From The Fields

Hi, this is Richard Fields with this week's Report From the Fields.

Butch Wilmore and Sumi Williams arrived at the International Space Station last June aboard a Boeing Starliner spacecraft. Their mission was intended to last 8 days upon which they would return to earth aboard the Starliner. However, helium leaks and problems with the Starliner's thrusters caused NASA to return the Boeing craft to earth without its passengers for safety reasons. Last September, SpaceX ferried another American astronaut and a Russian Cosmonaut to the ISS.

To retrieve Wilmore and Williams, NASA then turned to Elon Musk's SpaceX to go to the space station to retrieve Wilmore and Williams. That happened with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico late in the afternoon of Monday, March 18.

That's the plotline of our country's latest space saga. I was eagerly waiting for news of the success of the mission on the afternoon of March 18. I get breaking news from the internet apps of both the New York Times and the Washington Post. The estimated time of the splashdown came and went. No news from my legacy media sources. Finally my brother told me that NewsMax had sent a bulletin that the astronauts had splashed down successfully at 5:57 ET. Still nothing from the American versions of Pravda and Izvestia. I knew the NYT was still in business because at 5:49pm Monday I got a bulletin that a Federal judge had blocked the Trump administration policy to expel transgender troops. But the successful splashdown came and went with no word from the paper that prints all the news that's fit to print. It wasn't until 4:10am ET the next day that the NYT finally deemed it fit to print, third story down, that the SpaceX rescue had been successful. And, oh yeah, the Washington Post had yet to cover the story at all. No mention of it in the Post Most the following Wednesday morning. So much for Jeff Bezos efforts to make his rag more objective.

So on the day that one of Musk's companies made a spectacular rescue in space, the Times gave more ink to a story about how Musk's role in dismantling an Aid Agency mayby coulda violated the Constitution according to a federal judge.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't like Trump, his personality, his amorality and his idiotic actions on immigration and trade.But appointing Trump to head up DOGE, or informal Department of Government Efficiency was a stroke of genius. Because it highlights some of the ridiculous things taxpayer funds are being wasted on. Sort of like Senator William Proxmire's Golden Fleece Awards back in the day. Yes, I know that the billions of spending maybe ended as a result of Musk's efforts won't make a dent in the federal deficit unless he is unleashed to go after Federal spending on the military, healthcare and retirement programs. But all the legacy media has done is nitpick whether the amount claimed by Musk to be saved is exactly accurate and run sob stories on the poor Federal workers who are losing their jobs. Oh, and a lot of schadenfreude over the 50% drop in Tesla stock prices and the arson at Tesla car lots.

But then, I'm a Musk fanboy. He is the ultimate immigrant success story. The founder of multiple successful companies and the self-made richest man in the world. That the legacy and leftwing media, but I repeat myself, can't do anything but trash him demonstrates that their politics is merely the politics of envy and also, the government owes me a living. It doesn't and envy only leads to sadness. I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next weel.

Richard Fields spotlights Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie’s lone vote against the $4 trillion debt ceiling hike in the Budget Reconciliation Act. He critiques the bipartisan support for the bill, examines Trump’s history of targeting Massie, and warns of the escalating debt spiral threatening America’s future. This week’s segment unpacks the political and economic stakes with sharp analysis and historical insight.

From Libertarian Counterpoint 1749

3/20/25

Hi, this is Richard Fields with this week's Report From the Fields. Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie was the only Republican to vote against the Budget Reconciliation Act which ultimately passed in the House.and later was passed in the Senate with the help of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and several other Democrats.

All you really need to know about this bill is that it raised the Federal Debt Ceiling by $4 trillion. That's over $11,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. $4 trillion in new debt reduces any promise by President Trump and anybody in Congress to balance the budget to be prima facie untruthful. Yet all the Republicans in the House except Massie along with all the Republicans in the Senate and a handful of Democrats voted for it anyway. For Massie's singular act of courage, Donald Trump called Massie a "grandstander" and threatened to lead an effort to "primary" him. That is, back an effort to defeat Massie in his Republican primary next year.

It won't be the first time. In March of 2020, Massie forced a recorded vote on the so-called CARES Act. That was the $2.2 trillion spenda palooza bill that attempted to paper over the disastrous effects of the COVID lockdowns and ultimately enabled rip roaring 9% inflation down the road. Simply for calling for a recorded vote on $2.2 trillion, so that constituents could know how their Representatives voted, Trump called for kicking Massie out of the Republican Party and called him a "third rate grandstander". Trump needs to consult a Thesaurus. He should also have recalled that in 2022 after he received Massie/s reelection endorsement (understandable given the quality of the Democratic opposition), Trump praised Massie as "conservative warrior" and "defender of the constitution".

The United States is well into a debt increase spiral with a magnitude greater than has led to the downfall of many an empire. Increasing that spiral will simply make the day of reckoning over our country's profligate ways much more painful for we the citizens. Republicans have majorities in the House and the Senate and a nominally Republican President. If Congressional Republicans were serious about saving the country from bankruptcy and preserving the American dream, they would use their majorities to force the President, who, by the way, is constitutionally precluded from running for reelection, to show his true colors. Veto the bill and accelerate the idea of America into the dustbin of history. Or sign the bill and provide the bedrock to actually, really make America great again. I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

Richard Fields investigates the surge in Google searches for criminal defense attorneys in Washington, D.C., speculating on its ties to Trump-era "lawfare" and Elon Musk's DOGE revelations. From Pentagon audits to offshore banking trends, this week's segment explores the ripple effects of bureaucratic rule-making and the spectacle of potential accountability in the nation's capital.

From Libertarian Counterpoint 1748

3/13/25

Hi, this is Richard Fields with this week's Report From the Fields. Google searches for criminal defense attorneys in Washington, D.C. began surging the day before Donald J Trump was inaugurated President. They are now 5 times higher than in the rest of the country. Hmm. I wonder why. Since lawyer/client conversations are still private, we must speculate. I can think of two plausible explanations.

1.) It's payback time by Trump. MAGA Republicans and Trump himself complained loudly and long that Trump was subject to "lawfare" throughout his first term as President and then during the Biden Presidency. Those complaints are at least partly based in fact. Trump may be weaponizing the Justice Department to target Democrats just like Democrats targeted him.

Or, 2.) Elon Musk's DOGE may be uncovering some serious criminal activity on the part of the "Deep State" bureaucrats who have been going about their business with minimal adult supervision for decades. The Pentagon has failed to pass an audit for seven years running. The amount of military spending they cannot account for runs in the billions. If the money was spent, some swamp critters received it. Pentagon misspending is the low hanging fruit. DOGE has also documented that USAid spending went to highly questionable NGOs. Another juicy target is money spent on environmental projects. In addition to searches for criminal defense attorneys there has also been a D.C. surge in searches for "wire money" and "offshore bank". Are bent bureaucrats trying to hide their ill gotten gains? Reasonable people want to know. I'm sure I do.

Sixteen years ago, Harvey Silverglate the co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote the book, "Three Felonies a Day" which posited that three is the average number of felonies committed daily by everyone (mostly unwittingly). I suspect that residents of D.C. bring that average number up substantially. The reason for that hard to believe assertion is the mind-numbing number of regulations written, not by Congress, but by bureaucrats which can carry criminal penalties. Could it be that the profligate rule making by D.C. bureaucrats is coming back to bite them? A schadenfreude attitude says we can hope so.

Whatever the reason for the spike in D.C. criminal defense demand, we can certainly sit back and enj0y the spectacle. Time to get out the popcorn. I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields.

Richard Fields explores Jeff Bezos' surprising libertarian-leaning declaration to champion personal liberties and free markets through the Washington Post. He examines Bezos' political maneuvers, contrasts them with MAGA Republican policies, and critiques the Trump administration's approach to DEI, tariffs, and territorial ambitions. This week's segment reflects on the complexities of welcoming imperfect allies in the fight for libertarian ideals.

From Libertarian Counterpont 1747

3/6/25

Hi, this is Richard Fields with this week's Report From the Fields. Jeff Bezos is, of course, the founder of Amazon and space company Blue Origin. He's also the owner of the Washington Post which has been a consistently center-left newspaper for decades. Imagine my amazement when I read Bezos' statement that, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,” My first thought was that it sounds familiar. Oh, yeah, it's similar to "Free minds and free markets" , the subhead of Reason Magazine since its inception. My second thought was, fantastic! That means that there are now two major market daily newspapers with a libertarian bent, the newspaper I subscribe to, the Orange County Register and now the WP.

The first clue that something was up was when Bezos refused to let the paper endorse Kamala Harris in last year's Presidential campaign much to the consternation of the Post's editorial staff. But no endorsement meant that there was on endorsement of Trump either. Since the election he has cozied up to Trump but, hell, most of the tech bros have. Even Mark Zuckerberg who slavishly followed the Biden administrations censorship dictats on COVID and Biden family corruption.

The choice of words is also interesting. Personal liberties and free markets are certainly not the hallmarks of MAGA Republicans. Quite the opposite. Wholesale expulsion of immigrants is a fundamental violation of their personal liberty to live wherever they can find a job and a house to live in. And getting rid of DEI programs is good insofar as it eliminates government discrimination. But the way the Trump administration is doing it is extremely mean spirited and almost certainly firing competent trans people and people of color is discriminatory in and of itself. The old kind of discrimination. And tariffs are the opposite of free markets. And the threats to reclaim the Panama Canal, annex Canada, Greenland and Gaza are horrific violations of the personal liberties of the people who live in those places and the very concept of free markets.

There is no question that Bezos is an American entrepreneurial success story. He started Amazon in a garage in Bellevue, Washington. But like Musk and most other multi-billionaires, he has been willing to sell his services to whoever was willing to buy them. Including the CIA as a customer of Amazon Web Services, the Pentagon for "Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure", Immigration and Customs Enforcement for its Rekognition surveillance software and of course NASA for its Blue Origin contracts.

But we libertarians need to welcome allies even when they are not as pure as we would like them to be. Elon Musk is doing great work with DOGE while much of the rest of what the Trump administration does is lamentable. If Bezos' opinion pages continue to publish articles critical of the authoritarian tendencies of the Trump administration like a recent piece by Dana Milbank, I'll take that as a sign that Bezos is actually sincere about his small L libertarianism. We shall see. I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields.

Richard Fields examines the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, tracing its roots to U.S. foreign policy and critiquing the Trump administration's approach to peace negotiations. He also dissects Trump's controversial plans for Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada, as well as the audacious proposal to transform Gaza into a resort. This week's segment unpacks the geopolitical and economic implications of these policies with sharp analysis and historical context.

From Libertarian Counterpoint 1746

2/27/25

Hi, this is Richard Fields with this week's Report From the Fields. Anyone without ideological blinders can see that Russia is winning its war of conquest against Ukraine. And anyone who actually pays attention to history understands that the United States had a part in setting the stage for instigating that invasion. During the Obama administration, USAID in cooperation with the CIA and probably several of the 17 other U.S. intelligence agencies encouraged a "color" revolution against the duly elected government of Ukraine because said government was more interested in allying itself with Russia than joining NATO. Millions have died in this war and billions spent, many of those billions from U.S. taxpayers. The Trump administration is doing the right thing in seeking to negotiate an end to this war.

Because they are peace lovers, right. Well, probably not. This same administration is threatening to annex Greenland, reclaim the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state. I'm guessing that Canada, Denmark which owns Greenland and Panama may not peaceably agree to these Trumpian plans. Could even mean war. In our hemisphere and on our continent where we don't have protective moats like the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of, I refuse to use Trump and the Google Map term, so, the Gulf of Mexico.

And now achieving peace in the Middle East by seizing the Gaza Strip, ethnically cleansing it of Palestinians, and building a MaraGaza Mediterranean resort. First, no Arab country or any other country has...or will... step forward to welcome 2 million refugees. And we know Trump's attitude to immigrants.Second, even if there were a place for that many displaced people, can you think of a better way to achieve generational enmity to the United States than to forcibly evacuate people from their homes and livelihoods? Not to mention the ungodly costs that would be involved. Removing the unexploded ordnance and other detritus of war. Billions to build and fortify the resorts, and yes fortification would be absolutely necessary. Trump is used to his own bankruptcies. This could be the camel back breaking straw that causes the bankruptcy of the United States.

That's this week's Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week.

This is the kind of hubristic nation building nonsense that would make George W Bush's invasion of Iraq look like playing dominoes.