Political Pistachio
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Our government operates under a constitutional concept not seen anywhere else in the world: A Separation of Powers. The United States Constitution established three branches of government through Articles I, II, and III. Each branch is “vested” with its own powers, a word that signals the principle of separation of powers. This design ensures that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches operate independently, except where the Constitution explicitly authorizes overlap.
A few examples of this limited overlap include:
• Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 (Exceptions Clause): Congress may influence the judiciary’s docket and negate rulings or judicial opinion it deems unconstitutional.
• Impeachment and confirmation powers: Congress can impeach judges and executive officials, and are tasked with approving presidential nominations.
• Article II, Section 3: The President may convene or adjourn Congress on extraordinary occasions.
• Article I, Section 8 and Article III, Section 1: Congress controls the creation, modification, and abolition of inferior courts, as well as the size of the Supreme Court.
• Article I, Section 3, Clause 4: The Vice President, though part of the executive branch, presides over the Senate and casts tie-breaking votes as President of the Senate.
Beyond these exceptions (and perhaps a couple others), the branches are designed to remain separate. Similarly, the federal government and the states operate independently, except where the Constitution provides otherwise.
While independence exists, it is not absolute. At the state level, for example, States oversee counties and cities, and state constitutions guide local governance.
Within the federal government, independence is between the branches, not within them.
• Legislative staff answers only to Congress.
• The Supreme Court supervises the lower courts.
• The President, vested with executive power, is the head of the executive branch.
Which brings us to the fallacy of agency independence. There is no constitutional clause granting executive departments or agencies pure independence. The President is their boss. Claims that a president is “authoritarian” for exercising control over agencies are therefore misguided.
Yes, Congress creates agencies, but once established, they become part of the executive branch. Their purpose is to assist the President in executing the laws. While agencies may have structural differences and practical independence based on their missions, they remain under presidential authority.
The idea of the existence of division between “executive agencies” and “independent agencies” is a false dichotomy. The Constitution does not recognize such a distinction. Agencies may communicate directly with Congress for efficiency, but this does not diminish the President’s ultimate authority.
No president can fully control the vast bureaucracy, simply because it is not humanly possible. Priorities and styles differ: some presidents take a hands-off approach, while others, like President Trump, have sought to rein in agency independence to combat corruption, waste, and unconstitutional practices.
Critics argue this is interference, but in reality, it is the President fulfilling his constitutional duty. Agencies are tools for executing the law, and the President may direct them as long as actions remain constitutional and lawful.
The “independent agency” label misleads the public. Agencies are not separate branches of government; they are part of the executive branch. Laws that attempt to insulate agencies from presidential oversight conflict with the Constitution. Congress cannot legislate away the President’s authority over his own branch.
The growth of the administrative state, which we know also as “The Swamp” or “Deep State,” has created panic whenever a president asserts control. Beneficiaries of this bloated system resist reform, but their opposition lacks constitutional grounding.
The Constitution does not empower Congress or the judiciary to micromanage the President’s execution of the law. If Congress disagrees with presidential actions, its remedies are limited to defunding agencies or agency operations or initiating impeachment. Ultimately, the people decide through elections whether a president’s approach should continue.
The executive branch belongs to the President of the United States. Agencies, regardless of their design, are not independent in the constitutional sense. They exist to serve the President in his duty to faithfully execute the laws. Any argument to the contrary is a false one, unsupported by the Constitution.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Laissez Faire, as defined in today’s dictionaries, means “a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.”
Thomas Jefferson believed that Laissez Faire was a policy that must be applied to the federal government regarding all issues, aside from those that were necessary for the preservation of the Union. The “hands off” attitude of Jefferson’s political philosophies included economics. He believed the role of government was to be absent from interfering in the workings of the free market.
“[A] rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.” – Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson’s mentality towards government interference in people’s lives, including economically, stood in opposition with the views of Alexander Hamilton. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton believed government was tasked with keeping an eye on everything, including regarding the way things were bought and sold, and the access people had to their rights. Jefferson argued that people, and the business sector, should be left to do what they needed to do without government getting in the way. While the federal government could be involved with trade with other countries, when it came to internal trade between the States, and all other domestic economic policies, the federal government’s role was largely supposed to be a “hands off” way of doing things. According to Jefferson the only time the federal government had any authority to involve itself in commerce between the States was when there was a dispute between the States. Then, and only then, the federal government could get involved, acting as a mediator between the States until an agreement was reached.
Hamilton’s desire that the federal government be a strong central government with a consolidation of all power stood in direct opposition to Jefferson’s laissez faire attitude. Jefferson supported agrarian self-sufficiency, and he believed that the less government was involved in the economy, the better off the economy, and society, would be as a whole. He believed that economic competition was a part of the Laws of Nature, a natural order of things that led to natural self-regulation which historically had proven to be the best type of regulation. Otherwise, business and industrial affairs might be complicated by government intervention, a type of interference that had been proven to be detrimental to the proper workings of a free market economy.
This is not to say that Jefferson believed that absolutely no regulations should be applied to economic matters. The States, if they felt it was necessary, may apply laws constitutionally. Jefferson’s views were a combination of laissez faire, and localism. While the federal government must not interfere with the economy in any way, shape, or form, unless it was concerning external aspects of the issue (such as trade with other countries), or to act as a mediator in disputes between the States, the States retained all authorities regarding laws or regulations related to their internal prosperity.
Jefferson argued that if individuals were incentivized to serve their own personal interests, society as a whole would ultimately benefit. Laissez Faire economics encourages self-responsibility, innovation, competition, and a natural self-correcting series of economic cycles that provides increased opportunities for stability in the system, as opposed to the boom-bust cycles that exist in a centrally planned economy.
“Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 1787
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
* Excerpt from A Promise of Truth Self-Evident: Part I – Early American History (A Promise of Truth Self-Evident, A History of the United States) by Douglas V. Gibbs
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Modern Society has taken a sickening turn that reveals how serious the spiritual war we face has become. A recent article in the American Sociological Association’s journal Sex & Sexualities titled “Childhood Sexualities: On Pleasure and Meaning from the Margins,” argues that childhood innocence is a “colonial fiction” and that children’s “erotic capacities” should be recognized rather than pathologized.
The author may be considered a scholar, and an educated member of academia, but in reality she and her colleagues who buy into her fantasies are groomers and perpetrators of moral subversion. They attempt to cloak their sickness with fashionable jargon about “queer” and “decolonial perspectives,” and the author insists that sexual pleasure is integral to children’s lives and calls for research to focus on it. In other words, she seeks to normalize what every sane society has rightly condemned: the sexualization of children.
The claim that childhood innocence is “not natural” is not only false, it is yet another dangerous claim among a segment of our society that has fallen for demonic influences that seeks to destroy our culture from within. Innocence, no matter what your faith may or may not be, is the very definition of childhood. As G.K. Chesterton observed, “For children are innocent and love justice; while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.” To erase that innocence is not enlightenment as these “scholars” may claim. It is moral corruption.
Every person of reason and compassion must reject this agenda. Articles like these are not harmless academic exercises; they are attempts to dismantle protective boundaries and de-stigmatize pedophilia. The conclusion of the piece makes its intentions plain: a “call to transform how we think about childhood sexuality and whose experiences we value.”
We shudder to imagine what those “valued experiences” might be. But we know this much: those who promote the sexualization of children are not advancing justice or truth. They are advancing evil. And Scripture warns plainly: “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin” (Luke 17:2).
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
The English Colonies, particularly the ones in the north, were established on a concept today we call Religious Freedom. The Church of England as the established religion in England worked with the government to crush any competing religious denomination, and as a result a large swath of Englishmen sought to embark on the perilous journey to the New World so that they could worship without a government hand or established religion dictating the terms. Ironically, in most of the colonies in America the inhabitants created their own systems of established churches. In 1787, when delegates from twelve states met in the Constitutional Convention, nine of the thirteen states had established religions.
In 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified by the states. In the First Amendment, it reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The language was clear and specific. The United States Congress had no authority from the beginning to make any law establishing a countrywide, federally blessed state church, nor could Congress pass any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion; that last part a nod to the country’s foundational concept of religious freedom. The clause did not apply to the states, but to the federal government, as the language reveals. President Jefferson, in an exchange of correspondence with the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut in 1801, confirmed that notion when he explained that the federal government could not help them with their dilemma against the Puritan Church (called the Congregationalist Church at the time). Religion was a state issue, and religious freedom at the state level required local state legislation.
Constitutional scholars, even the most liberal, agree that the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government at the time. The language in the Preamble of the Bill of Rights is explicit that the purpose of the first ten amendments was “to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its [federal government’s] powers.” The false doctrine that the Bill of Rights must be applied to the states with the federal government as an enforcer didn’t even emerge until the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, but that is based on a modern broad interpretation of the Due Process Clause which was rejected on the floor of Congress during the debates over the Reconstruction Amendment, per the Congressional Globe (congressional record) of the time. So, the notion that the established religions were expected to be “disengaged” because of the First Amendment, and that they had all “complied” by 1833 is a very uneducated position, at best.
This is not to say that state-supported religions were approved of. They were not. The states did indeed eventually eliminate all of their established religions within a generation of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights not applying to the states is not a suggestion that the Founders approved of state churches, but that they respected the concept of state sovereignty. Leaving local issues in the hands of the states was discussed at length during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and the federal government enforcing anything against the states, much less through a Bill of Rights that would later emerge during President Washington’s first term, was rejected by the delegation not only because of the concept of states’ rights, but because they knew the states would never ratify the document if such a provision was included. The same discussions arose during the congressional debates over the Bill of Rights in 1789, with the representatives of both Houses of Congress rejecting the notion that that the federal government had any authority to enforce the clauses of the Bill of Rights against the states.
No Founding Father ever used the term separation of church and state, except Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, of which he explained what he meant by a “wall of separation between church and state” was that religion was a state issue, and the federal government had no authority to dictate to a state what they did regarding religion. The definition of a separation of church and state as understood by today’s progressives was not only rejected by the political leadership during the founding era, the population would have also rejected it if such a notion had been even attempted to be put in place. The country was a very spiritual one, with a population that, as Alexis de Tocqueville would later comment, took their faith very seriously. He wrote, “Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions… I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion – for who can search the human heart? But, I am certain that they hold it to be indispensible to the maintenance of republican institutions.”
Today’s Christians largely hold to these ideas that America was founded upon a solid Christian foundation, and that the faith of the Founding Fathers was not only an important part of the structuring of the country’s constitution and governmental system, but that a separation of powers not only existed among the three branches of government, but between the states and the federal government as well. As for the notion of “Christian Nationalism,” which is progressive leftist code for “theocracy,” it is an idea cooked up in the minds of the political left due to their hatred (or perhaps fear) of Christianity. No reasonable Christian holds any view that a theocracy with religious leaders running the government is even remotely a good idea, much less in line with the principles of our constitutional republic. But, that doesn’t mean the opposite is true, either, and that we have strictly a secular government that has the authority to crush any notions of faith rearing its head in the halls of government, or any notions of political speech being spoken from the pulpit. The Founders intended for this country to be deeply religious where Christians were bold leaders in the shaping of the culture, and influential in the public square. Christianity in America was originally intended to be involved in the shaping of public morality and civic virtue without becoming a tool of government, nor erased from the hearts of America’s leaders. Spiritual vitality has long been at the foundation of this country, and the Founders expected the citizens to influence the culture and for Christianity to guide the conscience of the politicians and the convictions of the pastors, without either institution dominating the other. Christianity as an active part of American Society is essential to preserve the principles of the Constitution, our moral compass, and the true essence of what liberty is truly all about.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
The United States Constitution was designed to include the aim of balancing power through a proper distribution of it. Limited government, sometimes called small government, means that authority is confined to its rightful boundaries, leaving local issues to local governments and communities. Thomas Jefferson described this principle as laissez-faire, allowing matters to take their natural course without unnecessary interference.
From the beginning, the federal government was tasked with handling issues pertinent to the union, such as foreign trade, war, and maritime law. States retained authority over internal matters directly affecting their resident. A handful of domestic concerns, such as interstate disputes and the postal service, were entrusted to the federal government because they were essential to preserving and promoting the union. At every level, care was taken to ensure localism remained intact. State constitutions mirrored this design, reserving local issues for counties and municipalities.
America was not established as a pure democracy but as a republic, carefully structured to balance competing interests. The House of Representatives, like one half of the state legislatures, gave population centers a stronger voice through democratic elections. Yet the U.S. Senate and corresponding state senates were designed differently, ensuring rural and less populated areas also had a strong voice. This arrangement created a natural check and balance, preventing city folk’s representatives from telling the farmers how to farm without the farmers having a voice in the process.
Over time, however, this balance has eroded thanks to mechanisms like the Seventeenth Amendment and Reynolds v. Sims (1964). A striking example of the consequence of becoming more democratic is California’s Central Valley water controversy. As our country and the states have drifted toward pure democracy politicians representing heavily populated urban areas increased their numbers in the legislature, dominating over the rural voice. As a result, these particular politicians have increasingly adopted collectivist approaches, sidelining the individualistic localism that defined America’s early generations.
Nowhere is this tension clearer than in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. Water, a vital resource, has become the battleground. Progressive leaders in Sacramento argue that environmental concerns justify restricting water supplies to farming communities. Farmers counter that these restrictions starve the Central Valley of the water essential to its role as one of the nation’s most productive agricultural regions. The Valley produces a significant share of America’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts, yet its farmers face man-made scarcity. They argue that northern water supplies could be diverted as they once were, but regulations and claims of scarcity prevent it. The consequences ripple outward: shuttered schools, closed businesses, and weakened communities.
Farmers see themselves as stewards of both the land and their communities, advocating for policies that allow them to thrive. They view Sacramento’s environmental regulations and water rights restrictions as unconstitutional government overreach. Their opponents, however, insist that protecting species such as the Delta Smelt, incidentally not indigenous to the region, must take precedence, even when human needs are urgent. This clash underscores the deeper divide: urban politicians blaming rural communities for water issues, while simultaneously dismantling dams and refusing to build new infrastructure.
Conservatives argue that the solution is straightforward: release more water into the Central Valley and build the infrastructure necessary to sustain both agriculture and safety. The stakes extend beyond farming. The Palisades Fire, with its dry reservoirs and empty hydrants, revealed how inadequate water allocation endangers lives. Proper infrastructure is not merely about crops. It is about survival.
The Constitution’s genius lay in its balance between federal and state, urban and rural, majority and minority. California’s water wars illustrate what happens when that balance is abandoned. Localism, once the cornerstone of American governance, is being replaced by collectivism, leaving vital communities vulnerable. Restoring constitutional principles of limited government and distributed authority may be the only way to resolve conflicts like those in the Central Valley. After all, water is not just a resource, it is in many ways a part of a much larger list of issues: life, liberty, and the foundation of prosperity.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
By Douglas V. Gibbs
After the government shutdown the new jobs report from September was released, and the report defied expectations. The economy, slowly, is getting back on track. According to the data, the U.S. added 119,000 jobs in September, and we’re not talking government jobs like you saw during the Biden years, but real jobs. The estimate was less than half that, which means the creation of new jobs was more than double what they expected.
Economists are now saying that the U.S. Economy is in position to grow faster next year than any of the projections have claimed. Massive investments, a promise of increased manufacturing, and stronger consumer spending that will likely rise out of the increase in domestic supply in the supply-and-demand game should challenge the inflationary numbers and provide for faster economic growth.
While President Trump is unable to combat the fiat money pumped into the system by the Biden regime, which is among the leading reasons for the inflation we have been experiencing, Trump can combat rising prices in other ways, like improving the trade deficit and encouraging domestic manufacturing with tariffs, reducing taxes, reducing regulations, and reducing the cost of doing business in other ways – all of which he has been tackling. The tariffs and foreign investments will drive domestic manufacturing, which is always good for adding value into the system which directly challenges rising inflation numbers caused by the influx of fiat money into our monetary system. Much of the inflation that remains on the rise is in blue states due to heavier regulations and higher energy costs. Prices in red states on most products and services have been experiencing a downward drop.
As job gains continue to increase, and unemployment gets below 5%, rising wages and increased incomes for those reentering the job market will also be a positive attack against inflation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated in a Meet the Press interview that he’s highly optimistic about next year’s economy, expecting strong growth largely due to key provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act which includes eliminating taxes on tips, overtime, Social Security benefits, and car-loan interest on U.S. made vehicles. The Trump administration also points to trade deals, new manufacturing investments, and domestic energy operations including Trump’s drill-baby-drill plan. There may be a hiccup in the fourth quarter due to the government shutdown, but 2026 is beginning to look like it will be a year of economic improvement that will only get better going into 2027.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary