously in a case from 1915 (Burdick v.United States) that "acceptance of a pardon implies an acknowledgement of guilt".

Therefore, it seems that if Fauci and others accept the pardon offered it is an implied acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

The other important fact in all of this is that if an individual accepts a pardon they can no longer assert the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination and refuse to testify truthfully in a grand jury or other judicial proceeding.

There is also nothing to stop an inquiry or court proceeding from compelling the person who is being pardoned to testify about their actions. The pardon only absolves them of any consequences resulting from a conviction.

For example, the pardon of Fauci may actually make it easier to get to the truth about the origins of the Covid virus and his involvement in all of it.

This seems to be exactly what Senator Rand Paul intends to do in the wake of Fauci's pardon.

To this end, I found it interesting that last Friday the Department of Health and Human Services formally cut off all funding and debarred EcoHealth Alliance and its former President, Dr. Peter Daszak, from participating in any programs with the U.S. government for the next five years in order to protect the "government's business interests".

This action was taken because EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak facilitated gain of function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight and willingly violated multiple requirements of its multi-million grant from the National Institute of Health according to HHS.

Source: https://oversight.house.gov/release/breaking-hhs-formally-debars-ecohealth-alliance-dr-peter-daszak-after-covid-select-reveals-pandemic-era-wrongdoing/

I have not seen much attention in the media to this action by HHS but it seems to be even more significant when viewed in combination with the Fauci pardon.

Who at NIH requested the grants to EcoHealth Alliance?

The grants were requested by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) that was headed by Tony Fauci

Which group at NIH was responsible at NIH to provide oversight of EcoHealth Alliance?

The NIAID which was headed by Tony Fauci.

Add to all of this the fact that Fauci and the NIH had been funding the gain of function research at Wuhan but had purposely not sent the funding request for the required exception to a gain of function ban had been put in place.

Do you understand now why Dr. Fauci is not going to reject the pardon that he is free to do so if he believes he has done nothing wrong?

One of the funniest memes I saw on X yesterday was this one from Alex Berenson.

Why did the NIH ever get involved with EcoHealth Alliance in the first place?

Under President Obama, gain of function research had been stopped in the United States in 2013 because it was deemed too dangerous.

Is it just a coincidence that the first grant to EcoHealth Alliance was done in 2014? (see grant above).

Gain of function (GOF) research involves taking a natural virus and manipulating it in the lab to make it more deadly to humans.

The argument in doing GOF research is to supposedly be prepared if a virus naturally evolves and causes a pandemic.

Of course, that work can also involve bioweapons research.

It appears that Fauci and others at NIH became frustrated with the U.S. ban on GOF research in the United States and decided to outsource the work to EcoHealth Alliance.

Every clue about the origins of Covid points at Dr. Fauci and the gain of function research that he sponsored. However, we will never know the full story until Fauci and others are held to account.

The unfortunate conclusion from all of this is that it is likely Covid would never have occurred but for the gain of function research that was first started in the United States on bat coronaviruses, the grant funding to EcoHealth Alliance by NIH and the outsourcing of that work to the Wuhan lab.

And whose fingerprints seemed to be on almost everything to deal with Covid from beginning to end?

Dr. Tony Fauci.

It might have been one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever perpetrated.

However, five years later we still don't know the real truth.

Was Tony Fauci more concerned with covering up his involvement in the origins of Covid than he was in providing the best public health recommendations to President Trump and the American people?

The pardons that Joe Biden gave and the pardon that Fauci received may be constitutional.

However, what has been done is unforgivable. 

If you would like more background on all of the connections involved here I suggest you read my blog post "Truth and Lies" that I published a year ago on the origins of Covid and Fauci's attempts to cover up his involvement and that of the NIH.

It was the most viewed and forwarded of any blog post I wrote last year.

Truth and Lies (originally published January 26, 2024)

Exactly four years ago today I wrote a blog post about a mysterious and deadly virus that had gripped the Chinese city of Wuhan.

At that point, only five cases of the virus that would eventually be named Covid-19, had been identified in the United States.

It would be the first of almost 200 blog posts I would write about Covid over the next several years.

When I wrote that initial blog post it was suggested that the virus originated in a wet market in Wuhan in which bats and other unauthorized animals had been sold.

However, even at that early date in January, 2020, I reported that I was troubled that the outbreak could very possibly be traced to a Chinese biolab in Wuhan that was known to be studying the highest risk pathogens in the world.

More troubling are reports that this virus may have escaped from a Chinese biolab that is located in Wuhan and was involved in studying the highest risk pathogens in the world.

U.S. scientists were worried about the risks that pathogens like this could escape from facilities like this one as evidenced by this article in The Scientist back in 2015.

As a result, the United States ceased funding any of this "gain-of-function" research back in 2013 because it determined the risk of creating a pandemic was much greater than any information gained from the research.

It is worthwhile to note that at that time this decision was made there was research being done in the U.S. on an engineered coronavirus. Note as well where the surface protein came for that virus.

Ralph Baric, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, last week (November 9) published a study on his team’s efforts to engineer a virus with the surface protein of the SHC014 coronavirus, found in horseshoe bats in China, and the backbone of to one that causes human-like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in mice. The hybrid virus could infect human airway cells and caused disease in mice, according to the team’s results, which were published in Nature Medicine.

Little did I know that at the same time that I was writing that blog post in late January, 2020,  Dr. Anthony Fauci was desperately working behind the scenes to steer any suspicions away from the lab leak theory as well as cover up his involvement in the funding of gain of function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab.

The full truth of what went on with the origins of Covid and the subsequent illogical response by the public health establishment is coming into better focus with each succeeding day.

Senator Rand Paul in his book Deception does a great job in detailing what appears to be a coverup perpetrated by Dr. Fauci and others involving Covid.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Deception-Great-Cover-Up-Rand-Paul/dp/1684515130

Dr. Paul drew much of the material for his book from emails obtained under FOIA requests involving Fauci and others at the National Institute of Health and other government agencies.

What is particularly revealing in those emails was the time and effort Fauci spent at the end of January, 2020 working to discredit the lab leak theory both within the public health community and with the media.

A few excerpts from Deception.

Fauci's efforts at working to discredit the lab leak theory reached a fever pitch on January 31, 2020.

Based on the emails, it appears that Fauci did not sleep that night.

He had to be living in mortal fear knowing the hand he had in all of this.

Why else would he be emailing and phoning people in the wee hours of the morning on that day?

Is that something that would be normal for someone who should not be particularly concerned with the origins of the virus but should be focused on how to protect the American public from it?

For example, Fauci sent an email to his second in command at 12;29 am that morning that included a paper on the gain of function work that had been going on at the Wuhan lab. Fauci told him that it was "essential we speak this morning. Keep your cell phone...read this paper...you will have tasks today that must be done".

At 3:00 am Fauci sent another email out to the individual in government whose duties included chairing the committee that was supposed to screen all gain of function funding requests and disapprove any that were considered too dangerous. He sent along an article suggesting the virus was natural in origin

The problem for Fauci and the NIH was they had been funding the gain of function research at Wuhan but had purposely not sent the funding request for the required exception to the gain of function ban that was in place.

All of this explains a lot of what followed.

Fauci and the NIH were living in fear of it being found out they were funding the work on the coronaviruses at Wuhan.

They also knew that the purpose of the work was to create a virus that was more contagious and deadly than was currently in place in nature.

Knowing all of this, it undoubtedly caused Fauci and the NIH to overreact and recommend the draconian response to the virus they did knowing that it was totally at odds with established protocols in dealing with a pandemic.

Fear and guilt had to be enormous motivating factors in what Fauci and his brethren did next.

They could not leave any stone unturned in the Covid response knowing what they appeared to have unleashed.

What would the response be if the truth came out and Fauci had not gone all out in the response in order to stop the virus?

As I wrote in that first blog post, the science was clear on what the public health response should be.

The most effective way to stop an outbreak of a virus such as this one is to aggressively isolate and quarantine those that are ill so as to not infect other people. They need to be identified, treated aggressively by medical professionals, and isolated.

What did Fauci and his public health officials do instead?

They shutdown the economy and schools and quarantined and isolated the healthy. That was completely counter to over 100 years of hard learned pandemic guidelines.

You see how absurd it all was in a recent interview of Francis Collins (Fauci's former boss at NIH) in which he admitted "mistakes were made"

“If you're a public health person, and you're trying to make a decision, you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is, and that is something that will save a life. doesn't matter what else happens, so you attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. you attach zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people's lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never might quite recover from. this is a public health mindset… and that was really unfortunate, it's another mistake we made."

This is how a public health person is supposed to think?

You attach infinite value in saving one life but zero value on what you are doing as a result to millions and millions of others that totally disrupts their lives, ruins the economy and keeps kids out of school such they may never recover from it?

I thought their responsibility was PUBLIC HEALTH? Does that not include a broad view of all elements of health in a society--physical, mental and economic?

If you are in public health how do you totally disregard the lives of 100's of millions of people, the economy, business owners, schoolchildren and the damage your policies are causing to focus on the narrow view of single lives balanced against the needs and future of society?

That is especially true in that early in the pandemic it was clear that there was minimal risk to most everyone under the age of 70. These were individuals for which it was easiest to isolate and protect.

I questioned what was being done in April, 2020 at the height of the lockdowns in a blog post "Two-Faced Fauci". Little did I know how accurate I was in describing Fauci at that early juncture in the pandemic.

I also have a hard time in understanding how Dr. Fauci can stand up at those press conferences and say that his sole focus is on health recommendations to the President. He is being charged with overseeing the public health of the United States. Yes, that includes the nation's short term response to the virus. However, how do public health concerns also not extend to the longer term implications of the economic shutdown. He says he is not an economist. In my view, it is not enough for him to say that it is not his concern. There is a public health component in that as well that he should be considering and weighing in his recommendations.

 

We also have the recent testimony of Fauci that the six feet recommendation on social distancing was totally made up as there was no scientific basis for it at all.

Source: https://nypost.com/2024/01/10/news/fauci-admits-to-congress-that-certain-covid-social-distancing-guidelines-lacked-scientific-basis-sort-of-just-appeared/

More and more studies have also confirmed that face mask mandates were not effective tools to protect against the virus. I cited research (read "Unmasking Masks" that I wrote in July, 2020) about the limitations of masking at the beginning of the pandemic. However, Fauci and others totally disregarded the science. They wanted to make sure it looked they were doing something to protect the public. 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/do-mask-mandates-work.html

Dr. Deborah Birx wrote in her book that "15 days to slow the spread " was just the term they used to convince Trump to approve the initial lockdown. They all knew that it was just the start and they wanted to lockdown much longer.

Source: https://www.independentsentinel.com/dr-birx-admits-they-lied-about-the-15-days-to-flatten-the-curve/

Of course, I am not even touching on the experimental Covid vaccines, the vaccine mandates that followed and all the lies surrounding how safe and effective they would be in preventing the disease and transmission. After all, preventing the disease and its transmission would be the only logical reason to justify a mandate to begin with.

Do you remember, as I do, all of the statements that were made that the vaccines would stop the virus and create a dead end for transmission? We were told it was the only way to end the pandemic.

Fauci made that claim himself in May, 2021 in an appearance on Face the Nation.

Source: https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-people-become-dead-ends-for-the-coronavirus/

Who were they misleading and lying to?

It wasn't just the American people. They were also lying to the President of the United States.

It should also be remembered that in the early days of the pandemic President Trump stated that he had seen evidence that Covid-19 had originated in that Wuhan lab.

However, every chance Fauci got he contradicted Trump and argued that the origin of the virus was entirely within nature. He consistently stated there was nothing to the theory that the Covid-19 virus came out of work done at the Wuhan lab.

Of course, consider the recent finding of Dr. Richard Ebright of Rutgers University, who has closely examined the chemical and biological makeup of Covid-19 and compared it to the proposal that the EcoHealth Alliance developed and sent to the Wuhan lab that was funded by Fauci and the NIH.

When it came to the media trusting Trump or Fauci on this question you know who they believed.

This CNN article from May, 2020 says it all.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/05/politics/fauci-trump-coronavirus-wuhan-lab/index.html

Now, before we play the game of “he said, he said” remember this: Only one of these two people is a world-renowned infectious disease expert. And it’s not Donald Trump.

In short, Fauci’s view on the origins of the disease matters a whole lot more than Trump’s opinion about where it came from. Especially because, outside of Trump and his immediate inner circle, most people in a position to know are very, very skeptical of the Trump narrative that the virus came out of a lab – whether accidentally or on purpose.

There is truth and there are lies.

Four years later it should be pretty clear where the lies were coming from.

Will Dr. Fauci or anyone else be held accountable for the lies, deceit and malpractice now that four years have passed and the truth is becoming more apparent every day?