Lew Rockwell Institute

Originally published by USA Today

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are adamant that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians last month. They have thus far provided the public scant hard information to back up their claims. Even Obama ally Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) characterized the evidence in a Sunday Capitol Hill classified briefing as “circumstantial.”

Perhaps the Assad regime did commit this brutal attack. But can we expect the U.S. government to be honest about an alleged atrocity which the president is invoking to sanctify his foreign policy?

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History is not reassuring on that score. During World War II, the Roosevelt administration worked ceaselessly to present Soviet dictator Josef Stalin as a friendly quasi-democratic type – “Uncle Joe.” However, in 1940, after the Soviets seized much of Poland, the Soviets executed 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn Forest in western Russia. When the German army discovered the mass grave site in 1943, the Roosevelt administration rushed to blame the killings on the Nazis.

Whitewashing the Katyn Forest massacre helped blindfold both American policymakers and the American public regarding the brutality of the Soviet Union. This deceit helped the Soviets cement control of Poland and other East European nations after World War II.

Last year, the National Archives finally declassified a thousand pages of documents that exposed the U.S. government cover-up of Soviet responsibility. The Associated Press noted, “The White House maintained its silence on Katyn for decades, showing an unwillingness to focus on an issue that would have added to political tensions with the Soviets during the Cold War.” The record showed that the U.S. had plenty of proof from 1943 onward that the Soviets were guilty. But when Polish-American radio stations in Detroit and Buffalo began broadcasting the details of the killings during World War II, the Roosevelt administration “brusquely silenced them,” as historian Thomas Fleming noted in his book, The New Dealers War.

Last year’s revelations happened in large part because of pressure from Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, whose Ohio district includes many Polish Americans. It took 69 years for the U.S. government to disclose that it had deceived the American people regarding one of World War II’s landmark atrocities.

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The post Should We Trust the Gov’t Claims About Syria? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Many former Donald Trump supporters have turned on the President after his decision to retaliate against the Assad regime for its chemical weapons attack.

Nigel Farage, Milo Yiannopoulos Katie Hopkins, right-wing vlogger Paul Joseph Watson, Ukip leader Paul Nuttall and Ukip donor Arron Banks are among the Trump supporters who have been disappointed by their hero.

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Mr Farage said: “I am very surprised by this. I think a lot of Trump voters will be waking up this morning and scratching their heads and saying ‘where will it all end?’

Many Trump voters will be worried about this military intervention. Where will it end?

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) April 7, 2017

“As a firm Trump supporter, I say, yes, the pictures were horrible, but I’m surprised. Whatever Assad’s sins, he is secular.”

He said Britain should not get involved in any further strikes, commenting: “Previous interventions in the Middle East have made things worse rather than better.”

Other Donald Trump supporters have been more forthright in their comments.

The U.S. bombing of Syria last night was rash, trigger happy, nonsensical and will achieve nothing. I hoped for better.

— Paul Nuttall (@paulnuttallukip) April 7, 2017

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said: “The U.S. bombing of Syria last night was rash, trigger happy, nonsensical and will achieve nothing. I hoped for better.”

Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson said: “I guess Trump wasn’t ‘Putin’s puppet’ after all, he was just another deep state/Neo-Con puppet. I’m officially OFF the Trump train.

“It’s been fun lads, but the fun is over. I’ll be focusing my efforts on Le Pen, who tried to warn Trump against this disaster.”

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While the reputation of ancient Roman dining features decadent drinking and feasting to a point of excess – leading to notorious purges in the vomitorium – those stories were largely anecdotal or were given as moral messages and warnings of wasted luxury. The reality of ancient Roman cuisine was very different – and in many ways surprising!

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‘The Romans of the Decadence’ (1847) by Thomas Couture. (Public Domain)

Roman cuisine during the Kingdom (753 BCE – 509 BCE) was similar to ancient Greek fare. It was rather simple and the variety of food was limited. Romans of this period typically ate a porridge (called the puls) made of emmer, salt, olive oil and various herbs. They also ate vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and seafood and used olive oil, salt, pepper and various spices in their food.

Meals consisted of the jentaculum (breakfast), the cena (lunch) and the vesperna (dinner). Breakfast was light and usually consisted of a piece of bread with honey or cheese. Lunch was a large meal and the main meal of the day, while dinner consisted of a light supper.

Olive Oil, bread and herbs. Roman food at the British Museum (CC BY 2.0)

During the Republic and Empire, as Rome expanded and became more prosperous, food became more diverse. Romans became acquainted with the foods and cooking methods of the provinces. The cena became larger and moved to the afternoon (at around 2 to 3 p.m.) as more foods became available, while the vesperna (the light supper) disappeared altogether. What used to be lunch was replaced by the prandium, the equivalent of a light lunch.

The cena, which initially consisted of only one course, developed into two courses during the Republic: a main course and a dessert served with fruit or seafood. By the end of the Republic, it evolved into a three-course meal: the appetizer (gustatio), the main course (primae mensae) and the dessert (secundae mensae).

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In Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, author Norman Ohler reveals that the Nazis doped their soldiers with a stimulant they called Pervitin—a.k.a. methamphetamine. The drug helped the Germans win key battles in the beginning of World War II.

But it wasn’t just low-level soldiers who were using during the Second World War. Drug use went all the way up the Nazi leadership to Hitler himself. The dictator’s personal physician, Theodor Morell, regularly injected “Patient A” with hormone preparations and steroids he had created using animal glands and other dubious ingredients—and as Hitler’s health worsened, Morell secretly began treating him with eukodal, otherwise known as oxycodone, in July 1943. Hitler received an injection every other day—which is, Ohler notes, “The typical rhythm of an addict and contradicts the idea of a purely medical application.” The Führer was hooked.

In July 1944, German senior military officials tried to kill Hitler with a bomb in the unsuccessful Operation Valkyrie. The explosion punctured both of Hitler’s eardrums. Ear, nose, and throat doctor Erwin Giesing was called to Hitler’s headquarters in Poland and began treating Hitler without consulting Morell, administering cocaine in the dictator’s nasal passages with a cotton swab. Hitler quickly became addicted to cocaine, too.

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Morell and Giesing hated and distrusted each other from the start. In fact, Giesing suspected Morell was poisoning Hitler—and he wasn’t alone. In autumn 1944, the situation finally came to a head, as recounted in this excerpt from Blitzed.

THE DOCTORS’ WAR

You have all agreed that you want to turn me into a sick man.— Adolf Hitler

The power of the personal physician was approaching a high point during that autumn of 1944. Since the attempt on his life Patient A needed him more than ever, and with each new injection, Morell gained further influence. The dictator was closer to him than he was to anyone else; there was no one he liked to talk to as much, no one he trusted more. At major meetings with the generals, an armed SS man stood behind every chair to prevent any further attacks. Anyone who wanted to see Hitler had to hand over his briefcase. This regulation did not apply to Morell’s doctor’s bag.

Many people envied the self-styled “sole personal physician” his privileged position. Suspicion about him was growing. Morell still stubbornly refused to talk to anyone else about his methods of treatment. Right until the end, he maintained the discretion with which he had initially approached the post. But in the stuffy atmosphere of the haunted realm of the bunker system, where the poisonous plants of paranoia sent their creepers over the thick concrete walls, this was not without its dangers. Morell even left the assistant doctors Karl Brandt and Hanskarl von Hasselbach, with whom he could have discussed the treatment of Hitler, consistently in the dark. He had mutated from outsider to diva. He told no one anything, wrapping himself in an aura of mystery and uniqueness. Even the Führer’s all-powerful secretary, Martin Bormann, who made it clear that he would have preferred a different kind of treatment for Hitler, one based more on biology, was banging his head against a wall when it came to the fat doctor.

As the war was being lost, guilty parties were sought. The forces hostile to Morell were assembling. For a long time, Heinrich Himmler had been collecting information about the physician, to accuse him of having a morphine addiction and thus of being vulnerable to blackmail. Again and again, the suspicion was voiced on the quiet: might he not be a foreign spy who was secretly poisoning the Führer? As early as 1943 the foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, had invited Morell to lunch at his castle, Fuschl, near Salzburg, and launched an attack: while the conversation with von Ribbentrop’s wife initially revolved around trivial questions such as temporary marriages, state bonuses for children born out of wedlock, lining up for food and the concomitant waste of time, after the meal the minister stonily invited him “upstairs, to discuss something.”

Von Ribbentrop, arrogant, difficult, and blasé as always, tapped the ash off his Egyptian cigarette with long, aristocratic fingers, looked grimly around the room, then fired off a cannonade of questions at the miracle doctor: Was it good for the Führer to get so many injections? Was he given anything apart from glucose? Was it, generally speaking, not far too much? The doctor gave curt replies: he only injected “what was necessary.” But von Ribbentrop insisted that the Führer required “a complete transformation of his whole body so that he became more resilient.” That was water off a duck’s back for Morell, and he left the castle rather unimpressed. “Laymen are often so blithe and simple in their medical judgments,” he wrote, concluding his record of the conversation.

But this was not the last assault Morell would bear. The first structured attack came from Bormann, who tried to guide Hitler’s treatment onto regular, or at least manageable, lines. A letter reached the doctor: “Secret Reich business!” In eight points “measures for the Führer’s security in terms of his medical treatment” were laid out, a sample examination of the medicines in the SS laboratories was scheduled, and, most importantly, Morell was ordered henceforth always “to inform the medical supply officer which and how many medications he plans to use monthly for the named purpose.”

In fact, this remained a rather helpless approach from Bormann, who was not usually helpless. On the one hand, his intervention turned Hitler’s medication into an official procedure, but on the other, he wanted as little correspondence as possible on the subject since it was important to maintain the healthful aura of the leader of the master race. Heil Hitler literally means “Health to Hitler,” after all. For that reason, the drugs, as detailed in Bormann’s letter, were to be paid for in cash to leave no paper trail. Bormann added that the “monthly packets” should be stored ready for delivery at any time in an armored cupboard, and made “as identifiable as possible down to the ampoule by consecutive numbering (for example, for the first consignment: 1/44), while at the same time the external wrapping of the package should bear an inscription to be precisely established with the personal signature of the medical supply officer.”

Morell’s reaction to this bureaucratic attempt to make his activities transparent was as simple as it was startling. He ignored the instructions of the mighty security apparatus and simply didn’t comply, instead of continuing as before. In the eye of the hurricane, he felt invulnerable, banking on the assumption that Patient A would always protect him.

In late September 1944, in the pale light of the bunker, the ear doctor, Giesing, noted an unusual coloration in Hitler’s face and suspected jaundice. The same day, on the dinner table there was a plate holding “apple compote with glucose and green grapes” and a box of “Dr. Koester’s anti-gas pills,” a rather obscure product. Giesing was perplexed when he discovered that its pharmacological components included atropine, derived from belladonna or other nightshade plants, and strychnine, a highly toxic alkaloid of nux vomica, which paralyzes the neurons of the spinal column and is also used as rat poison. Giesing indeed smelled a rat. The side-effects of these anti-gas pills at too high a dose seemed to correspond to Hitler’s symptoms. Atropine initially has a stimulating effect on the central nervous system, then a paralyzing one and a state of cheerfulness arises, with a lively flow of ideas, loquacity, and visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as delirium, which can mutate into violence and raving. Strychnine, in turn, is held responsible for increased light-sensitivity and even fear of light, as well as for states of flaccidity. For Giesing, the case seemed clear: “Hitler constantly demonstrated a state of euphoria that could not be explained by anything, and I am certain his heightened mood when making decisions after major political or military defeats can be largely explained in this way.”

In the anti-gas pills, Giesing thought he had discovered the causes of both Hitler’s megalomania and his physical decline. He decided to treat himself as a guinea pig: for a few days Giesing took the little round pills himself, promptly identified that he had the same symptoms, and decided to go on the offensive. His intention was to disempower Morell by accusing him of deliberately poisoning the Führer, so that Giesing could assume the position of personal physician himself. While the Allied troops were penetrating the borders of the Reich from all sides, the pharmacological lunacy in the claustrophobic Wolf’s Lair was becoming a doctors’ war.

As his ally in his plot, Giesing chose Hitler’s surgeon, who had been an adversary of Morell’s for a long time. Karl Brandt was in Berlin at the time, but when Giesing called he took the next plane to East Prussia without hesitation and immediately summoned the accused man. While the personal physician must have worried that he was being collared for Eukodal, he was practically relieved when his opponents tried to snare him with the anti-gas pills, which were available without a prescription. Morell was also able to demonstrate that he had not even prescribed them, but that Hitler had organized the acquisition of the pills through his valet, Heinz Linge. Brandt, who had little knowledge of biochemistry and focused his attention on the side-effects of strychnine, was not satisfied with this defense. He threatened Morell: “Do you think anyone would believe you if you claimed that you didn’t issue this prescription? Do you think Himmler might treat you differently from anyone else? So many people are being executed at present that the matter would be dealt with quite coldly.” Just a week later Brandt added: “I have proof that this is a simple case of strychnine poisoning. I can tell you quite openly that over the last five days I have only stayed here because of the Führer’s illness.”

But what sort of illness was that exactly? Was it really icterus—jaundice? Or might it be a typical kind of junkie hepatitis because Morell wasn’t using properly sterile needles? Hitler, whose syringes were only ever disinfected with alcohol, wasn’t looking well. His liver, under heavy attack from those many toxic substances over the past few months, was releasing the bile pigment bilirubin: a warning signal that turns skin and eyes yellow. Morell was being accused of poisoning his patient. There was an air of threat when Brandt addressed Hitler. Meanwhile, on the night of October 5, 1944, Morell suffered a brain edema from the agitation. Hitler was unsettled beyond measure by the accusations: Treachery? Poison? Might he have been mistaken for all those years? Was he being double-crossed by his personally chosen doctor, Morell, the truest of the true, the best of all his friends? Wouldn’t dropping his personal physician, who had just given him a beneficial injection of Eukodal, amount to a kind of self-abandonment? Wouldn’t it leave him high and dry, vulnerable? This was an attack that might prove fatal, as his power was based on charisma. After all, it was the drugs that helped him artificially maintain his previously natural aura, on which everything depended.

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The Democrats’ drive to defeat Neil Gorsuch is the latest battle in a 50-year war for control of the Supreme Court — a war that began with a conspiracy against Richard Nixon by Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Abe Fortas and Lyndon Johnson.

By June 1968, Nixon, having swept his primaries, was cruising to the nomination and probable victory in November.

The establishment was aghast.

Warren’s bitterness toward Nixon dated to their California days. Sen. Nixon had worked behind the scenes for Ike’s nomination in 1952, though Gov. Warren was California’s favorite son. Warren had been crushed and humiliated — but Nixon was rewarded with the vice presidency.

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Now, 16 years later, the chief justice was ready to step down but desperately did not want his nemesis Nixon choosing his successor.

So, Warren and LBJ colluded in a plot. Warren announced his resignation from the court contingent on Senate confirmation of his successor. LBJ then named Warren’s ally and his own longtime crony, Fortas, to succeed Warren.

The fix was in. Nixon was boxed, and adopted a posture of benign neutrality on Fortas’ elevation, having been warned by future Secretary of State Bill Rogers that he would be accused of anti-Semitism if he blocked the first Jewish chief justice.

With Nixon’s knowledge, some of us on his staff ignored his neutrality posture and urged Senate conservatives to block Fortas.

Foremost among these was Strom Thurmond, who needed a little prodding, and who was provided with “Flaming Creatures,” a graphic film of transvestite sex which Fortas, alone among the nine justices, had deemed acceptable for public viewing.

Senators were invited to a closed room for a screening. Some walked out wobbly. And as I told friend Sim Fentress of Time, the “Fortas Film Festival” was going to do in our new chief justice.

And so it did. Fortas was rejected in early October. In May 1969, President Nixon named Judge Warren Burger to succeed Earl Warren.

By that May also, Attorney General John Mitchell had learned that Fortas was on a $20,000-a-year secret retainer from swindler Louis Wolfson. Mitchell went to see Warren to suggest that his friend Abe resign, rather than be impeached. Fortas got the message.

Now, with a second vacancy, Nixon, to honor his promise to select a Southerner, chose Harvard Law grad and Chief Judge of the 4th Circuit Clement Haynsworth, the youngest chief judge in the nation.

Joe Rauh, counsel for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, instantly branded Haynsworth a “hard-core segregationist” and liberal Democrats painted him as a grifter steeped in petty corruption, whose court decisions were steered by his stock portfolio.

This was all trash talk. Haynsworth had released black militant H. Rap Brown from jail, without requiring him to post bail, and ruled that lawyers for black defendants had a right to discover whether jurors belonged to any organizations known for bias against blacks.

No matter. Haynsworth was depicted as a corrupt and racist judge and liberal Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans united to vote him down. But while painful to the judge, his vilification by the left had split the nation along a new fault line.

Nixon’s defiant response: He sent another Southern judge up to the Senate, G. Harrold Carswell. Less distinguished than Haynsworth, Carswell got the same treatment. In a statement he had me write, Nixon tore into the Senate for an “act of regional discrimination” against the South.

While losing Beltway battles, we were winning the bigger war.

Nixon then, fatefully, sent up a third nominee, Judge Harry Blackmun of Minnesota, who was approved 94-0.

Suddenly, in 1971, there were two more openings, as Justices Hugo Black, FDR man, and former Klansman, and John Harlan resigned.

Nixon called to tell me he was sending up the first woman, a state judge from California, along with an Arkansas bond lawyer.

The heart sank. But Divine Providence intervened.

The American Bar Association voted 11-1 that Mildred Lillie was “not-qualified” and Herschel Friday got a split decision — six “not-qualified” votes and six “barely qualified.”

Panic ensued. Nixon swiftly pivoted to Lewis Powell, ex-head of the ABA, and William Rehnquist, a brilliant young conservative and legal scholar, whom Reagan would elevate to chief justice when Burger retired.

Three days after Nixon’s second inaugural, in Roe v. Wade, written by Blackmun, the court declared the right to an abortion had been hidden in the Constitution, though it had been a crime in every state when Earl Warren was appointed by Ike.

All doubt was now removed. The Supreme Court was using its right to declare what the law says and what the Constitution means — to reshape America in the image of Earl Warren and his judicial clones.

Realization that these were now the stakes, and power the issue, is the reason why Reagan nominee Robert Bork was savaged, and Bush I nominee Clarence Thomas was brutalized.

Behind the hostility to the mild-mannered and decent Neil Gorsuch lies the same malevolence that lynched Clement Haynsworth.

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Okay, folks, you won’t be able to know who’s who in this Syrian War without a program! So, without further ado, enjoy!

First off, there’s several different factions over there and not all of them willingly get along. Syria has: Shi’ite Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Syrian Orthodox Christians, a small number of Catholics, Kurds, Alawite Muslims, Druze, Yazidis, and the current imported Wahhabis called ISIS and al-Nusra. The surrounding nations do not all appreciate this mix of diversity. See, Assad is an Alawite Muslim, which is how he could walk the tightrope between these various factions, since the Alawite are a tiny minority themselves.

So…neighboring Iran is Shi’ite and controls the paramilitary militias of Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guard who have fought in Iraq and Syria. They back Assad and hate ISIS. Iran does not want to see another Sunni nation pop up on its border, which they fear will happen if we topple Assad. The United States always backs Sunni Muslims and so this fear is not without foundation. The animosity between Sunni and Shi’ite is well known. So, Iran can be counted on to supply Hezbollah and Revolutionary Guard martyr brigades to any war in Syria that a would-be Sunni government is seeking to win.

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Then we have neighboring Turkey, who hates Assad and ISIS, but also hates the Kurds who are one of our anti-ISIS allies. Turkey would like nothing more than to see Assad toppled and ISIS gone, but after that, the Kurds better not try to create an autonomous republic which is one of their stated goals. In fact, Turkey is engaged in a guerilla war against Kurdish separatists who hit Turkish security forces in Turkey and then run across the border into Syria to escape. The Kurdish militias themselves are mostly quasi-Marxist pseudo-socialists, but all of them are agreed that they will create an autonomous Kurdish republic once this is over. Which the Turks, our NATO ally, will not accept.

There are several minority groups within Syria that stand to suffer persecution if a hardline Sunni government (as in one our Saudi “ally” would “help” us install once Assad is gone) comes to power. There are the Alawite Muslims, because they’re associated with Assad. Also, the Syrian Orthodox Christians who date back to Paul the Apostle. They see themselves as Syrian, so they’ve got lives built there over several centuries. There are a few Catholics there also who trace their lineage back longer than the discovery of the New World. There are the Yazidi, a minority religion that worships an entity known as the Peacock Angel. There are possibly Mandeans who consider themselves John the Baptist’s disciples. And we have the Druze, a sect of Islam you have to be born into. Maybe a handful of Sufi. None of these folks are particularly cherished by the Sunni. Assad has never bothered them so long as they behaved.

All of these groups, with only a few exceptions, create their own militias for self-protection. Enter into this fray ISIS, who we all know. Also is al-Nusra, which is the local generic brand of al-Qaida. The rivalry between ISIS and al-Qaida is like the rivalry between two major soda pops. They’re both selling the same product, but each wants to be the only one selling it. Therefore, these two factions fight the militias of the minority groups, the Shi’ites, Iranian paramilitaries, Assad’s men, Iraq, the Russians, and the Western forces that enter the fray. Plus, they fight each other over internecine local power squabbles.

Of course, we know the Russians are there also. And we know the government of Iran could commit actual military forces beyond their paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah. So, there are two conventional armies with mechanized troops, air forces, surface-to-surface missiles, submarines, and naval assets that can enter into a war with little notice. Iran has at least five Kilo-class submarines and possible “carrier killer” cruise missiles obtained from China.

Thus, who will be the possible combatants the United States will face if it enters into this war? First, the military of Assad, of course. Possibly the conventional forces of Russia and Iran. Definitely ISIS and al-Nusra. Definitely Hezbollah and other Shi’ite militias. In time, if the United States looks the other way while NATO ally Turkey uses the cover of this war to do to the Kurds what they used the cover of World War One to do to the Armenians, the U.S. can count on the Kurds becoming a combatant. Probably allied with Shi’ite militias backed by Iran.

Down the road, if Assad is toppled and a U.S.-backed regime is installed, the Kurds will demand that autonomous republic. Which Turkey will never accept, because they don’t want a base for hit-and-run raids over the border into Turkey. So, Turkey will pressure the U.S. into saying no. Which will lead to the Second Syrian Civil War when the Kurds revolt and say, “Hey, we bled for this and we’ll have our share of the pie whether you like it or not!” And, of course, the Shi’ite militias will be more than happy to back the Kurds. Plus, the American occupation will lead up to the creation of Syrian resistance groups to target American troops as happened with Iraq.

You cannot win this war. It is as simple as that. And this Pollyanna notion that these folks are itching for democracy, fast food chains, Big Box stores, and stupid American movies and music is naïve at best. You will have to airlift the Christians, Mandeans, Sufis, and Yazidis, out of there, more than likely, or they’ll be killed. The Saudis have a big interest in Assad being gone for two reasons: Number One, it isolates Iran. Who they hate because their are Shi’ite. Number Two, they can “helpfully” assist the U.S. in installing a Sunni government that, over time, will become Wahhabi and help export that sect across the Middle East. And the United States is blundering into this nest of multi-headed Hydras eyes wide open. 

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NB: This will be one of my more disjointed posts.  Today’s events make clear where the world is headed…and one way or another, it ain’t pretty.   But my views on that are for another day.

Just a couple of days ago, I wrote “The Takeover is Complete.”  Trump has gone from radical to neocon insider in a few short weeks.  The post was regarding Trump’s statements toward Assad and Syria – a 180 degree turn from his campaign, and since then backed up by Tomahawk Cruise Missiles.

Not only has what I have written turned out to be true, but this post is far and away the most read post I have ever written – at least twice the reads of anything else I have ever written.

Why are the most advertised Gold and Silver coins NOT the best way to invest?

What does this suggest?  I am not sure; my initial reaction: people are both stunned and hurt by the transformation of Trump.  They voted for something else.

It’s a far cry from the world we thought we’d inherit It’s a far cry from the way we thought we’d share it . One day I feel I’m on top of the world And the next it’s falling in on me . One day I feel I’m ahead of the wheel, And the next it’s rolling over me . –        Rush, Neil Peart, Far Cry .

Setting

Revelation 16:14 They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty. 15 “Look, I come like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and remains clothed, so as not to go naked and be shamefully exposed.” 16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

I have no idea how to interpret anything associated with Christian (or any other) eschatology.  Neither do you.  But the color is beautiful.  And the setting is the Middle East.

(CNN) The United States launched a military strike Thursday on a Syrian government target in response to their chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians earlier in the week.

On President Donald Trump’s orders, US warships launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian government airbase where the warplanes that carried out the chemical attacks were based, US officials said.

This didn’t take long.  From “My attitude toward Syria and Assad has changed very much,” to “bombs away,” it only took a few short moments.

The kings from all corners, from Gog and Magog, are gathering for battle on the plains of Megiddo.

Russia is going to sit back and not react?  Iran?

There is no good outcome to this.

Oakland

What on earth does Oakland have to do with any of this?

On December 2, 2016, at approximately 11:20 p.m. PST, a fire broke out in a warehouse, known as Ghost Ship, that had been converted into an artist collective, including dwelling units, in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California….A total of 36 people were killed in the fire, the deadliest in the history of Oakland.

I still haven’t shed any light, have I?

A criminal investigation into the fire was launched by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office on December 4. An arson investigation was also launched. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff said charges against anyone found responsible could range from involuntary manslaughter to murder. A report published on February 8, 2017, was inconclusive, noting that investigation was still ongoing and that the electrical system was part of the analysis.

To my knowledge, there is still no conclusion.

In Oakland – US territory, at least the last time I checked – and they still don’t know what caused the fire.

But Trump knew, within hours – half-a-world away – that it was Assad.  And…bombs away.

Now it’s come to this It’s like we’re back in the Dark Ages From the Middle East to the Middle West It’s a world of superstition . Now it’s come to this Wide-eyed armies of the faithful From the Middle East to the Middle West Pray, and pass the ammunition . –        Rush, Neil Peart, “The Way The Wind Blows” .

Superstition.  The voodoo dolls.  But whose voodoo dolls?  Palace intrigue at its finest.

By the way, what happened to Bannon?

Now it’s come to this Hollow speeches of mass deception From the Middle East to the Middle West Like crusaders in a holy alliance .

Mass deception, indeed.

The Trump Voters

It comes down to this: why did they vote for Trump?  Trump voters were mad about something.  What were they mad about?  Certainly the economy.  Likely the left-liberal social justice nonsense (despite the Crown Royal, I will avoid the vulgarities).

Did they vote to stop the wars?  Get out of the Middle East?  What the f*ck does “Make America Great Again” mean?  We already knew that America (meaning the criminal government) could bomb anywhere whenever it wanted to do so.  There is no “again” about this, bombing anywhere and everywhere.  Hillary was perfectly capable of this America.

WWTVD?  What will Trump voters do?  The ball is in their court. The action is up to them.

Is this the Trump you wanted?

Fait Accompli?

We can only go the way the wind blows We can only bow to the here and now Or be broken down blow by blow .

I hope not.  Because the wind is blowing toward Armageddon – in the worst interpretation of the term.

Conclusion

When I wrote my post about the takeover being complete, a thought came to me: a timeline is needed.

I have begun this project: capture headlines and articles about Trump; capture the changes, capture the shifts, capture when the establishment has pushed back and what happened thereafter.   A day by day timeline.  What he is today is a far cry from what people were hoping for when they voted for him.

I know the same thing can be written about Obama.  But Trump is different – not Trump the man, but Trump the idea.  His voters didn’t vote for a man, they voted for an idea – and Trump has fully betrayed the idea.

I have begun this project by going back to his election night victory.  I am currently through early February.  Once I get current, I will post it.

But I will want to go back, before the election; and I have many thoughts to add to the timeline.

If it is true – as I believe – that the Trump election reflected a real inflection point, not for whatever reality Trump presents, but for the reasons people voted for him, then this timeline needs to be captured.

I hope to have the first draft out in three or four days.

Reprinted with permission from Bionic Mosquito.

The post The Way the Wind Blows appeared first on LewRockwell.

Exceptionally mild winter temperatures across much of the US will lead to a very buggy spring and summer.

The National Pest Management Association (NPMA) released its bi-annual bug barometer – a guide showing expected pest activity throughout the US for the upcoming warmer seasons.

According to the guide, the mild winter temperatures and periodic heavy precipitation or moisture in most areas will lead to an abundance of pests including mosquitoes, ticks, and cockroaches.

Why are the most advertised Gold and Silver coins NOT the best way to invest?

The National Pest Management Association (NPMA) released its bi-annual bug barometer (pictured) – a guide showing expected pest activity throughout the US for the upcoming warmer seasons

’Ticks, mosquitoes, ants and other pests will be out in full force this spring and summer,’ said Dr. Jim Fredericks, chief entomologist and vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the NPMA.

‘With growing concern over infectious diseases spread by pests such as West Nile virus, Zika virus, Lyme disease and more, diligent prevention and awareness is especially necessary given the high pest populations that are projected for the warmer seasons ahead.’

To make the Bug Barometer, entomologists with the NPMA combined the biological behavior of pests with the examination of previous weather conditions and forecasted weather to predict how pests will impact the country.

Read the Whole Article

The post Your Bug Barometer appeared first on LewRockwell.

Washington’s military attack on Syria is unambiguously a war crime. It occurred without any UN authorization or even the fake cover of a “coalition of the willing.” Washington’s attack on Syria occurred in advance of an investigation of the alleged event that Washington is trying to use as its justification. Indeed, Washington’s story of Syrian use of chemical weapons is totally implausible. All chemical weapons were removed from Syria by Russia and turned over to the US and its European allies. Syria has no such weapons and has no reason to use them and every reason not to. Moreover, it is none of Washington’s business whatsoever what weapons Syria uses against terrorist forces seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.

Governments in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan have not condemned this war crime. Indeed, the UK Foreign Minister has declared the UK’s support. Thus does the West reveal once again its hypocrisy.

Physical Gold & Silver in your IRA. Get the Facts.

As Russia has made clear, the alleged chemical weapons attack has every hallmark of a Washington-orchestrated event in order to launch a US military attack on Syria. As the Russian Defense Ministry explained, the US air attack had to have been planned in advance of the alleged chemical weapon event. The US air strike on Syria requires advanced planning but followed immediately the event used as the excuse.

In other words, it was an orchestrated event.

Gilbert Doctorow says that the idiot Americans drowning in their own hubris have now crossed a Russian red line with consequences to follow.

Insane Washington is driving the world to thermo-nuclear war. And where are the protests?

The post Washington Has Crossed Russia’s Red Line appeared first on LewRockwell.

It seems that every new US president has to prove his machismo…or make his bones, as wiseguys say…by bombing the usual Arabs.  By now, it’s almost a rite of passage.  The American public loves it.

So we just saw the US launch 59 or 60 $1.5million apiece cruise missiles at a western Syrian airfield to express President Trump’s outrage caused by seeing injured children allegedly caused by a Syrian government toxic gas attack.

But what, Mr. President, about all those Iraqi, Syrian and Afghan babies killed by US B-52 and B-1 heavy bombers?  Or the destruction of the defiant Iraqi city of Fallujah where the US used forbidden white phosphorus that burns right to the bone?

Physical Gold & Silver in your IRA. Get the Facts.

Washington claimed its radar had conclusively identified Syrian warplanes dropping chemical weapons.  This sounds to me to be unlikely.  Where was the US radar? Hundreds of miles away aboard ships? Was the info from Israel or Turkey, both with axes to grind?  Is US radar so sharp that it can tell the difference between a chemical and high explosive bomb at great distance?  Sounds highly fishy to me.

The cruise missile strike was planned well in advance and the missiles programmed accordingly.  This was likely done before the alleged chemical attack.  What a hell of a rude act to launch the attack just before China’s leader, Xi Jinping, sat down to dinner with Trump in Palm Beach.  This was the most important China-US meeting since President Richard Nixon went to meet Chairman Mao in 1972.  What a monumental loss of face for Xi and for China.  He was made to look small and irrelevant.  Was this planned in advance?  Xi should have walked out, gotten onto his plane and returned to China.

Couldn’t Trump have waited till Xi’s visit was over, a mere additional day?   What was so urgent about bombing a Syrian air base?  Do we not think that Russia, China and Iran, all Syria’s ally, will take some negative action?  Trump had actually blasted former President Barack Obama for even thinking about attacking Syria…and now here he goes and does the same thing.

While the new president was showing how tough and decisive he is by bombing the usual Arabs, the US is openly threatening war against North Korea.  Washington’s most urgent objective in the Florida summit was to somehow convince, cajole or coerce China into lowering the boom on irksome North Korea and ending its nuclear programs.

The huge insult to Xi will hardly motivate China to invade North Korea and depose Kim Jong-un.  In fact, North Korea is quite useful for China in spite of its eccentric ways and offers no threat to them.  The DPRK helps protect China’s sensitive northeast region and Manchuria from US/South Korean intervention.  Collapse of the Kim regime would drive millions of starving refugees to China, South Korea and Japan.

Worse, a now threatened US attack on North Korea could cause it to fire nuclear-armed missiles at Japan, South Korea and US bases in Japanese Okinawa and Guam.  Two nuclear warheads would be enough to turn Japan into a vast wasteland.  There are some 88,000 US troops and large numbers of dependents in the region. South Korea’s 20-million people capitol, Seoul, is partly in range of Kim Jong-un’s 170mm heavy guns dug in on the Demilitarized Zone.

An accidental naval or air clash over the South China Sea between the US and China seems inevitable.  The US is making a big fuss over atoll airbases that China has created there, but are these really so different from US Navy aircraft carriers cruising the China Sea?

The US has lost its old strategic superiority over China in the western Pacific. China’s land, air, naval and rocket forces are near parity with those of the US and well advanced in plans to drive the US far from its coasts.  Any clash would see US forces fighting half a world away against home-based Chinese forces.  US military officials are struggling to invent new strategies while cautioning the White House to avoid a fight it could lose.

As if potential wars against China and North Korea are not enough, the US is kicking sand into Russia’s face and beating the war drums over eastern Ukraine and Crimea, two regions utterly unknown to Americans.   There seems collective amnesia that Russia has thousands of nuclear-armed missiles, many pointed at the US.  Anti-Russian hysteria in the US has assumed epidemic proportions and makes the US look silly.

The US is also broadening its little wars in Yemen and Somalia in an effort to dominate the Red Sea.  The hottest new US command is the new Africa Command.

This while being at bayonets drawn with China and Russia.  Amazing strategic stupidity that would make old Bismarck turn in his grave.  Add America’s forgotten, foolish war in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, and its provocations of Iran.

Trump likely views these issues through the eyes of a businessman, not realizing that Empire has its costs that do not fit on a balance sheet.  Sure, the US pays more for NATO than other members.  NATO is an organ of the US Empire, not a simple partnership.  Ruling the globe costs lots of money.  Even worse, much of it is being borrowed.  Interestingly, America owes more money to Comrade Xi Jin-ping’s China than anyone else.

The post Bomb the Usual Arabs appeared first on LewRockwell.

Most of the things worth remembering during the 2008 presidential debates were uttered by Ron Paul.  But Mike Gravel, the former U.S. senator from Alaska had a moment.  Years earlier in the Senate, Gravel had distinguished himself for his opposition to the Vietnam War and the draft.

Then, in the first Democrat debate of the 2008 cycle, Gravel looked at the candidates posturing their bellicosity on the stage around him, including the now notorious warmongers Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and said, “I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me — they frighten me.”

Gravel was right to be fearful.  And yet the interventionists are always somehow able to pass themselves off as wise and judicious.

They are anything but.

Myths, Misunderstandings and Outright lies about owning Gold. Are you at risk?

When Barack Obama announced in 2012 that Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a red line for (more overt) U.S. military intervention, the truly wise and sophisticated – basically anyone with a passing familiarity with the history of forged documents, secret provocations, false flag events, and other phony war pretexts – knew for a certainty that a chemical weapons event would soon follow.

There are just too many players in the field that want the U.S. – then and now — to do their fighting for them.  And so, it wasn’t long before a sarin gas attack occurred, one that was purportedly launched by Assad on Syrian rebels.

Fortunately, there is still the occasional serious journalist, standing out like a grown up among the State’s scribbling children.  Among the adults is investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.  By 2014 Hersh had discovered that the Syrian sarin incident the year before was the work of Turkey (with the help of the Saudis), manipulating events in Syria to draw the U.S. into fighting its regional opponents for it.  For those who hadn’t swallowed the Iraq war kool-aid, it called to mind the hidden motives in which documents were forged to create a pretext for that debacle.

Hersh found that the U.S. intelligence community began having doubts about Syria’s role in the sarin attack almost immediately.  One source explained that “Turkish leadership had expressed ‘the need to do something that would precipitate a US military response.”

Now it’s Trumps turn and, rather than worldly and wise, it seems he can be played as easily as Bush and Obama.  Within days of the U.S. having abandoned its goal of driving Assad out and with victory finally within his grasp, Assad is suddenly this week supposed to have squandered it all and invited U.S. regime change anew by unleashing a chemical weapons attack on civilians near Idlib.

It doesn’t sound realistic, but even before the evidence was in Trump took the bait.

“These heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated,” said the President.  Trump said that Obama had missed the opportunity to deal with Assad after the 2013 event and that “I now have responsibility, and I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly.”

Is this the same Donald Trump who repeatedly urged Obama to stay out of Syria?  In 2013 he tweeted, ” We should stay the hell out of Syria, the “rebels” are just as bad as the current regime. WHAT WILL WE GET FOR OUR LIVES AND $ BILLIONS? ZERO.”

Unfortunately, Syria is only the half of it.   While taking personal responsibility for Syria, Trump took the opportunity to proclaim his responsibility for North Korea.  Trump and his team are cooking up something there, too.

If you want to see something really scary, keep your eyes on President Trump barrelling to catastrophe.  It’s like watching an approaching train wreck.  You want to avert your eyes from the spectacle, but the horror of it cries to be witnessed.

It is astonishing that people like Bush, Obama and Trump can be played so easily.

These geniuses really frighten me.

This poor country.

The post These People Frighten Me appeared first on LewRockwell.

Dr. Wilson has written an excellent book that every Republican and Independent should read. He exposes the true Republican Party of Lincoln and Bush. However, hopefully, Trump will change the Republican Party from an establishment party to a grass-root party, which the establishment disdain.

Myths, Misunderstandings and Outright lies about owning Gold. Are you at risk?

The Republic Party, the Stupid Party, is not what Democratic Party, the Evil Party, or even -rank-and-file Republicans believe it is. The Republic Party is a void reflection of the Democratic Party — only worse. Dr. Wilson illustrates the major difference between the two parties as follows: “Democrats. Someone thinks that the purpose of government is to provide welfare for bureaucrats, minority groups, and rich people. Republican. Someone thinks that the purpose of government is to provide welfare for rich people, bureaucrats, and minority groups.” Unlike the Democratic Party, which really does represents its voters, the Republican Party does not. “It only represents itself.”

As Wilson explains, the Republican Party is not a conservative party, and its national leaders are not conservatives. Moreover, although Southerners have, for the most part, supported the Republican Party since the late 1960s, the Republican Party is the antipathy of the South. After all, it is the party of Lincoln: big government, government-business partnership, Wall Street (Wall Street also controls the Democratic Party), and centralized banking. Unlike the Democratic Party, which has principles, the Republican Party has none. Its primary objective is to get candidates elected — hence, the long string of campaign slogans and dull, mediocre, noncommittal candidates. To paraphrase President Nixon, Republicans give conservatives the rhetoric and liberal the action. That is, the typical Republican, especially at the national level, speaks like a conservative, but votes and acts like a liberal or progressive. Furthermore, the Republican Party is not an opposition party. It is “a self-serving, principles organization” that “is merely a device maintained by the ruling elite to absorb and neuter discontent — a somewhat prettified carbon copy of the dominant party.”

Dr. Wilson writes with whit. If you are not self-delusional, Wilson will make you chuckle as he has a knack for expressing the truth in a humorous way.

Reprinted from Amazon.com.

The post Exposing the Party of Lincoln appeared first on LewRockwell.

Introduction

From my post on the positive aspects of Trump for those who favor libertarianism and decentralization – certainly when compared with the alternatives – I offer one of the several positive items:

He questions trade deals.  I understand the dilemma that this presents for libertarians and free market types, but we can’t have it both ways: we know that the so-called “free trade” foisted on us isn’t free trade, it is government management crony trade.

The Challenge

Matt Welch at Reason has since come out with a post precisely on this dilemma:

Libertarians have long been sensitive to the paradox near the heart of international tariff-reduction projects of the past seven decades. On one hand, increasingly free global trade flows have irrefutably played an outsized role in lifting a billion people out of poverty in the last quarter-century alone. On the other, multilateral trade agreements by definition create institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), beyond the direct reach of sovereign democratic polities.

A reasonably good statement; unfortunately, not leaving well enough alone….

Those of us who have accepted that trade-off have found ourselves for decades having to both defend and try to improve from within the “Washington consensus” on liberalizing tariffs. But now that that consensus has been repudiated at the polls all over the Western world, it’s time for the other side of that intra-libertarian argument to make its free trade case within an imperfect vessel.

Why must those on “the other side of that intra-libertarian argument…make its free trade case within an imperfect vessel”?  Commonly referred to as the Hegelian dialectic, why must libertarians (or anyone else) limit their arguments to a pre-determined set of boundaries?

So the ball’s in your court, Thomas Massie, Daniel Hannan, Ron Paul, and all the other libertarians who have argued for years that free trade agreements aren’t the same thing as free trade.

Welch is asking the impossible: play within these non-libertarian boundaries and come up with a libertarian solution.  There is no libertarian solution within those boundaries: free trade agreements are not only not the same thing as free trade; they are not even free trade agreements.

The Rebuttal

Why didn’t Welch ask for Murray Rothbard to offer his arguments as to why (managed, but most certainly not) free trade agreements are not free trade?  I will ask Murray:

I’m puzzled. I’d like to know why so many free-marketeers, so many free-market think-tanks and pundits, are not simply pro-Nafta, but are fervently, frantically, almost hysterically pro-Nafta.

To quote the king: is a puzzlement.

Look, I can understand, though not agree with, mild approval. An old libertarian friend of mine, for example, told me that he was mildly pro-Nafta but not really interested in the entire topic. That seems sensible.

I can understand mild approval as well; I also do not agree.

There is no libertarian answer within these pre-established boundaries.  The only libertarian answer is to get government out of the trade business; this option isn’t offered.  So on what libertarian basis would I disagree?

World Government…

…as offered by Welch (cited above but also here for reference):

On the other [hand], multilateral trade agreements by definition create institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), beyond the direct reach of sovereign democratic polities.

Multilateral trade agreements inherently require greater and greater centralization of government.  Bi-lateral trade agreements (which, I believe, are somewhat more consistent with Trump’s view) do not.  National solutions or international solutions: which one, in this world, is more libertarian?

Rothbard said this better 24 years ago:

The “free traders” for Nafta confront their biggest problem when we point out that, under Nafta, super-governmental commissions, unaccountable to any taxpayers, will be able to enforce and “upwardly harmonize” ever greater environmental and labor regulation standards against the wishes of the citizens of each country.

Rothbard offers that such warnings were labeled scare tactics by the Cato crowd at the time; yet, can anyone argue that this prediction did not, in fact, come true?

There is only one sensible interpretation of these “free marketeers”: that they are serving as a rather feeble figleaf for the naked seizure of power by international statism.

Rothbard is quite right, and when given the choice only of national statism vs. international statism, I will take the national version every time.  Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize – it is the application of libertarian theory in the real world.

The Motive?

Rothbard offers a glimpse into why such “free marketeers” were (and perhaps still are) in such support of multilateral treaties like Nafta, pointing to the oil and gas billionaire Koch brothers:

Here is a possible clue to this puzzle. Take this seeming anomaly. On the one hand, in Annex 602.3 to Nafta, the allegedly “free-market” Salinas government of Mexico “reserves to itself,” in no uncertain terms, all possible provision of and investment in every aspect of the exploration, production, or refining of crude oil and natural gas.

Query: Does Koch Industries – which in November 1992 purchased 9,271 miles of natural gas pipelines to Mexico for $1.1 billion – expect to benefit heavily from Nafta?

Mmmmm….

The Libertarian Answer

There is only one libertarian answer to trade: it should be left to market participants.  What does this mean in this world?  Reduce import tariffs to zero.  Nothing more is necessary.  For those who fear that the US will be flooded with imported product and will, therefore, lose jobs, rest assured – those dastardly Chinese and Germans will have to spend those dollars somewhere – and that somewhere is in the good old USA.

Conclusion

Returning to Welch:

The postwar liberal trade order certainly has had its defects. Here’s hoping the additional sovereignty won’t come with an untenably protectionist price tag.

I hope so as well.  However, arguing for crony trade deals that require ever-greater levels of centralization is not the solution.  Instead of spending time arguing for ever-greater centralization, Matt Welch and Reason (and those who back Reason) can instead argue for the only free-market and decentralizing position – one that can be implemented unilaterally, and with no further role for state intervention and no role at all for supra-national agencies.

Remove all import tariffs.  The market will take care of the rest.

Reprinted with permission from Bionic Mosquito.

The post Trump, Libertarians, and Trade appeared first on LewRockwell.

Traditional whitening practices have proven to be quite harmful to the longevity of our teeth.

Dental specialist Linda Greenwall has thoroughly investigated the harmful use of teeth whitening treatments, especially ones that include chlorine dioxide, and argues “these chlorine dioxide treatments are advertised as safe for teeth. It is certainly not the case.”

It remains difficult for people to find an effective and safe alternative to traditional teeth whitening practices — practices that cause serious and irreversible damage to the enamel of our teeth, which is what protects them, to begin with. Greenwall explains that chlorine dioxide whitening treatments can cause serious damage, including tooth etching, loss of tooth lustre, discoloration, stain absorption (due to loss of protective enamel), teeth feeling rough, and increased sensitivity (sometimes permanent).

Other risks include:

• Tooth fracture
• Gum irritation
• Enamel loss

If you are serious about getting whiter teeth safely, you need to first determine what is causing their discolouration to begin with. Coffee, tea, red wine, and cigarettes are all major culprits here, so start by cutting down or completely eliminating these four things.

These are the risks you face when choosing to go the conventional route. Fortunately, safer and more holistic alternatives are available.

1. Oil Pulling

This is a traditional Aryurvedic practice used to help detoxify and cleanse the body. Along with helping to whiten teeth, it also reduces tooth decay and gingivitis. Sesame oil is the traditional choice, but to see the best results, use coconut oil, which contains monolaurin, a very effective antimicrobial against the main bug implicated with tooth decay, strep mutants.

Be sure to use a high-quality oil. We often use this coconut oil due to its single origin quality. Start by taking a tablespoon of oil and swishing it in your mouth for 20 minutes. Move it through your teeth and the front and back of your mouth. Do not swallow! The longer it’s been in your mouth the more contaminated it will become, as it is literally pulling bacteria, fungi, and viruses into your mouth from your whole body. When you are done, spit it out (and brush your teeth if you’d like).

2. Baking Soda

Baking soda has a really low Relative Dentin Abrasivity, or RDA, score. The scale goes from 0 (no abrasivity) to 269 (high abrasivity), with baking soda ranking in at just 7.

How to use:

Use a high-quality baking soda such as Duda Energy.

1. Take a pinch of baking soda and put it into a small glass or bowl.2. Add a small amount of purified water (ideally not tap water) to the bowl and mix it into the baking soda. The solution should be slightly runny, as you don’t want too many of the granules present. Dip your toothbrush in to get some of the solutions on the brush.3. Brush your teeth, starting with your molars and then moving to the facings and backs of your teeth.4. Optional: Once done, you can add some more water to the glass or bowl and swish it around your mouth. This will help keep your mouth alkaline.5. Rinse out your mouth with purified water as you normally would after brushing.

Other people place baking soda directly on their toothbrush and begin with the front teeth. When the solution is mixed with saliva, it becomes liquid.

3. Clay

White kaolin clay has a low abrasivity score and is effective as both a polish and stain remover. It is also high in calcium, silica, zinc, and magnesium, and safe for people with tooth sensitivity.

How to use:

Apply it directly onto your toothbrush, starting with your front teeth and then, as it mixes with your saliva, moving on to the rest of the mouth.

You can also combine this with baking soda.

4. Activated Charcoal

Activated charcoal is not absorbed by the body but is itself highly absorbent, allowing it to easily remove toxins without harming the body. It is fantastic for people who have had a bout of food poising or have accidentally ingested something toxic. If you take this within 30 minutes of ingestion you should see results, but do not take it with other vitamins or supplements, as it will absorb those as well.

Be aware that while it can remove stains from teeth, it does stain clothes, tiles, counters, etc. It can also cause constipation and block mineral absorption, and should not be mixed with dairy. These are warnings in the case that you do ingest it.

How to use:

Wet your toothbrush and dip it into the charcoal. Put the charcoal covered toothbrush in the mouth (quickly to protect your sink) and brush in small, gentle circles for two minutes. Spit carefully and rinse really well. You can also mix the charcoal with water and swish with it for two minutes.

You can also combine this with oil pulling.

5. Diluted Hydrogen Peroxide

It’s important to dilute peroxide to between 1% and 1.5% concentration at the very most. Anything higher will damage your teeth, even a mere 3%.

Our body produces hydrogen peroxide primarily in the lungs, gut, and thyroid gland, and the presence of hydrogen peroxide calls the immune system to an injury. This may explain how diluted hydrogen peroxide aids someone who is fighting gum disease.

How to use:

Again, use a very low concentration and swish around the teeth for three to five minutes.

6. Turmeric

Just like activated charcoal, you need to be careful about where your turmeric lands! It will stain everything, including your toothbrush, so you may even need to have a designated turmeric brush. But we promise — it won’t stain your teeth!

Turmeric has extensive medicinal properties, including as a digestive aid and an anti-inflammatory. It has even been said to help prevent certain types of cancers.

How to use:

Wet your toothbrush and then dip it in 1/8 teaspoon turmeric powder. Brush teeth as normal, but instead of rinsing when you’re done, allow the turmeric to sit on your teeth for three to five minutes. Follow this with a regular brushing to get rid of any excess yellow buildup.

You can also try this combo: 2 parts turmeric powder to 1 part coconut oil and 1 part baking soda. Mix together to form a paste, and keep in a cool place (coconut oil is liquid at around 74-76 degrees).

7. Strawberries

Strawberries are rich in vitamin C, which helps to make your teeth whiter. Use them to whiten teeth by crushing a few berries and then applying them to your teeth. Let it sit for about three to five minutes and then rinse out your mouth well.

8. Lemon

Lemon has a solid bleaching power. Many use it to lighten their hair, but it can be used on your teeth as well. Squeeze lemon juice into a small bowl and add some sea salt to it. Grind it down to produce a soft paste. Apply that to your teeth and let sit for three to five minutes. Rinse well. It’s important to rinse this thoroughly, as you don’t want to let it sit over long periods of time and erode your enamel.

9. Banana Peel

This one is controversial and I personally wouldn’t say this should be your go-to option. Some health professionals say it works, while others say it doesn’t. In the end, the gritty surface, which is rich in magnesium and potassium, may polish teeth and help remove some stains on the enamel, but results vary widely. For this method, simply rub your teeth with the inside of a ripe banana peel for two to five minutes and rinse when finished. Do this twice daily.

Disadvantages of Whitestrips and Bleaching

There are a number of whitening options one can explore via dentists, whitening professionals, or the drugstore. These include bleaching trays, professional bleaching treatments, and products like Whitestrips. There is no doubt that these products do work, but there are reported disadvantages to these options that don’t exist with the above natural methods.

Often the treatments above utilize harsh ingredients that can have powerful effects on gums and teeth, creating prolonged sensitivity even after one use. For example, studies suggest that between one-third and one-half of all people who use Whitestrips will notice some degree of gum tissue irritation. [1] If you’ve tried these products in the past, you may have seen great results and had no irritation, but if you did experience irritation, try the options above for a more natural and sustainable approach.

Lifestyle and Diet Are Important

When using natural healing methods, it’s essential to remember that change does not happen overnight. If you want to get your teeth looking whiter naturally, you need to first understand that this will take time. Give yourself at least a month of combining the practices listed above with limiting discolouration factors (coffee, tea, red wine, smoking) and judge from there if this is working for you.

We live in an age that is almost ruled by coffee, which happens to be one of the biggest contributors to stained and yellow teeth. While step number one for whiter teeth would be to limit coffee intake, that may not be the desired option for some of us, so the above list of natural teeth whitening options should at least help mitigate the damage of coffee consumption.

Dental hygiene is important. It can be a contributing factor to many diseases in other areas of the body if not properly taken care of. One of the biggest ways we can damage our teeth is through acidic foods and drinks. In fact, a lot of times, yellow teeth are the result of an acidic diet, which wears at teeth enamel if teeth are not properly taken care of.

Sources

http://www.animated-teeth.com/whitening_strips/a4_teeth_whitening.htm

http://www.pantryspa.com/beauty-remedies/mouth-remedies/dr-oz-teeth-whitening-home-remedy-baking-soda-lemon-juice/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/15795-whiten-teeth-peroxide/

Reprinted with permission from Collective Evolution.

The post Want Pearly White Teeth? appeared first on LewRockwell.

In our previous article on the subject, we explained why it was absolutely essential to the plotters of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that Vice President Lyndon Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover be involved in the plot at the very least to the point that they would have given it the green light.  We also pointed out that they would have to have been assured of the complete cooperation of the American press.  How that was so might be explained by a combination of my two poems, “Spook News and Views” and “Mister Big.”

Another key actor in the drama had to be, at the very least, neutralized.  That was President Kennedy’s brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.  My best guess is that a combination of methods was used to keep the younger Kennedy from upsetting the applecart.  The most effective was probably just overwhelming him with the display of united power that was arrayed against him in the government and the press.  And FBI Director Hoover would hardly have been above playing one of his favorite cards, blackmail.  Just recently, new evidence hardly reported by the American press has come to light suggesting that Bobby really did have an affair with actress Marilyn Monroe.  Hoover would certainly have made it his business to know about that.  Monroe, herself, died very suspiciously on August 5, 1962.

In fact, Bobby Kennedy’s behavior in the wake of his brother’s assassination was very much like that of the title character in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  One can easily make the case that he was just biding his time until he could set things aright by attaining the presidency when the opportunity arose.  He was still young.  We explore that question to a degree in our 2014 article, “Did Lyndon Step Down So Bobby Could Be Killed?

Timing, it has been said, is everything in politics.  Perhaps Bobby simply waited too long to make his move.  He resigned as attorney general on September 3, 1964.  The Warren Commission submitted its report to President Johnson on September 24, and it was made public three days later.  Let us suppose that Bobby had postponed his resignation until some time after the commission had finished its work and then decided that it was time that he act more like Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar than like Hamlet.  He might have requested national airtime for a speech, indicating to the powers-that-be that the blackmail had taken and that his intention was to put his seal of approval upon the Warren Commission’s conclusions.  Even had his request been denied, had he made the following speech at a press conference, it is likely to have had a very great effect:

The Speech

My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight to speak about the great efforts that your president and his appointed commission have made to lay to rest all the suspicions that have been raised about the death of my brother, John.  As you have no doubt heard, many, if not all of the spectators who were present at Dealey Plaza in Dallas on that fateful day believe they heard shots fired from the front, or front-right of the presidential motorcade; the Secret Service driver of my brother’s limousine temporarily brought it to a virtual halt, as though he feared proceeding into the hail of bullets.  But the president’s commission, led by the esteemed Chief Justice Earl Warren has assured us after very careful examination of the facts that the witnesses were all mistaken and that all the shots were fired from above and behind the car by a single gunman, and they are all very honorable men.

You might have heard as well that initially all the doctors at Parkland Hospital who treated my stricken brother described the bullet wound in his throat as an entrance wound.  Early news reports explained that John must have turned his head to look to the rear at the crowds, and it must have been at that instant that the sniper high in the building to his right rear shot him.  However, a film of the event came to light showing that the president was looking forward the entire time, and the doctors, doubtless with the encouragement of the outstanding agents of our Federal Bureau of Investigation, have changed their minds and have concluded that the wound in the throat was from the exiting of a bullet.  Those doctors and those FBI agents, I can assure you, are all very honorable men, and there is little chance that the doctors have changed their stories because of pressure that might have been brought upon them.

Some people who would undermine confidence in our chosen leaders have been spreading the word that the rifle that was found near assassin Lee Harvey Oswald’s perch on the 6th floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository was a 7.65 mm German Mauser, not the 6.5 mm Italian Mannlicher Carcano that Oswald had obtained by mail order and used to shoot my brother with.  While it is true that initial reports said the rifle was found on the 5th floor, not the 6th, and that Dallas police officer Seymour Weitzman, who discovered the rifle, described it as a 7.65 German Mauser in an affidavit, we were later assured by District Attorney Henry Wade that Weitzman was mistaken and that it was a Mannlicher-Carcano that he found (Wade, himself, was mistaken, Dallas authorities have told us, when he reported to the newspapers that a map had been found in Oswald’s room showing the motorcade rout, with a dotted line from the sniper’s perch to the presidential limousine.  There never was any such map, they now say.)  I am sure that any mistakes that officer Weitzman or District Attorney Wade might have made were honest ones.  Mr. Wade spent many years working for the FBI, the finest law enforcement organization in the world, before assuming his current post, and he is an honorable man.

Though others might have changed their accounts, bringing them into closer accord with the objective findings of the commission, a key witness who has not done so is the fine governor of the state of Texas, John Connally, who was gravely wounded in the assault that killed my brother.  To his credit, he has steadfastly maintained that he heard the initial shot, the one that struck my brother in the neck, and turned around to see John grasping his throat with both hands.  At that point, he says, he felt a powerful blow to his back from the next shot, and, indeed, in the film of the event one can see his cheeks puff out as the second shot collapses his lung.  One gunman with a bolt-action rifle could not have fired two shots so quickly, however, so the president’s commission has concluded that the bullet that struck my brother in the neck is the same one that passed through Governor Connally’s body.  Although he stands by his story, Governor Connally has assured us that the members of the commission are all such honorable men that it is their conclusions rather than his experience that must be believed.  And Governor Connally, at least by his lights, is himself an honorable man.

Someone else who apparently stuck by his story to the end is the young man, Oswald, who was arrested shortly after my brother’s murder.  Even though he was interrogated for two days without a lawyer present, he apparently never wavered from his initial claim that he was just a patsy.  Before he was able to defend himself in court, a man with many connections to the organized crime network that our administration had been vigorously pursuing killed him.  Certain members of that crime network have also worked in close cooperation with our Central Intelligence Agency, and there is an abundance of evidence that Oswald was a relatively low level CIA operative.  He had been allowed back into the country with a minimum of debriefing that we know of after he had defected to the Soviet Union.  He had announced there that he would share important state secrets with his new host country, secrets that he had learned while stationed at a very sensitive U.S. Marine base in Japan.  Not only was he never charged with any crime but he even found work in Texas that required a federal security clearance.

I have brought with me tonight another young man who will be available to answer your questions.  As a PFC in the U.S. Army, he worked as a cryptographic clerk in Metz, France.  His name is Eugene B. Dinkin.  In October, the month before my brother’s trip to Dallas, he decoded messages between members of the CIA and organized crime that laid out specific plans for an assassination of the president.  At great personal risk, he attempted to alert me of the plans by sending me a letter describing what he had heard of the plot.  That letter, unfortunately, was intercepted, but after the assassination his mother informed me of what he had done and of the persecution that he has suffered for his futile attempt to change the course of history.

Not only did Private Dinkin attempt to warn me about the assassination plans, but he also attempted to warn the public by telling what he had learned to members of the American news media.  He had no more success than I have had in alerting them to the cover-up of the murder plot that is taking place.  That is why I am addressing you directly tonight.

So now, my fellow Americans, I ask you to support my office as we open a truly independent investigation, one that will bring all the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice, from the lowest to the highest.  The course of our nation’s history must be changed from its current detour into the abyss.  If we allow this horror, this affront to the fundamental tenets of truth and justice, to stand we invite even worse horrors to follow.  Leader after leader could be struck down and our country and its people could be led off into one bloody foreign adventure after another on the most transparent of phony pretexts.

I am confident that you will do your duty.

Virtually all the information that is in the hypothetical speech was widely known at the time for anyone willing to navigate the thicket of propaganda.  See Bertrand Russell’s “16 Questions on the Assassination” published on September 6, 1964.  PFCDinkin’s experience was not known at the time, and we do not know if either he or his mother was successful in making contact with Robert Kennedy.  We do know that they tried.  See my “Abuse of Psychiatry in the Kennedy Assassination.”

The speech would have been almost as effective even without bringing in Dinkin.  Furthermore, in his position it is highly likely that Bobby would have learned of testimony by other inconvenient witnesses such as Ralph Leon Yates, whom we talk about in “More Abuse of Psychiatry in the JFK Cover-up,” Richard Case Nagell, revealed by Dick Russell in his book, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Beverly Oliver, Mary Pinchot Meyer, or quite likely someone that we have never heard of even to this day.  Even more likely is that other people with incriminating information would have emerged in the days after the speech with Bobby, at last, having given them someone to whom they could safely come forward.

Bobby Kennedy had the cards, but he waited too long to play them.  He might have made such a speech as he accepted the nomination for president at the Democratic Convention in 1968 with the eyes of the nation upon him.  We will never know, because it was not permitted to happen.

Addendum

I have received this very incisive observation by Constitutional scholar Edwin Vieira:

At the moment of JFK’s assassination, RFK became potentially the most powerful man in this country. No one could have denied him his right, as Attorney General, to head up the investigation of the assassination, and to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Would Johnson have dared to “fire” him? But, notwithstanding how “ruthless” he had been portrayed as being, RFK turned out to be a fool who lacked the insight and foresight to see that, if he failed to use the power he then had, “they” would deny him access to a new position of sufficient power later on. When he walked away from his duty as Attorney General, and to his own brother, and to his country, he sealed his own fate.

Vince Foster death case expert Hugh Turley, however, in response has suggested that Vieira reckons without the power of the press, which did its best from the very first day to persuade the public that Oswald was the lone assassin, and the limited time Bobby had as Attorney General to make his move.  Lyndon Johnson established the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy by executive order exactly one week after the assassination to investigate the murder, superseding the authority of the Justice Department.  To be motivated to assert his own authority Bobby also would have to have seen quickly and clearly that he was dealing with a massive plot that included Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA, key elements of the military, and the press.  The power struggle that he would have faced would have been daunting, and it would have been very difficult for him to know whom around him he could trust.

One thing is certain.  Any speech that he would have given under the Vieira scenario would have been very different from the one that I have imagined here.

The post RFK Could Have Saved His Life appeared first on LewRockwell.

By Dr. Mercola

Cancer is a disease that most people either have personal experience with, or know someone who does.

In this interview, Annie Brandt — herself a 16-year cancer survivor and author of “The Healing Platform: Build Your Own Cure!“— shares some of the support detailed in her book, which can give anyone challenged with cancer access to valuable resources.

We first met last year at Dr. Lee Cowden’s ACIM Conquering Cancer conference in Orlando. Brandt is also the coordinator of the Answers for Cancer Summit, an international cancer conference that will include many great speakers.

It’s scheduled for April 27 through April 29, 2017, in San Diego, California. You can purchase tickets on bestanswerforcancer.org.

From my perspective, a foundational strategy for anyone concerned about cancer is to address your diet. That’s my passion, and it got reignited once I understood that cancer is not a genetic, but a metabolic disease, primarily rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction.

In fact, this is the topic of my latest book, “Fat for Fuel,” which will be published in May. More information on this will be coming soon.

I think that’s the first step. However, for most people, diet alone will not solve the cancer riddle. It will likely prevent it, but may not solve it if you already have cancer. That’s where Brandt’s resources and The Healing Platform come in. They really are a great collaborative addition to a healthy diet, which I outline in “Fat for Fuel.”

Click HERE to watch the full interview!

Download Interview Transcript

Visit the Mercola Video Library

By Dr. Mercola

Cancer is a disease that most people either have personal experience with, or know someone who does.

In this interview, Annie Brandt — herself a 16-year cancer survivor and author of “The Healing Platform: Build Your Own Cure!“— shares some of the support detailed in her book, which can give anyone challenged with cancer access to valuable resources.

We first met last year at Dr. Lee Cowden’s ACIM Conquering Cancer conference in Orlando. Brandt is also the coordinator of the Answers for Cancer Summit, an international cancer conference that will include many great speakers.

It’s scheduled for April 27 through April 29, 2017, in San Diego, California. You can purchase tickets on bestanswerforcancer.org.

From my perspective, a foundational strategy for anyone concerned about cancer is to address your diet. That’s my passion, and it got reignited once I understood that cancer is not a genetic, but a metabolic disease, primarily rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction.

In fact, this is the topic of my latest book, “Fat for Fuel,” which will be published in May. More information on this will be coming soon.

I think that’s the first step. However, for most people, diet alone will not solve the cancer riddle. It will likely prevent it, but may not solve it if you already have cancer. That’s where Brandt’s resources and The Healing Platform come in. They really are a great collaborative addition to a healthy diet, which I outline in “Fat for Fuel.”

Best Answer for Cancer Foundation

Brandt is more than a little familiar with cancer. She was diagnosed with end-stage metastatic cancer in 2001, and was given three months to live. She decided that if that’s all she had left, she would die as healthy as possible, “and as close to how God made me as I could,” she says.

She refused surgery, high-dose chemo and radiation. Instead, she tried to make her body as strong and healthy as possible, focusing first on detoxification.

“The way the [Best Answer for Cancer] foundation started was I kind of made a promise to myself that if, in fact, I lived doing all these natural healthy things, I would find a way to help people realize there were all of these options. That’s why I started the foundation,” Brandt says.

“[The foundation is also] trying to protect the rights of patients and doctors to use natural substances.”

Best Answer for Cancer Foundation was inaugurated in 2004, and became a 501(c)(3) organization in 2006. It’s a hybrid non-profit that services two different groups of people: an integrative physicians group, and a group for patients with cancer and other chronic disease.

They also hold two conferences per year, one for each group, featuring international experts. The conferences are open to anyone interested in learning more about alternatives to the conventional paradigm of cancer care.

The Answers for Cancer Summit (for patients/lay audiences) not only features great speakers and topics, but also offers hands-on learning events and exhibit booths with valid tools and therapies. This year, a ketogenic lunch is planned as an educational experience.

The Integrative Oncology Conference (for physicians) is a Continuing Medical Education (CME) Conference and includes pre- and post-conference training modules. It is a leader in medical education conferences.

Amazingly, oncology is the only specialty in medicine that is allowed and, may I say, encouraged to sell drugs at massive profits — typically in excess of 50 percent — and cancer drugs are, as a general category, the most expensive medications in all of medicine to begin with.

Oncologists actually get a commission for the chemotherapy drugs they sell, and with that type of incentive, it’s nearly impossible to imagine them actively seeking other alternatives.

As a result, patients are typically forced to go it alone if they don’t want to go the conventional route.

Oncologists are further constrained by the “standard of care” prescribed by oncology medical boards and the drug industry. If they go against the established standard of care, they’re susceptible to having their license reprimanded or even taken away.

Support Systems to Maximize Chances of Recovery

One of Brandt’s core principles is that treating the tumor is not enough. She also has a wide variety of options to support your body’s immune function and other systems, to maximize your chances of recovery.

“I came to the conclusion that the tumor was just a messenger,” Brandt says. “When you look at the tumor itself and think it’s a substance that forms around diseased cells, where do the diseased cells come from?

When you look at all the science behind cancer, they bring in mind, body, spirit, lifestyle, the immune system, diet and detoxification.

They’re very subtle. But over the years, I found these different modalities that actually address disease. When you think about the tumor, imagine it like the check engine light in your car, that’s how I think of it. When it comes on, you don’t take a hammer and beat the dash until the check engine light goes out.

You take your car to the garage and find out what’s wrong. We don’t do that. We want to get rid of the tumor as soon as possible. We want to beat the dash until the light goes out. Then we don’t look at what fed it, what created it.

That’s why I think there are a lot of reasons why cancer keeps recurring in certain people; they haven’t addressed the issues that are feeding it. When you look at what could be feeding it, you have to consider your whole life.

You have to consider the people around you, your job, stress, your environment, what you eat and, believe it or not, how you think. Are you getting enough rest, exercise and sunshine?”

The Importance of Detoxification

One of the strategies Brandt recommends in her book is a detox. I’m a big fan of full-spectrum low-EMF infrared sauna therapy, which is also a wonderful way to eliminate a great number of toxins from your body via sweating.

There are three types of saunas: traditional Finnish-style, far-infrared and near-infrared. Lawrence Wilson’s book, “Sauna Therapy,” discusses the importance of near-infrared heat lamp saunas, and actually details how to build one.

That may be the best types of sauna therapy because near-infrared is one of the most important biological frequencies we need for biological health. To learn more about this, see my most recent article on sauna therapy. However, it’s not just about cleansing your physical body. It’s equally important to address all the other toxins in your life, be it toxic thoughts, people or environments.

“If cancer patients don’t think they’re worth it, that is a toxic thought. You have to detox the mind. You have to detox the spirit, the emotions. Most cancer patients feel trapped. You have to detox every part of your life,” she says. “Don’t forget the environment. You need an air purifier to clean the air. You need water purifiers to clean the water. Get rid of your toxic chemicals under the sink. You’ve really got to do a lifestyle detox.”

Detoxing Your Mind and Eliminating Toxic Relationships

While psychotherapy can be valuable for some, many thoughts and beliefs are “embedded” in our very cells. Many are rooted in childhood traumas we cannot even consciously recall. So how do you get rid of those? Like me, Brandt favors energy psychology methods such as the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), and eye movement desensitization reprogramming (EMDR).

The former releases these stored emotions by tapping into the acupuncture meridians in your body, whereas the latter balances the left and right brain and gets rid of the dysfunction. Meditation, visualization and positive affirmations can also be very helpful.

“I have positive affirmations everywhere, in my car, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, everywhere,” Brandt says. “It works. The body will listen. The mind will listen if you tell it enough times …

Another big thing about lifestyle changes — and this is one of the most difficult things to do for everybody, every patient — you have to minimize toxic relationships, negative relationships. Your life should be as positive as possible. Otherwise, you’re just not going to be happy here. What kind of life would you live if you’re not happy living?

I advocate looking at everything in your life, making sure it’s as positive as possible … All the negatives actually stimulate the part of the brain that creates the stress hormones, so they feed the cancer … I literally remade my life. How many chances do you have in your lifetime to remake yourself? This is not only permission; this is encouragement to remake your life. It’s really empowering, very joyful.”

Basic Strategies That Boost Your Immune Function

Another important component is boosting your immune function, as your immune system is the first line of defense against all disease, including cancer. A well-functioning immune system can typically fight off any malignant cells, preventing them from multiplying in the first place. Brandt had in fact been diagnosed with a dysfunctional immune syndrome in 1992, a decade before her “terminal” cancer diagnosis.

“These days, we have oncoimmunologists who can actually look at your immune system and tell you if it’s out of balance, which way it’s out of balance, and what to do. But there are some general things that you can start out with to boost and regulate it. Acupuncture helps, laughter, endorphins.

Endorphins can even be [produced by] knitting. I didn’t know that. You can knit and make endorphins … Laughter is really hard when you’ve got cancer and when it’s a death diagnosis … But you have to keep going. You have to find laughter because this is one way you can fix the imbalances …”

Other strategies that can help boost immune function include but are not limited to:

1.Sun exposure. Sunlight is a natural immune booster. Not only does your body produce vitamin D in response to sun exposure on bare skin, but sunlight also produces a number of other health benefits that are unrelated to vitamin D production. If you don’t have access to sun exposure in the winter, you can swallow oral vitamin D3. Although it’s not nearly as good, it will still support your immune function.

2.Improve your gut microbiome, which goes back to paying attention to your diet. My book, “Fat for Fuel,” goes into this in great detail. I’ve also written numerous articles on this topic. Your microbiome has enormous influence over the quality of your immune function.

3.Medical cannabis can also be used to stimulate and improve your immune function. Brandt recently found a group called United Patients Group, the mission of which is to investigate and verify the value and potential uses of medical marijuana, and to educate people about its medicinal uses.

“What my understanding is, so far, is that the medical cannabis in the right proportion [of THC and CBD] can regulate — not just boost, but regulate — the immune system. And each type of cancer has a specific proportion of THC and CBD that is effective for that cancer. Again, going back to diet, I almost consider medical cannabis part of a diet because it does nourish and detox,” Brandt says.

4.Exercise.

5.Proper amount of quality sleep, getting at least seven to nine hours of sleep each night if you’re an adult.

Addressing Metastasized Cancer Cells

Typically, if you have metastasized cancer, targeted cancer cells are floating around in your bloodstream, necessitating multiple strategies to get rid of the cancer. This is one of the reasons why most conventional cancer therapies are not that useful in this scenario, as they do not address these circulating cancer stem cells. You can get rid of the primary tumor, but cancer cells are still present in the body. As noted by Brandt:

“People don’t get that conventional medicine doesn’t have any way to stop metastasis or to treat metastatic stem cells. It’s these metastatic stem cells that kill … The stem cells are what conventional medicine cannot address, that I know of. But alternative medicine can.”

Products that are helpful against metastatic stem cells include:

Berberine and metformin have a similar mechanism of action. I prefer berberine because it’s a natural product. That said, metformin, as a drug, is probably one of the safer ones. Millions of people have been on it with relatively few side effects. It’s actually used for type 2 diabetes as an oral hypoglycemic.

I take berberine every day as a dietary supplement, as it has so many health benefits. Since its mode of action is very similar to metformin, I would encourage anyone taking metformin for type 2 diabetes or for longevity benefits (a lot of people take it for that) to switch to berberine. I also like pau d’arco.

It has a substrate called beta-lapachone, which is a powerful way to increase NAD+ intercellularly. This is an important component of improving mitochondrial ATP production, which is needed for health in general, but especially if you’re fighting disease.

Insulin Potentiation Therapy and Other Targeted Therapies

Insulin potentiation therapy (IPT) acts like a Trojan Horse in that it can achieve targeted delivery of low doses of chemo or other medicines to the diseased cell only.

“It’s an elegant delivery mechanism. That’s probably my favorite because it worked so well on me,” Brandt says. “I just watched the tumors shrink and disappear. There’s also high-dose vitamin C. The latest study we just got approval for is high-dose C with artesunate. Artesunate is an intravenous (IV) derivative of artemisinin (wormwood) … a Chinese herb that has been shown to kill cancer with very little side effects.”

Brandt’s book also includes a comprehensive description of systemic enzyme therapy, where enzymes are taken on an empty stomach — not to help with food digestion but to provide systemic benefits through your bloodstream. I personally rotate four different systemic enzymes on an empty stomach. She also addresses the importance of rotating or cycling through the supplements you take.

“The doctor that I first went to taught me about switching things around. He said, ‘Cancer builds immunities.’ I thought, ‘That’s right. Cancer builds immunities to things like chemo and radiation.

I need to keep it on its toes and switch things around.’ I had a chart for all my therapies … I could look at the calendar any day and see what I was doing … If you did Essiac tea for four weeks and you do red clover stillingia for two, then you do Essiac for five, red clover and stillingia for six. Just keep switching it around. No patterns.”

Indeed, variety is a really important biological principle. I’ve even integrated it into my nutritional ketosis protocol. In fact, I now believe people should not be in nutritional ketosis long-term. You do have to integrate variety, so a day or two per week you might have a fair amount of carbohydrates, say 100 to even 150 grams of net carbs instead of the recommended 20 to 60 grams. A sampling of other targeted therapies covered in her book include:

• Poly-MVA, a colloidal mineral complex that crosses the blood-brain barrier and helps re-nourish your body and brain at the cellular level. It also helps replace nutrients lost during chemotherapeutic and radiological treatments.
• AvéULTRA (Metatrol), a fermented wheat germ product.
• Selenium, vitamin D and iodine, as most cancer patients are low in these three nutrients. Since I do regular sauna therapy, I take 200 micrograms of SelenoExcell each day. (You tend to excrete selenium when sweating.) Selenium increases glutathione, an important metabolic antioxidant necessary for detoxification. It also catalyzes the conversion of thyroid hormone T3 to T4, so it can be beneficial if you have thyroid problems.
• Modified citrus pectin (MCP) has been shown to reverse cancer and stop metastatic cancer. Brandt recommends the brand ecoNugenics, as this is the one that has been scientifically studied and verified to work.
• Colloidal silver is a non-toxic, broad spectrum antimicrobial therapy with no known toxicity and no known mechanism for acquired resistance.
• Salicinium, a plant-based extract that inhibits production of nagalase — an enzyme produced by cancer cells — while simultaneously stimulating innate immune cells.

Best Answer for Cancer Summit

Whether you’re a cancer patient or a doctor, you’re welcome to join the Best Answer for Cancer Summit in San Diego, California. There are actually two separate conferences: The Integrative Oncology Conference, which is a three-day-long physician-only event (April 27-29) and the Answers for Cancer Summit, which is a two-day event open to the public (April 28-29).

“If you’re a physician watching this and you want to learn more about this area, this is a very important conference to go to. It’s also a conference for patients, if you’re a cancer survivor or you’re new to the diagnosis of cancer or chronic disease, or you just want to know more,” Brandt says.

Best Answer for Cancer Foundation is also in the process of creating a free online support group for cancer patients called The Chrysalis Group to identify with Rebirth: The Blossoming of the Butterfly. To join, write Brandt at: [email protected], as the site is currently under construction.

“We will have a virtual bulletin board and a chatroom. We’ll have a library with all the medical references, different therapies, different books they can read from different authors. I’m very serious about supporting patients because there were very few survivors in 2001 when I got diagnosed that I could find to talk to.”

Build Your Own Cure

Last but not least, pick up a copy of “The Healing Platform: Build Your Own Cure!” Taking a route other than the conventional one can be a frightening proposition, but these days there’s more help, support and resources available than ever before. That said, the fear of bucking the system, even when you’re convinced the system is fatally flawed and isn’t your best option, can be significant.

“I tell patients what I experienced. I say my family and friends were frantic, wanting me to do what everybody else does, the surgery, chemo, radiation. I said, ‘You know what? If I do what you want me to do and I die, I’ll be pissed. I might come back and haunt you. But if I do what I want to do and I die, well then that was my choice. I’m asking you to support my choice,'” Brandt says.

Her book can go a long way toward directing you to a wide variety of strategies you can use to create your own healing platform. As Brandt says:

“There is the opportunity for each of us to cure ourselves, I believe. I think we’re all individuals and therefore our answer for cancer should be tailored to us. I should have a unique answer. I’m a snowflake, totally different from the next person. Why should I do what everybody else is doing?

The book actually talks about how I got sick. You should see parallels in your life if you are sick. It helps you examine your entire life. Then it goes into the platform. Every chapter is a different healing modality, like spirituality, mind-body medicine, immunologic nutrition, detox, lifestyle changes and then targeted cancer therapies. Each one of those chapters is color coded so you can easily go to that chapter to look up a reference.

In addition, for each modality, for example, when you go into a detox, there’s a workbook on that modality. So it’s a workbook all the way through. It’s an interactive guide. You are actually challenged at the end of each chapter to write down your thoughts, your experiences, to help you determine what your “dis-eases” are.

The book is really easy to follow. I get calls all the time from patients just saying ‘Thank you. You gave me hope.’ ‘Thank you. There’s such good information here. I was frustrated at first because I wanted you to tell me what to do, but telling me that I’m an individual said that I needed to go and do my homework.’

I encourage you to get it, whether you have cancer or not. Buy it, read it, pass it on. Chronic disease, I think, is a precursor to cancer and cancer is a chronic disease. You don’t have to have cancer to be in danger of getting cancer.”

You can get more information at www.bestanswerforcancer.org.

The post Build Your Own Cure appeared first on LewRockwell.

Plenty of people consider themselves to be a whizz at spelling – but this latest quiz is sure to put even the most confident to the test.

The puzzle posted to Playbuzz by user Luna Pope, insists that just one per cent of the population will get every answer right.

While some of the 21 words may seem simple, others will prove far trickier and test even the brightest of minds.

FEMAIL have put the answers in the captions, so scroll down to see if you can truly call yourself a ‘spelling master’.

Read the Whole Article

The post Can You Spell These Words Correctly? appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!” – Andrew Jackson

“There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense. The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself. This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not We The People reclaim control over our government. The political establishment that is trying everything to stop us, is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration, and economic and foreign policies that have bled this country dry.

The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs, as they flee to Mexico, China and other countries throughout the world. It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.” – Donald Trump

Andrew Jackson was a bigger than life figure who lived from the early stages of the American Revolution until the country was on the verge of splitting apart over slavery and states’ rights issues. Born in the Carolinas shortly after his father died in an accident, he acted as a courier during the Revolutionary War. Andrew and his brother Robert were captured by the British and held as prisoners and nearly starved to death in captivity.

When Andrew refused to clean the boots of a British officer, the officer slashed him with a sword, leaving deep scars on his left hand and head. His brother died of smallpox and his mother from cholera in 1781, leaving him an orphan at the age of 14. He blamed the British for their deaths and held an intense hatred of the British for the rest of his life.

Jackson was a grudge holder. He was a courageous military hero, nicknamed Old Hickory by his troops because of his toughness. He was combative and vindictive. He was a self-made lawyer, military leader and statesman. He was a wealthy plantation owner and merchant. Over one hundred and fifty slaves worked on his plantation.

He fought Indians, the British, politicians, and bankers. He was scorned and ridiculed by the press. Establishment politicians cheated him out of a presidential victory, but that loss motivated him to crush his political enemies in the next election. He was a devoted dependable friend to his compatriots and a steadfast adversary to those who crossed him.

If you think the fake news media and vitriolic political campaigns, personally attacking the families of candidates was a modern day phenomenon, you would be badly mistaken. American politics sinking into the sewer and sensationalistic journalism existed from the earliest days of our country. Jackson’s controversial marriage to Rachel Robards made Jackson resentful towards any attack on her honor. He had mistakenly married her before her divorce was official. An attack on their honor published in a local Nashville newspaper led Jackson to challenge Charles Dickinson to a duel.

Charles Dickinson was considered an expert shot. Jackson decided to let Dickinson fire first, betting his aim might be off in his haste. Dickinson did fire first striking Jackson just below the heart. The musket ball remained lodged in his lung for the rest of his life. Under the rules of dueling, Dickinson had to remain still as Jackson took aim and killed him. Jackson’s behavior in the duel outraged men of honor in Tennessee, who called it a brutal, cold-blooded killing and saddled Jackson with a reputation as a violent, vengeful man. As a result, he became a social outcast.

Jackson’s wound didn’t keep him from becoming a national military hero nine years later by leading his outnumbered troops to an overwhelming victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812. His hatred for the British going back to the Revolutionary War likely motivated him to defend New Orleans to the death. Jackson took command of the defenses, directing 5,000 militia from various Western states. He was a strict officer but was popular with his troops. Jackson’s soldiers won a crushing victory over 7,500 attacking British soldiers.

The British had 2,037 casualties: 291 dead (including three senior generals), 1,262 wounded, and 484 captured or missing. The Americans had 71 casualties: 13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing. This victory propelled him to national prominence and spurred his presidential aspirations. The common man saw Jackson as a populist hero. He continued to build his militaristic resume by defeating the Seminole and Creek Indians in Florida, who were secretly supported by the British and Spanish.

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My young friend Jack Kerwick in a column on townhall stated that protestors against Donald Trump who are destroying property and assaulting suspected Trump supporters are “not snowflakes but leftist thugs.” Jack is absolutely right in his description, although there is another qualification that I would add. Contrary to other commentaries that I see on the same website and on other Republican forums, the protestors aren’t “fascists.” They are exactly what Jack calls them, “leftist thugs.” Last year I published a carefully researched book on the uses and abuses of the term “fascist.” What motivated this project was first and foremost the tendency of journalists to call anything they didn’t fancy “fascist.” Those leftists, including a distinguished professor of European history at Yale University, Tim Snyder, who has gone after President Trump as a “fascist” or, even more ridiculously, as a “Nazi,” are using political terms with inexcusable recklessness. But then so are Republican publicists who hurl the same epithets at Democrats and who now refer to the anti-Trump protesters as fascists.

The word “fascist” has a definite historical reference point. It does not signify any group that engages in violent demonstrations or refuses to accept the election results of an American presidential contest. My book painstakingly distinguishes “fascists,” who came to power in Italy after World War One, from the German Nazis, who borrowed heavily from Stalinism as well as Latin fascism. Generic fascists came mostly out of a Latin Catholic cultures and favored a nationalist authoritarian government that would restore the glories of a partly mythic past. Fascism also served a counterrevolutionary function, as a force of resistance to revolutionary socialism. But fascists looked and acted in a sufficiently iconoclastic or disruptive manner to be mistaken for genuine revolutionaries. The German historian Ernst Nolte was on the mark when he characterized the fascists as “a counterrevolutionary imitation of the Left.”

In my book, I point out that the theory and reality of interwar fascism should not be equated with whatever a political partisan wishes to rant against. People can be violent without being fascists; and most contemporary advocates of an expanded administrative state are not trying to revisit the experiences of Mussolini’s Italy. Even less are they endorsing violence or big government for the reasons that the Nazis gave. Whatever we may say about Black Lives Matter and LGBT demonstrators, they are not glorifying Aryanism or calling for Lebensraum for Nordic man. Mind you, this does not make these demonstrators any less thuggish or repulsive. But they are, as Jack properly noted, distinctly leftist thugs—and neither fascists nor Nazis. The demonstrators want to destroy our constitutional freedoms and like all leftists, they are explicitly or implicitly totalitarian.

But they also stand for things that Western societies have been taught especially in the last fifty years taught us to revere such as egalitarianism and the interchangeability of all human beings. Even our supposedly conservative press does not attack Jack’s thugs for the ideals they profess but rather refer to these vandals as fascists or Nazis.  It would be futile in today’s court of public opinion to defend such truly conservative notions as hierarchy and particularity. This may be the case despite the fact that classical conservative ideals are at least as necessary as their opposites for those who value social cohesion and cultural stability. But one rarely encounters the defenses of such ideals in public life anymore; and therefore anyone seeking to make leftists look bad paints them as racists, sexists, and anti-egalitarians.

In a memorable observation, English political theorist John Gray, writing in the London Times Literary Supplement (January 2, 2013) commented that intellectuals continue to deny “the radical evil that has come from the pursuit of progress.” Gray was noting not only the totalitarian direction of leftist attempts to reconstruct human nature. He was also underlining the unwillingness of intellectuals to recognize the inherent danger of those ideals that the Left embraces. We continue to celebrate ideals that have been carried to excess and which now operate without the stabilizing influence of opposing principles? One might also ask whether the Left’s triumphant ideals are better than those taught by defenders of custom and traditional authority, going all the way back to Confucius and Aristotle.

But what I’m offering is not so much a defense of conservative principles as an explanation for why our soi-disant conservatives call those they don’t like “fascists.” This is the same kind of stuff we encounter when conservative publicists try to blacken the current Democratic Party by identifying it with antebellum slave-owners? This morning a distinguished classical historian, who is beloved to our conservative establishment, Victor Davis Hanson, resorted to this shtik when he scolded California secessionists. Does Hanson, who is a well-educated scholar, really believe that the Cultural Marxists in California who want to pull their state out of Donald Trump’s America are the modern equivalents of the South Carolina planter class that seceded from the Union in 1861?  This polemic and others of its kind cause me to wonder why our official conservatives don’t tell us that leftists are harmful because they are following specifically leftist ideals.  Why do they have to link their debating partners to some antiquated Right? And even more curiously, why do they assume that talk about equality and human rights is specifically “conservative”?

Yes, I know the usual justification for such habits, namely that those who indulge them are trying to hang the Left on its own petard. But more may be going on here. The conservative establishment has trouble saying the obvious, that the Left holds harmful leftist beliefs and has been implementing these beliefs to the detriment of an inherited social order, for this among other reasons.  So-called conservatives have absorbed so much of the Left’s rhetoric and historical thinking that sometimes it can’t distance itself, at least not on first principles, from what it criticizes.

This was first brought home to me dramatically when I read a column by Jonah Goldberg in National Review in 2002. In this commentary, Goldberg declaimed against the most illustrious European counterrevolutionary of the early nineteenth century, Joseph de Maîstre (whose name by the way he misspells). According to Goldberg, Maîstre was a toxic leftist thinker because in his Evening Conversations of Saint-Petersburg we find this statement: “There’s no man as such. I’ve only encountered Frenchmen, Italians, and Russians…” Goldberg tells us this illustrates the thinking that the Democrats are promoting when they support minority quotas. Maîstre, we are made to believe, was a precursor of our Left and the Democratic Party, a party that Goldberg would later profitably associate with fascism. It makes no difference to Goldberg (who presumably never read the actual text) that Maîstre’s aphorism was spoken in response to a discussion about the relation between governments and national traditions. Maîstre, who excoriated the French Revolution, from which he fled, was warning against revolutionaries who presumed to inflict their model of government on other countries. These revolutionaries were so fixated on their presumed superior model of government that they tried to make it fit the entire world.

For Goldberg, the fact that Maîstre stresses the distinctive nature of cultures and nations indicates that he was an early representative of the party that Goldberg has made a career out of blasting. Note that I’m not saying that Goldberg is not entitled to his views. But I don’t understand what makes those views “conservative” while the archetypically conservative understanding of human nature expressed in the Evening Conversations would show that Maîstre was an early advocate of Democratic identity politics.  Moreover, Goldberg compares Maîstre to the feminist, black civil rights jurist, Lani Guiniere, who in 1993 was considered by Bill Clinton for the Supreme Court, before her name was withdrawn.

Like Goldberg, Guiniere, a Harvard Professor of Law, has repeatedly affirmed her belief in human rights. Unlike Goldberg, however, she also advocates in her writing an extensive program of minority quotas. She believes, rightly or wrongly, that we can advance these universal rights by treating preferentially those groups whom Guiniere considers to be historically disadvantaged. On this issue, I would come down on the side of Goldberg, because of my fear of the modern administrative state and its increasingly unchecked power. But I doubt that our philosophical concerns would be the same. (And I’m speaking not as a Maîstrean but as someone who can appreciate Maîstre’s insight). What separates Guiniere from Goldberg is a policy difference; what separates her and Goldberg from Maîstre is an entire worldview.

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Posted at the Fabius Maximus website.

Summary: The “permanent drought” in California, like the now ended “permanent drought” in Texas, is ending. But like the panic about Texas, it is rich in lessons about our difficulty clearly seeing the world — and the futility of activists exaggerating and lying about the science. Of course, they should have learned this after 29 years of trying (starting from James Hansen’s 1988 Senate testimony).

Warnings of a permanent drought in California

Remember all those predictions of a “permanent drought” in California? Those were examples of why three decades of climate alarmism has not convinced the American people to take severe measures to fight anthropogenic climate change: alarmists exaggerate the science, and are proven wrong — repeatedly. When will the Left learn that doomster lies do not work?

Wired, May 2016: “Thanks El Niño, But California’s Drought Is Probably Forever“. “California is still in a state of drought. For now, maybe forever.” The article gives no support — none — for this clickbait claim. In January Wired attempted to weasel away from their claims by defining drought to mean needing more water than nature provides (“A Wet Year Won’t Beat California’s Never-Ending Drought“). Orwell nodded, unsurprised.

The NYT did no better in “California Braces for Unending Drought“, May 2016. The closest the article comes to supporting their headline is an odd statement by Governor Brown:  “But now we know that drought is becoming a regular occurrence…”  Drought has always been a regular occurrence in California. The governor also said that “California droughts are expected to be more frequent and persistent, as warmer winter temperatures driven by climate change reduce water held in the Sierra Nevada snowpack and result in drier soil conditions.” That is probable. But it is quite mad for the NYT to call more frequent droughts “an unending drought.”

Status of the California drought

“During the past week, a series of storms bringing widespread rain and snow showers impacted the states along the Pacific Coast and northern Rockies. In California, the cumulative effect of several months of abundant precipitation has significantly improved drought conditions across the state.”— US Drought monitor – California, February 9.

Precipitation over California in the water year so far (October 1 to January 31) is 178% of average for this date. The snowpack is 179% of average, as of Feb 8. Our reservoirs are at 125% of average capacity. See the bottom line summary as of February 7, from the US Drought monitor for California.

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