Volume 81, no. 1 January 2025
The Continuing Resolution that passed Congress did not include suspending the federal debt limit for two years, as President-elect Trump had requested, possibly hoping to place the responsibility on the Biden Administration. The showdown is now postponed until the middle of next year. Although the limit is reached on Jan 1, 2025, the Treasury Department could buy time using “extraordinary measures” to keep borrowing money for a few more months (https://tinyurl.com/fppb2t9h).
The debt limit is a relic of World War I, when Congress stopped authorizing individual instances of government borrowing and replaced them with a blanket authorization—up to a certain limit. Whenever lawmakers have to raise the debt limit, about 40 times since 1939, it’s an opportunity for grandstanding about fiscal responsibility, and also for extracting political concessions to avoid a [partial] government shutdown.
The magnitude of U.S. debt is incomprehensively massive. The budget deficit is $1.4 trillion, the current national debt $31.5 trillion, and unfunded liabilities $75.3 trillion ($22.4 trillion for Social Security and $52.9 trillion for Medicare), according to the Heritage Foundation. Holders of the U.S. debt are about 23% foreign and 76% domestic (https://tinyurl.com/mnchktfk). The hard debt ceiling is reached when people will not buy the debt, but liquidate bonds. The federal government, unlike others, can then simply create (“print”) money: that is called inflation.
So, how can Trump keep his promise to lower the price of groceries and gasoline, and thus retain popular support? He is now admitting that this will be very hard. The Campbell’s soup index, the price of a can of condensed tomato soup, was $0.10 in 1900, started upward in the 1970s when Nixon broke the gold standard, shot up vertically with COVID spending, and now exceeds $1.24 (https://tinyurl.com/2dc3kch5).
One hopes Trump will not try the centuries-old failed nostrum of price controls, a guarantee of shortages, poor quality, and black markets. The problem is not that grocers and oil companies suddenly have become more avaricious. The problem is the dollar’s loss of value and government policies that constrain supply.
And how can Trump avert bankruptcy and default?
Cuts and Allocation
According to David Stockman, under Trump tax-cut policies the public debt is heading for $60 trillion by 2034 (https://tinyurl.com/ye28fex2). In a memo to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Stockman writes that a $2 trillion annual budget savings is needed by the end of Donald Trump’s second term. Otherwise, within 25 years America will be paying more interest on the public debt than the entirety of today’s federal budget—Social Security, defense, Medicare, education, highways, interest, and the Washington Monument. And “the nation’s fiscal doomsday machine will be accumulating interest expense so fast as to make $2 trillion of savings spread over a longer period—such as a decade—little more than a rounding error” (https://tinyurl.com/bdd4evkp). The proposed specific ways to “slash the fat, downsize the muscle, and cut the bone” are certain, he writes, “to ignite firestorms on the banks of the Potomac like never before.”
The 16 agencies Stockman’s plan would cut entirely include the FBI, DEA, OSHA, BATF, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Education Department, and the Agency for International Development (AID). Those to be greatly down-sized include the Environmental Protection Agency. “To wit, all the woke and left-wing ideological digressions which absorb enormous budgetary resources and manpower but have nothing to do with efficient minimization of legitimate pollution externalities in the areas of air, water, land and solid wastes should be eliminated.” Those include “tackling the climate crisis” and “advancing environmental justice and civil rights.”
All of the recommended slashing, however, cannot achieve the needed $2 trillion reduction, without major entitlement reform. Stockman believes there is a “numerically feasible and fully justifiable” way to shrink the enormous Social Security/Medicare outlays: means-testing for upper-income beneficiaries and sweeping efficiency improvements in Medicare spending. Providers themselves might come up with a payments mechanism with more of a capitalist flavor, such as converting the Medicare entitlement to a cash basis at the option of the beneficiary. If a few million seniors with $16,000 of cash in hand were diligently shopping for medical coverages and services, the amount of system reorganization and efficiency that would materialize would be both far reaching and effective.
How to get Congress to act? Stockman recommends that President Trump follow the reasoning of Lawrence Tribe that the President can allocate available cash to the highest priorities. Monthly receipts of $465 billion and a drawdown of $100 billion a month from the Treasury’s account at the Fed could cover 100% of interest expense, Social Security, veterans benefits, and military pay. The allocation factor for everything else would then be 84%—a big-time pain for all who live on Uncle Sam.
The worst thing Trump could do is to succumb “to the long-standing Swampland Lie that there is no alternative [except] to endlessly raise the public debt ceiling or default on the government’s $36 trillion of debt securities.” Spending allocations are needed until Washington finally hits the brakes on the fiscal doomsday machine. There is no other choice, Stockman writes.
Do Bankers Need World War III?
The global financial system depends on economic growth because loans being repaid at interest is the backing for the currency. The system is massively over-leveraged, and growth is stagnating, at least in the U.S. and the E.U. Dr. John Day predicts that Ukraine will default on all loans as soon as it cannot borrow more to service them, and this, as suggested by former Prime Minister Liz Truss in 2022, could bankrupt the Bank of England and collapse the Western neoliberal financial system. War would enable power elites to seize the assets of “enemies” and ordinary citizens and to maintain control. Or, political decisions could be made to avert WWIII and restructure massive governmental and corporate defaults to preserve the real economy and the livelihoods of citizens (https://tinyurl.com/2kxb6wpw).
A very dark view:
- During the last few decades, the economy of the U.S. and Europe has been falsified on a level that is difficult to believe. The West has been living far beyond its means, and its currencies have been massively overvalued.
- We have essentially pawned everything to keep up our living standards, and we own nothing after subtracting the debt.
- We run bloated and dysfunctional service economies and have giant groups of people who not only create no value but destroy value systematically.
To complete the economic takedown without fomenting a revolution it is necessary to erase personal freedom, the freedom of speech and privacy, and to create absolute dependence of the individual on the state. This mechanism is already being implemented enthusiastically (https://tinyurl.com/48xbvfhx).
Official Israeli Vaccine Data Goes Missing
According to an official report, Israel’s Health Ministry received some 345,200 reports in 2021 on side effects caused by the coronavirus vaccine, sent by hospitals and Health Maintenance Organizations, but just 18% were accurately recorded in the ministry’s database. The other 82% were “lost” (tinyurl.com/3pastwhz). The majority of the successfully recorded events were mild. The Health Ministry was found to have investigated just 1,000 instances of severe side effects, including 275 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, the majority of which necessitated hospitalization. The state comptroller criticized the Health Ministry, not for failing to investigate adverse reactions but for failing to educate the public sufficiently on combating false information and anti-vaccination propaganda.
In a study of emergency calls in Israel, MIT researchers found a 25% increase in emergency cardiovascular events in patients aged 16–39 during January–May 2021 compared with the same period in 2019 and 2020, which was entirely associated with the Covid shot (https://tinyurl.com/377327e2).
“We are watching the cover-up of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Injuries by governments around the world, states William Makis, M.D. (https://tinyurl.com/4sntssx2).
“There is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions…. There is little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if its traditions do not survive with it.”
John F. Kennedy
Major Drug/Vaccine Recalls
Between 1953 and 2013, 462 pharmaceutical products were recalled from the market. These included polio vaccine (the “Cutter incident” of 1955), recalled after 10 deaths in < 1 yr; swine flu vaccine, recalled after 53 deaths in < 1 yr; diethylstilbestrol, recalled after 214 deaths in 37 years; and Vioxx, recalled after 6,639 deaths in 5 yrs. Covid-19 vaccine has yet to be recalled after 37,544 deaths in 2+ years (tinyurl.com/2r6jbmwe).
Medical Countermeasures Compensation
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO-25-107368), HHS’s Medical Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program received a surge of 13,333 COVID-19 claims—27 times the number of claims received in the first decade of the program. It completed a review of about a fourth of all claims and found that 92 (3%) of the completed claims were eligible for compensation. As of June 2024, about $400,000 had been paid for injuries related to COVID-19 countermeasures, such as myocarditis (https://tinyurl.com/ee7e5zxy).
Oath of Hippocrates Deconstructed
According to bioethicist Robert Baker of Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., the Oath of Hippocrates, which was invoked to condemn the systematized killing of the weak or undesirable and the abuse of human research subjects in Nazi Germany, does not really forbid abortion or medically assisted killing.
“Founding bioethicist Robert Veatch (2012) once declared that ‘the Hippocratic Oath is so controversial and so offensive…[it] is unacceptable to any thinking person.’” But Baker writes that one must read it “properly.” First, it was about the terms of apprenticeship in the Hippocratic school, not a pledge for fully trained practitioners. And, it did recognize the need to prevent exploitation of the vulnerable.
Today, its “iconic value” as a [suitably edited] “ceremonial” oath, Baker writes, can be used to combat a “mix of scientism, paternalism, patriotism, and laissez-faire morality.” It can also be used to challenge “lawmakers who are endangering women’s right to reproductive choice and thus their health,” as well as to “valorize challenges to venture-capitalist and for-profit management that prioritize profitability over providing quality health care to patients.”
Clinicians “need to understand that they should not prioritize their personal agendas or their religious beliefs (for example, on abortion or MAID) over patients’ medical needs” (Perspect Biol Med, summer 2024).
AAPS Calendar
Jan 13, 2025. Board meeting (Zoom)
Sep 11-13, 2025. 82nd Annual Meeting, Chantilly, VA https://aapsonline.org/2025am
ACTION OF THE MONTH
Save the dates of September 11-13, 2025 for the 82nd Annual Meeting of AAPS. Consider donating to bring students to our meeting at https://aapsonline.org/scholarships.
Battle against FinCEN Continues
In the case of Texas Top Cop Shop v. Garland, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a shocking unpublished opinion staying the injunction against FinCEN data collection issued by the district court in Sherman. The reasoning by the appellate court included its statement that “a last-minute nationwide preliminary injunction would undermine our ability to push other countries to reform their” laws. So, in effect, our constitutional rights are subordinate to how the Deep State wants to change laws in foreign countries. AAPS filed an updated brief in its case in Amarillo (https://tinyurl.com/5fna2dte). A provision extending the reporting deadline for one year was deleted from the last-minute funding bill that passed Congress.
CISA Forced to Divulge Documents
In the course of litigation undertaken by America First Legal, CISA has released an unredacted 500-page reverse chronicle of most of what it did from February 2020 until last year.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of the Department of Homeland Security created after 9-11, was created out of a 2017 executive order to secure American digital infrastructure against foreign attack and infiltration. During the COVID year, it was the agency responsible for dividing the workforce between essential and nonessential, it led the way on censorship efforts, and it handled election security for 2020 and 2022. It worked through third parties and packet-switching networking to take down Facebook groups, to keep a lid on Twitter, and to manage LinkedIn, Instagram, and most of the other mainstream platforms.
Everything that the intelligence agencies did not like— doubting lockdowns, dismissing masking, questioning the vaccine, and so on—was targeted through a variety of cutouts among NGOs, universities, and private-sector fact-checkers. It was all labeled as Russian and Chinese propaganda so as to fit in with CISA’s mandate. The agency ended up demonizing much authentic science plus a majority of public opinion. The First Amendment did not enter the discussion at all. The Subcommittee report on COVID never once mentions CISA. The Brownstone Institute has made the document available (tinyurl.com/mrx2szf3).
Tip of the Month. An independent medical evaluation (IME) is done by a non-treating physician for disability insurers, employers, and attorneys. The requesting party pays the independent medical evaluators, and there is not a traditional physician-patient relationship. While board certification may be preferred, it may not be absolutely required. One certifying group for these evaluators requires board certification or 10 years of practice experience including residency. It is worth checking around before concluding that board certification is a requirement for IMEs.
The New Get-Rich-Quick Method
Today’s method is to found a non-governmental organization (NGO). Jeffrey Childers explains, citing a NYC Department of Investigation report: “The selfless progressives who run New York City’s government-funded homeless shelters get by on meager salaries of at least $500,000 a year and up to $1 million dollars…. And these humanitarian icons also hire their friends and their relatives to work at the NGO, and pay them outsized salaries using taxpayer money. The best part is, so far as I can tell, that the government also pays for outsourcing all the actual work to subcontractors” (https://tinyurl.com/4m6xrru9).
Last-Minute Bill-Drop Technique Fails
Budgetary brinksmanship—waiting until the last minute to present a “must-pass” bill laden with pork no one has an opportunity to read has become routine. Reasoned debate and constitutional checks and balances are gone. Older members may recall how ObamaCare passed the Senate on Christmas Eve in 2009. Instead of the proper reconciliation process, which likely would have made significant changes as the House bill that had passed on a 220–212 vote was similar but not identical to the Senate one, the House passed an identical bill. Republicans complained that one fewer vote in the Senate or a change of four votes in the House would have defeated ObamaCare. Democrats responded that this “reform” package was too important to delay or compromise (Forbes 3/26/14, tinyurl.com/43myp5sh). Thus, we have a seemingly ineradicable law despite its enormous cost.
This year’s Frankenfunders ran into an obstacle: a war of words on X.com. Then Elon Musk tweeted that there might be a primary challenge to Republicans who voted for the bill.
Among the terrible provisions that got defeated were funding for “at least twelve” new secret biolabs for “pandemic prevention,” $70 billion more for Ukraine, funding for government censorship, and expanded government pandemic powers. It also would have left the incoming HHS Secretary newly powerless to stop the COVID state of emergency until after Trump’s term.
Twitter and AI just ended the last-minute bill-drop technique for good. “We are truly entering a new, more transparent era of politics. You might even say more democratic” (Childers, op. cit.).
Texas AG Sues NCAA over Transgender Athletes
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the NCAA for engaging in “false, deceptive, and misleading practices” by allowing transgender women to participate in athletic events it markets as women’s competitions. NCAA oversees college sports at more than 1,000 colleges and universities nationwide. Paxton is requesting the court grant a permanent injunction prohibiting the NCAA from allowing men to compete in women’s sporting events that take place in Texas or that involve Texas schools. Alternatively, he said, the court could order the NCAA to market its women’s events as coed (https://tinyurl.com/5a96veev).
The Hill complained in its article that Paxton repeatedly referred to transgender women as men.
NCAA is also being sued by a group of female athletes, including Riley Gaines, arguing that the league violated their Title IX rights by giving a swimming award to Lia Thomas, a man, that they should have won or had a chance to win. Also, 26 states have now banned men from playing on women’s sports teams. In April, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics—an NCAA competitor focusing on smaller schools—banned boys from girls’ teams (https://tinyurl.com/yc6bw6h6).
The AMA opposes “discrimination” against transgender athletes as by suppressing hormones (tinyurl.com/n48m4ap6).
Correspondence
FinCEN v. Constitution. The FinCEN reporting requirement is an attack on the Constitution. It is not in the enumerated powers , and it attempts to nullify important Amendments—1st, 4th, 5th, and 10th. Although not specifically argued in our lawsuit (it was argued in another lawsuit), it violates the 8th Amendment as well. Two years in prison for failure to report seems highly disproportional to the infraction, and therefore constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The Void for Vagueness doctrine violates the 5th and 14th Amendments. As is well argued by AAPS, terms used in the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) are impermissibly vague; they are beyond the ability of ordinary people to figure out. The drafters of the CTA obviously studied the former KGB tactics well: Show me that man and I will show you his crime. And, as pointed out in our brief, the CTA is actually an “end run” around the 2nd Amendment. A 2-year prison term for violating CTA and no more gun ownership for the rest of your life.
If the federal government is allowed to get away with running roughshod over the Constitution, we may be on our way to biometric databases that are being used by other countries. Law-abiding citizens may be required to give DNA, retinal scan, and fingerprints for a federal database using the same arguments the government has used for the CTA.
Lawrence R. Huntoon, M.D., Ph.D., Lake View, NY
Diversity Deathwatch. If you ride the New York subway or go to a German Christmas market or drop your children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Merseyside, it is obvious that the “rules-based national order” is kaput. It doesn’t get more basic than the right to ride the subway without being set alight by a “migrant.” The “rules-based international order” derives from the Peace of Westphalia, all of whose signatories (e.g., France, Sweden) are now diversity dumps. Mass migration destroys everything—affordable housing, your local grade school, citizenship,…and ultimately the nation itself. A sovereign state requires a recognisable citizenry. Tribalised nations of hostile identity groups requiring an ever more powerful state to mediate their interests suits elite globalists just fine.
Mark Steyn, https://tinyurl.com/pcyrzf66
Distinguishing Pseudoscience. In the 20th century, philosophers tried hard to find a formula to demarcate science from “pseudoscience.” It was eventually agreed the search was futile because each suggested criterion would exclude what is considered legitimate science. It turns out the only way to tell good from bad science is the old-fashioned technique of putting claims to the test. Scientists may think that when it comes their turn to consider the bold new idea (such as hand-washing), they will defend the person making it, but instead of showing the humility that should result from many cautionary tales, they’ll probably evince standard stunted stubbornness.
William M. Briggs, Ph.D., https://tinyurl.com/4yxk94s7
Trickle-down Economics. The political monopolists who have kept Tucson poor and dependent on government table scraps for decades are celebrating another federal handout. This time, it is $11.5 million to rehabilitate mobile homes and provide mobile home residents with legal assistance. By the time the seven agencies and NGOs at the top of the social-justice pyramid that had a hand in this take a cut, $2.99 is probably left for the intended beneficiaries. Our constitutional republic is broken, and Congress is broken. When 72% of spending is on automatic pilot and heading for a fiscal cliff—and taking the dollar as the world’s reserve currency over the cliff with it—our elected representatives have handed over 72% of their power and decision-making to unaccountable agencies and the Federal Reserve. Its ballooning balance sheet is the top cause of inflation.
Craig Cantoni, Tucson, AZ
HHS Propaganda. According to the, House report on COVID, the Biden HHS spent almost $1 billion to promote falsehoods about COVID vaccines, boosters, and masks to the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.
Jay Bhattacharya, Ph.D., M.D., Stanford University
Employees Win against COVID Vaccine Mandates. A federal jury has sided with six employees fired by BART because their religious vaccine exemptions were denied. Each should receive more than $1 million. The BART transit agency is already $350–$400 million in the red (https://tinyurl.com/5n6r9yne).
Willie Soon, Ph.D., Salem, MA
Houston Methodist Case on Appeal. More than 100 medical professionals sued Houston Methodist Hospital, a very powerful entity in Houston, over the 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Federal District Court Judge George C. Hanks, Jr., dismissed the case after a year’s deliberation, and it has been appealed to the Fifth Circuit (https://tinyurl.com/4tykxb55). The issue is the special status of the COVID shot as an investigational drug and the law that people thus have the right to refuse.
John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D., Brownwood, TX
