Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts was arrested this week after fleeing ICE officers and abandoning a school-subsidized car with an illegal handgun inside. Roberts has a criminal record and a long-standing order of removal from the country. The case has become a flashpoint over immigration policies with protesters demanding his release and Democratic politicians denouncing his arrest as evidence of a fascist regime. The controversy is also spilling over into the Senate race, as the district board is headed by Board Chair Jackie Norris, a former Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama and a current Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Norris called for Iowans to rally around Roberts with “radical empathy.”
The DHS statement says Roberts entered the United States on a student visa in 1999. Roberts had a “final order of removal” in May 2024 for the deportation.
The District maintains that a third-party comprehensive background check was conducted on Roberts, and he was required to verify employment eligibility for all employees. If that is the case, Roberts may have lied on school forms about his eligibility. The District says that “Dr. Roberts completed the I-9 employment eligibility verification form and submitted the required documentation.”
His hiring by the Des Moines School District was conducted in secret, and there are conflicting reports on whether some in the district may have been aware of his illegal status. The District denies that allegation, but did acknowledge that they were aware of a prior gun charge related to a hunting rifle.
When ICE and Iowa State police moved to arrest him, Roberts sped off. He was later found hiding in high grass, and his car contained a loaded handgun, a large amount of cash, and a hunting knife.
Associate Superintendent Matt Smith will serve as interim superintendent and quoted Roberts as a guide on how they would move forward. Smith expressed how “devastated” the district is over the arrest, but “In the words of Dr. Roberts, ‘if you paddle together, you will survive the tide. If you paddle alone, you will likely drown.’ As we learn more, we chose to paddle together.”
Paddling together does not seem the case in the public statements and could become more difficult if the federal government pursues the district for the hiring of an undocumented person.
Hundreds of protesters gathered to denounce ICE and demand the return of Roberts. Politicians and protesters brushed aside the illegal gun in his car and his flight from law enforcement. That includes a possible charge from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives over the firearm found in his car.
It also appears that Roberts may have violated the district policies barring weapons, which state that “weapons are prohibited on school grounds or at a school-sponsored or school-related activity.”
In its statement Friday evening, the Des Moines district said a third-party comprehensive background check had been conducted on Roberts and he would have been required to verify employment eligibility for all employees.
In a post on Facebook, Iowa Rep. Larry McBurney, D-Des Moines, said he was “furious” about Roberts’ arrest: “This is not only unacceptable, it is an outright disgrace.” He added:
“I hold President Trump and Iowa’s delegation — Congressman Zach Nunn, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Senator Joni Ernst — directly responsible for this action. Their silence or complicity will not go unnoticed. If they have any shred of leadership, they must intervene immediately.”
Mazie Stilwell, executive director of Progress Iowa, joined McBurney in the expression of outrage:
“No Iowan is safe. We’re living under a fascist regime because Nunn, Miller-Meeks, Hinson, and every single Iowa Member of Congress has been in lockstep with the MAGA administration that is terrorizing our communities. President Trump is willing to use political power against anyone who disagrees with him.”
Roberts, 52, claims a Bachelor of Science degree from Coppin State University in Baltimore and received his doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership and a Master’s degree in Education from St. John’s University in Queens, New York City. He was previously superintendent in the Millcreek Township School District, which covers suburban areas outside Erie, Pennsylvania.
That means that he filled out this paperwork previously and either revealed his undocumented status or lied.
He also worked as the superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools High School Network, as well as a chief schools officer, superintendent of secondary schools, principal, and senior vice president of a charter management organization in Baltimore, the South Bronx, and Washington, D.C.
As Des Moines’ 15th superintendent, he received a base salary of $270,000 annually as part of his two-year contract. It also includes a payment to a “tax-sheltered annuity” of 14% of his annual salary, as well as a $600 monthly car allowance and reimbursement for “all in-district related travel.”
The question is how the federal government will respond to these multiple school districts hiring Roberts. It is unlawful to hire someone with an illegal status under immigration laws.
DHS classifies an employer as “knowingly” hiring an “unauthorized alien” if, after November 6, 1985, the employer “enters into, renegotiates, or extends a contract or subcontract to obtain the labor of an alien you know is not authorized to work in the United States.” Under Section 11.8, ICE allows for a “good faith” defense when determining if an employer knew the illegal immigration status of an employee.
The government can seek injunctive relief against employers who fail to properly vet their workers.
Another thing that is so absurd on its face. we cannot ever allow the modern left to have majority power ever again. This is ridiculous, these people are insane. Period.
Well, well, those Chinese bolts turn up everywhere!
A bit OT, but not entirely.
“Texas Border DA’s Employee Imprisoned for Migrant Smuggling with Government Vehicles”
— by Ildefonso Ortiz and Brandon Darby, 28 Sep 2025
“An employee at a district attorney’s office in South Texas will spend up to three years in federal prison for using a government vehicle to smuggle migrants.”
Excerpts:
“This week, Bernice Anette Garza went before U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos in McAllen, who sentenced her to three years in federal prison for her role in a migrant smuggling operation where she used a vehicle belonging to the 229th District Attorney’s Office in an attempt to avoid detection by authorities. At the time of the conspiracy, Garza had been working as a victim coordinator for the DA’s office and had been using the vehicle and various work documents to smuggle migrants.”
“During a follow-up investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, authorities discovered that the smuggling group consisted of Garza, Juan Antonio Charles, and his wife. Charles and his wife would house migrants in their property for a few days until it was time to move them north. Relying on Garza’s position in the DA’s office, they would get fake documents and use her government-issued van to move 3-4 migrants at a time, and would make 2-3 trips to Houston.”
“The group had been operating for several months, charging each migrant $3,000, before authorities arrested them. As part of the investigation, authorities seized several weapons from Charles, who was legally not allowed to own weapons due to prior criminal convictions.”
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2025/09/28/texas-border-das-employee-sent-to-prison-for-migrant-smuggling-on-government-vehicles/
Who the devil runs the 229th District Attorney’s Office you ask?
(In a tongue twister of a bio, this has to be the best I’ve heard lately. A democrat crusader against abortion, disciplined by the Texas State Bar for illegally charging a self induced abortion as murder, now seemingly AWOL in managing his 229th District Attorney’s Office such that an armed illegal smuggling ring is operating right under his nose using his vehicles).
District Attorney Disciplined by Texas Bar for Indicting Mother for Self-Induced Abortion
“Gocha Ramirez dismissed the charges, but still faced discipline by the State Bar.”
— Kim Roberts, Mar 1, 2024
Excerpts:
“Ramirez, a Democrat who serves as district attorney for the 229th judicial district including Starr, Duval, and Jim Hogg counties, allowed the woman to be charged and indicted for murder in April 2022. He then filed a motion to dismiss the charges against the woman and stated that “based on Texas law and the facts presented, it is not a criminal matter.”
“The grievance committee also found that Ramirez made a “false statement” of material fact during the disciplinary process, a violation of Rule 8.01. Two other violations involved rule 5.01, which makes Ramirez responsible for the charges against the woman brought by the assistant district attorneys he supervised. Ramirez was ordered to pay a fine of $1,250, and his license to practice law is under probated suspension from April 1, 2024 through March 31, 2025.”
“According to the Texas Bar, “This type of discipline is public and is for a term certain; however, the suspension is ‘probated,’ which means that the respondent lawyer may practice law during the period of suspension, but the lawyer must comply with specific ‘terms of probation’ throughout the probated suspension period.”
(Ramirez states):
“We continue to do the **good work** we’ve been doing, obviously with the exception of this mistake, it doesn’t change my standing with the law,” Ramirez told KRGV. “Basically, we’ll just continue to do the work that we’re tasked with, which is to protect the community.”
Ramirez was elected in 2020, and does not face a Democratic opponent in the primary election next week.
https://thetexan.news/elections/2024/district-attorney-disciplined-by-texas-bar-for-indicting-mother-for-self-induced-abortion/article_21c48d84-d812-11ee-a345-fb737b0cf02f.html
————————————-
–Oddball
“Take it easy Big Joe, some of these people got sensitive feelings.”
Another mass shooting. Michigan this time. Nothing to see here, Charlie Kirk says it is fine to lose a few people to firearms to keep the 2nd amendment intact.
Charlie is a Saint now so we must obey the orange god and Saint Kirk.
ATS as is typical those of you on the left poses solutions that infringe on peoples rights and do not work.
Countries with the most draconian gun laws have fewer mass shootings.
The do not have fewer killings.
Globally the rate of violent crimes and murders is accurately predicted by demographics alone.
Without regard for gun laws, political systems.
There is absolutely no reason to consider infringing on peoples rights until you can demonstrate conclusively that what you propose will have a consequential benefit – and you can not.
In fact the total deaths from mass shootings is so incredibly low as to be little more than noise.
More than 10 times as many children die from household poisoning each year.
And about the same number from drowning. You have passed all kinds of laws that have had ZERO effect on either.
Your fears are not the basis for infringing on the rights of others.
So you agree, a few more deaths is just a fact of life.
Thank you for showing us how little you care about human life, except your own I assume. Typical selfish right wing AHOLE.
Kirk was making a point that it is impossible to get gun deaths to zero. He said, just like we know we can never get car deaths to zero, but that doesn’t mean people are in favor of banning all cars. It’s just a fact of life that when you have something that’s useful, it can be misused or used maliciously. Then the population has to decide if it’s worth the cost, and in both instances, it is. That doesn’t mean anyone who points out that obvious truth deserves to be maliciously run over by a car in a homicide. You and your leftist ilk are particularly vile for suggesting Kirk deserved to be murdered based on his pointing out that obvious truth.
“You’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. You can significantly reduce them by having more fathers in the home by having more armed guards in front of schools. We should have an honest and clear reductionist view of gun violence, but we should not have a utopian one. You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death. That is nonsense. It’s drivel. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other god given rights.”
Kirk used the example of driving, which results in the deaths of 50,000 people every year. Neff, quoting Kirk, said, “we have decided that the benefit of driving—speed, accessibility, mobility, having products, services—is worth that cost.”
“And it just disgusts me so much that people are dunking on Charlie over this when he’s doing what any reasonable leader, a figure showing leadership, should do, which is evaluating the honest costs and benefits of a policy. There are so many scammer politicians and public figures who will only, will say there’s only benefits or only downsides to a policy, they’ll say, oh, it’s all upside, and people are opposed to this just because their haters are corrupt. Charlie would actually come out and say, the Second Amendment has downsides. We have more guns. There is more gun violence in America than there is in the UK. There’s more gun violence here than there is in China. But we have it for other reasons. We have it because we are free citizens, and that helps us remain free citizens,” Neff said.
https://thepostmillennial.com/here-are-all-the-democrat-left-wing-media-lies-about-charlie-kirk-debunked-by-those-who-knew-him-best?cfp
Ship all the lefties to the third world hell holes that they want us to immulate. That way they can enjoy the lifestyle that they want to force on us.
Issuing visas is easy and good virtue signalling material.
Doing serious background checks and tracking down overstays and other violations and deporting illegals gets no praise on the Left. Plus, and this is a big plus, it IS actual WORK🤣
Another church attack:
Matthew 10:22
“And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”
———————————-
–Oddball
“Take it easy Big Joe, some of these people have sensitive feelings.”
Another church attack
I saw that as well, Floyd.
Meanwhile Republicans do nothing to hold Democrats responsible for inciting all of the political violence we have seen since 2020 when Sarah Huckabee was harassed and escorted out of The Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, VA for the offense of being a member of the Trump administration. For his part, the only concern Professor Turley expresses, is that his secular dogma of “free speech” is protected, followed, enshrined even when our children are murdered in the pews of Catholic churches like in Minneapolis, MN at Annunciation Catholic Church on August 27, 2025. Do we have a crisis in our nation? Turley’s answer: First amendment!
Science disagrees. It’s prey vs predator. Americans are tired of feeling like prey by Democrats who are predators.
The Founding Fathers never intended for the US Constitution to be our moral compass. Nay, James Madison made that clear (see below) and Americans have made it even more clear: we are fed up with Congress and a limp wristed DOJ that allow our churches, our children, our families and our religious persuasion to serve as targets for Democrats to destroy our lives. We are living in chains.
Meanwhile, Turley et al hide behind “at least we have the First Amendment”. That is not the America of James Madison. Madison and the Founding Fathers were no fundamentalists like Turley. Fundamentalism is always wrong, be it Christian Fundamentalism, Islamic Fundamentalism or Constitutional Fundamentalism. Our lives are not to be run by a document where the writers assumed the people were moral and religious, at a a minimum, virtuous. Today, we have none of these in America. Instead, now we are sitting ducks
I have observed, that gentlemen suppose, that the general legislature will do every mischief they possibly can, and that they will omit to do every thing good which they are authorised to do. If this were a reasonable supposition, their objections would be good. I consider it reasonable to conclude, that they will as readily do their duty, as deviate from it: Nor do I go on the grounds mentioned by gentlemen on the other side—that we are to place unlimited confidence in them, and expect nothing but the most exalted integrity and sublime virtue. But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks—no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-11-02-0101
But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/james-madison-federalist-no-51-1788
Americans have go to push back on our elected representatives who play word games, talking points and surround themselves with hired security personnel, while we Americans cower in fear. No mas.
We can no longer live feeling as prey. Americans were never meant to be the hunted, and yet here we are.
No mas
Democrats inciting violence since 2020. You have got to be kidding me.
DOJ study shows more political violence is done by the right v the left.
Didn’t DJT incite a mob to attack the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021?
Hiding your head in the sand and denying reality does not make your belief true.
Feel free to give the daily examples of “right-wing” random violence ………. you can’t, and you already know that. Willful ignorance is an absolute requirement to remain a leftist. You’re an abject fool.
ROFL
And if you beleive that – I have swamp land in florida to sell you.
A Biden DOJ study ? You mean the idiots who have been lying to use about pretty much everything and engaged in political lawfare ?
You cite J6
No Trump did not incite a mob – there was ZERO violence until the CP tear gassed themselves and then teargassed a COMPLETELY peaceful crowd.
This would be the same DOJ who refused to tell us what the FBI presence was at J6 – strongly suggesting it was a handful at best. Now we find there were 274 FBI AGENTS – and who knows how many informants.
That is one FBI agent for ever 10 protestors.
Regardless the DOJ study has been thoroughly debunked.
This is one of the idiocies of those of you on the left – You seem to think people will disbeleive their own eyes.
I can name every single instance of actual right wing initiated violence in my entire life – that is how few there are. I can not name every single instance of left wing nut violence in the past YEAR.
You want to pretend that J6 is some big deal – but Ignore the BLM riots.
Any given night in Portland shows more violence from the left than all the violence on J6 combined.
As lincoln said
you can fool all of the people some of the time
you can fool some of the people all of the time
but you can not fool all the people all of the time.
Those of you on the left are the people who CAN be fooled all the time.
Why excactly should anyone trust YOUR judgement on anything ?
Where you right about the collusion delusion ?
The Hunter Biden laptop ?
Joe Biden’s competence ?
Anything at all about Covid ?
Is there any major issue that you have EVER been right about ?
IOW, don’t believe your lying eyes. All we see is left-wing violence, but really, trust me, the right-wing White Supremacist groups that Joe Biden said were the greatest threat to our nation, the groups nobody ever sees or hears from, they’re the real purveyors of political violence.
Did I get that right, anonny-moron?
Free speech is great, but it isn’t the answer to what ails the country. When bad ideas are promulgated, promulgating good ideas may do some collateral good to draw attention to the evil, but sooner or later you got to get rid of the bad people. That becomes much harder when the bad speech has increased the number of bad people to large numbers and a large part of the population. Then, it takes tyranny and force to reduce the number of bad people, to restore order and stability.
This is just a fact of civilization. Think Mordred vs Arthur, with Mordred throwing Arthur’s ideas back in his face. Sooner or later it comes down to violence. Which sounds like what the Evil Left is up to. Except that it isn’t.
Democrats have long claimed that they do not support open borders. Yet, it is normalized to support illegal aliens, with illegal firearms, with a deportation order after having gone through the courts system and lost their case.
If Democrats don’t support the federal immigration court issuing a deportation order, then who do they agree with deporting?
It’s a form of NIMBY. Elite Democrats don’t think they’ll actually live next to criminal illegal aliens with a deportation order and illegal firearms. They want to feel morally superior for supporting illegal aliens, but have poorer people be their neighbors.
Like all countries, we have federal immigration laws for a reason. We require background checks, various standards, and numbers that our infrastructure can absorb.
Look at Europe, where migrants have totally overwhelmed the country in numbers larger than can be assimilated. Jews fear to tread, women are molested on the street, because men who come from countries where they are allowed to rape non Muslim women, continue to assault women no matter where they live.
Karen – Dems were against illegal aliens during an era when there was an ironclad alliance between them and the unions. The reasons for that are obvious, and the YouTube videos of the Clintons railing against illegal immigration are plenty. That alliance is now fraying with Trump’s remaking of the GOP to be much more working-class friendly, and the Dems shifting toward a coalition of the wealthy coastal elites combined with the very poor. At this juncture, the Dems have a long-term strategy to gain power through open borders.
Hundreds of protesters gathered to denounce ICE and demand the return of Roberts. Politicians and protesters brushed aside the illegal gun in his car and his flight from law enforcement.
IOW, who cares about the facts. We have emotions to vent. Don’t make me think too hard about reality. Besides, we’re not really against gun proliferation, especially when the firearm is wielded by an illegal alien or a left-wing political assassin.
In a post on Facebook, Iowa Rep. Larry McBurney, D-Des Moines, said he was “furious” about Roberts’ arrest: “This is not only unacceptable, it is an outright disgrace.” . . . Mazie Stilwell, executive director of Progress Iowa, joined McBurney in the expression of outrage: “No Iowan is safe. We’re living under a fascist regime . . .. President Trump is willing to use political power against anyone who disagrees with him.”
IOW, as leftists we don’t need to think at all. We just call our political opponents names without ever suggesting that the person who was arrested was actually here legally or didn’t commit the offenses alleged. You should try it, it’s much more fun to vent emotionally with name calling that having to pay attention to facts and think critically. And as an added bonus, our name calling and hyperbole might incite one of our fringe lunatics to kill a conservative. That’s happened many times before so why not give it another try.
Speaking of crimes, and Democrats, and their reactions thereto, watch this! Listen to the rap sheet of this dude, and I don’t mean sheet music for a rap song. As Jasmine Crockett says, just committing a crime doesn’t make you a criminal. . .
The facts of this story do not make sense. Someone tell me how he both entered this country on a student visa in 1999 but also got his bachelor’s from a school in Maryland in 1998?
Unless Coppin State had online degrees decades before they were a thing, I would hesitate to draw any conclusions about this until the facts are corrected.
Iowa Public Radio from 9/27/2025 states, “DHS said Roberts entered the US on a student visa in 1999, although he was previously a student at Coppin State University in Baltimore.”
Perhaps 2 people.
“. . . student visa in 1999 but also got his bachelor’s from a school in Maryland in 1998?”
That confusion is solely your own.
There were, and are, different types of visas available, e.g., J-1, Diversity.
The trolls seem desperate to change the subject today. I wonder why?
Because this stupid, pointless, irrelevant story is just deflection by Turley, who is under orders from his overlords to distract the MAGA mob from the real issues of how Trump is systematically destroying America.
Turely is a liberal. Your posts are stupid and pointless and make people laugh. You have no clue on what you are talking about. Do some reading and you won’t be so ignorant.
Anony – moron. You just outed yourself as a complete and total lunatic.
So how is Trump systematically destroying America ?
I will 100% agree he is systemically destroying left wing nut policies that often were unconstitutionally and illegally put in place.
I will 100% agree that he is goring YOUR sacred cows.
But the reality is Trump is AntiFascist
and antifa and todays left is facist.
and america is not being destroyed – it is being restored.
and it is exactly what people voted for.
Because we don’t have the facts yet. When did he graduate from Coppin State? Reports say 1998. When did he get a student visa? Reports say 1999. Time is linear in my experience.
Jacked visa?
Jacked up education docs?
It wasn’t all that long ago that employers who messed up on their employees’ I-9s had hell to pay. Democrat aligned BigLaw regularly advised their clients to be hyper-diligent about their employees’ employment eligibility documentation. In addition to avoiding large penalties for non-compliance, the rules protected American workers. Diligence was a moral imperative. My, how the politics have changed.
Its hard to imagine worse optics for the DEI industrial complex. Michelle’s former chief of staff was even involved. What a horrible hill to die on.
“In the words of Dr. Roberts, ‘if you paddle together, you will survive the tide. If you paddle alone, you will likely drown.’
It seems he’s “Up Sh_t Creek without a Paddle” now.
A rising tide lifts all boats .. . assuming you have a boat.
*otherwise, it’s sink or swim.
“Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
– Warren Buffett
US farmers have just begun to harvest soybean crops. Estimates say there will be a record crop of 4.3 billion bushels, the largest crop ever.
Traditionally, more than half of the crop has been sold to China. So far, China has not ordered so much as a single soybean. Instead they have already bought what they need this year from Brazil and Argentina, the 2nd and 3rd biggest producers respectively. Brazil and Argentina are in the Southern Hemisphere, so they harvested their crop in March, April and May. China massively increased their purchase of soybeans from these countries so they have no need to purchase from the US. There is no market for American farmers this year.
John Thune admitted this on Meet the Press today. He said farmers are going to need financial support to survive, and that the funds from Trump’s tariffs will be used to subsidize them.
The tariffs are effectively a sales tax paid by Americans on imported goods.
So this is the situation.
China is refusing to buy American soybeans because of tariffs. American farmers have no market for their soybeans. The government is going to use funds collected from tariffs to subsidize farmers in danger of bankruptcy. So, hard working Americans have to pay an extra sales tax on goods at Wal-Mart and then have that tax revenue used to bail out the farmers.
Not only that, Trump has announced that the US will give Argentina $20 billion in aid to save their failing government. This is the same country that has provided China with soybeans that otherwise would have been bought from American farmers.
So much for free enterprise and free markets.
The greatest quote about politics came from Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs.”
Liberals will never appreciate the full meaning of that quote.
I voted for the tradeoff you’re complaining about, and I stand by that vote. Existential questions can’t be measured in nickels and dimes.
“There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs.”
For the left, “there are no solutions.” There are only assassinations of people, ideas, and truth itself.
Yep.
The reason behind the tariffs is to get businesses both foreign and domestic to bring manufacturing back to the US so that products would be made here by Americans.
Trump is implementing corrective action after an era of communist “globalist” redistribution of American wealth; of course, there will be some difficulties.
How much wealth has Thomas Sowell created other than personal income and capital gain?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
“The only reason I didn’t simply say “zero” is because: Sowell’s influence could have indirectly shifted policy or thinking, which might affect wealth creation in society. But those effects are intangible, diffuse, and not measurable. So if we stick strictly to economic wealth creation outside of his own compensation, the answer is: zero.
– ChatGPT
_____________
Here’s a tradeoff: Achievement for affirmative action.
No serious participant pays Thom (“all hat, no cowboy”) any attention but he is widely promoted publicly, such as your effort herein.
“Within academia, his influence is limited…among the broader public, his…have made him one of…the widely read economists of his time.”
AI Overview
Assessing Thomas Sowell’s ranking against all Western economists is impossible due to the lack of objective, universally-accepted criteria. While his influence outside of academia is widely recognized, his status within academic economics is a subject of debate. He is highly regarded among conservative and libertarian audiences but has a more complicated legacy in traditional academic circles.
Thomas Sowell’s legacy defies a simple ranking. He is a prolific scholar with significant contributions to several fields of economics. However, his shift toward public commentary and strong political stances has led to a split in how he is perceived. Within academia, his influence is limited compared to his more heavily cited contemporaries, but among the broader public, his clarity and willingness to challenge conventional wisdom have made him one of the most famous and widely read economists of his time.
Sowell can debate a Keynesian, but they cannot do the same for a classical liberal. Sowell deals with facts, culture, and historical proof. while they use models that have a history of failure. They don’t debate Sowell for those reasons, and because he has no downsides to debate, they can easily be embarrassed.
Sowell has made the entire world richer in knowledge. The others have led to economic catastrophe.
What was the trade-off in allowing women to vote? What was the trade-off in freeing the American slaves?
If that was the best Sowell managed, that’s pretty weak.
In this case, there was no trade. This is extorting money from the middle and lower class and transferring it directly to farmers. What do the middle and lower class get out of this, besides paying more and getting less.
Women make Americans, or women vote; the American fertility rate is in a “death spiral,” and more Americans die than are born – what happened?
Reprehensible slavery must have been legislatively abrogated and the long-suffering abductees captured and sold by African tribal chiefs must have been compassionately repatriated; the fundamental desire of all abductees is to be returned to their homes.
The Israelite slaves were out of Egypt before the ink was dry on their release papers, but then, they had the capacity and acumen sufficient to the task.
I don’t think you want to quote Sowell, when the topic is tariffs. He regards them as an abomination (which they are), and Trump’s tariffs as a “painful” repetition of the “ruinous decision from the 1920s.”
What is more, you seem indifferent to all the American factories that trade with China has destroyed. Globalism has its tradeoffs, too.
It wasn’t ‘trade with China’ that destroyed American factories. ..
*Trump’s tariffs are a perversion of the free market.
Diogenes
China didn’t destroy American factories.
American factory owners willingly and actively moved production to Chinese factories because of the lower costs. They made a lot more money by outsourcing production.
Not one single American factory was “FORCED” to close by China.
All the American factory closures were done willingly by American owners in pursuit of higher profits.
That is the nature of free enterprise. It is simply entrepreneurs acting in their own self-interest.
Of course, if you do not support free enterprise, then you are probably a Marxist who believes that the government should interfere in the activities of private companies.
This is what Trump is doing when he demands 15% of the revenue from Nvidia’s sale of AI chips to China.
This is what the Trump government is doing by taking a stake in Intel.
This is what the Trump government is doing by taking a stake in MP Materials.
This is what the Trump government is doing by taking a stake in Lithium America.
This is what the Trump government is doing by demanding a “Golden Share” in US Steel that allows him to veto company decisions.
So you see, the Trump administration has all the hallmarks of Marxist control of the means of production
I’m not Diogenes .. . and I agree with much of your comment here.
> “All the American factory closures were done willingly by American owners in pursuit of higher profits.
That is the nature of free enterprise.. .”
Unrestrained capitalism, like all centrally planned economies, is a perversion of free enterprise and the free market. .. as China has amply demonstrated during the 21st century.
These tariffs that are collected, who gets this money?
The federal government, as with all tax revenue.
Of course, all sane and rational businesses and workers pursue the highest possible profits and wages.
Only the sickly invalid, idiot, and drunkard, Karl Marx, expected enterprises and workers to have their compensation set by the rulers in his “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Illegal and unconstitutional union strikes forced American companies to seek lower wages in foreign countries.
Unions are illegal criminal organizations, and the Department of Labor is unconstitutional—labor is simply “effort,” which all humans exert; a labor department is a department of communism.
Americans must be self-reliant and take care of themselves; they must make themselves valuable.
Americans are free to run a business or accept or reject a job.
In the absence of criminal unions, enterprises will buy “effort” in the free “effort” markets at free “effort” market rates set by supply and demand, as is the nature of freedom and free enterprise.
There is no enumerated Article 1, Section 8, power to regulate anything other than “the value of money,” “commerce (i.e. buying and selling) among nations, states, and Indian tribes,” and “land and naval Forces.”
“That is the nature of free enterprise. It is simply entrepreneurs acting in their own self-interest.”
You believe individual free enterprise is the same as a free market. You are wrong.
Free enterprise describes personal choice; a free market describes systemic openness.
A market is only free when no single entity controls the barriers to entry.
In the U.S., much of the trade with China created precisely the opposite, concentration so deep that innovative escape became impossible. Once production, tooling, and supply chains moved offshore, entry barriers rose to a point where new competitors couldn’t re-emerge domestically. That isn’t freedom. It’s dependence.
Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman all disagree with your claim.
Each recognized that markets need rules but not rulers, law to preserve competition, not power to dictate it. When self-interest destroys contestability, it stops being free enterprise and becomes private planning.
Yes all the US factories we have lost in the last Fifty years happened.becase of Trump tariffs!
Do you even realize how stupid you sound? No one can take such an ignorant statement seriously. You make me laugh.
Did you even bother to read my comment ???
If so, your comprehension skills are sadly lacking.
The word “tariffs” does not appear anywhere in my comment
I was simply making the point that American factories have been closing and moving production to China for over 40 years so that they can make more profits.
China has not “forced” American factories to do this as Diogenes tried to claim.
It has nothing to do with Trump or tariffs.
American factories have been closed by their American owners who move production to China to make more money.
You are correct – but as China’s standard of living rose that advantage shrunk.
Further producing things in China incurs political instability costs, economic and energy instability costs, transportation costs and many others that are not present in US manufacture.
Since BEFORE DJT descended the escalator, the competitive advantage China has had has been diminiishing Many – not all companies are moving production back to the US.
The US has the best logistics system in the world.
We have the best freight transportation system in the world,
the lowest and most reliable energy system in the world
the largest pool of skilled labor in the world
And we are the largest market in the world
Everything will not return to the US – some things will move to the philipines, or vietnam or Bangeledesh.
But for YEARS some production has been slowly moving to the US.
Trump is working hard to make moving to the US even more advantageous
We can debate the merits of how he is doing that
Though it would be nice if the debate could be kept honest.
Something seldom mentioned is the disappearance of rural factories that paid farmers benefits while smoothing out fluctuations in their incomes. One guy I knew assembled storm doors in BFE. I used to pass a factory that made microwave dishes for Andrew. They benefited greatly from the farmer work ethic.
The original reason to grow soybeans was to put nitrogen back in the soil after corn plants sucked it out. Then we realized the oil could be extracted, and the remainder used as animal feed.
China does not have enough arable land to feed its people, and consciously decided not to use any to grow soybeans
This is more “socialist” than anything the previous administration did.
You seem to be clueless.
Who did Argentina and Brazil sell soybeans to when the US was selling to china ?
Who do you think those countries will buy soybeans from now ?
Certainly not Argentina and Brazil – the sold their to China.
Then where are those other buyers ???
They haven’t materialized yet.
John Thune admitted this on Meet the Press today. There are currently no other buyers.
Farmers have said they will have to store their soybeans in commercial grain elevators and pay the cost of storage. The problem is that in a few weeks the corn harvest is due at an estimated 16 billion bushels. If the soybeans are still in the elevators, then there is nowhere to put the corn. Either the soybeans or the corn will have to be dumped.
Buyers of soybeans and corn know this is happening. They know they can wait for the inevitable situation where farmers are forced to sell at any price in order to avoid a total loss.
Either way, farmers face calamitous and ruinous losses thanks to Trump’s policies.
And according to Thune, the administration is preparing to bail out the farmers with taxpayer money.
In Sept 2024 the price of soybean futures was 1050.00 Today it is 1024.00
Soy farmers are really taking a beating.
“… Roberts, 52, claims a Bachelor of Science degree from Coppin State University in Baltimore and received his doctorate in Urban Educational Leadership and a Master’s degree in Education from St. John’s University in Queens, New York City. …”
He’s been here 24+ years, Has a Doctorate and Masters and can not pass the Citizenship Test? – WOW!
Did he bother to pay back his Student Loans?
There is a Constitutional Crisis and this is proof – Feeling Screwed by playing by the Rules and Take Everybody’s S_ _ t all you life – Your not alone
Honest US Born Citizens that have done all they can their entire lives to have a sound life and community should not have to put up with this.
Strip him of everything (e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g) and put him on the first plane out of here.
He can pass a citizenship test. The US will not allow him to take it. If he was French or British, they’d let him take it in a heartbeat. But he’s not from a favored country, so they won’t. Fortunately this means that all the MS-13 gang members have been rounded up and deported as they were at the top of the list and those leading productive lives would be at the bottom.
If you FOLLOW THE RULES, then you can file and take the test after 4 years of being here. Roberts is 20 years late.
How did this circumstance come to pass? Let’s guess!!!!
-Mayor of Des Moines, Connie Boesen, a Democrat that spent over a decade on the Des Moines school Board and as mayor has to deal with the school board routinely. And she allowed this gun-slinging superintendent to work with the kids in her city?
-Des Moines Chool Board Chair is Jackie Norris. Jackie is not only a Democrat, she is the former Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama while the Obamas occupied the White House. And Jackie let an illegal alien gun-slinger (Illegal guns, no less) lead the school district under her command?
-And where is the NEA on tolerating such a situation? Lets guess again: working on Democratic Party campaigns.
Democrats and teachers unions always putting your kids first! If you don’t believe that, just remember what they did for your kids during COVID. And the data from the Nations Report Card site shows you how great of a job they are doing on an ongoing basis! (It also incentivizes one to get their kids out of public schools)
Trump wants teachers to have guns. This guy has a gun. Suddenly that’s a problem.
Can conservatives please pick a lane?
Look at the data from Nations Report Card – https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt/?age=9
The values changed almost none compared to the long term trend. Amazingly, it was highest during the Obama administration and started to fall off after the Republicans gained control of the House and Senate. The latest data was 2-3 years ago, so who knows?
The big worry was a 9 point drop for math on a score of over 250 for 13 year olds; 3.6%. Not particularly significant. Reading was even less at 1.6%. Imagine only getting a 98.4% on a test – still an A.
*. The amazing Mr. Ripley?
Let’s see how good the admin is at searching Guyana’s records including any OTHER Ian’s in Guyana or Australia.
*. Additionally, any Ian Roberts in the US especiallydeceased or missing. This guy lied to the FBI? Lied on official forms?
Andrew McCarthy today on Fox, talking to Martha McCallum about Comey indictment.
McCarthy: “The indictment almost fails as an indictment in that it doesn’t give you notice of what Comey has actually done. But factually there’s nothing there. So this smacks of wanting to put Comey through the process, which is what lawfare is. There is no chance of a conviction.”
Can anyone ever grasp whatever the —- Andy is attempting to communicate?
Flim-Flam HiccupCarthy is a Deep Deep State “Swamp” PhD in Spin.
James Comey is one of the worst conspirators against a government and sitting president in American history who should be sentenced to be Drawn and Quartered for his high treason.
I respect McCarthy – but he has been wrong before.
Regardless this is an indictment – most of what McCarthy is complaining about will come with the charges.
an indictment is an assertion by a GJ that it is more likely than not that the accused violated specific laws.
The indictment itself is not the evidence.
I agree that a conviction is unlikely – but that is because of Norther VA judges and Juries.
As to twhat McCarthy says is missing – we are all aware of what Comey has done, and specificiy will be coming.
How times have changed: on my birthday (1965) I got a Jay Walking Ticket in Downtown L.A. ($5.00), I was in a hurry I had a TWA flight to catch to see my parents. Well, I forgot about it and had lost the ticket anyway. Two months later while I was working overtime on a Saturday two L.A. Detectives came to my apartment with a warrant for my arrest, lucky I wasn’t there, they told my roommate that they would return on Tuesday if I didn’t pay the fine on Monday, (they even searched the apartment to see if I was hiding and had my roommate show identification).
The contrast is striking. Here we have an example of someone, who came here legally, as a student, but overstayed their visa. He was an active ICE fugitive with a deportation order (sounds like due process was followed) since May 2024. He fled from ICE agents in his car once they ID’d themselves as immigration agents, then he abandoned the car. He was found in the weeds. When the car was searched, agents found a loaded gun, a fixed blade hunting knife, and $3,000 cash. That’s not a good look. Now we have protesters demanding his release, and Democratic politicians denouncing his arrest as evidence of a fascist regime. Really? On one side we have law and order. On the other, whining and crying about a poor (no sarcasm intended) immigrant who was only trying to make a living, and they are not concerned about the law. If they gave citations for stupidity, democrats would have an almost (not quite all) monopoly on getting them. This is a common pattern of the Democrats – always for the law breakers. By all means, keep it up. 2026 will not be kind to them.
The trend is indeed for Democrats to defend criminals over the law abiding.
The very moment that a Democrat gets into the White House, and there is a Democrat majority in Congress, those borders will be thrown wide open. Then they will demand each and every one of the next 10 million illegal immigrants get over a decade of due process. They will either get amnesty, or have children here, which will ultimately produce a Democrat super majority across the country.
That is odd. A gun and money left in the car is odd. Was the FBI or DHS smart enough to do surveillance for a few weeks? Drug purchase? Payola? How was the money kept? An envelope or box?
I doubt we’ll ever know.
The issue is that he’s an illegal alien and why? Was DEIsm (e.g. racism, sexism) a deciding factor to employment selection? Are Democrats guilty of prosecutorial discretion with these ulterior motives in mind?
Guess you didn’t read the article. What better work experience than the same job in a smaller school district?