ADAMS FIGHTS CONGRESSIONAL "SLAVE POWER"

 

[Published in Essay 10-B: John Quincy Adams and the Fight Against The Gag Rule - Constituting America]

John Quincy Adams was America’s most impactful former President. His most important accomplishment was risking scorn and even death to defend free speech and constitutional liberties.

Adams was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1830, the only former President to serve in that chamber. He would win election to nine terms, serving from 1831 until his death in 1848.

After one reelection victory, Adams said that he must “bring about a day prophesied when slavery and war shall be banished from the face of the Earth”.

As the abolitionist movement grew, the American Anti-Slavery Society filed over 1,000 petitions, with 130,000 signatures, focused on abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia since it was under federal jurisdiction. In 1836, in response to Adams’s consistent presentation of these citizen petitions, Southern Democrats imposed a Gag Rule that immediately tabled any petitions about slavery.

The Gag Rule prohibited anti-slavery petitions from “being printed, read, discussed, or voted on, stating that the effect of these petitions was to create much irritation and ill feeling between different parts of the Union”.

Prior to the Rule’s vote, Adams rose from his seat to protest. When House Speaker, James Polk, refused to recognize him, Adams yelled, “Am I gagged?” He argued that the Gag Rule was a “direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, the rules of this House, and the rights of my constituents.” He declared it a threat to free, deliberative government: “The freedom of debate has been stifled in this House to a degree far beyond anything that ever has happened since the existence of the Constitution.”

This was the beginning of Adams’s relentless campaign to overturn the Gag Rule, waged in an increasingly dangerous political environment:

Joanne B. Freeman’s book, The Field of Blood; Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War, documents the deterioration of representative government and civil discourse. As she writes, “Between 1830 and 1860, there were more than seventy violent incidents between Congressmen in the House and Senate Chambers or on nearby street…armed groups of Northern and Southern Congressmen engaged in hand-to-hand combat on the House Floor….fighting became endemic and Congressmen strapped on knives and guns before heading to the Capitol every morning.”

A core of members of Congress from slaveholding states countered Adams’s increasingly creative parliamentary maneuvers with physical threats. Rep. Thomas Arnold (Whig-Wisconsin) defense of Adams provoked Rep. John Dawson (D-Louisiana) to brandish a large knife and threaten to cut his throat. Once, when Adams’s remarks “put slaveholders in blaze”, scores of slaveholders “shouted points of order, every now and then screaming at the top of their voices”. This was followed by a gang of Southern members surrounding Adams, threatening physical violence. Adams rose to his feet and shouted, “I see where the shoe pinches, Mr. Speaker, it will pinch more yet!”

Adams led the ban of dueling to stop Southerner members using deadly force (the assassination of abolitionist Rep. Jonathan Cilley by Southern Rep. Willam Graves occurred on February 24, 1838 was orchestrated and covered-up as a duel).

Adams asserted the dueling ban “goes to the independence of this House; it goes to the independence of every individual Member of this House; it goes to the right of speech and the freedom of debate in this House.”

Adams continued to present hundreds of petitions with the signatures of citizens opposed to slavery, only to be shouted down. He then avoided the word “petition”, saying instead that he was introducing a “prayer” that all would enjoy their God-given rights. “Petition was prayer,” he argued. “It was the cry of the suffering for relief; of the oppressed for mercy.”

Adams received numerous death threats. “I promise to cut your throat from ear to ear,” read one. Another had a picture of a large Bowie knife and threatened “Vengeance is mine, say the South!” Adams confided to his diary, “I walk on the edge of a precipice in every step that I take.”

Adams introduced thousands of petitions, including 511 on March 30, 1840, alone. All were tabled without debate. Proslavery representatives then instituted a harsher gag rule to shut Adams up. The House agreed it would not receive any petitions. Adams saw a “conspiracy in and out of Congress to crush the liberties of a free people of the Union.”

In a bold act of defiance, Adams had the clerk of the House read the Declaration of Independence aloud to his fellow representatives, stating, “I rest that petition on the Declaration of Independence.”

Adams’s crusade drew increased media coverage of the Gag Rule and congressional violence, which “exposed the tyrannical force of the Slave Power for all to see”. In 1842, Southern members overplayed their hand by censuring Rep. Joshua Giddings over his resolution congratulating Adams winning the freedom of the Amistad ship slaves in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Media coverage raised American awareness of, and opposition to, the Gag Rule. Northern voters increasingly supported candidates who demanded the right of representation, petition, and free speech. This new generation of Northern Democrats were unwilling to embrace Southern intimidation tactics.

After these election reversals, Rep. Henry Wise (D-Virginia), the leading Gag Rule supporter and Adams’s nemesis, announced to reporters that he “ceased to contend in the war which is being carried on in the House by certain men against the South”. Wise ceded that the Gag Rule “roused Northern fury over violated rights”.

The Gag Rule was finally rescinded on December 3, 1844, by a vote of 108–80, with all Northern and four Southern Whigs voting for repeal, along with 78% of Northern Democrats.

Congress never again attempted to silence dissent among its members.

AMERICA's WESTWARD EXPANSION

 

[Published in Essay 7-A: The Northwest Ordinance And Settlers in The West - Constituting America]

America’s westward expansion reshaped the way the world worked. Never before had a national government strategically outlined how settlement would evolve, how new lands would be governed, and how settler rights would be protected.

The movement of people into unsettled or unorganized land was historically shaped by conquest and occupation. Settler rights and representation were at best an afterthought. Rome and other empires granted land to soldiers and political favorites. England and the other European powers granted specific charters for colonies and trading zones. In all cases, these expansions were tied to existing centralized powers and their agendas.

Colonial America found ways to leverage the tangle of charters and geographic distance from England into local self-government. These early forms of representative government closely tied to communities created the foundation of America’s unique civic culture. This led to the Revolutionary War when Britain attempted to undermine this civic culture and constrain the consent of the governed.

America applied the lessons of the Revolution as it was inventing itself under the Articles of Confederation. The grand experiment was how a nation preserves self-governance and protects fundamental rights as it expands territorially. The laboratory for expanding democracy was the unmapped expanse of land beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

In 1670, John Lederer crossed over the Appalachian/Blue Ridge Mountains to explore the Shenandoah River valley and other western lands. In the 1730s, Jost Hite led the first organized group of settlers into this region.

Others soon followed. British King George II allowed westward expansion to counter France’s North American ambitions. King George III, on the other hand, wanted to consolidate American colonists into the narrow coastal region along the eastern seaboard. Preventing westward expansion avoided unnecessary conflicts with Native Americans, allowing England to focus on tightening its control over its colonies.

On October 7, 1763, King George III issued the Proclamation of 1763, forbidding colonists from settling west of the Appalachians. The King demanded that settlers already living west of this new “Proclamation Line” abandon their homesteads and return east. He further prohibited commerce with Native Americans except with traders licensed by the Crown.

Daniel Boone (1734-1820) was among many who ignored the Proclamation, leading legions of settlers into the west through the newly discovered Cumberland Gap (1769).
On January 14, 1784, the Continental Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the American Revolution. The treaty granted the new nation all British lands from the Proclamation Line to the Mississippi River.

Southern states immediately claimed land to their west all the way to the Mississippi River. This left unclaimed land, known as the “Territory of the United States North West of the Ohio River” to administer. This vast unsettled area was both an unprecedented challenge and opportunity.

Thomas Jefferson proposed the Ordinance of 1784 as a framework for organizing this area. His approach was too complex to implement, but it framed future discussions.
On July 13, 1787, the Continental Congress adopted the Northwest Ordinance, crafted by Nathan Dane and Rufus King, both delegates from Massachusetts.

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 is considered by historians and constitutional scholars as one of America’s most important founding documents, taking its place with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The Ordinance outlined how American settlers in this region would govern themselves, be incorporated into the United States as citizens of new states, and enjoy the basic protections of rights and freedoms. These provisions would guide America’s expansion into the 20th Century.

The Ordinance established a three-stage process for unsettled land to evolve from a federally governed area into a self-governing territory and eventually into a state admitted into the Union as its population grew. It provided for the settlers of these lands to adopt their own state constitution based on the rule of law and consent of the governed. It embraced local governance and federalism, anticipating the U.S. Constitution, which was under consideration at this time (May-September 1787).

The Ordinance’s other key component was Section 14. Its Articles anticipated the Bill of Rights (September 1789-December 1791). This included rights to habeas corpus, trial by jury, due process relating to property, preventing cruel or unusual punishments, and freedom of religion.

The Ordinance’s Section 14, Article 6, prohibited slavery: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.” This incendiary issue was deferred in the U.S. Constitution and only resolved when the 13th Amendment was adopted on December 6, 1865.

The Article 6 prohibition of slavery set the line between free and slave regions. It established the precedent and future conflict over limiting the westward expansion of slavery. Prohibiting slavery in the Northwest shifted the region’s settlement demographics. Slaveholders avoided the Northwest territories while “free laborers” and immigrants flocked there. These ancestral demographics shape the culture and politics of this region to this day.

STAMP ACT IGNITES AMERICA's REVOLUTION

 

[Published in Essay 2-A: The Stamp Act and The People - Constituting America]

America has always been a nation of communities.  Its pattern of settlement, through Royal Charters, gave wide latitude for establishing local governance.  Because the colonies were over 3,500 miles from London, detailed oversight of the colonies was impossible.  By necessity, and by desire, colonists embraced local authority over distant rule from England. 

 This pattern of delegating powers to American-based local governments was promoted by King George II (reigned 1727-1760).  He supported a “hands-off” approach to Colonial Administration, allowing local governments to establish and enforce their own laws and establish and collect their own revenue, overseen by passive Royal Governors.

George II’s worldview was that his colonies’ expanding population and economy generated demand for British goods and thwarted French and Spanish ambitions in the Americas.  

 The King’s delegation created “fertile soil” for Colonial America to develop a thriving governance culture based on local sovereignty and the consent of the governed.

 As Alexis de Tocqueville would later explain:  “The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence.”

 The passing of George II changed things for the worse.

First, England triumphed over the French in the first true “world war”. The Seven Years War (1756-1763) obliterated French control in North America (except for the Port of New Orleans) and India.  Colonial America no longer played a role in countering French incursions.

Second, King George III (1760-1820) had a very different world view from his grandfather.  He saw everything in terms of loyalty to the Crown (him). As a result, he sought direct control of the American colonies. He distrusted America’s local governments bending to his will. 

 The King’s Prime Minister, Lord Grenville (1763-1765), devised a way to assert the Crown’s authority over the American Colonies.

 British victory in the Seven Years’ War left it with crippling debt.  Grenville chose to ignore the windfall profits gained from India’s cotton and opium trades. He also chose to ignore the fact that American colonists paid, fought, and died to defeat France in North America. 

 During the “French and Indian War,” approximately 3,000 British “Regular” troops were killed in action, but over 11,000 American “Provincial” troops died in action.

 Instead, Grenville promoted the concept that the beneficiaries of the war (American colonists) should pay for it: “and now will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence until they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from heavy weight of the burden which we lie under?” Grenville’s first step was to enforce existing customs duties.  Many British Customs officials managed collections through intermediaries while remaining in England.  Grenville forced them to relocate to America as part of his general crack down on sporadic smuggling, lax enforcement, and spotty revenue collection. Expanded numbers of Customs Officers became more aggressive in using search warrants, called “writs of assistance,” to track down smuggled goods. Warehouses were seized and ships were captured to bolster Royal revenue collection.  Royal Customs officials became a permanent and pervasive presence in Colonial seaports along the Atlantic coast.

American colonists resisted this Royal intrusion by “going underground.”  Universal smuggling became the new colonial business practice. Customs revenue fell accordingly.

 This shortfall in Customs revenue led to the Stamp Act of 1765, the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. Prior to the Stamp Act, taxes were only levied by local government through their elected officials.  Now a government 3,500 miles away was asserting control, without the knowledge, approval, or oversight of the colonists.

 The Stamp Act imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies. This included legal documents, playing cards, newspapers, and land titles. Stamps had to be purchased with British sterling, rather than local paper currency, causing additional economic hardship. Proof of payment required affixing a Royal Stamp on documents, which is why it is called the “Stamp Act.”

 The February 1765 British Parliament debate on the Stamp Tax revealed the collision course set by King George III against the American Colonists.

 Colonel Isaac Barré [Member of Parliament and friend of Benjamin Franklin] spoke against Grenville’s Act and the King’s strategy: 

 “They [America Colonists] nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of ‘em. As soon as you began to care about ‘em, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over ’em, in one department and another, who were perhaps the deputies of deputies to some Member of this House, sent to spy out their liberty, to misrepresent their actions and to prey upon ’em; men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them….

 “They [America’s Colonists] have nobly taken up arms in your defense, have exerted a valor amidst their constant and laborious industry for the defense of a country whose frontier while drenched in blood, its interior parts have yielded all its little savings to your emolument …. The people [America’s Colonists] are as truly loyal as any subjects the King has, but a people jealous of their liberties will vindicate them if ever they should be violated.”

 America’s journey to Revolution had begun.

IRAN - AMERICA'S NEXT STEPS

 

[Published in the Sunday Guardian of India: After Iran: America’s Next Steps]

What happens after the shooting stops?

This is Washington, DC’s main topic of conversation in the wake of Epic Fury annihilating Iran’s leadership.

The answer is fundamental to the balance of President Donald Trump’s Administration.  What follows removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro?  What is next in Iran?  What happens if the Cuban Communists fall?

America has shown the world that it is the most formidable military power in history.  Unfortunately, during the 21^st Century, America has also shown its ability to lose the peace after winning the war.

With the end of the Cold War, America guiding nations toward pro-West free societies has ranged from the “good”, to the “bad”, to the “ugly”.

SOVIET EMPIRE

The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, marked the end of 72 years of tyranny for Russia and many “captive” nations.  The countries of the USSR, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe had viable opposition elements.  Most Warsaw Pact nations were viable democracies before being conquered by the Nazis and Soviets.

Credible leaders, such as Poland’s Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel, were ready to step in.  Dissident movements like Solidarity and Samizdat provided a core of policy and political activists to fill the power vacuum as Eastern European leaders fell.

The United States did not “nation build”.  It offered important support to the emerging leaders who were shaking off generations of oppression.

Bipartisanship dominated this effort.  The Clinton State Department and Speaker Newt Gingrich hosted delegations from the new nations to personally see Congress in action.  Prime Ministers, General Secretaries, and Parliamentary leaders spent days being mentored by the Clerk of the House and the House’s Chief Administrative Officer on how voting, legislative processes, and constituent services could be adopted to their respective settings.

Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, under a State Department contract, held week-long training sessions for Members of various Parliaments.  Senators, Members of Congress, and the House’s Chief Administrative Officer conducted these interactive seminars to provide real world, hands-on, insights on how to effectively represent their country’s interests while managing debate and opposing views.

The European Union stepped in to help align legal practices and guide the new nations into compliance and ultimately membership in the European Union (EU).  Nonprofits, such as the Atlantic Council and The European Institute facilitated dialogue with EU leaders and regional stakeholders.  European Ambassadors, posted both the U.S. and in Eastern Europe, served as coaches and mentors to their counterparts.

The key to this success was allowing each nation to evolve at its own pace based upon its own unique identity, history, and culture.  Adoption of “best practices” and “lessons learned” were offered but not mandated.

The only failure was Russia.  While Duma Members enthusiastically participated in Harvard’s courses, they could not anticipate that Boris Yelstin’s alcoholism and complicity in corruption would lead to the deal that brought Vladimir Putin to power.

AFGHANISTAN

The successes of Eastern Europe were totally lost on the Neo-Conservatives (NeoCons) that dominated the inner circles of President George W. Bush.

Afghanistan was a feudal society, divided among villages elders, clergy, and warlords, all owing titular loyalty to the Shah. 

Mohammadzai tribal leaders ruled Afghanistan for 155 years. The last Shah was toppled in a Soviet-backed coup in April 1978.  What followed were years of unrest.  This included civil war, the assassination of the Soviet puppet leader, and the full-scale invasion and occupation of the country by Soviet troops in December 1979.

A long guerilla war was waged by the pro-West Northern Alliance and Islamist factions known as the Mujahideen.  Eventually, the most radical of the factions, the Taliban, dominated the Mujahideen.

The Soviet withdrawal on April 14, 1988, left an uneasy coalition government between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. The leader of the Northern Alliance was assassinated days before the 9-11 attack on America.  These events consolidated Taliban control but also led to the United States toppling the regime in December 2001.

The U.S. chose to “nation build”.  Ignoring history and culture, Bush officials installed Hamid Karzai in December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown.  Karzai had been the CIA’s “paymaster” for moving funds to Afghan guerillas.  He would prove to be corrupt and untrustworthy, selling the country’s mineral rights to China for $40 million to his overseas bank accounts.

Bush officials prevented the reemergence of the traditional feudal society and refused to bring back to Shah’s family for national unification.  Instead, they attempted to establish Western Democracy with a tight timetable of before the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. The fact that it took Western Europe over 600 years to evolve from feudalism to true representative government was lost in the arrogance of occupation.

Billions of dollars poured into the country for training and infrastructure, much of it wasted and defrauded by contractors and Afghan elites.

The weakened local communities depended on NATO and U.S. forces to keep the peace, while Western values and processes were force feed to the populace. This became fertile ground for the Taliban to arise and win. Karzai stole the 2009 Presidential election against several credible opponents. His crumbling credibility, rampant corruption, and suppression of dissent placed Afghanistan in a death spiral. 

In September 2014, Ashraf Ghani, one of two opposition candidates in the 2009 stolen election became President.  It was too little too late.  The Taliban were dominating the battlefield and ultimately the negotiations for retaking power.  Their forces rolled into Kabul on August 15, 2021, after a disastrous withdrawal of American forces.

IRAQ

In 2003, Bush’s Neocons waged a war based on highly questionable intelligence.  They proceeded to line their pockets with billions in bogus contracts while wrecking the country.

The U.S. likes to establish highly centralized governments.  This ignores the federal system and local governance that made America a success.  Partly, centralization is lazy.  Having everything inside the highly fortified Baghdad “Green Zone” meant diplomats, bureaucrats, and contractors could avoid learning anything about the real situation and not leave the comforts of Western food and entertainment.

Unfortunately, this was the recipe for disaster.  Rulers, going back to 1639, understood that Iraq was three separate nations: the Kurds in the north; the Shiites along the coast; and the Sunnis in the center. The British bundled Iraq together after the First World War to consolidate their hold through a puppet King.  This fiction fell apart in 1958 when the Ba’ath Party took control and continued to rule a contrived unitary state.  Saddam Hussein emerged as dictator in 1988.

The 2003 war toppled Hussein, ushering in twenty years of waste, fraud, abuse.  Instead of pursuing a federal system, Bush occupation officials forced a strong unitary state.  It was inevitable that the three historic areas would bridle at this contrivance. 

The most tragic were the Kurds.  They had enjoyed semi-independence with the establishment of a “no fly zone” over their region since the 1991 war.  They had oil and a strong traditional governance structure.  They reached out to Western companies to help develop their lands and were crushed by the U.S. State Department.

One example says it all.

Kurdistan is populated by small villages isolated in deep valleys by high mountain ridges.  These small villages enjoy ample water as each is situated by small streams. This was ideal for deploying small immersible turbines that could generate electricity for each village. A U.S. firm had the proven technology, and a strategic partnership was forged to bring electricity throughout rural Kurdistan.

Enter the U.S. State Department.  Bush officials halted the partnership asserting that only electricity generated by hydroelectric dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers would suffice.  They declared that decentralized electricity would weaken the Central Baghdad Government.  The Kurds and their U.S. company pointed out that (1) there was no plan to create hydroelectric dams to serve the entire country, (2) a network of power lines and substations would be easy targets for sabotage and impossible to defend, and (3) the region was subject to earthquakes that would disrupt a centralized grid.  The Bush bureaucrats refused to listen and stopped the project.  To this day, these villages are without electricity.

THE FUTURE

Venezuela has a viable opposition movement that had the last election stolen.  It has a Nobel Prize winner, María Corina Machado, as its titular head.  Trump seems content to let Interim President Delcy Rodriguez do the heavy lifting of steering the country back to credibility.  Her public statements distance her from “Washington’s Orders”, but her actions display begrudging cooperation.  Behind the scenes “carrots and sticks” are probably guiding the relationship. What happens next is going to be driven by internal forces, with the U.S. incentivizing a pro-West and free society outcome. Iran has a viable opposition inside and outside the country.  This includes the extensive Iranian diaspora residing in the United States and other countries.     The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) was formed in 1981.  It is a 460-member coalition “committed to a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic”. The NCRI’s mission is to “hold free elections within six months of the fall of the theocracy and to ensure a peaceful transition of power to elected representatives”. Just as Epic Fury started, Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the NCRI, announced the formation of a Provisional Government by the NCRI to transfer sovereignty to the people of Iran and establish a Democratic Republic based on a long established ten-point plan. The Ten-Point Plan was presented by Maryam Rajavi in December 2006 at a session of the Council of Europe. The NCRI’s plan for the future is, “a pluralistic republic based on the separation of religion and state, gender equality, the abolition of the death penalty, peace, coexistence, the elimination of double oppression against Iran’s ethnic and national minorities, and a non-nuclear Iran”. This well-organized effort, along with the possible symbolic national leader, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, could quickly fill the void as the current regime is toppled. There truly is hope after the bombs…as long as Trump and his team learn from the past.

PREVENTABLE TRAGEDIES

The horrific murders of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, by their son are made more tragic because they were preventable.

Nick Reiner, Rob’s son, began his downward spiral to murder at age 15.  His eighteen attempts at failed rehabilitation are typical of the 1.36 million patients going through Rehabilitation Programs to address their Substance Use Disorder (SUD).

Drug Rehabilitation is now a $35 billion global industry.  Americans spent $9.44 billion on patient rehabilitation treatments in 2024.  U.S. Rehab spending is expected to rise to $16.22 billion by 2033.  Another $1.5 billion is allocated in Federal grants for Opioid Response Programs.

Approximately 60 percent of those who complete rehab programs relapse into addiction. Only 43 percent of those who enter rehab programs complete their treatment.

These multiple levels of failure have only motivated government and private foundations to spend more money pursuing the same approaches.  How many more lives will be lost before there is meaningful change?

It does not have to be this way.

On November 4, 2022, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued their updated Opioid Prescription Guidelines.  Their goal was to limit the exposure to Opioids when health professionals manage pain.

They unanimously recommend the use of Red-Light treatments as the preferred nonopioid therapy for chronic pain.  They also declared that Red-Light therapies were as effective as opioids for common types of acute pain.

Red-Light, known in the scientific literature as Photobiomodulation (PBM), has treated over 100 million patients in clinical settings without any documented side effects.  

PBM Therapy’s efficacy is supported by 2,466 Randomized Clinical Trials (RCTs) and 11,178 research studies, many published in leading scientific journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the Lancet.  

There are 505 active PBM clinical trials registered with the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

PBM has been proven to improve the success rate of SUD rehabilitation. PBM eases the physical and psychological withdrawals from opioids and other drugs.  It dramatically reduces relapse.

Major studies have documented PBM’s role as an effective adjunct to traditional drug rehabilitation.

In 2020, Dr. Fredric Schiffer, Harvard Medical School, proved PBM reduced Opioid cravings by 51% versus 15.8% using traditional rehabilitation.

A Novel Treatment of Opioid Cravings With an Effect Size of .73 for Unilateral Transcranial Photobiomodulation Over Sham - PMC

In 2024, Dr. Jennifer Flora, Shepherd University, validated Schiffer’s findings.  She further documented a significant reduction in depression symptoms. Dr. Flora’s depression findings validated earlier studies conducted at Harvard Medical School by Dr. Michael Hamblin and Dr. Paolo Cassano.

Transcranial Photobiomodulation Therapy as an Intervention for Opioid Cravings and Depression: A Pilot Cohort Study - Jennifer Flora, Kelly Watson Huffer, 2024

What is Red-Light/Photobiomodulation?

Photobiomodulation (PBM) is a noninvasive, FDA cleared, medical technology that successfully manages pain and treats a variety of medical conditions.

The human body has 32 trillion cells.  Each cell has thousands of Mitochondria that process nutrients and light into the energy required to power the cell.  When we are injured, ill, or aging, this process breaks down, harming the cell and the body. Exposing all or part of the human body to intense Red and Near-Infrared light restores the Mitochondria’s ability to generate cellular energy.

PBM is a natural process aiding a natural process. 

Why is Red-Light/Photobiomodulation not generally available to those in need?

Bureaucratic inertia is preventing this proven treatment from being known and adopted:

-       The Centers of Disease Control (CDC) has never added its PBM therapy recommendations to their updated Opioid Guidelines media pages or educational material.

      CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain — United States, 2022 | MMWR

-        The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has never added PBM treatments to its rehabilitation recommendations. 

-       The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never published an updated and accurate description of PBM for expedited device clearance, even though the final rule process was completed in March 2023.

      Photobiomodulation (PBM) Devices - Premarket Notification [510(k)] Submissions | FDA

-       States dispersing Opioid Settlement money continue to purchase Naloxone EpiPens and fund failed rehab programs.

The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, President Trump, and HHS Secretary Kennedy, should take immediate action to implement these life-saving approaches that have already gone through extensive scientific and regulatory vetting.

No one suffering from Substance Use Disorder should ever have to go through Nick Reiner’s ordeal.  No family member should be murdered because the rehab system refuses to pursue successful treatment options.

 

BATTLING OVER AMERICA’s MEMORY

 

[Published in the Sunday Guardian of India]

The battle for America’s collective memory is erupting once again.

Leftists spent the last decade destroying America’s traditional identity and well-established historic narrative.  The Left filled classrooms, books, articles, parks, and museums with their mantra of a nation “built on stolen land and by slave labor”.  At the same time, they wantonly assaulted the physical touch stones of America’s origins by removing statues and other monuments. 

The Left intended to replace the connective fabric of American society with an alternative reality promoting a tyrannical communist government. They embraced the cautionary words from George Orwell’s “1984”: "Who controls the past controls the future”.

They are now howling from the roof tops as President Donald Trump is reversing their plans to reshape America.

America is unique.  It is a country based upon ideas - not based on geography, language, or tribe.  Our historic sites and markers ground us in who we are, and why we are. 

History is about collective memory and frames of reference.  Statues and historic sites are there to commemorate and remind, not to celebrate. Knowing and discussing our origin is fundamental to a civic culture where shared values hold us together.  Civil dialogue with those we disagree is the structure that allows our institutions, our communities, and ourselves to exist. 

Our Constitution is about forming “a more perfect union”.  This means America is always a work in progress.  The Constitution itself is the greatest “rules of engagement” for collective action that has ever been written.  Looking beyond ourselves to our origins reaffirms our nation and our individual and collective roles in it.

Starting in 2009, the Left anointed itself as morally entitled to determine what memories should be saved or destroyed. The chorus of Leftist commentators from the media, academia, and politics wove a tapestry of excuses justifying official and unofficial acts of destruction and desecration. Tax dollars were used to dismantle memories and insert radical anti-white, anti-capitalist, and anti-American content into classrooms, museums, and parks. This is the very essence of tyranny and fanaticism.

Humans have attempted to alter collective memory since competing Pharaohs chiseled away Cartouches and defaced hieroglyphs.  Carthage was destroyed, Rome was sacked.  Mongol hordes obliterated cities along the Silk Road.  Islamic hordes burned the Library of Alexandria.  Vikings ravaged monasteries and burned centuries old manuscripts.  Cromwell’s Puritan army smashed stained glass windows in countless churches.

World history has been saved by those who transcended their immediate impulse for destruction.  Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella calmed their Christian fervor when they saw the wonder of the Alhambra.  Napoleon’s armies avoided destroying European cities and towns during nearly twenty years of war. 

The Twentieth Century saw a disturbing shift in how history was viewed.  The rise of Communism and Nazism led to intentionally obliterating history on a strategic scale.  Worse, the followers of these dogmas made fabricating history a priority.  Destroying reality and then faking an alternative became one of the greatest threats to civilization.  Cultural treasures were lost to the ages as the Nazi’s raped Europe, the Soviets raped Eastern Europe, and Mao’s minions unleashed their Cultural Revolution.

The 21^st Century brought a new wave of Islamic hordes whose primary mission was to destroy anything, and anyone, not sufficiently promoting their fanaticism.  From the Taliban blowing up thousand-year-old Buddhist statues, to ISIS smashing the Tomb of Abraham and leveling Palmyra, the erasure of irreplaceable historic sites and artifacts has known no bounds.

Fanaticism is all about intolerance and silencing opponents.  It is all about indoctrination and erasing individualism.  Fanatics are not satisfied until they completely destroy independent thought.  Their dream is a “hive mind” - thinking and acting as one.  Leftists, Islamic radicals, and Communists want to anoint one leader who is all powerful, surrounded by blind devotion.  Their goal is the end of civilization as we know it. 

George Orwell, a Socialist who grew to understand the threat of tyranny, sent us a timeless warning: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”

On March 27, 2025, President Donald Trump set about stopping the Left’s obliteration of America’s identity. He issued Executive Order 14253, stating:

“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.  This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.  Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

Trump’s Executive Order requires the Secretary of Interior to “determine whether, since January 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history”.

As with most Executive Orders, the Interior Secretary then issued his own detailed guidance to implement the President’s policy.  On May 20, 2025, Secretarial Order 3431 required the heads of the  various federal land units to: “take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to ensure that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department’s jurisdiction do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”

The Secretary’s Order outlined a process for compiling and reporting on such instances, including soliciting public input.  These reports will be reviewed and appeals heard before actions occur.  It will be months before this process is completed.

America’s Leftists are spreading false rumors of widespread removals of slavery documents and displays.  These same Leftists previously demanded the removal of Confederate statues and tore down memorials to Lincoln and the Founding Fathers.  These same Leftists are now waving signs, “Hands Off History!” to preserve their woke legacy. 

The absurdity of the Left’s outrage is that promoting slavery was at the core of the 19^th Century Democrat Party while stopping the spread of slavery was the founding principle of the Republican Party.  This divide continued beyond the Civil War as Democrats formed the Ku Klux Klan as a paramilitary force to kill freed Blacks and their Republican supporters.  In the 20^th Century, Democrats promoted lynching of Blacks and opposed Republicans who tried to prevent this terror. 

The Left’s accusation about President Trump, and his Department of Interior, wantonly removing slavery displays is baseless.  Republicans would not erase their Party’s original reason to exist.

The Honorable Scot Faulkner served as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives, Director of Personnel for Reagan’s 1980 Campaign, Administrator of Personnel for the Presidential Transition, and on the White House Staff. His best-selling memoir, “Naked Emperors” is available on Amazon.com.