Treestands, Presidential Treason and Unchecked Presidential Power

Treestands, Presidential Treason and Unchecked Presidential Power

First: No more hang-on treestands

Baltimore Orioles broadcaster, Ben McDonald, tweeted out a picture of himself in a hospital bed saying “This is what a severe concussion looks like and sounds like (I still don’t remember anything). Apparently I fell out of a deer stand 25 feet up yesterday morning.” He also suffered two cracked vertebrae. First, I don’t know any place that has deer season opened this early. McDonald was apparently putting a stand in place for the upcoming season or else the wildlife rangers would be at his hospital bed arresting him for hunting out of season. 

Ben, I feel your pain. In October 2015 I too fell out of a stand while hunting on the farm in Georgia. Mine was 20 feet up. I walked to the stand early in the morning while dark and went up the climbing stick to the stand. When I stepped on the platform, it gave way causing me to fall twenty feet. When I came to, I laid there assessing the situation. I could move my limbs and but had pain in my left side and left shoulder.  I had to use my flashlight to find my glasses. I had landed on my backpack and had just missed falling on my gun (I hoist my weapon up to the stand once and strap myself in). I had also missed hitting the steps on the climbing stick which would have cause serious damage (pictured). I had replaced the straps before the season and it was not until first light did I notice that my straps had been cut (also pictured)! I had previously had some trouble with poachers who had ignored my no trespassing signs. I had alerted the local ranger who suggested I paint markers on the trees. Well obviously the good old boys did not take it kindly and cut the straps on my stand. I went to the emergency room where they did x-rays and a cat scan. The doctor told me I was lucky and that falling on the backpack had probably saved me from more serious injury. I had a mild concussion, bruised ribs and a slightly separated shoulder. Otherwise I was fine although later I had to have total shoulder replacement.

I called the ranger and sent him a picture of the sabotaged stand and a picture of where my head landed close to the climbing stick. I don’t know what happened to the yahoos but the next season one of the properties that adjoin the farm was leased to a new group (from Florida). I haven’t had any more trouble. I immediately replaced all my hang on stands with ladder stands and now I always check the security of the stand before I start climbing.

Second: Obama – treason?

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has issued a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, saying that former president Barack Obama and his national security team manufactured the Russia hoax trying to in essence stage a coup to remove President Trump from office. Mind you, this would have to start prior to Trump taking office. Gabbard says that she has over 100 documents that provide evidence of this effort and essentially accuses Obama along with James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper and Susan Rice of a “treasonous conspiracy”. Gabbard says this is a “prosecutable crime”. Stay tuned.

Is Adam Schiff included in this group? When did Gabbard acquire this information? Is this being brought to light to deflect attention to the MAGA mess over the Epstein “list” – or no list? It will be no surprise if Trump’s “Justice” Department and AG (Blondie) Bondi go before a grand jury, issue subpoenas to Obama and his intelligence crew and proceed with criminal indictments. I cannot begin to imagine what happens next. Would there be significant fines and jail time for a former president, a former FBI director, a former CIA head and a former advisor to the president? That would seriously shake the very foundations of the country. 

Third: Unchecked Presidential Power 

Trump is testing the limits of presidential power. He has taken it upon himself to downsize the federal government. He has impounded congressionally appropriated funds. He has unilaterally re-written trade policy with his tariffs. He has changed the environmental edicts of Biden along with DEI and CRT. He has replaced leadership in the military removing and reassigning generals and admirals who are considered “woke”. He is busily removing trans and perhaps gays from the military. He has fired presidential appointees with fixed terms (see the National Credit Union Administration). He keeps cursing the chairman of the fed while threatening to fire him. All in six months. All this while republicans in the congress meekly allow him to do so, even as he usurps their authority.

He is using tariffs as a political cudgel, trying to force the world to bend to his wishes – however erratic they might be. Most of what he has said about the motivation for his imposing tariffs are really a rope-a-dope. Deficits a national security issue – a lie and he knows it. Reciprocal tariffs – another lie. US getting ripped off? Another lie. You mean that the strongest economic power in the world is getting ripped off by Lesotho? Or even Viet Nam? Seriously? No. Trump’s 50% tariff on Brazil shows that what he really wants is for countries to let him be their president. Canada anyone?

This is from Don Boudreaux’s Café Hayek

https://cafehayek.com

July 21, 2025

“Today’s shambolic civic life, with the public sector dominating and corrupting the private sector, reveals this: The Founders’ elegant architecture of institutions for liberty under limited government guarantees nothing when the institutions are inhabited by the unenlightened.

Trump’s ever-shifting and contradictory rationales for tariffs (curing trade deficits, strengthening national security, punishing ingratitude, etc.) reveal that protectionism is not an economic policy but a political strategy for aggrandizing personal power. His tornado of tariffs-by-whim produces an endless auction as businesses bid for beneficial whims: intensifications of, or exemptions from, tariffs.

As the American Enterprise Institute’s Dalibor Rohac says, when tariffs are multiple and malleable private rent-seeking (bending government for preferential treatment or for injurious treatment of competitors) displaces entrepreneurial talent and shrewd management as the path to economic success. Rent-seeking has always been with us, but not on today’s scale as innumerable factions become genuflecting supplicants, groveling for presidential favors.

The most statist administration in U.S. history has replaced capitalism with what economists call “economic repression”: government supplanting the market by restraining or compelling economic activities for political objectives.”

Thanks Don.