Lt. Col. Oliver North and David L. Goetsch

“Progressive” Culture?

February 4, 2022 by Lt. Col. Oliver North and David L. Goetsch Leave a Comment

America, once a nation of laws, is fast becoming a lawless country. Consider recent headlines. Darrell Brooks Jr., who should have been in jail, plowed his speeding SUV into a Christmas parade, killing six and injuring 61 celebrants, including grandmothers, mothers, and children. Well before Brooks weaponized his SUV to perpetrate a massacre, he already had a long record of violent criminal behavior. Nevertheless, progressive officials set him free with minimal bond on the streets of Waukesha, Wisconsin, to kill and maim innocent Americans.

In California, New York, Illinois, and Minnesota, four of the most progressive states in the U.S., criminal gangs have been targeting high-end retail outlets for blatant smash-and-grab burglaries. Looters smash glass doors and windows of retail establishments, threaten employees, take what they want, and flee with their loot. These criminal mobs have little to fear from law enforcement. The places they target are in states and municipalities governed by progressive politicians who insist on defunding the police, releasing suspects without bail, and allowing violent felons out of prison years before their sentences are served.

The rapidly deteriorating state of law and order has people asking, “What is happening to our country?” The answer is simple: We are all reaping what progressives have sown by devaluing human life. A tragic consequence of the devaluation of human life is the culture of death now pervading American society. When our political leaders legalize the murder of innocent, unborn children, should anyone really be surprised when murder becomes mundane?

American citizens who try to defend themselves and their property from violent looters, arsonists and criminals, are immediately labeled “white supremacists,” “vigilantes” or worse by the media. That’s what happened to Mark and Patricia McCloskey in St. Louis last June when they defended their lives and home from a mob.

An even more egregious example is the case of young Kyle Rittenhouse following his acquittal for defending himself against violent lawbreakers trying to kill him. The three people he shot in self-defense were white, yet the mainstream media labeled him a “white supremacist.”

Writing for the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker recently decried a rising tide of “vigilante justice” and asked, “When did we start permitting Americans to take the law into their own hands?”

This inane question indicates how out of touch American leftists really are. We forewarn of this response to lawlessness in our new book, “Tragic Consequences: The Price America is Paying for Rejecting God,” scheduled for release in March 2022. We also describe the tragic consequences when people no longer revere the sanctity of human life: inter alia, mass shootings, violent mobs, killing children, road rage, rampant substance abuse, skyrocketing teen suicide.

Herewith, questions for Parker and her progressive followers: When public officials, elected to protect us, fail to do so and instead side with criminals, when they defund law enforcement, and when prosecutors release criminals to prey on us, what do you expect law-abiding citizens to do?

For Brooks, this query has an easy answer: Lock him up!

What then is the response to last week’s tragic shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan, where a 15-year-old killed four schoolmates and wounded seven before being taken into custody?

The killer, his parents and perhaps some school officials will be held accountable. But the greater question is, why are children killing children? Democrats are sure to blame the firearm and the Second Amendment. But the real problem is the absence of respect for the sanctity of human life—and the progressive culture of death.

Oliver L. North is a combat-decorated U.S. Marine, No.1 bestselling author, founder and CEO of Fidelis Publishing LLC and Fidelis Media LLC. Find out more about him at www.olivernorth.com. David Goetsch is a Marine Corps veteran, member of the Florida Veteran’s Hall of Fame, professor of business, Christian counselor, and author of 77 books. Find out more about him at www.david-goetsch.com. Order their new book, “We Didn’t Fight for Socialism,” at www.olivernorth.com or Amazon.com.

Biden’s Bloated Bureaucracy

November 25, 2021 by Lt. Col. Oliver North and David L. Goetsch Leave a Comment

“Drain the swamp!” Those three words were more than a mantra for the Trump administration. They were shorthand for reducing the number of nameless, faceless bureaucrats who control the lives of Americans by enforcing a plethora of government regulations without ever standing for election. Now, with President Joe Biden in the White House, the swamp is again overflowing.

OpentheBooks.com recently published the latest appalling figures on the federal government’s “internal” spending. One example: The Biden White House is the most costly in our nation’s history, even though the president has been in office less than a year. His White House employs more than 560 people with an annual payroll of $50 million. In contrast, former President Donald Trump’s White House employed about 400 people with an annual payroll of $40 million.

The trend under Biden is not just up — it’s soaring. The federal government, under Biden, now costs American taxpayers $2.3 million per minute. We warned this would happen during a Biden presidency in our book, “We Didn’t Fight for Socialism: America’s Veterans Speak Up.”

Socialist policies inevitably increase the size and power of government, and Biden’s policies are textbook socialism. Within days of taking office, he began restoring regulations Trump eliminated and ensured lifetime tenure for bureaucrats to monitor your compliance.

The Democrat-controlled Congress is aiding and abetting the Biden administration’s explosive growth in the size and cost of government — and adding to the inflationary burdens on American taxpayers. Every piece of legislation passed by Congress results in an average of 27 new regulations.

The stupidly called “paid for” $1.2 trillion “infrastructure bill” the president signed last Friday is a bureaucrat’s dream. It’s full of what Bidenites call “social infrastructure.” An exemplar: a program for charging drivers of hydrocarbon-powered vehicles a mileage fee. This devious way of raising “gas taxes” will require an army of bureaucrats to monitor and manage.

All this will get considerably worse for all Americans if the U.S. Senate affirms the nearly $2 trillion Biden “Build Back Better” plan. We need to pray they don’t.

History shows as the U.S. population grows, so grows our federal government. Today, our nation’s population is growing rapidly, not because new births outnumber deaths — COVID-19 and abortion put an end to that trend — but because immigrants are illegally flooding across our southern border. So far this year, more than 1.7 million have been allowed to enter the United States illegally by the Biden administration.

Immigrants who cross the border illegally could and should be held responsible for breaking our laws and returned to their nations of origin. Instead, the Biden administration is covertly sequestering them all over the United States in the dark of night.

Worse, the American Civil Liberties Union is supporting a lawsuit on behalf of families “separated” while illegally crossing our southern border. Rather than fight this case in federal court, as it should, the Biden Justice Department has devised a novel solution: Settle each case by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in reparations to each person claiming to have been subjected to the “indignity” of being caught breaking U.S. law. In short, the Biden administration has not only opened our border to those who break our laws by coming here illegally but will financially reward them.

American families enduring record-breaking inflation during this year’s holidays need to know Biden’s bloat need not be permanent. We The People can start draining the swamp again in November 2022. It’s a matter of accepting deferred gratification, praying to the good Lord for our nation and taking positive political action. All good reasons for a Happy Thanksgiving.

President Biden’s Treacherous Team

October 7, 2021 by Lt. Col. Oliver North and David L. Goetsch Leave a Comment

Twenty years ago this week, U.S. Special Forces and a U.S. Marine task force began offensive operations against al-Qaida and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack. It was the deadliest in world history, killing 2,977 Americans. Within days, the U.S. was joined by NATO allies, united by the pledge, “Never again!”

Sept. 28 and 29, 2021, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees held hearings on the disastrous end of this bloody, two-decade-long war that took the lives of 2,464 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and 3,840 U.S. civilian contractors. More than 24,000 U.S. and allied troops were seriously wounded.

Last week’s hearings could and should have been an opportunity to determine who is responsible for the catastrophic defeat our nation suffered at the “end” of a brutal contest in which we won all the major battles but still lost the war. It didn’t happen.

Instead, we witnessed our senior military leaders making excuses, obfuscating, distorting, and attempting to blame former President Donald Trump to deflect blame for this unmitigated disaster they and their feckless president caused.

Ironically, the outcome of the hearings was best summarized by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-C.T., a man who has his own issues with truth-telling. Blumenthal chided Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for providing “no real responses,” and after repeatedly asking who should be held accountable for leaving American citizens and our allies behind, concluded, “There is nobody in charge.”

Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of the United States Central Command, testified they urged President Biden to keep 2,500 U.S. troops and 5,000 NATO personnel in the country, and to retain possession of Bagram Air Base until all American citizens, Afghan allies and third-country civilians were evacuated. Biden evidently ignored this advice. When asked in a televised interview on Aug. 18 if he was advised to leave troops in Afghanistan, the president said: “No. No one said that to me I can recall.” The functional words here were “I can recall.”

Many assumed this response was another presidential lie, like so many others: “We will leave no one behind.” “We have enormous leverage over the Taliban.” We have “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism “capabilities.” But was it a deliberate falsehood? The only alternative raises serious questions about our president’s cognitive competence and who other than our senior military officers are giving this president military advice.

Two things are certain: First, the headline, “Top Generals Contradict Biden,” is true. So is the acknowledgement by two of our top military officers. Second, the American people and our homeland are now at “greater risk from terrorism” because of the way this war ended.

Congressional hearings with 5-minute Q&As are inadequate if the objective is to determine who should be held accountable for the humiliation our nation suffered in the worst military, national security and humanitarian disaster in U.S. history. But it’s about more than fixing blame. It’s about doing everything necessary to prevent anything like what occurred in August 2021, and the atrocities now underway in Afghanistan, from ever happening again.

To that end, we urge the formation of a “joint, bipartisan” commission on Operation Enduring Freedom. Here are two suggested parameters:

Give the commissioners authority to review classified messages, meetings and transcripts of calls, particularly calls made between Milley and Chinese Gen. Li Zuochong, and the call made by the president to Communist China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on Sept. 9.

Require the commission to deliver its report no later than Sept. 1, 2022.

This is the only way we can keep the pledge, “Never Again.”