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The Intercept

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Eugyppius

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Tim McGraw wrote:

Hi Lew, Why we need nullification: Lew Rockwell

Great article on nullification. California pays $81.1 billion more to the federal government than the state gets back in funds from the federal government. The $81.1 billion is just about equal to California’s current budget deficit. If the California legislature in Sacramento nullified federal taxes (pigs would fly), the state’s budget deficit would go away.

Tim

PS: It does irritate me when citizens in the other states give us Californians a hard time. We support the country with $81.1 billion a year of our tax money to the federal government. We are the suckers. The rest of the country benefits from our lousy representatives in Congress and Sacramento.

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 Thanks, David Martin.

Waltz Is An Israeli Spy–What Does That Make Trump?

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Thanks, Mark Kaplan. 

See here.

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Thanks, Saleh Abdullah. 

The Guardian

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Thanks, John Smith. 

AlJazeera

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Thanks, John Smith. 

The New York Times

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Thanks, John Frahm.

Catholic News Agency

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Thanks, W. T. White.

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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/chi-controlla-lo-stato-amministrativo)

Il 20 marzo 2025 il Presidente Trump ha ordinato quanto segue: “Il Segretario dell'Istruzione dovrà, nella misura massima appropriata e consentita dalla legge, adottare tutte le misure necessarie per facilitare la chiusura del Dipartimento dell'Istruzione”.

È un linguaggio interessante: “Adottare tutte le misure necessarie per facilitare la chiusura” non equivale a chiuderlo. E ciò che è “permesso dalla legge” è esattamente ciò che è in discussione.

Dovrebbe sembrare un'abolizione e i media l'hanno riportata come tale, ma non lo è. Non è colpa di Trump. Il presunto dittatore ha le mani legate in tanti modi, persino riguardo alle agenzie che presumibilmente controlla, le cui azioni in ultima analisi deve essere lui ad assumersene la responsabilità.

Il Dipartimento dell'Istruzione è un'agenzia esecutiva, creata dal Congresso nel 1979. Trump la vuole chiusa per sempre. Così come i suoi elettori. Può farlo? No, ma può privare l'ente del personale e disperderne le funzioni? Nessuno lo sa con certezza. Chi deciderà? Presumibilmente la Corte Suprema, alla fine.

Il modo in cui ciò viene deciso – se il presidente sia effettivamente al comando o solo una figura simbolica come il re di Svezia – non riguarda solo questa singola agenzia, ma centinaia di altre. Infatti il destino della libertà e del funzionamento delle repubbliche costituzionali potrebbe dipendere dalla risposta.

Tutte le questioni politiche scottanti di oggi vertono su chi o cosa sia a capo dello Stato amministrativo. Nessuno conosce la risposta, e questo per una buona ragione: il funzionamento principale dello stato moderno ricade su una bestia che non esiste nella Costituzione.

L'opinione pubblica non ha mai nutrito grande amore per le burocrazie. In linea con la preoccupazione di Max Weber, esse hanno rinchiuso la società in un'impenetrabile “gabbia di ferro”, fatta di razionalismo asettico, editti inumani, corruzione corporativa e un'incessante costruzione di imperi, non frenata né da restrizioni di bilancio né da plebisciti.

La piena consapevolezza odierna dell'autorità e dell'ubiquità dello Stato amministrativo è piuttosto nuova. Il termine stesso è un'espressione lunga e non si avvicina minimamente a descrivere l'ampiezza e la profondità del problema, comprese le sue radici e le sue filiali commerciali. La nuova consapevolezza è che né il popolo né i suoi rappresentanti eletti sono realmente responsabili del sistema in cui viviamo, il che tradisce l'intera promessa politica dell'Illuminismo.

Questa nascente consapevolezza è probabilmente in ritardo di 100 anni. Il meccanismo di quello che è comunemente noto come “Stato profondo” – ritengo che ci siano strati profondi, intermedi e superficiali – è cresciuto negli Stati Uniti fin dalla nascita della pubblica amministrazione nel 1883 e si è saldamente radicato nel corso di due guerre mondiali e innumerevoli crisi in patria e all'estero.

L'edificio di coercizione e controllo è indescrivibilmente enorme. Nessuno riesce a stabilire con precisione quante agenzie ci siano o quante persone vi lavorino, tanto meno quante istituzioni e individui lavorino a contratto per loro, direttamente o indirettamente. E questa è solo la facciata pubblica; il ramo sotterraneo è molto più sfuggente.

La rivolta contro tutti loro è arrivata sulla scia della crisi sanitaria, quando tutti erano circondati da ogni lato da forze esterne al nostro controllo e di cui i politici sapevano ben poco. Poi quelle stesse forze istituzionali sono state coinvolte nel rovesciare il governo di un politico molto popolare, a cui avevano cercato di impedire di ottenere un secondo mandato.

La combinazione di questa serie di oltraggi – quella che Jefferson nella Dichiarazione d'indipendenza definì “una lunga serie di abusi e usurpazioni, che perseguivano invariabilmente lo stesso obiettivo” – ha portato a un'ondata di consapevolezza e si è tradotta in azione politica.

Un segno distintivo del secondo mandato di Trump è stato uno sforzo concertato per prendere il controllo e poi limitare il potere amministrativo dello Stato profondo, più di qualsiasi altro esecutivo a memoria d'uomo. A ogni passo di questi sforzi, si è incontrato qualche ostacolo, anche molti da tutte le parti.

Ci sono almeno 100 ricorsi legali in corso nei tribunali. I giudici distrettuali stanno criticando la capacità di Trump di licenziare dipendenti, ridistribuire i finanziamenti, limitare le responsabilità e modificare il loro modo di operare.

Persino il primo risultato del DOGE – la chiusura della USAID – è stato bloccato da un giudice nel tentativo di ribaltarlo. Un giudice ha persino osato dire all'amministrazione Trump chi può e chi non può essere assunto presso la USAID.

Non passa giorno senza che il New York Times non si cimenti in una qualche sdolcinata difesa dei servi oppressi della classe dirigente finanziata con i soldi dei contribuenti. In questa visione del mondo, le agenzie governative hanno sempre ragione, mentre qualsiasi persona eletta o nominata che cerchi di frenarle o licenziarle attacca l'interesse pubblico.

Dopotutto i media tradizionali e lo Stato amministrativo hanno collaborato per almeno un secolo per mettere insieme quella che convenzionalmente veniva chiamata “la notizia”. Dove sarebbero altrimenti il NYT o l'intera stampa tradizionale?

Tanto feroce è stata la resistenza ai primi successi e alle riforme spesso superficiali di MAGA/MAHA/DOGE che i vigilanti hanno compiuto atti di terrorismo contro le Tesla e i loro proprietari. Nemmeno gli astronauti di ritorno dallo spazio hanno riscattato Elon Musk dall'ira della classe dirigente. Odiare lui e le sue aziende è la “nuova tendenza” per i minion, in una lunga lista iniziata con mascherine, iniezioni, sostegno all'Ucraina e diritti chirurgici per la disforia di genere.

Ciò che è veramente in gioco, più di qualsiasi questione nella vita americana (e questo vale per gli stati di tutto il mondo) – molto più di qualsiasi battaglia ideologica su sinistra e destra, rosso e blu, razza e classe – è lo status, il potere e la sicurezza dello Stato amministrativo stesso e di tutte le sue opere.

Affermiamo di sostenere la democrazia, eppure imperi di comando e controllo sono sorti sotto i nostri occhi. Le vittime hanno un solo meccanismo a disposizione per reagire: il voto. Può funzionare? Non lo sappiamo ancora. Questa questione sarà probabilmente decisa dalla Corte suprema.

Tutto ciò è imbarazzante. È impossibile aggirare questo organigramma del governo statunitense. Tutte le agenzie, tranne una manciata, rientrano nella categoria del potere esecutivo. L'Articolo 2, Sezione 1, recita: “Il potere esecutivo è conferito a un Presidente degli Stati Uniti d'America”.

Il Presidente controlla l'intero potere esecutivo? Si potrebbe pensare di sì. È impossibile capire come potrebbe essere altrimenti. Il capo dell'esecutivo è... il capo dell'esecutivo. È ritenuto responsabile di ciò che queste agenzie fanno. E se la responsabilità si ferma davvero alla scrivania dello Studio Ovale, il Presidente deve avere un minimo di controllo che vada oltre la capacità di etichettare una marionetta per ottenere il parcheggio migliore presso l'agenzia.

Qual è l'alternativa alla supervisione e alla gestione presidenziale delle agenzie elencate in questo ramo del governo? Si gestiscono da sole? Questa affermazione non significa nulla nella pratica.

Per un'agenzia governativa essere considerata “indipendente” significa codipendenza dalle industrie regolamentate, sovvenzionate, penalizzate o altrimenti influenzate dalle sue attività. L'HUD si occupa di sviluppo edilizio, la FDA di prodotti farmaceutici, il DOA di agricoltura, il DOL di sindacati, il DOE di petrolio e turbine, il DOD di carri armati e bombe, la FAA di compagnie aeree, e così via.

Questo è ciò che invece “indipendenza” significa nella pratica: totale acquiescenza a cartelli industriali, gruppi commerciali e sistemi nascosti di tangenti, ricatti e corruzione, mentre i più deboli convivono con i risultati. Questo è quanto abbiamo imparato e non possiamo disimparare.

Questo è esattamente il problema che reclama una soluzione. La soluzione delle elezioni sembra ragionevole solo se le persone che abbiamo eletto hanno effettivamente l'autorità su ciò che cercano di riformare.

Ci sono critiche all'idea del controllo esecutivo delle agenzie esecutive, che in realtà non è altro che il sistema istituito dai Padri Fondatori.

In primo luogo, concedere più potere al presidente solleva il timore che si comporti come un dittatore, un timore legittimo. I sostenitori di Trump non saranno contenti quando il precedente verrà citato per invertire le sue priorità politiche e le agenzie governative si rivolteranno contro gli elettori degli stati repubblicani per vendetta.

Questo problema si risolve smantellando il potere delle agenzie stesse, che, curiosamente, è ciò che gli ordini esecutivi di Trump hanno cercato di ottenere e che tribunali e media hanno cercato di fermare.

In secondo luogo, c'è da preoccuparsi del ritorno dello “spoil system”, il sistema presumibilmente corrotto con cui il presidente distribuisce favori agli amici sotto forma di emolumenti, una pratica che l'istituzione del civil service avrebbe dovuto terminare.

In realtà, il nuovo sistema di inizio XX secolo non ha risolto nulla, ma ha solo aggiunto un ulteriore livello, una classe dirigente permanente che partecipa a un nuovo tipo di spoil system che operava fino a poco tempo fa sotto il manto della scienza e dell'efficienza.

Onestamente, possiamo davvero paragonare i piccoli furti di Tammany Hall alle depredazioni globali della USAID?

In terzo luogo, si dice che il controllo presidenziale sulle agenzie minacci di erodere i sistemi di controllo e bilanciamento. La risposta ovvia è l'organigramma qui sopra. Ciò è accaduto molto tempo fa, quando il Congresso ha creato e finanziato un'agenzia dopo l'altra, dall'amministrazione Wilson a quella Biden, tutte sotto il controllo esecutivo.

Il Congresso forse voleva che lo Stato amministrativo fosse un quarto potere sotto traccia e senza responsabilità, ma nulla nei documenti fondativi mirava a creare o immaginava una cosa del genere.

Se temete di essere dominati e distrutti da una bestia vorace, l'approccio migliore non è adottarne una, nutrirla fino all'età adulta, addestrarla ad attaccare e mangiare le persone, e poi scatenarla.

Gli anni del Covid ci hanno insegnato a temere il potere delle agenzie governative e di coloro che le controllano non solo a livello nazionale ma globale. La domanda ora è duplice: cosa si può fare al riguardo e come arrivare da qui a lì?

L’ordine esecutivo di Trump sul Dipartimento dell’Istruzione illustra il punto. La sua amministrazione è così incerta su ciò che può controllare, persino agenzie che sono interamente esecutive ed elencate chiaramente sotto la voce “agenzie esecutive”, che deve schivare e costruire barriere pratiche e legali, persino nelle sue presunte dichiarazioni esecutive, solo per sollecitare quelle che potrebbero essere considerate riforme minori.

Chiunque sia responsabile di un tale sistema, non è il popolo.

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

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John Leake.

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What can we do if Congress passes a bad law? For example, Congress mandates that billions of dollars be spent on aid programs to the Ukraine, the Middle East, and other troubled areas. Of course, we can protest or refuse to pay part of our taxes. But if you try that, the IRS will come after you. In this week’s column, I’m going to talk about a remedy for such bad laws. States have the power to nullify unconstitutional laws, so they do not apply within that state. If the Alabama legislature, for example, nullified foreign aid, the people of Alabama couldn’t be taxed for this purpose.

What is the evidence that a state can nullify an unconstitutional law? Let’s look at an actual nullification, the Kentucky Resolution of 1799, written by the most libertarian of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson: “RESOLVED, That this commonwealth considers the federal union, upon the terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as conducive to the liberty and happiness of the several states: That it does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact, agreeable to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last to seek its dissolution: That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who adminster the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy: That this commonwealth does upon the most deliberate reconsideration declare, that the said alien and sedition laws, are in their opinion, palpable violations of the said constitution; and however cheerfully it may be disposed to surrender its opinion to a majority of its sister states in matters of ordinary or doubtful policy; yet, in momentous regulations like the present, which so vitally wound the best rights of the citizen, it would consider a silent acquiescence as highly criminal: That although this commonwealth as a party to the federal compact; will bow to the laws of the Union, yet it does at the same time declare, that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, cease to oppose in a constitutional manner, every attempt from what quarter soever offered, to violate that compact.”

You might object that the Supreme Court, not the states, has the power to declare a law unconstitutional. This objection is wrong. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the Supreme Court the sole say on this matter. This objection is wrong as the great Tom DiLorenzo, the president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, explains: “Thomas Jefferson was alarmed during his day of the threat of judicial tyranny. He feared that it could turn the Constitution into ‘a thing of wax’ that could be ‘twisted into any form’ (Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Nov. 1819). Unlike congressmen and presidents, Jefferson noted, federal judges are ‘more dangerous [to liberty] as they are in office for life’ (Letter to a Mr. Jarvis, Sept. 1820). The federal judiciary, said Jefferson, was ‘the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine our Constitution . . .’ (Letter to Thomas Ritchie, Sept. 1820). Jefferson reminded anyone who inquired that the Constitution does not give the judiciary the sole right to interpret the Constitution. The executive and congressional branches, ‘in their own spheres,’ have equal rights, he said. As president, Jefferson freed everyone imprisoned by the Adams administration’s Sedition Act which made free political speech illegal. ‘I discharged every person under punishment or prosecution under the Sedition Law,” he said, “because I considered . . . that law to be a nullity.’ The ‘supreme’ court ‘Judges, believing the law constitutional, had a right to pass a sentence of fine and imprisonment, because the power was placed in their hands . . . . But the executive, believing the law to be unconstitutional, was bound to remit the execution of it’ (The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 154). ‘The judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government’ (Letter to A. Coray, Oct. 31, 1823). Experience has shown, however, that ‘they were to become the most dangerous,’ especially because impeachment was so scarce. Yes, government lawyers with lifetime tenure did usurp powers not given to them by the Constitution when they began pretending that they somehow were given a monopoly of constitutional interpretation, but this idea was strongly opposed for generations by Americans in every state. The Jeffersonian position on judicial tyranny prevailed, in other words. In addition to the congress and the executive branch having the right and power to make constitutional interpretations, Jefferson said that ‘I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves,’ organized in political communities at the state and local levels (The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 154).”

James Jackson Kilpatrick published a great book on this topic The Sovereign States, back in the 1950s. In a review of the book written in 1957, the renowned Southern historian C. Vann Woodward, acknowledged that Kilpatrick had a strong case: “Mr. Kilpatrick has no difficulty in mustering great numbers of instances in which states have imposed a check or a veto upon Federal encroachments. These ‘interpositions’ range from mild remonstrance to stern nullification. It is also a simple matter for him to demonstrate that ‘States’ rights is not a doctrine peculiar to the South’ and to show that every region and just about every state in the Union has at one time or another challenged or vetoed Federal authority. He calls the roll of ‘fourteen respected and honored Northern States engaged in this prolonged and generally successful interposition of their sovereign powers’ against fugitive slave laws, and adds the names of twenty-two Northern states who took action against the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. His favorite argument is tu quoque: ‘This is what you said then, gentlemen,’ or ‘This is Massachusetts speaking,’ or Wisconsin or Ohio. It is true that Mr. Kilpatrick derives most of his comfort from the period before the Civil War. More than two-thirds of his book is devoted to that period and half of that to the 1790’s, when the great Virginia champions of state sovereignty were in full voice. But he will not agree with Chief Justice Chase that ‘the victory of the North killed State sovereignty’ nor concede that Lee surrendered the Tenth Amendment as well as his army at Appomattox. Thirty-five years ago Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger published an article on ‘The State Rights Fetish’ in which he demonstrated that every political party in our history has appealed to the doctrine when out of power and renounced it upon gaining power, and that states and regions have left the same record of inconsistency. He concluded that ‘The state rights doctrine has never had any real vitality independent of underlying conditions of vast social, economic or political significance.’ Of course this is true, but it is not really very helpful. The point is the doctrine demonstrably does have vitality when the ‘underlying conditions’ are right.”

We need only one step more in our argument. We may think that foreign aid programs are bad, but are they unconstitutional? Of course they are. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress the power to spend money in this way. Let’s do everything we can to encourage nullification!

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As I’ve mentioned before, I have no idea why I still pay the slightest attention to politics. I derive absolutely no enjoyment from it. Changes that are absolutely essential never come. The changes that do occur just make things worse. And we continue to be “represented” by carnival barkers and grifters with capped teeth.

Behind these shameless frontmen/frontwomen/fronttheythems are an illusory group we still can’t really identify. Jews? Freemasons? The Vatican? I think it’s something like the Illuminati, but of course I have no real knowledge. I haven’t been invited to a single Bilderberg meeting, or all male funfest at Bohemian Grove. But as Truman’s Secretary of Defense James Forrestal told Joe McCarthy, before someone pushed him out of a window at Bethesda Naval Hospital, if there wasn’t a giant conspiracy, once in a while they’d make a mistake in our favor. The historical record shows that they have never made a mistake in our favor, except possibly the founding of the Republic, or the election of JFK. As William Henry Harrison said, before he died after barely a month as president, “all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.” That’s a pretty profound quote.

So maybe it isn’t surprising that Harrison, colorfully known as Tippicanoe, stood too long in the rain giving his inaugural address. He was old, and it was raining, or maybe it was too cold. So what else could he do but die in office? That quote I unearthed is probably unknown to 99.9 percent of Americans. But then, practically anything of real political or historical significance is unknown to 99.9 percent of Americans. We are a dumbed down lot, and almost all are historically illiterate. So here comes a Thought Criminal like me, trying to dispense real history- hidden history- to the public. That’s never going to make you rich, but it does provide a sense of satisfaction. The few seemingly honest political figures always seem to get screwed. Murdered, like Huey Long and the Kennedys. Slandered, like everyone from William Jennings Bryan to Cynthia McKinney. They will allow a Thomas Massie, just for their entertainment.

The People, at least the 70 million or so MAGA voters, are under the impression that they have “won” something with Trump back in office. I heard Alex Jones brag about all the “winning” that’s been going on. I must have missed that. The DOGE disclosures were great. But there has yet to be a single person held accountable for the 800 zillion or so in fraud that Elon Musk claims has been discovered. And I don’t see any benefits coming from the 800 gazillion or so that Musk claims has been saved. Trump has variously said that everyone making under $150,000 should pay no taxes, that tips, overtime and Social Security shouldn’t be taxed, and that the income tax should be eliminated. I just had to pay my taxes again last month. Trump even said he might abolish the IRS. Trump, if you haven’t noticed, says that he “might” do a lot of things. And then, of course, there’s that $ 5,000 taxpayer refund from DOGE.

The status of all these Trump promises is difficult to ascertain. That’s the magic of Trumpenstein. You just say different things that often are in diametrical opposition to each other, and no one calls you out on it. The mainstream demons don’t want to remind him of his suggestions which might actually make things better, and the MAGA people are simply stuck in the 4D chess, “two more weeks” mode. Big arrests are coming! Kash Patel means business! There were stories all over the alt media in recent days about how DOGE discovered that Clinton sycophant and probable cannibal John Podesta had set up a $375 billion EPA slush fund under Biden. I don’t know, but that sounds like it’s some kind of crime. Let me know when Kash Patel, or Pam Bondi, prosecutes him. Podesta’s bizarre emails were tied to the Pizzagate scandal, which hasn’t been “debunked.” Recently, by the way, the guy who shot up Comet Pizza was killed by police. Just another mistake that wasn’t made in our favor.

These stories flare up for a few days, and then disappear into the memory hole. Already, the JFK hearings have been forgotten. Now, former Rep. Curt Weldon, who never displayed any kind of independence when he was in Congress, has suddenly become a vocal 9/11 Truther. Ron Johnson is supposedly interested. I’m sure our “representatives” will get to the bottom of it. And with the recent “suicide” of Virginia Giuffre, the lovely Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s interest in the Epstein files has been rekindled. She took Pam Bondi to task again, because Pam Bondi doesn’t appear to be doing anything with all the juicy files she has had “on her desk” for at least a few months. It’s probably only me, but Luna looks even cuter when she’s angry. At any rate, the Epstein list is MIA, like all those American POWs we left behind in Korea and Vietnam. No one did anything about that, either.

As I drive around my county, which I’m told is one of the richest in the country, I see lots of evidence of things not being done. Perpetual construction that never results in any improvements, but does back traffic up with pointless lane closures. Third World- style overgrown grass in common areas. Buildings which have been empty for a long time, large enough to hold countless homeless citizens and save them from shitting on our streets. And ancient power grids, which result in power outages from normal rainfall and brisk winds. Keep in mind, the lines in our neighborhood are all underground. Yet when they were all above ground, subject to all that rain, snow, ice, and wind, we only occasionally lost power for a few hours during thunderstorms. It’s a technological advancement thing, you wouldn’t understand. Just like you never saw infections in hospitals when everyone was smoking cigarettes. But I digress.

One of the funniest episodes of South Park satirized the world of pro wrestling. They spoofed how the “action” now in most matches comes from the wrestlers “dissing” each other in the ring. Grabbing the microphone and unleashing another snappy zinger, as the crowd goes wild. That’s how our WWE politics works under Trumpenstein. He’s kind of the commissioner- the Vince McMahon- of our political world now. And he even appointed McMahon’s estranged wife Linda to head the Department of Education. I guess being married to a wrestling guru qualifies you for that. But then, Trump has vowed to abolish the Department of Education, so who cares? He could have nominated ‘Lil Wayne, one of the many rappers he pardoned, for that matter. Has the Department of Education been abolished? Who knows? Trying to find out anything that really happened under Trump is almost impossible.

Both sides in our laughable two party system have a reason to lie about everything Trumpenstein says or does. Mass deportations? Yes, he is breaking up families! Whole communities are disappearing! Who will nanny our kids in Spanish only? While the MAGA faithful shout, he’s cleaning house, just like he said! Promises made, promises kept! I still don’t understand the saga of the alleged MS-13 gang member who was sent to the mega-prison in El Salvador. Something about symbols on his fingers. I just can’t get that worked up about it, even if he was MS-13. I’m waiting for the millions that need to be deported to be deported. And not for taxpayers to pay El Salvador to house them there. Now Trumpenstein is reviving his old, ridiculous “touchback’ amnesty, which involves them self-deporting, and then being brought back in legally. What? Exactly what benefit do we get from that? I clearly don’t understand “winning.”

What about Elon Musk? And DOGE? Is he still there? Is DOGE still auditing anything? If so, what? What happened to the Pentagon audit that Trump approved? For that matter, what happened to the guided tour of Fort Knox? Lots of promises. How many were kept? Has Trump placed an actual, tangible tariff on any country? We hear bluster, constantly shifting figures, but what really was done? Has this crazy stock market roller coaster ride been the result of threats, rather than policy? As can’t be repeated enough, where Trump is involved, everything is unclear. This is your official “opposition” to all the tyranny and corruption, ladies and gentlemen. Instituting tariffs before rebuilding factories. Vacillating between pleas for peace and warmongering. “Mass deporting” fewer illegals than Biden. Name calling and buffoonery. Trump governs like the WWE Hall of Famer he is.

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problem with that is, for many decades, the government has contributed to the problem. Moreover, there are other, more trustworthy, institutions that can handle this sort of problem.

The birthrate in the U.S. is 1.6 children per woman, below the 2.1 replacement rate needed for the population to sustain itself without immigration. Up until recently, our leaders used this fact to justify the unceasing deluge of third-world migrants. Rather than address why the people who already live here aren’t having children, America’s leaders have been replacing the native population with foreigners.

The Trump administration wants to change this. They’ve been meeting with pronatalism groups and kicking around ideas on how to incentivize more Americans to get married and have many children. The New York Times published a report on this. White House officials are looking at giving a $5,000 baby bonus to every American mom after delivery, reserving 30 percent of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have children, and funding a program that teaches women about their menstrual cycles. The Times made sure to point out that the White House sees only traditional-style families as legitimate. Boo-hoo.

The New York Times published on April 21, 2025, an article about the White House’s agenda to boost marriage and childbearing among Americans.

It’s refreshing to have leaders who have respect for thousands of years of proven social science, or, as I see it, respect for God’s design for the most essential building block of society. It’s also nice to have leaders who want this country’s future to be perpetuated by the people who already live here, people whose ancestors built this country. Coming from an immigrant, this may seem like an odd and hypocritical position. But I have my reasons. First off, my family came here legally. That’s an important distinction. Also, we came to the U.S. fully intending to become Americans, while many of today’s immigrants don’t. And thanks to the rot from within, American pride is at an all-time low, even among the native born population, making it more difficult to sell immigrants on the greatness of America, capitalism, and limited government. The Biden administration, run by anti-American Marxists seeking to destroy the country, knew this, which is why they brought in 10 million unvetted, unskilled foreigners.

But as much as I agree with the Trump administration’s pronatalism efforts, I think they’re missing key pieces of the puzzle. Baby bonuses are great, but the reasons Americans aren’t getting married and having children are primarily cultural and out of its purview. The media like to say Americans aren’t having children because they can’t afford them anymore. But that’s not entirely, or even mostly, accurate. The groups having the most kids are lower income and wealthy Americans. It’s the middle class who are dialing it back. And while there is truth to the criticism that the middle class is subsiding the indigent, they’ve still got more resources.

The problem is Americans have become secularized, selfish, and infected with feminist ideology. It’s not that kids are unaffordable, it’s that having them will leave less money for vacations, regular shopping sprees, and $8 lattes.

Children also get in the way of the career-driven woman, which is what women have been told to be since the 1960s. This is one of the most impressively successful propaganda campaigns, given that careers are stressful and, more times than not, unrewarding. Women have been told it’s better to be cooped up in a cubicle or to get puked on my strangers while working at medical facilities rather than cultivate life and build a sanctuary for your family. Women have been told its’s oppressive and patriarchal to let the man bear the brunt of the cruel world at the price of a homecooked meal. Women have been told that every society since the beginning of time had it wrong until the feminists came along and enlightened us two hours ago.

So—where has all this progress gotten us?

For starters, more than half of liberal women battle mental disorders. Liberal women are the ones who take feminist ideas most seriously. While some are certainly made for the workplace, many more than currently occupy it are not. Women are maternal, nurturing, and creative beings who don’t compartmentalize well. When you drop them in a purely transactional setting, things can go haywire. But thanks to decades of brainwashing, many don’t even know they’d be better off in a traditional home setting. They blame Trump for their anger, anxiety, and misery.

Also, feminist lies have ruptured relations between the two sexes.

Half of married couples get divorced. But this only became normal during the end of the last century. Men are innately built to protect, provide, and lead. But the feminists tell women that following a man’s lead is oppressive and that they should be the ones in charge. So relationships are fraught with power struggles, causing acrimony that eventually results in divorce. The irony is that women in general, even liberal ones, still want masculine men. But they don’t realize you can’t separate the flour from the cake.

All this has culminated into a crisis. Americans are getting married later, if at all, and they’re having less babies, if any. And the Trump administration, led by a man who thinks it’s his duty to solve all the country’s problems, wants to implement policies that will reverse this trend.

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One of the world’s, oldest and most dangerous conflicts went critical this past week as nuclear armed India and Pakistan traded threats of war. The Kashmir conflict is the oldest one before the UN.

In my book `War at the Top of the World’ I warned that the confrontation over Kashmir, the beautiful mountain state claimed by both Islamabad and Delhi, could unleash a nuclear war that could kill millions and pollute the planet.

After three wars and many clashes, it seemed the two bad neighbors had allowed the Kashmir dispute to fade into the background as their relations slightly improved.

Then came the murder last week of 26 Indian tourists at Pahalgam, a Kashmir beauty spot, by Muslim insurgents.  Kashmir was roughly divided between India and Pakistan in 1947.  The larger part of Kashmir was annexed by Indian troops as the entire region was scourged by massacres and rapine.  

As a result, India’s portion of Kashmir became the only Muslim majority state in India. Kashmiri Muslims have waged a bloody struggle since the 1980’s to leave India or join Pakistan.  Today, 500,000 Indian troops and an equal number of paramilitary police garrison the restive province.

I’ve been under fire three times on the Line of Control that separates the two Kashmirs and at 15,000 feet altitude on the remote Siachen Glacier. I was with Pakistani President Musharraf after he tried to seize Kargil which lies above Kashmir.

The outside world cared little about the India-Pakistan conflict until both Delhi and Islamabad acquired nuclear weapons. Their ‘hatred of brothers’, as I called it, pits fanatical Hindus against equally ardent Muslims who share centuries of hatred and are being whipped up by politicians.

Right wing Hindu militants in Delhi demand reunification of pre-1947 ‘Mother India.’ Pakistan has about 251 million citizens; India has 1.4 billion and a much larger GDP.  Pakistan would be unable to resist a full-bore attack by India’s huge armed forces. So, it relies on tactical nuclear weapons to compensate for the dangerous imbalance.

But both sides nuclear arsenals are on hair-trigger alert and pointed at the subcontinent’s major cities.  A decade ago, the US think tank Rand Corp estimated an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange would kill three million immediately and injure 100 million. Such damage would pollute most of the region’s major riverine water sources all the way down to Southeast Asia.

Given the region’s poor communications and often obsolete technology, nuclear arsenals must be kept on high alert lest they be surprised and decapitated by a sudden missile attack from across the border.  Accidents are frequent. Anyone who has traveled across India knows about this.

India’s right-wing politicians are loudly demanding revenge strikes against Pakistan as PM Modi stirs up anti-Muslim hatred in India – following the example set in America by his new ally, President Donald Trump.  Pakistan is calling on its key ally, China, for support.  India and China are at scimitars drawn over their poorly demarcated Himalayan border –another legacy of British imperialism.

India claims Pakistan’s intelligence service ISI was behind the Kashmir attacks. Pakistan denies Indian charges. I’m unsure. A decade ago, as a war correspondent, I joined Kashmiri mujahidin guerillas operating against Indian forces.  At the time, Pakistan was quietly supporting the insurgents. I was extensively briefed on Kashmir by ISI officials.

Today, it’s uncertain if Pakistan is involved, as India claims. India, for its part, also supports rebel groups in Pakistani Baluchistan and around Karachi.  India routinely commits atrocities against Muslim Kashmiri citizens. Muslim Kashmiris have attacked local Hindus and Sikhs.

India just threatened to shut off the rivers leading from Tibet that nurture Pakistan’s wheat farmers.  Pakistan threatens to breach any Indian dams on the Indue River and its tributaries with nuclear weapons. 

Everyone wants beautiful, green Kashmir.

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The Trump administration has tried to cultivate a reputation for preferring “Main Street over Wall Street.” Unfortunately, this image is belied by the administration’s renewed push for artificially low interest rates and monetary inflation. By embracing these policies, Trump has put himself squarely in the camp of “Wall Street over Main Street.”

This is because a policy of monetary inflation and low interest rates favors wealthy owners of assets while imposing higher prices and fewer income gains on people of more modest means. The Trump policies of inflation and low interest rates fuels levels of inequality far greater than would exist under relatively free market conditions. This is because the low-interest-rate policy increases disposable income far more rapidly for people at higher income levels than it does for people at lower income levels.

Contrary to the longstanding leftist myth that poor people benefit most from cheap money, it’s actually the wealthy who most reap the rewards of low interest rates and inflationary policy. The assumption behind the myth is that poor people go into debt more than wealthy people, and therefore, it’s the poor who benefit when they pay back debts in devalued currency.

That version of things is false on every level, however. First of all, the wealthy take out loans far more than the poor. When it comes to home mortgages, for example, the top ten percent (in terms of wealth) has more debt than the bottom fifty percent. So, which group will get an outsized benefit from paying back debts in cheaper money? It’s the top ten percent, not the bottom fifty percent.

Second, easy money fuels asset price inflation, and that’s only helpful if one owns a lot of assets. It’s not so great if—like most lower-income people—one doesn’t own a lot of assets.

As a growing number of empirical studies have shown, the net benefits of low-interest-rate policy for lower income groups—when there is any benefit at all—is very slight while the benefits for higher-income groups are far greater. We’re forced to conclude that Trump’s current drive for lower interest rates and more easy money is doing little or nothing to help the working-class people Trump claims he represents. In fact, his policies are probably hurting them, and his policies are definitely helping to enrich the highest income levels the most.

The Empirical Evidence 

Strictly speaking, we don’t need new empirical studies to know that inflationary monetary policy, such as low-interest rate policy, favors the regime and its wealthy friends first. We can deduce this from the work of Richard Cantillon who showed that new money enters the economy unevenly and is most beneficial to those who get access to the new money first. Those who get it first can spend it before prices adjust upward to reflect the devaluation.

Those observations have been proven right, historically, again and again. But we also have more recent empirical studies to add some details to how Cantillon’s ideas apply both in the United States and abroad in modern times.

For example, a November 2023 study from Raghuram G. Rajan noted that while central bankers, national governments and other sophisticated financial-sector players clearly benefitted from covid-era easy-money policies, “the unsophisticated, and the relatively poor get drawn in at the tail end of an asset price boom, creating problematic distributional consequences that the central bank has some responsibility for.” Put another way, loose monetary policy created asset-price inflation, but ordinary people mostly just felt the effects of rising prices. Unlike the wealthy, they didn’t benefit much from the rising asset prices in their portfolios.

Another recent empirical study on the effects of low interest rates and easy money is Karen Petrou’s 2021 book Engine of Inequality.

Looking at low-interest-rate policy as implemented in the United States, Petrou notes the effect has been extremely beneficial for the wealthy. Because so much money has been injected into the financial sector, stock prices have skyrocketed, and the prices of other assets—especially real estate—have soared.

Petrou shows that if we look at the data, however, we find that this economic boon hasn’t done much for those who don’t already have robust stock market portfolios and real estate assets—the lower half of the US in terms of wealth and income. In fact, from 2001 to 2016, the median wealth of Americans in the bottom 80 percent of income earners fell. Trump now supports the same monetary policy behind that trend. (I’ve written a full review of the book here.)

Also of interest is an October 2023 article in the Journal of Finance by Asger Lau Andersen, Niels Johannesen, Mia Jørgensen, and José-Luis Peydró.1 The study is a very large-scale examination of household-level data covering the entire population in Denmark over the period 1987 to 2014. The authors conclude that while low-interest-rate policy clearly helps boost the wealth of wealthier segments of the population, the average gains for people at the lower end are far smaller, or in some cases “negligible” or “precisely zero.”

Specifically, the authors, write that that low-interest-rate policy “generally increases the value of household portfolios of stocks, but that these gains are highly concentrated at the top of the income distribution. The estimated gain created by a 1 percentage point decrease in the policy rate is around 15% of disposable income in the top income group and entirely negligible below the median income level.”

They also conclude:

The results imply that a 1 percentage point decrease in the policy rate increases disposable income by around 1% in the middle of the income distribution, which compares to more than 4% for the top income group and almost precisely zero for the lowest incomes

Although many advocates of easy-money policy say it fuels greater employment, the authors are skeptical of its benefits for the lowest income groups stating: “the results also highlight that the most disadvantaged groups, who have very low employment rates through the business cycle, do not appear to reap any gains through the labor channel.”

Even when lower-income groups benefit somewhat, the wealthy reap far larger benefits:

There are some clear winners and losers. When rates fall, disposable income rises for high and low earners, but it’s households within the top one per cent of income who benefit most. We found a one percentage point drop in interest rates boosted the incomes of these top earners by five per cent over two years, while the lowest earners saw only a 0.5 per cent rise.  Those in the middle saw an increase of 1.5 per cent in their income.

Taking all this into account, it easy to see why higher net-worth individuals, and of course, the financial sector, are always clamoring for lower interest rates. Lower interest rates are a boon for those with sizable portfolios. Those who own few assets, on the other hand, are lucky to eke out even a small gain from the policy.

So, when we see Trump pushing the Federal Reserve to further lower interest rates, we can see that he is coming down squarely on the side of Wall Street and the wealthiest households who so clearly benefit from ongoing monetary inflation and low interest rates.

If Trump gets his way and manages to get the lower interest rates from the Federal Reserve that he wants, he will be further widening the inflation-fueled gap between the haves and have-nots. This will happen as Trump and his inflationist allies consign working class and lower income households to more of the same slow slog through rising prices and stagnating wealth that has been—as noted by Petrou—so characteristic of the era of ultralow interst rates and quantitative easing.

Trump supporters, no doubt, will conjure up new excuses and explanations for why these policies are actually a good thing and all part of Trump’s game of 6-D chess. Meanwhile, the easy-money addicts on Wall Street will see their inflation-subsidized wealth balloon even more as Trump ensures our financial bubbles just keep getting bigger.

—

Asger Lau Andersen, Niels Johannesen, Mia Jørgensen, and José-Luis Peydró, “Monetary Policy and Inequality,” Journal of Finance 78, no. 5, (October 2023): 2945-2989.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

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My sister-in-law was born in Saigon just six days before it fell to the North Vietnamese Army on April 30, 1975. Together with her mother and siblings, she was one of thousands of South Vietnamese who were evacuated by helicopter in the U.S. military’s Operation Frequent Wind.

A few days ago, on April 30, her family attended a 50th anniversary ceremony on board to the U.S.S. Midway in San Diego to commemorate the evacuation. Local news stations captured footage of her and her siblings at the ceremony and featured a photograph of them on that fateful day fifty years ago right after they landed on the deck of the Midway.

Most of the men in my sister-in-law’s family—including her father—fought hard against the communist army of North Vietnam. However, despite their efforts—and the massive support of the U.S. military—they were unable to prevail. Why?

The most plausible explanation is that the government of the Republic of Vietnam was unable to counter the communist message that the Americans were, like the French before them, imperialists who didn’t really care about ordinary Vietnamese people, but wanted to exploit the resources of their beautiful and fertile country. In other words, the U.S. government had a credibility problem.

Intervening in the affairs of others—including those of the adult members of your own family—is always an extremely difficult undertaking. There are many reasons for this, starting with the fact that anyone who wishes to intervene rarely if ever knows precisely what is going on in the others’ affairs. Indeed, many people don’t fully know what is going on in their own marriages and families.

Thus, trying to intervene in the affairs of people who live in a foreign country 9,000 miles away—people about whom you know nothing and with whom you cannot even speak—is a formidably difficult undertaking.

This obvious fact hasn’t deterred Washington’s foreign policy gang from attempting to do this again and again since they lost their bid in South Vietnam fifty years ago.

Young American men who reached adulthood in the sixties were not animated with the desire to die defending South Vietnam.

Dick Cheney frankly expressed this in a 1989 Washington Post interview when he stated: “I had other priorities in the ’60s than military service.”

The natural tendency to have “other priorities” than getting shot in foreign lands is why the current U.S. government has found it expedient to arm Ukrainian men and encourage them to get shot instead of sending American soldiers into the fray.

It seems to me that anyone who has studied history could have known in 2022 that the U.S. government’s proxy war in Ukraine was doomed to fail, just as its wars in Vietnam and Iraq failed. This raises the suspicion that waging war is the primary objective, and not winning it. As Orwell wrote about the state’s war in Eurasia in 1984:

The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. … The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

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The Washington Post is reporting today that recently-ousted National Security Advisor Mike Waltz may have been involved in activities even more nefarious than inviting journalists onto highly sensitive Signal group chats. It appears that what really angered President Trump is less Waltz’s incompetence (or worse) in keeping sensitive military communications secure, but rather his taking an active role in doing the bidding of a foreign government.

As the Post reported, in advance of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s February visit to the United States the US National Security Advisor to President Trump…

…appeared to have engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump, the two people said.

That means that Mike Waltz was working with a foreign government to maneuver President Trump into a situation where war seemed the only option left to deal with Iran. That kind of manipulation is a classic neocon move and one that Waltz’s ideological allies managed with great success against President George W. Bush regarding Iraq.

According to one insider quoted in the article, Waltz, “wanted to take U.S. policy in a direction Trump wasn’t comfortable with because the US hadn’t attempted a diplomatic solution.”

That means the former NSA was working with a foreign leader to limit the diplomatic and military options his boss could choose from, i.e. he was working to hobble the United States so as to achieve an objective of a foreign regime.

The WaPo piece continues…

‘If Jim Baker was doing a side deal with the Saudis to subvert George H.W. Bush, you’d be fired,’ a Trump adviser said, referring to Bush’s secretary of state. ‘You can’t do that. You work for the president of your country, not a president of another country.’

To his credit, President Trump recognized that Waltz was blowing Bibi’s smoke at him and rather than bite at the trap sprung for him the President saw through the game and became annoyed possibly at both of them. The fiasco one month later, where Waltz claimed that neocon scribbler Jeffrey Goldberg’s contact information had somehow been “sucked up” into his phone and then presumably spit out again when it came time to invite top Administration officials onto a call to discuss military strikes on Yemen, may have been the straw that broke Trump’s waning patience in the man.

Last month, the Grayzone published leaked audio of Israel lobby AIPAC’s CEO, Elliott Brandt, “describing how his organization has cultivated influence with three top national security officials in the Trump administration – Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Director Mike Waltz, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe – and how it believes it can gain ‘access’ to their internal discussions.”

Was the Waltz/Netanyahu trap for Trump the result of this “cultivated influence” that Brandt is bragging about? And if so, how much deeper does it go?

Whatever the case, it’s lucky for Waltz that he was “only” acting as an agent for our Greatest Ally and Only Democracy in the Middle East . Otherwise he’d be soon enjoying the hospitality of Bukele’s All Male B&B rather than the rather more luxurious digs at 50 United Nations Plaza.

Reprinted with permission from The Ron Paul Institute.

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