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Today, July 4, America celebrates the 249th anniversary of the adoption of our Declaration of Independence.

On July 4, 1837, John Quincy Adams said these words about Independence Day:

Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [Independence Day]? . . . Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies, announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before?

Adams was exactly right. The United States of America is the only nation in human history established by (mostly) Christian people upon 2,000 years of Christian thought and God’s Natural Laws and dedicated to the purpose of religious and personal liberty and equal justice under the law.

When I was being interviewed for a documentary movie (I’m featured in 19 full-length documentary films and TV specials), the producer asked me to iterate the basic principles upon which America was founded. Based on my study of the Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights and the copious supplemental writings of the Founding Fathers, here, I believe, are the principles upon which America was founded:

1. That man is created equal under God, and, as such, human life is a sacred gift of God.

2. That the Natural rights of the individual are unalienable and superior to the will of the state.

3. That government exists to protect the Natural rights and liberties of man, not to provide man with public benefits and favors.

4. That a man is innocent until proven guilty, that he has the Natural right to a trial by jury and the right to a defense attorney.

5. That people have a Natural right to choose their own form of government.

6. That individuals have a Natural right and duty to bear arms for their own protection and the protection of their communities.

7. That the power and reach of the central government needs to be limited, being held in check by independent sovereign states, free, independent juries and state citizen militias.

8. That religious liberty is the core of America’s freedoms.

9. That the people have a Natural right and duty to alter or abolish any government that has become tyrannical.

10. That America was created as a constitutional republic.

11. That only sound money would be used as legal tender so as to keep the federal government from amassing excessive debt.

12. That America would always promote and protect a free market economy with limited governmental interference.

13. That a man’s home is his castle and his personal property can never be seized except by arduous due process.

14. That a free society depends upon the acceptance and application of God’s Natural Laws relating to the pursuit of happiness and peace, upon governmental adherence to the Law of Nations and upon the promotion of our Creator’s foundational moral code of human conduct.

15. That liberty depends upon the unfettered exercise of the Christian faith, including strong, uninhibited preaching from America’s pulpits.

The Declaration begins:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. 

The Declaration ends:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Here are a few statements from America’s founders after the Declaration was approved by Congress:

John Hancock said,

There! His Majesty can now read my name without spectacles. And he can double the reward on my head. (The Crown had put a reward of 500 pounds sterling on Hancock’s head. That amounts to over $140,000 in today’s money.)

And never forget that John Hancock’s famous signature would not have even been on the Declaration of Independence had not Pastor Jonas Clark of the Church of Lexington and several of his brave congregants risked their lives to save Hancock from the British troops who had marched on Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, for the purpose of arresting (and killing) Hancock and Sam Adams (who was also protected by the men of the Church at Lexington) and seizing the arms of the colonists.

George Washington said,

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Thomas Paine said,

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.

Stephen Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration from Rhode Island, said as he signed the document,

My hand trembles, but my heart does not.

Indeed, Hopkins (and the rest of the signers) had reason to tremble. Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured, imprisoned and tortured. Several lost wives, children or entire families. Two wives were brutalized and tortured. All were, at one time or another, the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes by British soldiers. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned.

Carter Braxton, a wealthy planter and merchant, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts and died in rags.

Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family constantly. He served in Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were seized by the British, and he died in poverty.

At the Battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr. noted that British General Cornwallis was using his home for his headquarters. Out of respect to Nelson, General Washington refused to fire on the dwelling. Nelson privately urged Washington to open fire on his home, saying it was no longer his home but was now the headquarters of the enemy. The home was subsequently destroyed. Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed by the British. They jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and all of his 13 children vanished. He never saw them again.

The two patriots most responsible for the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on the same day: July 4, 1826—the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration. Daniel Webster gave the eulogy for both men on August 2 of that year. He concluded his remarks with these words:

It [the Declaration of Independence] is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment. Independence now and independence forever.

Amen! This should be the living and dying sentiment of every American.

Reprinted with permission from Chuck Baldwin Live.

The post Independence Now and Independence Forever appeared first on LewRockwell.

There were three independence movements in America prior to the War to Prevent Southern Independence (1861-1865).  The American Revolution was a war of secession to gain independence from the British empire.  The New England Federalists plotted to secede from the union beginning with the Jefferson presidency (1801) and culminating with their Hartford Secession Convention of 1814 where in the end they decided to remain in the union, confident that New Englanders could control and dominate it (and they of course were right).

A mostly forgotten independence movement is the 1850s secession movements in “the middle states” – New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland – where there was a widespread desire to secede from the Washington, D.C. empire.  (See William C. Wright, The Secession Movement in the Middle Atlantic States).  These states contained secessionists who wanted to join a Southern confederacy, form their own confederacy of states, and to just allow the South to secede in peace.  New Jersey had the largest secession movement, followed by New York City and New York state’s Hudson Valley.

The most popular position was to allow the Southern states to secede in peace, giving the lie to the refrain by “mainstream” historians that there was “unity” in the North regarding the invasion of the South in 1861.  Edward Everett, the vice presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union Party in 1860, said that “To expect to hold fifteen States in the Union by force is preposterous . . . too monstrous to be entertained for a moment.”

The majority of Maryland’s state assembly favored peaceful secession but in1861 the Lincoln regime imprisoned all of them, thereby prohibiting them from meeting to discuss the issue of peaceful secession.  At the time most Marylanders believed that forcing a state at gunpoint to remain in the union and governed by Washington, D.C. would destroy the founders’ concept of a voluntary union.

Fernando Wood, the mayor of New York City at the time, wanted the city to secede from the state and the U.S. and become a free trade zone.  (The Republican party, on the other hand, wanted to increase the average tariff rate from 15% to the 50% range).  The New York state legislature issued a resolution on January 31, 1861 condemning the use of force to force the Southern states to remain in the union.  Horatio Seymour, a former governor of New York, supported the creation of an independent “Central Confederacy” that would also secede from the Washington, D.C. empire.  New York Times editor Henry J. Raymond favored peaceful secession as did New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley.

Pennsylvania being a steel industry state, the Republican party there was strongly protectionist and pro-Lincoln, but the state Democratic party supported peaceful secession.  William C. Wright wrote that “The leadership of the [Pennsylvania] Democratic Party as well as most of its rank and file favored a policy of no coercion.”

New Jersey, “more than any of the other five Middle Atlantic states, said William C. Wright, supported the creation of a Central Confederacy” and its congressional delegation supported peaceful secession of the Southern states, as did a large majority of the state’s newspapers.

Delaware had strong support for a Central Confederacy as well, but Lincoln ordered the Federal army to occupy the state and, as with Maryland, prevent the state legislature from discussing the issue.  The “First State” was prevented from declaring the union to be voluntary under threat of bombardment by its own federal government.

What all of this shows is that: Secession was the very principle of the American Revolution; the New England Federalists, led by George Washington’s Secretary of State Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts,  understood this when they strategized over and plotted peaceful secession for thirteen years; at the outset of the War to Prevent Southern Independence everyone understood the union to be voluntary and not coerced, as with the twentieth century Soviet union.

Lincoln dreamed up a new and ahistorical view of the American constitution and forced his view on the country at gunpoint.  His theory, as summarized by legal scholar James Ostrowski, is as follows:

1. No state may ever secede from the Union for any reason.
2. If any state attempts to secede, the federal government shall invade such a state with sufficient military force to suppress the secession.
3. The federal government may require all states to raise militias to be used to suppress the seceding state (or states).
4. After suppressing the secession, the federal government may rule by martial law until such time as the state accepts permanent federal supremacy.
5. After the secession is suppressed, the federal government may force the states to adopt new state constitutions imposed upon them by federal military authorities.
6. The president may, on his own authority and without consulting any other branch of government, suspend the Bill of Rights and the writ of Habeas Corpus.

If conservative self-proclaimed constitutionalists believe that all of this is constitutional, then they obviously possess a different constitutional document than you and I do.  Moreover, the reason why all of the above is essentially a forgotten part of American history is that it flatly contradicts the Official History concocted by the victors after the War to Prevent Southern Independence.

The post America’s Forgotten Independence Movement appeared first on LewRockwell.

Two hundred forty-nine years ago, a series of events culminated in America’s Declaration of Independence from Great Britain.  On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia put forth a resolution for independence before the Second Continental Congress.  On June 10, Congress postponed consideration of Lee’s resolution for three weeks as members struggled to build a consensus.  Despite this uncertainty, more vocal proponents for independence persuaded Congress on June 11 to appoint a committee to draft a formal declaration.

That committee — consisting of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston — worked from June 12 to June 27.  Or, more accurately, Jefferson worked on the Declaration, while Franklin and Adams provided several meaningful edits.  On June 28, a draft of the committee’s work was read in Congress.  After much debate and cajoling among representatives, the colonies officially severed ties with Great Britain on July 2.  (This is the date that John Adams believed would be celebrated as an American holiday.)

With additional revisions to Jefferson’s work, Congress unanimously approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence on July 4 and ordered it printed.  After the printing of about two hundred broadsides from John Dunlap’s Philadelphia print shop, The Pennsylvania Evening Post became the first newspaper to publish the Declaration on July 6.  Finally, Colonel John Nixon is credited as having given the first public reading of the Declaration to a crowd on July 8 in the Pennsylvania State House Yard (now Independence Square).

In honor of that last event, park rangers from the National Park Service hold a re-enactment of the Declaration’s first public reading outside Independence Hall (formerly the State House) on July 8 each year.  It is a grand spectacle and well worth attending.  It is also most likely an incorrect commemoration of history.  The July 8 reading definitely occurred, but there was an earlier reading on July 4 that was lost to history for two hundred years.

In a 1992 academic paper entitled “From the Here of Jefferson’s Handwritten Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence to the There of the Printed Dunlap Broadside,” historian Wilfred J. Ritz provides evidence of a public reading on July 4, 1776 — the day Americans actually celebrate as their country’s birthday.  Ritz highlights the eyewitness testimony of Charles Biddle, who wrote in his autobiography, “On the memorable Fourth of July, 1776, I was at the Old State-House yard when the Declaration of Independence was read.  There were very few respectable citizens present.”

Ritz also notes the personal diary entries of Quaker historian Deborah Norris Logan.  Logan describes the Declaration’s reading on July 4 thusly:

It took place a little after twelve at noon and they then proceeded down the street, (I understood) to read it at the Court House.  It was a time of fearful doubt and great anxiety with the people, many of whom were appalled at the boldness of the measure, and the first audience was neither very numerous, nor composed of the most respectable class of citizens.

The accounts of Biddle and Logan are significant because they both describe the gathering as filled with less than “respectable” citizens.  In other words, those Americans who first heard the Declaration of Independence were most likely common laborers and artisans — and not the wealthier Philadelphians who attended the festive official ceremony on July 8.

In a research paper published four years ago, scholar Chris Coelho provides additional testimonial evidence that the July 4, 1776 reading took place and argues persuasively that the likely orator was either the secretary of Congress, Charles Thomson, or his senior clerk, Timothy Matlack.  Coelho produces enough circumstantial evidence for a reasonable person to conclude that the revolutionary firebrand Matlack was the man who first publicly declared America’s independence from Great Britain.

Matlack was a delegate to Pennsylvania’s constitutional convention, a colonel in Philadelphia’s fifth militia battalion, and a well known public orator.  As Congress’s established penman, Matlack penned several petitions to King George III; George Washington’s formal commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army; and the signed, engrossed parchment now recognized as the official Declaration of Independence.  In other words, Matlack likely created and delivered a clean copy of the Declaration to the print shop of John Dunlap.  And Matlack was likely the speaker who addressed local Philadelphians on July 4, 1776 and read the Declaration of Independence publicly for the first time.

Why is it important to get this little bit of history right?  As Coelho argues, “the people who gathered outside Independence Hall” on July 4, 1776 “were the ones who drove the revolution in Pennsylvania.  Led by radicals including Timothy Matlack, the ‘lower sort’ forced Pennsylvania’s elite to accept independence.  Thanks to the pressure they applied in their colony, Congress was able to adopt the Declaration of Independence unanimously.”  What happened outside the Pennsylvania State House around noon on July 4, 1776 is much more than an esoteric footnote to a forgotten moment in history.  It rightly realigns that moment in history back to the common Americans, whose uncommon achievements birthed the United States.

Read the Whole Article

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Today we will be treated to fireworks and speeches celebrating our liberation from the British in the latter part of the 18th century.  It is a false celebration, because many of our cherished freedoms described in the Constitution have been taken away, and in place of the British we have a new master–Israel–a master whose grip tightens on us by the year.

In the 21st century we have destroyed a number of countries for Israel, financed and provided the weapons and diplomatic over for Israel’s genocide of Palestine, and celebrated Israel’s indicted mass murderer leader with standing ovations in the US Congress.  President Trump speaks of the mass murderer as if he is the greatest person on earth. The US might yet be forced by Israel into war with Iran.

Red states such as Florida and Texas have passed laws against US citizens speaking or acting disapprovingly of Israel.  No such laws exist protecting US gentiles from politically incorrect words and protests.  US universities have lost to the Israel Lobby the ability to govern themselves.  The Israel Lobby was able to reach inside a Catholic university and block the tenure of Norman Finkelstein, himself a Jew, and to reach inside the University of Illinois to cancel the tenure granted to Steven Salaita.

Presidents of Ivy League universities were hauled before the US Congress and upbraided for not preventing students from protesting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.  Some were forced to resign.  A rule was imposed on the universities that students who protest Israel must be suspended or expelled.  If they are foreign students, they are picked up and deported.

Christian Zionists worship Israel, not Christ, and are indoctrinated with the conviction that God’s purpose for America is to serve as Israel’s protector.

The British never had such control over their American colony.  Far from being a free and independent people, Americans are the two-bit punk puppet of their Israeli master.  Who will liberate us from Israel?

The post July 4, 2025, Finds Americans More Enslaved than Ever and Not Only to Their Government appeared first on LewRockwell.

… by watching Tucker Carlson’s interview with Scott Horton.

The real backstory of the American Empire, its phony wars and war cronyism.  What every American needs to know before Washington sells us more neocon carnage!

The post HONOR THE IDEAL OF AMERICA THIS 4TH OF JULY appeared first on LewRockwell.

1) The Patriot

2) 1776

3) It’s a Big Country: An American Anthology

4) Deadline – U.S.A.

The post Here Are Four Superb Movies Enthusiastically Exemplifying the Patriotic Spirit of ’76 for the 4th of July Weekend appeared first on LewRockwell.

Heroic Republicans: there are only three of them in the Senate and two of them in the House who voted against Trump’s big, beautiful bill that raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Thom Tillis in the Senate (never in my life have I ever found a reason to praise Susan Collins) and Thomas Massie and Brian Fitzpatrick in the House all voted against this monstrosity. 

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David Krall wrote:

I feel like going out and invading Poland.  (To secure a strategic supply of Polish Vodka. 

The post When I listen to this… appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Global Research

The post Donald Trump’s Autocratic One-Man Government Regime: Doomed to Failure? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Big Beautiful Charade – Republicans Cave; Democrats Rave appeared first on LewRockwell.

Oscar Grau explains why “Javier Milei is a Neocon.”

The post A “Warmongering Zionist Neocon” Masquerading as a Libertarian appeared first on LewRockwell.

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

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(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/il-93-di-tutti-i-bitcoin-e-gia-stato)

A maggio 2025 erano stati minati circa 19,6 milioni di bitcoin, pari a circa il 93,3% dell'offerta totale. Restano quindi circa 1,4 milioni di BTC ancora da minare e le coin rimanenti saranno minate molto lentamente.

La ragione di questa distribuzione irregolare è il programma di emissione esponenziale di Bitcoin, regolato da un evento chiamato “halving”. Quando Bitcoin è stato lanciato nel 2009, la ricompensa per ogni blocco era di 50 BTC. Ogni 210.000 blocchi, ovvero circa ogni quattro anni, tale ricompensa viene dimezzata.

Poiché le ricompense iniziali erano così elevate, entro la fine del 2020 era stato minato oltre l'87% dell'offerta totale. Ogni successivo dimezzamento riduce drasticamente il ritmo di nuove emissioni, il che significa che ci vorrà più di un secolo per minare il restante 6,7%.

Secondo le stime attuali il 99% di tutti i bitcoin sarà stato minato entro il 2035, ma la frazione finale, ovvero gli ultimi satoshi, non sarà minata prima del 2140 circa, a causa della natura della riduzione geometrica delle ricompense.

Questa scarsità progettata, unita a un limite immutabile all'offerta, è ciò che porta Bitcoin a paragonarsi a materie prime come l'oro. Ma Bitcoin è ancora più prevedibile: l'offerta di oro cresce di circa l'1,7% annuo, mentre il tasso di emissione di Bitcoin è in palese calo.

Lo sapevate? La curva di offerta di Bitcoin non è terminale nel senso tradizionale del termine. Segue una traiettoria asintotica – una sorta di paradosso economico di Zenone – in cui le ricompense diminuiscono indefinitamente ma non raggiungono mai veramente lo zero. Il mining continuerà fino al 2140 circa, data entro la quale sarà stato emesso oltre il 99,999% dei 21 milioni di BTC totali.

Oltre il limite dell'offerta: come le coin perse rendono Bitcoin più raro di quanto pensate

Sebbene oltre il 93% della riserva totale di Bitcoin sia stata minata, ciò non significa che sia tutta disponibile. Una parte significativa è definitivamente fuori circolazione, persa a causa di password dimenticate, wallet smarriti, hard disk distrutti o utenti pionieri che non hanno più toccato le loro coin.

Stime di aziende come Chainalysis e Glassnode suggeriscono che tra i 3 e i 3,8 milioni di BTC – circa il 14-18% dell'offerta totale – siano probabilmente andati perduti per sempre. Tra questi, anche indirizzi dormienti di alto profilo come quello che si ritiene appartenga a Satoshi Nakamoto, che da solo detiene oltre 1,1 milioni di BTC.

Ciò significa che l'offerta circolante di bitcoin potrebbe essere più vicina a 16-17 milioni, non a 21 milioni. E poiché Bitcoin è progettato per essere irrecuperabile, qualsiasi coin persa rimane persa, riducendone permanentemente l'offerta nel tempo.

Ora confrontatelo con l'oro. Circa l'85% dell'oro totale disponibile a livello mondiale è stato estratto – circa 216.265 tonnellate, secondo il World Gold Council – ma quasi tutto rimane in circolazione o conservato in caveau, gioielli, ETF e banche centrali. L'oro può essere rifuso e riutilizzato; Bitcoin non può essere ripristinato una volta perso l'accesso.

Questa distinzione conferisce a Bitcoin una sorta di scarsità crescente, un'offerta che non solo smette di crescere nel tempo, ma si riduce silenziosamente.

Man mano che maturerà, Bitcoin entrerà in una fase monetaria simile a quella dell'oro: bassa emissione, alta concentrazione dei detentori e crescente sensibilità alla domanda. Ma Bitcoin si spinge oltre: il suo limite di offerta è rigido, il suo tasso di perdita è permanente e la sua distribuzione è pubblicamente verificabile.

Ciò può portare a diversi risultati:

• Aumento della volatilità dei prezzi poiché l'offerta disponibile diventa più limitata e sensibile alla domanda del mercato;

• Maggiore concentrazione del valore a lungo termine nelle mani di coloro che rimangono attivi e sicuri nella gestione delle proprie risorse chiave;

• Un premio sulla liquidità, in cui i BTC spendibili vengono scambiati a un valore effettivo più alto rispetto all'offerta dormiente.

In casi estremi ciò potrebbe produrre una biforcazione tra “BTC circolanti” e “BTC irraggiungibili”, con i primi che acquisirebbero maggiore importanza economica, in particolare in periodi di liquidità di scambio limitata o di stress macroeconomico.

Cosa succede quando tutti i bitcoin verranno minati?

C'è un'ipotesi diffusa secondo cui, con la riduzione delle ricompense per blocco di Bitcoin, la sicurezza della rete finirà per risentirne. Ma in pratica, l'economia del mining è molto più adattabile e resiliente.

Gli incentivi al mining di Bitcoin sono regolati da un ciclo di feedback autocorrettivo: se diventa non redditizio, i miner abbandonano la rete, il che a sua volta innesca un aggiustamento della difficoltà. Ogni 2.016 blocchi (circa ogni due settimane), la rete ricalibra la difficoltà utilizzando un parametro noto come nBit. L'obiettivo è mantenere i tempi di blocco stabili intorno ai 10 minuti, indipendentemente dal numero di miner in competizione.

Quindi se il prezzo di Bitcoin scende, o la ricompensa diventa troppo bassa rispetto ai costi operativi, i miner inefficienti escono di scena. Questo fa sì che la difficolta diminuisca, riducendo i costi per chi rimane. Il risultato è un sistema che si riequilibra continuamente, allineando la partecipazione alla rete agli incentivi disponibili.

Questo meccanismo è già stato testato su larga scala. Dopo che la Cina ha vietato il mining a metà del 2021, l'hashrate globale di Bitcoin è diminuito di oltre il 50% nel giro di poche settimane. Ciononostante la rete ha continuato a funzionare senza interruzioni e, nel giro di pochi mesi, l'hashrate si è completamente ripreso, con la ripresa delle operazioni dei miner in giurisdizioni con costi energetici inferiori e normative più favorevoli.

Fondamentalmente l'idea che ricompense inferiori possano minacciare la sicurezza della rete trascura il fatto che il mining sia legato ai margini di profitto, non alle quantità nominali di BTC. Finché il prezzo di mercato sosterrà il costo dell'hashpower – anche a 0,78125 BTC per blocco (dopo l'halving del 2028) o inferiore – i miner continueranno a proteggere la rete.

In altre parole, non è la ricompensa assoluta che conta, ma se il mining rimane redditizio rispetto ai costi. E, grazie alla regolazione integrata della difficoltà di Bitcoin, di solito lo è.

Anche tra un secolo, quando la ricompensa per blocco si avvicinerà allo zero, la rete sarà ancora protetta da combinazioni tra commissioni, incentivi di base ed efficienza infrastrutturale esistente in quel momento. Ma questa è una preoccupazione lontana. Nel frattempo il sistema attuale –  l'hashrate si aggiusta, la difficoltà si ribilancia, i miner si adattano – rimane uno degli elementi più solidi della progettazione di Bitcoin.

Lo sapevate? Il 20 aprile 2024, in seguito al lancio del protocollo Runes, i miner di Bitcoin hanno guadagnato oltre $80 milioni in commissioni di transazione in un solo giorno, superando i $26 milioni guadagnati con le ricompense per blocco. Questa è stata la prima volta nella storia di Bitcoin che le sole commissioni di transazione hanno superato il sussidio per blocco nelle entrate giornaliere dei miner.

Il futuro del mining di Bitcoin: il consumo energetico

È un'idea sbagliata quella secondo cui l'aumento del prezzo di Bitcoin comporti un consumo energetico infinito. In realtà il mining è vincolato dalla redditività, non solo dal prezzo.

Con la riduzione delle ricompense per blocco, i miner sono spinti verso margini più ridotti e questo significa inseguire l'energia più economica e pulita disponibile. Sin dal divieto al mining imposto dalla Cina nel 2021, l'hashrate è migrato verso regioni come il Nord America e l'Europa settentrionale, dove gli operatori attingono all'energia idroelettrica, eolica e alla rete sottoutilizzata.

Secondo il Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, tra il 52% e il 59% del mining di Bitcoin avviene ormai tramite fonti rinnovabili o a basse emissioni.

Le normative stanno rafforzando questa tendenza: diverse giurisdizioni offrono incentivi per il mining basato su fonti pulite o penalizzano le attività basate sui combustibili fossili.

Inoltre l'idea che prezzi più alti del BTC significhino sempre un maggiore consumo di energia non tiene conto del modo in cui Bitcoin si autoregola: più miner aumentano la difficoltà, il che comprime i margini limitando l'espansione dell'energia.

L'attività di mining basata sulle energie rinnovabili porta con sé le sue sfide, ma il futuro distopico di un hashpower alimentato solo da combustibili fossili è sempre più improbabile.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una “mancia” in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

The Declaration of Independence – Dramatic Reading by Celebrities — Kathy Bates, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Graham Greene, Ming-Na, Edward Norton, Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacey, and Renee Zellweger

Modern Historians Confront The American Revolution, by economist/historian Murray N. Rothbard

The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism, by Murray N. Rothbard

America’s Libertarian Revolution, by Murray N. Rothbard

America’s Radical Revolution, by Murray N. Rothbard

Economic Determinism, Ideology, and the American Revolution, by Murray N. Rothbard

American Revolution as a People’s War: A Bibliographical Essay by William Marina

Conceived in Liberty (Combined)  Volumes 1-4 Edition, Books by Murray N. Rothbard

Conceived in Liberty: The New Republic: 1784–1791 Volume 5, Book by Murray N. Rothbard

The post In Honor of Friday, July 4 –The American Revolution appeared first on LewRockwell.

Millions of people worldwide are concerned about climate change and believe there is a climate emergency. For decades we have been told by the United Nations that Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activity are causing disastrous climate change. In 2018, a UN IPCC report even warned that ‘we have 12 years to save the Earth’, thus sending millions of people worldwide into a frenzy.

Thirty-five years ago, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the (World Meteorological Organization) WMO established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide scientific advice on the complex topic of climate change. The panel was asked to prepare, based on available scientific information, a report on all aspects relevant to climate change and its impacts and to formulate realistic response strategies. The first assessment report of the IPCC served as the basis for negotiating the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Governments worldwide have signed this convention, thereby, significantly impacting the lives of the people of the world.

However, many scientists dispute with the UN-promoted man-made climate change theory, and many people worldwide are confused by the subject, or are unaware of the full facts. Please allow me to provide some information you may not be aware of.

1. Very few people actually dig into the data, they simply accept the UN IPPC reports. Yet many highly respectable and distinguished scientists have done exactly that and found that the UN-promoted manmade climate change theory is seriously flawed. Are you aware that almost 2,000 of the world’s leading climate scientists and professionals in over 30 countries have signed a declaration that there is no CO2-induced climate emergency? These signatories have refuted the United Nations claims in relation to man-made C02-induced climate change. See https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/

2. I have also signed this declaration. How can I make such an assertion? I have experience in the field as a former scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK Government; and as former staff member at United Nations Environment, where I was responsible for servicing the Pollution Release and Transfer Register Protocol, a Multinational Environmental Agreement, involving the monitoring of pollutants to land, air, and water worldwide. Real pollution exists, but the problem is not CO2. Industrial globalisation has produced many substances that are registered as pollutants, including thousands of new man-made chemical compounds, toxins, nano-particles and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that are in violation of the scientific pre-cautionary principle.

A book I published also provides ample evidence and testimony from renowned scientists that there is no ‘CO2-induced’ Climate emergency. The book titled ‘Climate CO2 Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Environment Movement’ is available on Amazon here.

3. Next, I will mention the Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) website, a valuable resource founded by Jim O’Brien. I am grateful to the ICSF for their excellent work in highlighting the scientific flaws in the UN climate narrative. The ICSF provides a comprehensive lecture series from renowned international scientists providing much evidence, analysis, and data that contradicts the UN assertions. The lectures are available at: https://www.icsf.ie/lecture-series

The ICSF scientific view coincides with those of the Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. Based on this common conviction, 20 Irish scientists and several ICSF members have co-signed the CLINTEL World Climate Declaration “There is No Climate Emergency” (see https://clintel.org/ireland/).

4. The reality is that the climate has always been changing, the climate changes naturally and slowly in its own cycle, and CO2 emissions (and methane from livestock, such as cows) are not dominant factors in climate change. In essence, therefore, the incessant UN, government, and corporate-media-produced climate hysteria in relation to CO2 emissions (and also methane from cows) has no scientific basis. It appears to me the UN narrative is yet another example of fake science being used to drive an ulterior agenda, see also the book Godless Fake Science.

In truth I am against ‘real’ pollution, and the reality is that the CO2 component is not a pollutant. Unfortunately, many misinformed environmentalists are driving around in electric cars, the battery production for which has caused vast amounts of ‘real’ pollution via the industrial mining and processing of rare earth metals, and the consequent pollution to land, air and water systems. See also this article. Note that the UN does not focus on the thousands of real pollutants that corporate industrial globalisation creates.

5. The conclusions of the Climate Intelligence foundation include the following

There is no [CO2-induced] climate emergency… The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models: Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth: CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters: There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent.

6. In the above book I reference the relevant work and scientific presentations of some of the world’s leading climate scientists. Let us examine some of the work and testimonies of these scientists:

“deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that Co2 from human industry was a dangerous plant destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that Co2 the life of plants was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” – Professor Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT.

Dr Nils-Axel Mörner was a former Committee Chairman at the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was an expert involved in reviewing the first IPPC documents. He says the UN IPPC is misleading humanity about climate change.  He tried to warn that the IPPC were publishing lies and false information that would inevitably be discredited. In an interview, he stated: “This is the most dangerous and frightening part of it. How a lobbyist group, such as the IPPC, has been able to fool the whole world. These organised and deceitful forces are dangerous” and expressed shock “that the UN and governments would parade children around the place at UN Climate summits as propaganda props”. He states:

“solar activity is the dominant factor in climate and not Co2… something is basically sick in the blame Co2 hypothesis…  It was launched more than 100 years ago and almost immediately excellent physicists demonstrated that the hypothesis did not work.

I was the chairman of the only international committee on sea levels changes and as such a person I was elected to be the expert reviewer on the (UN IPPC) sea levels chapter. It was written by 38 persons and not a single one was a sea level specialist… I was shocked by the low quality it was like a student paper… I went through it and showed them that it was wrong and wrong and wrong…The scientific truth is on the side of the sceptics… I have thousands of high ranked scientists all over the world who agree that NO, CO2 is not the driving mechanism and that everything is exaggerated.

In the field of physics 80 to 90% of physicists know that the Co2 hypothesis is wrong… Of course, metrologists they believe in this because that is their own profession – they live on it.… I suspect that behind-the-scenes promoters… have an ulterior motive… It’s a wonderful way of controlling taxation controlling people” – Dr Nils-Axel Mörner, a former Committee Chairman at the UN IPPC, and former head of the Paleo Geo-physics and Geo-dynamics department in Stockholm

Another climate scientist with impeccable credentials that has broken rank is Dr Mototaka Nakamura. He asserts:  “Our models are mickey-mouse mockeries of the real world”. Dr Nakamura received a Doctorate of Science from MIT, and for nearly 25 years specialized in abnormal weather and climate change at prestigious institutions that included MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, JAMSTEC and Duke University. Dr Nakamura explains why the data foundation underpinning global warming science is “untrustworthy” and cannot be relied on and that: “Global mean temperatures before 1980 are based on untrustworthy data”.

Professor John R. Christy, Director of Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, University of Alabama, has provided detailed analysis of climate data, see Endnote [i]. I summarise the main points from his analysis below:

“The established global warming theory significantly misrepresents the impact of extra greenhouse gases; the weather that affects people the most is not becoming more extreme or more dangerous; temperatures were higher in the 1930s than today; between 1895 and 2015, 14 of the top 15 years with the highest heat records occurred before 1960; the temperatures we are experiencing now in 2021 were the same as 120 years ago…

the number of major tornadoes between 1954 and 1986 averaged 56/year, but between 1987 and 2020 the average was only 34/year… Between 1950 and 2019 the percentage of land area experiencing droughts has not increased globally – the trend is flat… Sea levels rose 12.5 cm per decade for 8,000 years and then it levelled off, now it rising only 2.5 cm per decade… worrying about 30 cm rise in sea level in a decade is ridiculous, in a hurricane the east coast of the U.S. gets a 20 foot rise in 6 hours, so a 30 cm rise will be easily handled!”

In a lecture titled The imaginary climate crisis – how can we change the message? Available on the Irish Climate Science Forum website, see Endnote [ii]. Richard L Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT summarises the battle against the climate hysteria as follows:

“in the long history of the earth there has been almost no correlation between climate and co2… the narrative is absurd…  it gives governments the power to control the energy sector… for about 33 years, many of us have been battling against the climate hysteria… Elites are always searching for ways to advertise their virtue and assert their authority. They believe they are entitled to view science as a source of authority rather than a process, and they try to appropriate science, suitably and incorrectly simplified, as the basis for their movement.”

“CO2…  it’s not a pollutant… it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis…  if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality.” – Prof. Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and President of Greenpeace in Canada for seven years, states:

“the whole climate crisis is not only fake news its fake science… of course climate change is real it’s been happening since the beginning of time, but it’s not dangerous and it’s not caused by people… climate change is a perfectly natural phenomenon and this modern warming period actually began about 300 years ago when the little ice age began to come to an end. There is nothing to be afraid of and all they are doing is instilling fear. Most of the scientists who are saying it’s a crisis are on perpetual government grants.

I was one of the (Greenpeace) founders… by the mid-80s… we were hijacked by the extreme left who basically took Greenpeace from a science-based organisation to an organisation based on sensationalism, misinformation and fear… you don’t have a plan to feed 8 billion people without fossils fuels or get the food into the cities…” – Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace

Professor William Happer, Princeton University, Former Director of Science at the US Department of Energy, is also a strong voice against the myth of man-made global warming. He states: “More CO2 benefits the Earth”.

7. The UN IPCC cherry picks data, uses flawed modelling and scenarios not remotely related to the real world

The UN climate crisis predictions are not based on physical evidence, rather they are based on complex computer modelling. One has to decode and analyse the modelling process to ascertain whether or not the models are valid and accurate or whether they have obvious flaws. The vast majority of scientists, economists, politicians and the general public have simply assumed that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models are accurate. Very few people have the time or skills to analyse these models, not to mention actually dispute them. Nonetheless, there were many senior and highly distinguished scientists that did exactly that – they claimed the UN narrative was incorrect and that there was no climate emergency. Their voices have been drowned out by a vast money-driven political and media establishment of the globalised ‘system’. The vitally important work of some of these renowned scientists is referenced in the above book.

“The computer models are making systematic dramatic errors… they are all parametrised… fudged…  the models really don’t work” – Patrick J. Michaels, Director, Cato Institute Center for the Study of Science

Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado, has conducted a detailed scientific review and analysis of the UN IPCC AR6 report, see Endnote [i].  He describes that in relation to climate modelling, the IPCC detached the models from socio-economic plausibility. In creating the models, instead of first completing integrative assessment models (IAMs), the IPCC skipped this essential step and jumped straight to radiative forcing scenarios and thus these scenarios are not based on competed IAMs. This led much of climate modelling down the wrong track. I quote points from Dr Pielke’s analysis as follows:

“The four IPCC scenarios came from a large family of models so instead of splitting modelling from socio-economic assumptions the models already had the assumptions faked and baked in to them, because they had to have those assumptions to produce the required radiative forcing (to produce a desired climate ‘crisis scenario’ outcome)… There are thousands of climate assumptions, but only 8 to 12 of them are available currently for climate research. The IPCC report even states that “no likelihood is attached to the scenarios in this report”. The likelihood is considered low they admit – This is an incredible admission by the IPCC.

These extreme unlikely scenarios dominate the literature and the IPCC report; therefore, the IPCC report is biased. Bottom line is that there is massive confusion. The IPCCs’ Richard Moss warned that RCP 8.5 was not to be used as a reference for the other RCPs, but 5,800 scientific papers worldwide misuse it like that… The whole process is seriously flawed… Nothing close to the real world is represented by the IPCC scenarios. Climate science has a huge problem! The IPCC currently uses RCP 8.5 as the ‘business as usual’ scenario, but RCP 8.5 is wild fantasy land and not remotely related to current reality at all… climate science has a scientific integrity crisis.” – Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado

8. Financialization of the entire world economy is now based on a life-killing ‘net-zero’ greenhouse gas emissions strategy.

The UN Agenda 2030 plan and the Paris Agreement goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 7% per annum until 2030 is in effect a plan that would seemingly disable the current fossil-fuel-based mechanisms of the industrial economy for the food, energy and goods that enable human life and survival. Yet the narrative is quite hypocritical as the production of green energy infrastructure, and mining of rare earth metals for batteries for electric vehicles, is, and will most likely continue to be, very fossil-fuel intensive. Globalisation resulted in much of humanity becoming largely dependent on the trans-national industrial economy rather than on traditional more self-sufficient local/regional economies. Therefore, one has to ask where is this all going to lead if the plug is truly pulled on fossil fuels? Almost all of us are seemingly locked into, and have become dependent upon, the current economic paradigm of globalisation. A system rigged by debt-money created from nothing; created and controlled by private mega-banks and behind the scenes money-masters; and which can induce boom, bust, bailout scenarios that detrimentally effect the populace.

It should be noted that for decades, these same political, government, and corporate powers have rampantly promoted corporate economic globalization and fossil fuel dependency. Whilst, at the same time actively hindering the funding, creation, or government support of, more self-sufficient local communities/regions, and local co-operatives. Most of the world population thus became reliant on the globalized fossil-fuel driven system. I explore this topic in the books Demonic Economics and the Tricks of the Bankers and Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability

Purchase here

Zero carbon emissions, in essence, means pulling the plug on current systems of industrial agriculture, transport, goods production, electricity production, etc. This could have terrible consequences, particularly in locations and countries, that are currently unable to produce much food. In Ireland, the deluded greens in government had planned to close the coal-fired power station Moneypoint, in the name of reducing CO2 emissions. However, as the price of electricity increased and the dawn of so-called ‘green energy’ began to evaporate like the Irish morning mist, the government scrapped this plan in 2022, instead deciding to convert the station to an oil-burning facility. The Irish Times newspaper reported:

“With growing concerns over security of the energy supply in the State, the Government is not in a position to decommission Moneypoint as a fuel-burning station in the near future. It was confirmed by the Irish Government in 2022 that Moneypoint will convert to oil generation from 2023.” See Endnote [ii]

The so-called ‘green economy’ (for it is not environmentally friendly in reality) and UN Agenda 2030 are resulting in increased energy poverty and decreased energy independence for the masses, while also developing trillions of dollars for the behind-the-scenes mega-banks. “Stop burning coal and wood logs that causes climate change don’t ya know” my deluded neighbour informed me last year, having threw out her wood burning stove and installed solar panels. Then a typical winter storm in Ireland last month left many thousands of people without electricity or heating for almost a week, shivering and wishing for a wood burning stove, while their solar panels produced little electricity in winter.

9. Furthermore, the current green energy/renewable technologies being promoted by the UN and WEF, are not a viable solution for the world’s energy supply. Although these technologies have some limited viability in certain locations and scenarios, the fact remains that the Energy Returned on Energy Invested is much too low – in essence the entire process is mathematically flawed. This is evidenced by the work of scientists, including Professor David MacKay (1967 – 2016), former Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University, and former Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Summary

In summary, CO2 reduction is the main focus of the UN-promoted climate-change-hysteria that has been rampant among the world’s population. However, the proclaimed climate crisis exists in computer models only.  The cult of ‘manmade climate change’ is a media and UN politically-promoted ‘ideology’, that is used for a wider political and corporate agenda. Manmade climate change is not based in fact, and has hijacked real environmental concerns.

Due to incessant UN, government, and corporate-promoted climate change propaganda, many people are, thus, in a media-induced state of confusion, and, thus, blindly assume their pre-determined role in society under this ‘dictatorship of words’ without even being aware of it. The unpalatable reality is that people’s access to energy and resources is being intentionally reduced via bogus climate change policies, inflation, ongoing geo-political theatre and intentionally instigated war.

We cannot understand how to create a truly resilient society unless we correctly perceive the current society we live in and how it came to exist. Unless we recognize the untruths of the current paradigm, even if it is not ‘politically correct’ to do so, then we will not be able to make the correct adjustments to our communities and local/regional networks, or create a truly resilient thriving society. In this spirit of truth, new networks are emerging worldwide.

—

[1] Source: Irish Climate Science Forum lecture titled Testing Climate Claims 2021 Update available at www.icsf.ie

[1] The Irish Climate Science Forum website URL is www.icsf.ie

[1] Source: Irish Climate Science Forum lecture titled What does IPCC AR6 say on scenarios and extreme weather? available at www/icsf.ie

[1] Source:  https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/2022/11/27/plans-to-decommission-moneypoint-by-2025-delayed-by-government-over-fears-of-power-outages/

The post 1900 Scientists Say ‘Climate Change Not Caused by CO2 appeared first on LewRockwell.

Scripture and Magisterial teaching is clear that dispensationalism is a grave error and the 1948 Zionist entity is not historical and biblical “Israel”, but also quite clear is historical and geo-political and cultural reality. And a paradigm shift has happened in which certain historical and geo-political and cultural realities can now be talked about without instant demonization and censorship. What have the rulers of the Zionist entity specialized in since its birth in 1948? Unbiased research tells us: Assassinations, aggressive unjust wars, false flag terrorism, moral and cultural subversion of other countries, espionage, propaganda, genocide. But why has this satanic behavior been shrouded in lies and propaganda for so long?

Because of the obvious malicious and deliberate genocide of Gaza, which simply can’t be covered up, and because we now know beyond any doubt, thanks to courageous researchers and truth tellers, that the Israel Regime murdered American sailors in 1967 on the USS Liberty, is it not reasonable also to suspect the State of Israel of being a main accomplice in the murder of JFK and the obvious false flag terror event of IXXI? Is such really beyond the pale of rational inquiry in light of recent events? Is historical and political reality dictating what we permit ourselves to question, or is it decades of propaganda? Consider the implications if it turns out that Zionists, not Muslims, murdered a sitting American President and 3000 of its citizens?

Until and unless the full truth of Zionist crimes becomes viral, things will only get worse. Catholics with a platform should be the first to announce the truth from the rooftops. Why aren’t they? Moronic “Christian” Zionists like Ted Cruz and Cartoonish “Catholic” propagandists for Zionism, like this pathetic guy, are not the real enemy, for their propaganda is blatantly obvious and are thus easily unmasked and discredited. It’s the ones who every “conservative” Catholic praises and who seem to have the most financial and backing and largest platforms that are the most dangerous and complicit in their silence. Oh, they may criticize Zionism, but they never get around to naming the crimes. I wonder why. And forget about the Catholic academics and Bishops. They are a lost cause. Telling the truth, whenever it means any risk to their livelihood, is just not their thing, even though it’s their very vocation. The treason against humanity they committed during the scamdemic will live in infamy; they showed their true colors.

A good number of Jews condemn Zionism and the state of Israel. And they are hated for it. All Jewish, Muslim, and Christian people of good will need publicly to distance themselves from and vociferously condemn the satanic agenda of their leaders. This includes the rulers of not only Zionist and Wahhabist regimes, but also the present American Empire-Regime, in both its godless woke left and godless Zionist right iterations. We must expose and condemn the traitors who and ideologies that rule our country, whether in official or unofficial positions of power, but we do so as American patriots who love our land and people, not as leftist communists who despise them.

Finally, Jews, like every human being born into this world is objectively obligated by truth and love to do to save his soul, need to repent and recognize Jesus Christ as their savior and messiah, and become Catholic. God is counting on us to evangelize them, in spite of the lies we’ve been told by some of our own traitorous and faithless clergy that the Church “has no mission to the Jews.” Bishop Barron was wrong. Jews cannot be saved unless they reject their rejection of Jesus Christ. Every human being has to judge if Jesus Christ was innocent or guilty, and whether his crucifixion was just or not. Each human being before he dies has to answer personally and existentially the question Jesus posed to His disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” Let us Catholics be conduits and mediators of Jesus Christ for all people, including the Jews, whom we are called to love.

This article was originally published on Children Beware of Idols.

The post Collusion in 1948 Zionist Supremacy appeared first on LewRockwell.

When asked about the cost of their government’s support of the State of Israel, some Americans will say it’s $3.8 billion a year — the amount of annual military aid the United States is committed to under its current, 10-year “memorandum of understanding” with Israel. However, that answer massively understates the true cost of the relationship, not only because it doesn’t capture various, vast expenditures springing from it, but even more so because the relationship’s steepest costs can’t be measured in dollars.

Since its 1948 founding, Israel has been far and away the largest recipient of American foreign assistance. Though the Ukraine war created a brief anomaly, Israel generally tops the list every year, despite the fact that Israel is among the world’s richest countries — ranked three spots below the UK and two spots above Japan in per capita GDP. Driving that point home, even when using the grossly-understating $3.8 billion figure for US expenditures on Israel, America gave the Zionist state $404 per person in the 2023 fiscal year, compared to just $15 per person for Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries on Earth and America’s third-largest beneficiary that year.

Source: Council on Foreign Relations

Israel’s cumulative post-World War II haul has been nearly double that of runner-up Egypt. What most Americans don’t realize, however, is that much of Egypt’s take — $1.4 billion in 2023 — should be chalked up to Israel too, because of ongoing US aid commitments rising from the 1978 Camp David Accords that brokered peace between Egypt and Israel. The same can be said for Jordan — America’s fourth-largest beneficiary in fiscal 2023 at $1.7 billion. US aid to the kingdom surged after it signed its own 1994 treaty with Israel, and a wedge of Jordan’s aid is intended to address the country’s large refugee population, comprising not only Palestinians displaced by Israel’s creation, but also masses who’ve fled US-led regime-change wars pursued on Israel’s behalf.

Then there’s the supplemental aid to Israel that Congress periodically authorizes on top of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) commitment. Since the October 7 Hamas invasion of Israel, these supplements have exceeded the MOU commitment by leaps and bounds. In just the first year of the war in Gaza, Congress and President Biden approved an additional $14.1 billion in “emergency” military aid to Israel, bringing the total for that year to $17.9 billion.

One must also consider the fact that, given the US government runs perpetual deficits that now easily exceed $1 trillion, every marginal expenditure, including aid to Israel, is financed with debt that bears an interest expense, increasing Americans’ tax-and-inflation burden.

On top of money given to Israel, the US government spends huge sums on activities either meant to benefit Israel or that spring from Israel’s actions. For example, during just the first year of Israel’s post-Oct 7 war in Gaza, increased US Navy offensive and defensive operations in the Middle East theater cost America an estimated $4.86 billion.

Those Gaza-war-related outflows have not only continued but accelerated. For example, earlier this year, the Pentagon engaged in an intense campaign against Yemen’s Houthis. In proclaimed retaliation for Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza, the Houthis have targeted Israel, and ships the Houthis said were linked to Israel. In response, America unleashed “Operation Rough Rider,” which often saw $2 million American missiles being used against $10,000 Houthi drones, and cost between one and two billion dollars.

President Trump’s military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — amid a war initiated by Israel on contrived premises — cost America another one to two billion dollars, according to early estimates. Even before the attack on a nuclear program the US intelligence community continues to assess is not aimed at producing a weapon, the Pentagon was already spending more money on Israel’s behalf, helping to defend the country from Iran’s response to Israel’s unprovoked aggression. The run-up to US strikes itself entailed a massive and costly mobilization of American forces and equipment to the region, as the Pentagon readied for multiple scenarios.

Propelled by Israel’s powerful US-based lobby, by Israel-pandering legislators, and by a revolving cast of Israel-favoring presidents, cabinet members, and national security officials, the United States has consistently pursued policies in the Middle East that place top priority on securing Israel’s regional supremacy.

Among the many avenues used to pursue that goal, none has been more costly than that of regime change, where an outcome that results in a shattered, chaotic state is seemingly just as pleasing to Israel and its American collaborators as one that spawns a functioning state with an Israel-accommodating government — and where the cost is often measured not only in US dollars but in American lives and limbs.

Of course, the most infamous such regime-change effort was the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. “If you take out Saddam, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured a US congressional hearing. Doing his part to aid a Bush administration dominated by Israel-aligned neoconservatives bent on taking out one of Israel’s regional adversaries, Netanyahu also said there was “no question whatsoever” that Hussein was “hell-bent on achieving atomic bombs.”

The drive to topple Syria’s Iran-allied Assad government is another prominent example of regime change on behalf of Israel, as the two countries sought to sever the “Shia Crescent” that — due in great part to Saddam’s ouster — presented a continuous pipeline of Iranian influence extending to Israel’s borders. To the contentment of the US and Israeli governments, Syria is now led by an al Qaeda alumnus who’s reportedly poised to relinquish Syria’s long-standing claim on the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967.

Taken together, the price tag of US military operations in Iraq and Syria, including past and future medical and disability care for veterans, totals $2.9 trillion, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project. The human toll has been even more mind-boggling: upwards of 580,000 civilians and combatants killed, with perhaps two to four times that number indirectly perishing from displacement, disease and other factors. More than 4,600 US service-members died in Iraq, and 32,000 were injured, many of them enduring amputations and burns. Alongside mass suffering, these and other US interventions undertaken to ensure Israel’s regional supremacy have fomented enormous resentment of the United States across the region.

Those resentments help drive another massive debit in the Israel’s account with the United States: Any thorough assessment of the costs of the relationship must reflect the fact that US backing of Israel is a principal motivator of Islamist terrorism directed against Americans, and there’s no greater example of that fact than 9/11.

Read the Whole Article

The post US Support For Israel Comes At a Staggering, Multifaceted Price appeared first on LewRockwell.

Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino just posted the following communique on X:

Update: Public corruption will not be tolerated as the Director and I vigorously pursue bad actors who violated their oaths to all of us. We view the theft of public funds the same way. It’s a crime against all of us. Today, in conjunction with the DOJ and our federal partners, we are announcing the results from the largest healthcare fraud investigation, as measured by financial losses, in DOJ history. The investigation spanned 50 federal districts, and resulted in nearly 3 billion dollars in false claims with over 15 million illegal distributions of pills. We seized 245 million dollars, we charged 324 defendants, 96 medical professionals, and the intended losses from these bad actors approached 15 billion dollars. Results matter. Talk is cheap. And this is not even the beginning of the beginning. If you’re stealing from the public, or violating your oath to serve, then we’re coming for you too. God bless America, and all those who defend Her.

The announcement reminded me of the 2019 book Code Blue: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex, by Mike Magee, an MD and former physician-spokesman for Pfizer. As he memorably described the corruption of the U.S. healthcare system.

Cozy relationships and generous gratuities have demonstrated a remarkable ability to corrupt even those we would instinctively put on the side of the angels, including members of the biomedical research community, deans of medical schools, directors of continuing medical education programs, officers at the NIH and FDA, and even seemingly altruistic patient advocacy organizations like the American Cancer Society.

A theologian looking at all this might conclude that American health care has lost its soul. A behavioral economist would point us toward studies showing that the exercise of moral judgment in a business context draws on a completely different cognitive framework from the one we use in making such decisions in our personal lives.

A $15 billion dollar fraud. This comes on the heels of a $2.75 billion federal fraud case in 2024, in which 193 people, including 76 doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals, were accused of illegally distributing millions of pills of the stimulant Adderall and of conducting fraudulent schemes involving $176 million of drug and alcohol abuse treatment services.

The industry is so thoroughly infested with money-grubbing hucksters, humbugs, and scumbags that it reminds me of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are so given to wickedness that God decides to annihilate them out of sheer disgust.

To be sure, as Plato pointed out in The Republic, fraud and injustice always proliferate in a Republic in which the citizens fail to tend properly and diligently to their affairs, including their health.

Plato argues that a proliferation of doctors and lawyers is a symptom of an unjust society. The presence of many doctors and lawyers suggests a society riddled with illness and disputes.

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

The post FBI Announces $15 Billion Healthcare Fraud appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump, to his credit, demanded a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Both countries agreed to it. Then, the president became very angry with Israel because, as he said, “As soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”

But as I write this column, the ceasefire is still in effect. I hope it lasts. However, just two days before the ceasefire, we dropped ten 30,000-pound bunker bombs on Iran, a country that had not even shot one bullet at us.

Please, God, let this be the end of our involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.

This is Israel’s war. It is not our war. Netanyahu and Israel First neocons led us into a very unnecessary war in Iraq that cost the lives of so many young Americans, and led to the blinding and maiming of thousands more. It was not worth their sacrifice.

Donald Trump was elected as president in 2016 primarily because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, and because he promised to put America First.

The overwhelming majority of Americans – both Democrats and Republicans – do not want this country stuck in another war in the Middle East.

This is not our war; it is Netanyahu’s war. The very respected foreign policy expert and Columbia professor, Jeffrey Sachs, a Jew, has described Netanyahu as “one of the most violent and dangerous people in this world.”

Tom Friedman, the longtime New York Times columnist and also a Jew, wrote in his column of May 9 that “Netanyahu is not our friend.”

Israel claimed it had killed Iran’s top eight generals and its nine leading nuclear scientists even before the U.S. dropped its bombs.

Israel also claimed it had destroyed Iran’s ground-based air defense capabilities and had achieved total air superiority even before we got involved.

If their claims are true, Israel was already winning this war. They started this war, let them finish it – without us.

Israel supposedly had two main goals in invading Iran: To stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program and to foster regime change there.

Well, all of our top intelligence officials in both Democratic and Republican administrations had certified for years that Iran was not building any nuclear weapons. Tulsi Gabbard, now our highest intelligence official, also certified this again in her congressional testimony on March 25.

Netanyahu was so eager to go to war against Iran – he has cried wolf so many times, for 30 years, always falsely saying Iran was just weeks or months away from developing a nuclear bomb.

Netanyahu claimed many times that Iran was the main purveyor of terrorist violence around the world. Actually, it has been Israel that has spread violence throughout the Middle East.

The late Charley Reese, who in 1999 was voted as the most popular columnist by C-Span viewers, wrote in 2002: “The big pushers for war with Iraq are the usual suspects – Americans with a long record of pretending to speak about American interests, when in fact, they are pushing an Israeli agenda.” Today, you can replace the word “Iraq” with the word “Iran.”

As far as its goal of regime change is concerned, the very respected foreign policy analyst, John Mearsheimer, said you cannot achieve that goal with only an air campaign. Americans definitely do not want to see the boots of our troops on the ground in Iran.

Too many of our presidents and their top advisors have seemingly wanted to be new Winston Churchills. They seem to feel more important if they can lead us into another war.

Eisenhower, who spent his career in the military, was strong enough to resist this impulse in 1956 when Israel demanded that we support its war against Egypt.

Mitchell Bard wrote about this in The Times of Israel in 2014: “Eisenhower went on television to criticize Israel’s failure to withdraw from Egypt and warned he would impose sanctions if it failed to comply. Eisenhower was prepared to cut off all economic aid, to lift the tax-exempt status of the United Jewish Appeal, and to apply sanctions on Israel.” What courage that was.

Today, almost every member of the U.S. Congress is afraid to criticize Israel’s bombing, killing, and starving of many thousands of little children because of the Israel Lobby’s power and ability to direct massive campaign contributions for them or against them.

President Trump said on February 13 that he wanted to cut the defense budget in half. Now he is pushing a “Big Beautiful Bill” to increase defense spending by $150 billion, moving it to over one trillion dollars a year.

On May 13 in Riyadh, President Trump criticized neocons, nation builders, and interventionists. Then, unfortunately, he bowed to the wishes of warmonger neocons by approving the dropping of bombs on Iran.

And, finally, President Trump said in his Inaugural Address: “We will measure our success not only by little battles we win, but also by the wars that end, and perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE WARS WE NEVER GET INTO.”

Candidate Trump reportedly accepted a $100 million campaign contribution from Miriam Adelson in return for a promise to support Israel in every way. Hopefully, he can resist this pressure and go down in history as an anti-war, peace president like Eisenhower.

This article was originally published on The Knoxville Focus.

The post This Is Israel’s War – Not Our War appeared first on LewRockwell.

“When a long train of abuses and usurpations… evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”—Declaration of Independence (1776)

We are now struggling to emerge from the wreckage of a constitutional republic, transformed into a kleptocracy (government by thieves), collapsing into kakistocracy (government by the worst), and enforced by a police state algogracy (rule by algorithm).

This week alone, the Trump administration is reportedly erecting protest barricades around the White House, Congress is advancing legislation that favors the wealthy, and President Trump is grandstanding at the opening of a detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Against such a backdrop of government-sponsored cruelty, corruption and shameless profiteering at taxpayer expense, what, to the average American, is freedom in an age when the government plays god—determining who is worthy of rights, who qualifies as a citizen, and who can be discarded without consequence?

What are inalienable rights worth if they can be redefined, delayed, or revoked by executive order?

Frederick Douglass posed a similar challenge more than 170 years ago when he asked, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”

His question was a searing indictment not just of slavery but of a government that proclaimed liberty while denying it to millions—a hypocrisy that persists in a system still governed by institutions more committed to power than principle.

Every branch of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—has, in one way or another, abandoned its duty to uphold the Constitution. And both parties have prioritized profit and political theater over justice and the rights of the governed.

The founders of this nation believed our rights come from God, not government. That we are born free, not made free by bureaucrats or judges. That among these rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—none can be taken away without destroying the very idea of government by consent.

And yet that is precisely what’s happening.

We now live under a government that has become judge, jury, and executioner—writing its own laws, policing its own limits, and punishing those who object.

This is not what it means to be free.

When presidents rule by fiat, when agencies strip citizenship from naturalized Americans, when police act as both enforcers and executioners, and when courts rubber-stamp the erosion of basic protections, the distinction between a citizen and a subject begins to collapse.

What do inalienable rights mean in a country where:

• Your citizenship can be revoked based solely on the government’s say-so?
• Your freedom can be extinguished by surveillance, asset seizure, or indefinite detention?
• Your property can be taken, your speech censored, and your life extinguished without due process?
• Your life can be ended without a trial, a warning, or a second thought, because the government views you as expendable?

The answer is stark: they mean nothing—unless we defend them.

When the government—whether president, Congress, court, or local bureaucrat—claims the right to determine who does and doesn’t deserve rights, then no one is safe. Individuals become faceless numbers. Human beings become statistics. Lives become expendable. Dignity becomes disposable.

It is a slippery slope—justified in the name of national security, public safety, and the so-called greater good—that leads inevitably to totalitarianism.

Unfortunately, we have been dancing with this devil for far too long, and now, the mask has come off.

This is what authoritarianism looks like in America today.

Imagine living in a country where government agents crash through doors to arrest citizens merely for criticizing government officials. Where police stop and search you on a whim. Where carrying anything that resembles a firearm might get you arrested—or killed. Where surveillance is constant, dissent is criminalized, and loyalty is enforced through fear.

If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.

But this scenario isn’t new. It’s the same kind of tyranny that drove American colonists to sever ties with Great Britain nearly 250 years ago.

Back then, American colonists lived under the shadow of an imperial power and an early police state that censored their speech, surveilled their movements, taxed their livelihoods, searched their homes without cause, quartered troops in their towns, and punished them for daring to demand liberty.

It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.

The Declaration of Independence—drafted by Thomas Jefferson and signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who risked everything—was their response. It was more than a list of grievances. It was a document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, a call to arms against a system that had ceased to represent the people and instead sought to dominate them.

Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death, because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives.

Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up. They understood that silence in the face of tyranny is complicity. So they stood together, pledging “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” to the cause of freedom.

Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations.

The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights were meant to enshrine the liberties they fought for: due process, privacy, free speech, the right to bear arms, and limits on government power.

Now, nearly two and a half centuries later, those freedoms hang by a thread.

Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to discover that almost 250 years later, the government they had risked their lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.

In fact, had Jefferson and his compatriots written the Declaration of Independence today, they would almost certainly be labeled extremists, placed on government watchlists, targeted by surveillance, and prosecuted as domestic threats.

Read the Declaration of Independence again, and you’ll see the grievances they laid at the feet of King George—unjust laws, militarized policing, surveillance, censorship, and the denial of due process—are the very abuses “we the people” suffer under today.

Had Jefferson written the Declaration about the American police state in 2025, it might have read like a criminal indictment of the crimes perpetrated by a government that:

Polices by fear and violence:

• raiding family homes in the dead of night with SWAT teams that shoot pets and traumatize children;
• targeting vulnerable individuals—including the disabled and neurodivergent—for arrest under pretexts of noncompliance;
• killing unarmed citizens for not complying quickly enough;
• using roadside cavity searches and rectal probes as tools of humiliation and control.

Surveils and represses dissent:

• spying on its own citizens, reading private messages, tracking movements, and mining personal data;
• collecting DNA from innocent Americans and compiling biometric databases without consent;
• tracking drivers with license plate scanners and red-light cameras without due process;
• detaining protesters, journalists, and whistleblowers without trial, often labeling them as domestic threats;
• jailing veterans for criticizing the government;
• placing ordinary Americans on watchlists and labeling dissent as terrorism.

Strips away rights:

• seizing property through civil asset forfeiture without charges or due process;
• building secret prisons and detention centers shielded from judicial oversight;
• stripping citizenship from those it deems disloyal, making constitutional rights conditional;
• criminalizing homelessness, dissent, and disloyalty as pretexts for exclusion and punishment;
• criminalizing routine behavior under vague laws that fuel mass incarceration and overcriminalization.

Concentrates unchecked power in the executive:

• bypassing Congress with executive orders, sidelining the courts, and ruling by decree;
• weaponizing federal agencies to suppress opposition and silence critics;
• treating constitutional limits as optional and the presidency as a personal fiefdom.

These are not isolated abuses.

They are the logical outcomes of a government that has turned against its people.

They reveal a government that has claimed the god-like power to decide who gets rights—and who doesn’t. Who counts as a citizen—and who doesn’t. Who gets to live—and who becomes expendable.

All along the spectrum of life—from the unborn child to the elderly—the government continues to treat individuals endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights as if they are criminals, subhumans, or enemies of the state.

That is not freedom. It is tyranny.

And it must be called by its true name.

The truth is hard, but it must be said: the American police state has grown drunk on power, money, and its own authority.

The irony is almost too painful to articulate.

On the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—a document that rebuked government corruption, tyranny, and injustice—we find ourselves surrounded by its modern-day equivalents.

This week’s spectacle—protest barricades, legislation to benefit the rich, and Trump’s appearance at Alligator Alcatraz, a.k.a. “Gator Gitmo”—shows how completely we have inverted the spirit of 1776.

That a president would celebrate the Fourth of July while inaugurating a modern-day internment camp—far from the reach of the courts or the Constitution—speaks volumes about the state of our nation and the extent to which those in power now glorify the very forms of tyranny the Founders once rose up against.

This is not law and order.

This is political theater, carceral cruelty, and authoritarianism in plain sight.

It is what happens when a nation that once prided itself on liberty now builds monuments to its own fear and domination.

The spectacle doesn’t end with detention camps and barricades. It extends into commerce, corruption, and self-enrichment at the highest levels of power.

President Trump is now marketing his own line of fragrances—a branding exercise so absurd it would be laughable if it weren’t a flagrant violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. His investments are booming. And all across his administration, top officials are shamelessly using public office to line their pockets, even as they push legislation to strip working-class Americans of the most basic benefits and protections, while claiming to be rooting out corruption and inefficiency.

This is not governance. This is kleptocracy—and it is happening in plain sight.

In the nearly 250 years since early Americans declared their independence from Great Britain, “we the people” have worked ourselves back under the tyrant’s thumb—only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making.

The abuses they once suffered under an imperial power haven’t disappeared. They’ve evolved.

We are being robbed blind by political grifters and corporate profiteers. We are being silenced by bureaucrats and blacklists. We are being watched by data miners and digital spies. We are being caged by militarized enforcers with no regard for the Constitution. And we are being ruled by presidents who govern not by law, but by executive decree.

Given the fact that we are a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did not happen overnight.

The architecture of oppression—surveillance, militarism, censorship, propaganda—was built slowly, brick by brick, law by law, war by war.

It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration, political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power at the expense of individual freedoms.

The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of—police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state, pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines, militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless wars, etc.—were put in place by government officials we trusted to look out for our best interests.

The result is an empire in decline and a citizenry under siege.

But if history teaches us anything, it’s that the power of the people—when awakened—is stronger than any empire.

For decades, the Constitution has been our shield against tyranny.

But today, it’s under siege. And now we must be the shield.

Surveillance is expanding. Peaceful dissent is being punished. Judges are being targeted. The presidency is issuing decrees and bypassing the rule of law.

Every institution meant to check power is being tested—and in some cases, broken.

This is the moment to stand in front of the Constitution and defend it.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the fight for freedom is never over. But neither is it lost—so long as we refuse to surrender, refuse to remain silent, and refuse to accept tyranny as the price of safety.

It is time to remember who we are. To reclaim the Constitution. To resist the march toward authoritarianism. And to reassert—boldly and without apology—that our rights are not up for negotiation.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

The post Inalienable Rights in an Age of Tyranny: The Government Is Playing God appeared first on LewRockwell.

This now seems to happen with some regularity:

An explosion struck the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Vilamoura, carrying approximately one million barrels of crude, off Libya’s coast, according to its Greek operator, TMS Tankers. – Greek City Times, Jul 1 2025

The explosion flooded the engine room, disabling the vessel. TMS Tankers reported that the ship, which departed from Zueitina, Libya, en route to Gibraltar, will be towed to Greece on Tuesday or Wednesday. The cause of the explosion remains undisclosed.

The possibility that the Vilamoura was hit by a mine was raised on Friday by security firm Vanguard, but it said that nothing had been confirmed by officials.

The operator distanced itself from speculation that the ship had been targeted by saboteurs.

According to the Financial Times this is at least the fifth tanker (archived) this year that had became casualty of some explosives:

A series of mysterious limpet mine attacks on oil tankers has shaken the shipping world, prompting speculation that the explosions were part of a state-backed sabotage campaign.

Five vessels have been hit by deliberate blasts this year, with the latest incident flooding the engine room of the Greek-owned tanker the Vilamoura last week as it sailed off the coast of Libya.

All the vessels called at Russian ports within weeks of the attacks, prompting some security experts to suggest that Ukraine had a hand in the explosions.

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The FT account leaves out a Russian cargo ship that was attacked with explosives and sank in late 2024:

The Russian operator of a cargo ship that sank in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria said Thursday that it had been hit by a series of explosions in an act of sabotage.

Oboronlogistica, a state-controlled company that operated the Ursa Major freighter, said it was wrecked by three powerful explosions just above the water line in what it described as a “terrorist attack” that caused it to sink.

It said in a statement carried by Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency that the explosions left a hole in the ship’s starboard and filled the engine room with acrid smoke, hampering the crew’s attempts to access it. The company added that the damage to the engine room made it impossible to activate pumps and keep the ship afloat.
…
The company said the ship, one of Russia’s largest cargo ships, had sailed from St. Petersburg and was carrying two heavy cranes and other equipment to the port of Vladivostok on Russia’s far eastern coast.

All these attacks seem to have been made with magnetic limpet mines. These get attached to a ships hull while the ship is anchored or moored. They can be exploded by a timer or radio signal.

The campaign against Russian related ships may well be an Ukrainian operation. But I would be astonished to learn that the British are not involved in it.

Ukraine is not known for wide access to ports in the Mediterranean Sea and for the necessary qualified diving specialists. Britain’s Special Boat Service is:

The SBS has a subunit dedicated to operating Swimmer Delivery Vehicles (SDVs) known as the SDV Troop.

Such vehicles, launched from submarines, are ideal for installing limpet mines to the hull of unsuspecting ships.

Britain has helped to plan the Ukrainian attack in Kursk. It has been involved in several sabotage operations by the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service on Russian ground. British soldiers are dying on the battlefield in Ukraine.

When investigating the sabotage operations against those ships the Russian counter terrorism forces should look out for British, not for Ukrainian, actors.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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