Doomscroll News

Tag: government

  • One Faith, Many Strands: Congregational Power, Dissent & Protestant Evolution

    One Faith, Many Strands: Congregational Power, Dissent & Protestant Evolution

    The lived religious experience and societal role of 18th-century New England Congregationalism were different from the landscape of modern Protestantism.

    To begin, in 18th-century Massachusetts, where Congregationalism was the established church (meaning it was supported by public taxes and held a privileged position), two prominent examples of “dissenting groups” would be:

    1. Baptists: Key Difference from Congregationalists: Baptists rejected infant baptism, believing that baptism should only be for conscious believers who could make a personal profession of faith. They also strongly advocated for the separation of church and state and religious liberty for all, opposing the system of mandatory taxes to support the Congregational church. Status: They were a growing minority and often faced social and legal pressure, including being taxed for the support of Congregational ministers even if they didn’t attend those churches (though some exemptions were starting to be made by the mid-18th century, they were often hard-won).
    2. Quakers (Religious Society of Friends): Key Difference from Congregationalists: Quakers had radically different beliefs and practices. They believed in the “Inner Light” (direct, personal experience of God without the need for ordained clergy or formal sacraments), practiced pacifism (refusing to bear arms), refused to swear oaths, and had plain forms of worship, often involving silent waiting. Status: Historically, Quakers had faced severe persecution in Massachusetts in the 17th century (including banishment and execution). By the 18th century, the overt violence had ceased, but they remained a distinct and often marginalized group, facing difficulties due to their pacifism (e.g., during wartime) and their refusal to pay taxes for the established church or participate in other civic rituals that conflicted with their beliefs.

    These groups, along with Anglicans (who were a minority in New England though established in England), represented significant religious alternatives to the dominant Congregationalist establishment and played important roles in the long struggle for greater religious freedom in America.

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  • Immediately repeal the federal Real ID Act, replace with StatePass or Nothing

    Immediately repeal the federal Real ID Act. Its core danger lies not just in bureaucratic failure, but in its fundamental threat to personal liberty and privacy. Real ID creates the infrastructure for a national tracking system, linking state databases and enabling unprecedented government surveillance of citizens’ movements—precisely the kind of invasive system that evokes deep-seated fears among many Americans, including concerns resembling a “mark of the beast” scenario where government monitors and controls individuals through mandatory identification. This potential for pervasive tracking violates the spirit of the 4th Amendment and must be dismantled.

    Replace Real ID with StatePass, a new system of state-controlled secure IDs for domestic travel originating within their borders. Leveraging lessons from Real ID’s troubled history, states will implement StatePass quickly and efficiently. The absolute priority of StatePass is preventing federal surveillance; standards must prohibit centralized databases or features allowing easy federal tracking, focusing instead on secure credentials verifiable locally, not federal data collection. This state-centric approach, where states design, issue, and manage their own StatePass IDs and verification, directly counters the “mark of the beast” concerns tied to federal overreach.

    State accountability will be ensured through robust mechanisms. The State Security Assurance Fund (SSAF) is a mandatory pool of state contributions, essentially security deposits, used to levy substantial financial penalties against any state whose faulty StatePass system causes a major security breach originating there. The Interstate Travel Security Commission (ITSC), composed of representatives from participating states, manages the SSAF, investigates security failures to determine penalties, and facilitates voluntary collaboration on StatePass best practices.

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  • The Crypto Eradication and Corporate Fraud Retribution Act (Hypothetical)

    The Crypto Eradication and Corporate Fraud Retribution Act (Hypothetical)

    Preamble: To ensure the integrity of financial markets, discourage speculative and potentially illicit activities associated with certain digital assets, and hold accountable high-level corporate executives who defraud investors in smaller public companies, this Act establishes a stringent taxation regime for digital assets and dedicates the resulting revenue exclusively to the prosecution and incarceration of culpable C-suite executives.

    Section 1: Taxation of Digital Assets

    • (a) Capital Gains and Income: All realized capital gains and income (including staking rewards, mining income, airdrops, and interest) derived from digital assets shall be taxed at a rate of 90%.
    • (b) Capital Losses: No capital losses from digital asset transactions may be deducted against gains from digital assets or any other form of income.
    • (c) Annual Wealth Tax: An annual wealth tax of 10% shall be levied on the total market value of all digital assets held by a U.S. person (individual or entity) as of December 31st each year, regardless of whether the assets have been sold or generated income.
    • (d) Transaction Tax: A 5% excise tax shall be imposed on the fair market value of every digital asset transaction, including purchases, sales, exchanges (crypto-to-crypto, crypto-to-fiat, fiat-to-crypto), and payments for goods or services. This tax is payable by the U.S. person initiating the transaction.
    • (e) Reporting: Taxpayers must report all digital asset holdings and every transaction, regardless of value, on their annual tax return with detailed information including dates, values, counterparties (where identifiable), and transaction IDs. Brokers and exchanges must issue detailed 1099 forms for all customer activity.
    • (f) Penalties: Failure to comply fully with reporting requirements or tax payments under this section will result in penalties including, but not limited to, a fine equal to 100% of the unreported assets’ value or unpaid tax, plus potential criminal charges including tax evasion. Egregious non-compliance may result in asset forfeiture.
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  • Before RussiaGate: Unanswered 9/11 Questions & the Figures Who Later Targeted Trump

    The official 9/11 story has always been shadowed by intense political maneuvering and questions about the integrity of the investigation. TDS figures involved Robert Mueller and Jeff Sessions then became central to later political firestorms, like the Trump-Russia probe, leading critics to question if patterns of bias or “sketchy” behavior were present from the start. Add the chaos of the post-9/11 Anthrax attacks targeting leaders like Sen. Tom Daschle, and you have an environment ripe for suspicion. Here are the really interesting, specific questions that remain, viewed through that critical lens:

    Questions About the Investigation’s Integrity & Key Players:

    1. The Mueller FBI’s Actions: Robert Mueller led the FBI during 9/11 and its immediate aftermath. Considering his later controversial role heading the Trump-Russia investigation (labeled the “Russia Hoax” by critics), specific questions about his FBI’s handling of 9/11 gain new scrutiny for some observers: Why did the Phoenix Memo warning die within his FBI? Why was the WTC steel evidence removed and disposed of so quickly under his FBI’s jurisdiction? What were the full findings and actions taken regarding the Saudi flights authorized post-9/11? How effectively was the Anthrax investigation (targeting Sen. Daschle) handled by his FBI, and were its ultimate conclusions fully verified?
    2. The Zelikow Conflict & Commission Bias: How could the 9/11 Commission claim independence when its director, Philip Zelikow, had such tight links to the Bush White House (Condoleezza Rice), as highlighted in 2004 reports (CNN)? Did this connection, slammed by critics at the time, effectively allow the White House to steer the investigation?
    3. Political Pressure & Information Control: Were findings, like the “28 pages” on potential Saudi links, kept secret for years due to political pressure (perhaps involving figures like Jeff Sessions in his Senate role then, whose later actions as AG raised questions for critics) rather than legitimate security concerns? Did the White House improperly limit the Commission’s access or scope, as alleged during the 2004 hearings (CNN)?
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  • The MADC ‘Defense Pact’: A Playbook for Evading Accountability

    Universities, nudged by faculty groups and unions primarily within the Big Ten, are floating a plan for a “Mutual Academic Defense Compact” (MADC). The idea is to create an alliance where member schools pool resources to defend each other against what they term “political attacks.” While presented as a shield for academic freedom and institutional autonomy, the MADC looks more like a coordinated strategy to sidestep accountability to elected governments, taxpayers, and the public, particularly regarding controversial programs and policies.

    Breaking Down the Goals: A Pattern of Evasion

    Examining the stated aims reveals a consistent thread of trying to avoid oversight and consequences:

    1. “Collective Defense”: This isn’t about protection in the usual sense. It’s about creating a shared war chest—funded by tuition, endowments, or potentially taxpayer money—to fight back against governmental investigations, audits, or legislative actions. It’s a mechanism designed explicitly to resist accountability measures imposed by elected bodies.
    2. “Resisting Political Interference”: This frequently serves as code for resisting laws, regulations, and oversight that university administrations or faculty dislike. It suggests an attempt to operate outside the normal democratic process where institutions are subject to political (i.e., governmental) direction, especially public universities. Shielding specific research agendas or programs, like contested DEI initiatives, from scrutiny under the guise of fighting “interference” is a direct dodge of public and governmental accountability.
    3. “Protect Academic Freedom”: While crucial, this principle can be misused. In the context of the MADC, there’s a risk it becomes a justification for insulating specific, often left-leaning, ideological viewpoints or controversial scholarship from legitimate criticism and external review, thereby evading intellectual and public accountability.
    4. “Support Vulnerable Communities / Uphold DEI”: The push to use pact resources to defend DEI programs is particularly telling. These programs face significant legal challenges and public criticism as discriminatory, promoting division, and chilling speech. The MADC aims to provide a financial and legal shield to prevent these programs from facing accountability through courts or legislatures, essentially using collective power to protect contested initiatives from consequences.
    5. “Mitigate Financial Pressure”: This goal is perhaps the most blatant attempt to avoid accountability. If a university faces funding cuts due to legislative decisions, declining enrollment, or public disapproval of its policies, the MADC seeks to use funds from other (potentially out-of-state) universities to cushion the blow. This undermines the basic principle that institutions should be accountable for the consequences of their actions and policies, including financial ones.
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  • The TikTok Paradox: National Security, Digital Sovereignty, and the Forging of U.S. Tech Policy

    The TikTok Paradox: National Security, Digital Sovereignty, and the Forging of U.S. Tech Policy

    David’s Note: This article was substantially revised on October 10, 2025 to incorporate new research and provide a more comprehensive analysis.

    On January 17, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a landmark law that forces the sale of TikTok, a platform used by over 170 million Americans, or face a nationwide ban.1 This decision highlighted a central paradox in modern American policy. TikTok is at once a legislative target, condemned as a grave national security threat, and an indispensable campaign tool, actively leveraged by the political actors who seek to regulate it.

    This paper argues that this apparent contradiction is not a sign of policy incoherence. Instead, it reveals an evolving and deliberate strategy to confront a novel threat to the nation’s digital sovereignty. Digital sovereignty is a nation’s ability to control its own digital destiny—the data, hardware, and software it relies upon.3 In this context, it means securing the digital infrastructure and information environment within its borders from the control of a strategic adversary.4

    The core of this argument is that the threat posed by TikTok is fundamentally structural. It is rooted in the legal and operational subordination of its parent company, ByteDance, to the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This structural risk is distinct from the commercial data practices of domestic social media companies. It has compelled the U.S. to forge a new national security doctrine for the digital age.

    To develop this thesis, this paper will proceed in four parts.

    • Section I will establish that TikTok represents a structural national security threat due to its data collection capabilities under PRC law and its potential for algorithmic manipulation.
    • Section II will trace the evolution of U.S. legal strategy, from the failure of broad executive orders to the crafting of a targeted, constitutionally-sound legislative solution.
    • Section III will systematically deconstruct the primary counterarguments against this policy, including those based on the First Amendment, economic disruption, and false equivalencies with U.S. tech firms.
    • Section IV will analyze the political realities that create the central paradox, examining how electoral pragmatism and divided public opinion coexist with the national security consensus.

    Ultimately, this analysis will demonstrate that the TikTok dilemma is a landmark case in how a liberal democracy is adapting its legal and political tools to defend its sovereignty in an era of weaponized information.

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  • An Unmitigated Threat: The National Security Case for the Prohibition of TikTok in the United States

    An Unmitigated Threat: The National Security Case for the Prohibition of TikTok in the United States

    David’s Note: This article was substantially revised on October 10, 2025 to incorporate new research and provide a more comprehensive analysis.

    With over 170 million users in the United States, TikTok is more than a social media phenomenon; it is a deeply embedded component of American digital life and commerce.1 This ubiquity, however, masks a critical vulnerability. This report presents a comprehensive analysis of the national security threat posed by the social media application TikTok, operated by its parent company, ByteDance Ltd. It argues that due to ByteDance’s inextricable links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the application functions as a dual-threat vector for sophisticated data espionage and algorithmic influence operations against the United States.

    Executive Summary

    This report analyzes the national security threat from TikTok, an application operated by ByteDance Ltd. The company’s deep connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allow the app to function as a tool for data espionage and algorithmic influence against the United States.

    This report’s central thesis is that mitigation efforts cannot neutralize this threat. The application’s core architecture, corporate governance, and legal obligations are inextricably linked to the CCP, a designated foreign adversary. Therefore, a complete prohibition on its operation within the United States is the only effective policy solution.

    The report deconstructs ByteDance’s opaque corporate structure. It highlights the CCP’s control mechanisms, such as the “golden share” held by a state-backed entity, which make any claims of operational independence untenable. It also details warnings from top U.S. intelligence officials, including the FBI Director and the Director of National Intelligence, who define TikTok as a tool that a foreign adversary can leverage.

    Furthermore, the report dismisses mitigation efforts like the $1.5 billion “Project Texas” as flawed security theater. Evidence shows this project failed to sever data flows to Beijing or neutralize the threat of algorithmic manipulation. The core issue of adversarial ownership remained unaddressed.

    After refuting key counterarguments—related to the First Amendment, economic impacts, and false equivalencies with U.S. tech firms—the report concludes that partial measures are insufficient. The unique nature of the threat, rooted in ByteDance’s subservience to the CCP, demands a structural solution. The only policy that fully addresses these inherent risks is the swift enforcement of a ban on TikTok and any successor applications, as provided by the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA).

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