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It is the final backup plan for a lot of us in the case of a disaster. A generous supply of cold hard cash to buy our way out of trouble, pick up as many last-minute supplies as possible or to acquire resources that are unavailable to anyone with a credit card in a world where the electricity is out and the internet is down. We frequently talk about having cash for emergencies, but how much cash should you have if the grid goes down? What will you be able to purchase with your doomsday supply and how long would it last in the first place?

One of our readers made a recommendation the other day to have between $500 and $1000 in cash for your bug out bag and at the time it prompted me to consider again if this amount makes sense. In my personal preparedness plans I have a supply of cash but I am always trying to figure out if what I have is enough or too much. Will it even matter when TEOTWAWKI comes and how can I best use the cash I have to survive?

Why do you need to have cash on hand?

You want to know the time when you will need cash the most? It will be when you can’t get to it. How many of you right now have no cash at all in your wallets or purses? I used to be the same way. I never had cash and relied on the ready availability of cash machines or most often the ability to pay for virtually everything with a debit card. How convenient is it to never have to make change or worry if you have enough cash when with the swipe of a card your bank account funds are at your disposal. This is a great technological advance, but the problem is that this requires two things to be functioning. First, the card readers and ATM machines require electricity. If the electricity is out, neither of these two machines works. The second thing is a network connection. If the network is down, even with electricity the transaction won’t work and you can’t pay for goods or get cash from your bank.

In a disaster, one of the first casualties is electricity. This doesn’t have to be due to some cosmic solar flare that has rendered the grid useless, it could be as destructive and common as a fire, flood, earthquake, tornado or winter storm. It could also be from simple vandalism or perhaps terrorism. A major fiber optic cable was cut in Arizona back in February leaving businesses without the ability to accept payments. When the electricity is out, you aren’t going to be able to access your cash via the normal means so having a supply on hand is going to be a huge advantage for you in the right circumstances.

Even if there is no natural disaster, you are still at the mercy of your bank. What if your bank closes or there is a bank holiday declared because of some economic crisis. In any of these situations, if you are dependent on access to money that is controlled by either technology or physical limitations like a bank office it is wise to have a backup plan should either of those two conditions prevent you from getting cash.

What is cash good for in a crisis?

I think there are two levels to consider when it comes to keeping cash on hand. There is the bug out scenario mentioned above where you would have some “walking around money” to take care of relatively minor needs like food, a hotel or gas. The second is for a longer or more widespread unavailability of funds. Let’s say the economy tanks and the price of everything skyrockets but stores are still open for business. Your bank is one of the casualties, but you had a few thousand dollars of cash stored away that you could use to purchase food, gas and necessary preparedness items for your family. In this scenario, the government is still backing the fiat currency and vendors are still accepting it as a form of payment. For this scenario having a few thousand dollars makes sense.

But what if we have an extreme event where the currency is devalued and is essentially worthless? Your thousands of dollars might only buy you a loaf of bread. Don’t believe it can happen? It did to the Weimar Republic after WWI so it can happen again. That isn’t to say it will, but you should balance how much money you have squirreled away under your mattress with supplies you can purchase now that will last and keep you alive during that same event. My goal is to make sure I have the basics I need to survive at home for several months to a year without needing to spend any cash. This way, if the money is worthless, I still have what my family needs to survive.

If we have a regional disaster where you can bug out to a safer location, your cash should serve you well. Of course if you are in a safer location, assuming electricity was working your access to bank funds should still be working. If this is truly the end of the world as we know it, how long will that cash you have be worth anything?

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A Wisconsin judge has been arrested for allegedly helping an illegal alien evade immigration authorities. The case has added gasoline to the fire blazing in the wake of several recent court rulings against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport illegal aliens more expeditiously than customary due process procedures would allow.

The administration argues the judiciary is deliberately obstructing its attempt to execute the clear will of the people, expressed in the last election, to reverse the trend of mass illegal immigration into the United States. Its opponents argue the administration is violating established law and basic constitutional protections of individual rights, especially the Fifth Amendment guarantee that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Both sides accuse the other of being “a threat to our democracy.” This has been a mantra repeated about political opponents for many years now, by everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Tucker Carlson. Carlson railed against suppression of free speech as incompatible with “a democracy.” Democrats wailed that we must “save our democracy” from their Hitler-cartoon version of President Trump, even after he’d left office.

But to paraphrase a popular 20th century president, democracy is not the solution to our problems. Democracy is the problem.

If Americans should have learned one thing, it is to be suspicious of anything the media repeat over and over, through every medium. And what they’ve heard night and day for the past decade, from conservative and liberal media alike, is some form of the message “democracy is in danger.” They’ve heard it so much that they’ve forgotten what it is they should be desperate to protect. And it isn’t democracy.

Before the progressive era, the American political system was generally referred to as “republican” rather than “democratic.” This may seem purely semantic and to some extent it would be if the Constitution merely described a simple republic. In that case, representatives would be elected by popular vote and would generally be expected to do what those who elected them want them to do.

But the Constitution isn’t even that democratic. Once elected, the representatives are not permitted to do anything the people who elected them want. They are limited to a short list of powers they are authorized to exercise, regardless of the supposed “will of the people.”

To make doubly sure they do not go astray, the first ten amendments to the Constitution specify certain rights the government is especially prohibited from violating, again whether a majority of Americans seems to want it to or not.

The enumerated powers, the separation of powers among branches of the federal government and between the federal and state governments, the bicameral legislature, the Bill of Rights – they are all there to thwart the power of the majority, in other words, to protect us from democracy.

Thus, it seems odd that every politician, every media pundit, and even most citizens refer to the government the Constitution describes as “a democracy.” Certainly, it has democratic elements, particularly the election of legislators (originally only the House was elected democratically by the people). But most of the Constitution is dedicated to restraining the will of the majority.

This is more than an academic point. It speaks to a fundamental question that most Americans would answer incorrectly: what is the purpose of the government?

Those who have internalized the idea the American political system is “a democracy” would probably say its purpose was to do “the will of the people” or some such rot. And who can blame them? That’s all any American has heard for most of his or her life. But that’s incorrect.

Both of our founding documents say explicitly what the purpose of the government is and it’s not to do any supposed will of the people. Jefferson was more succinct in the Declaration of Independence. “To secure these rights governments are instituted among men,” the rights being those inalienable rights previously referred to, which include but are not limited to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

These rights belong to individuals, not the people as a whole. Jefferson was in this passage “channeling” John Locke, whom he often referred to as one of the three greatest men who ever lived and whose Second Treatise of Government Jefferson specifically cited as essential to understanding “the general principles of liberty and the rights of man in nature and in society.”

Based upon this clear statement of purpose, all of the anti-democratic elements in the Constitution make much more sense. Majority vote generally determines who will run the government but not what the government does. The latter is set in stone and only alterable by a deliberately cumbersome amendment process. What the government is intended to do is secure the rights of each individual it governs.

And as the essay Jefferson cites makes clear, all of these rights are ultimately property rights. They derive from the foundational right of self ownership and as Locke put it, the purpose of the government is “the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property. The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.”

Much ensuing confusion could have been avoided had the founders stuck with this elegant concept of property rather than breaking it up into myriad, mostly unenumerated rights. There would be no question of any “right to healthcare” if Americans understood they have a right to what they own and nothing more.

One might argue that James Madison expanded the purpose of the government in his preamble to the Constitution, perhaps because he was a Federalist frustrated by the results of the constitutional convention. However, an examination of the preamble indicates it describes the same purpose for government as the Declaration.

“To form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” are all simply the means securing of individual rights.

Many proponents of an expanded role for government point to the words “general welfare” as containing this expansion. But they don’t.

We know this because the man who wrote them said they don’t. “General welfare” is merely the state in which the rights of every individual are protected equally. It certainly can’t describe a state in which the welfare of some people, including a majority of the people, is improved at the expense of others. In that case the welfare would no longer be “general.”

Former President Barack Obama famously said, “elections have consequences,” sentiment conservatives generally agree with even if they don’t agree with Obama on much else. But they’re wrong. Elections aren’t supposed to have consequences, at least not the kind both Obama and Trump voters believe they should have.

Again, elections aren’t supposed to determine what the government does. They only determine who does them. What the government is supposed to do is secure the rights of each individual. Period.

This misunderstanding has been reinforced by all sorts of false dichotomies presented to the American public over the past century. During the Cold War, the national security state mobilized against communism and did its best to regiment the public likewise. Now, communism is an economic system and it’s antithesis would be capitalism, or whatever alternative word one prefers for a laissez faire free market.

But that’s not the dichotomy Americans were presented with. The national security state presented it as a conflict between communism and democracy. Why? Because most of the cold warriors were socialists themselves and weren’t interested in free markets, laissez faire or otherwise. So they presented the conflict as between authoritarianism and majority rule. But that doesn’t really work.

There is no fundamental conflict between democracy and communism or democracy and authoritarianism. The Constitution recognizes the capacity for democratic rule to be authoritarian, which is the whole reason for the “checks and balances” and Bill of Rights. And the only economic system compatible with the Constitution, in its purpose and limits on power, is a laissez faire free market.

More recently, during the Biden administration, when critics of Covid mandates or other government overreach were being censored, conservative pundits like Carlson constantly repeated words to the effect “you can’t have a democracy without free speech.”

Again, this is a false dichotomy. Free speech is not an element of democracy. The First Amendment explicitly says free speech shall be protected from the democratically elected Congress. It recognizes democracy is a direct threat to free speech. Free speech, like all the rights in the first ten amendments, is an individual right the Constitution seeks to protect, regardless of the will of the majority.

The latest false dichotomy is between Trump and democracy. The political and media narrative is that Trump is a dictator who poses a threat to “our democracy,” which can only survive if his authoritarian impulses are successfully resisted. His verbal attacks on the judiciary and alleged flouting of due process rights is presented as examples of the threat to democracy he represents.

But the judiciary has nothing to do with democracy. The judicial branch was designed with judges appointed for life as a check on democracy. The Fifth Amendment was similarly written to ensure the democratically elected president does not violate the individual rights of accused people, regardless of the wishes of the mob.

In fact, if any “will of the majority” can ever truly be gleaned from an election, it is that a clear majority wants Trump to curtail illegal immigration. He is arguing from that position, using all the spurious arguments of the past century, including that the president is the only official of the government “elected by the whole people,” a concept Teddy Roosevelt popularized, on the premise that the purpose of the government was to do the will of the majority, rather than protect the rights of individuals.

The progressives are hoisted on their own petard in some respects on this point. But to make matters even more confusing, curbing illegal immigration under current conditions, in which taxpayers are forced to subsidize them in the short term and live under whatever government they create with their or their descendants’ votes in  the future, does protect the rights of individuals.

Had the original American system been left intact, its purpose to protect individual rights and its powers limit thusly, it wouldn’t really matter who chose to enter the country or whom they may vote for. But the systematic destruction of those limits on government power, all of which was done in the name of the government more effectively “doing the will of the people” rather than protecting the rights of individuals, had led to a situation where every new person who enters the country for more than a brief visit, legally or illegally, represents a threat to our rights.

Democracy is the problem.

Reprinted with permission from Tom Mullen Talks Freedom.

The post Democracy Is the Problem appeared first on LewRockwell.

Because of our strong Christian heritage, most Americans innately believe in being generous to their neighbors. Good neighborliness was central to our country’s founding ethos. Locally and nationally, there are a myriad of groups and organizations that provide support and assistance to people in need. This tradition is an important component of our culture. Consequently, much of our populace believes the United States government is a force for good around the world and an important contributor to world stability. This is a myth.

For decades, this traditional national embrace of generosity towards others has been used by our political and cultural elites to gull the American population into supporting many activities that are anything but generous, and often turn out to be extremely destructive. Over the years, there has been a continuous chorus from the leading elites supporting the false narrative that the United States is doing good around the world—the myth of the “indispensable nation”.

Since the Second World War, American ruling elites have called for numerous military interventions to “save democracy,” protecting some nation from communists, terrorists, fascists, or various reincarnations of Hitler. (Or worse.) The accusations are usually accompanied by shrill calls for the great and indispensable nation to act, to hold the line, or mete out harsh justice to the latest designated evildoer. This nonsense is cheered on by mainstream media outlets. Until recently, average Americans have not had access to any information which would expose the lies and hidden malfeasance behind these claims. Fortunately, thanks to alternative media, that ignorance is rapidly receding.

Americans are now beginning to grasp the fact that most of what we have been told about American foreign policy is materially not true, and that this policy is not benevolent. Contrary to popular imagination, the U.S. has spent decades directly supporting jihadi groups or condoning the support of terrorist groups by our “friends.” The Global War on Terror serves as a convenient excuse for interventions. It has been particularly useful in the Middle East to destroy obstacles to an expansionist Israel.

If we truly wanted to stop terrorism, one of our first priorities should have been to stop funding and arming such groups and inducing our “friends” to stop funding and arming them.

The recent collapse of Syria was a result of the support of the United States, Israel, and fellow NATO member, Turkey, for anti-government jihadi groups. The new leadership of Syria is drawn from the ranks of Al Qaeda. How is that benevolent or “acting as the world’s policeman”? We have been told for decades that Al Qaeda is bad and must be eliminated, and now in Syria we have direct proof of Al Qaeda and related groups being employed as proxies for U.S. “interests.” How is creating another failed state in the Middle East good or in U.S. interests?

It is time to stop allowing ourselves to be duped by deceptive claims of generosity and good intentions, and start to acknowledge and learn from the many disasters our country’s leadership has authored. Jesus told us “you will know them by their fruits.” The list of tragic disasters is quite long, but the following is a sample of the most egregious examples.

During the fighting portion of the  Korean War from 1950 to 1953, we killed millions of civilians, and after seven decades, have not officially ended the war. We still have thousands of troops in Korea hindering normal relations between the North and the South. Our troops enforce the blockade which contributes to the starvation of North Korean civilians.

The CIA’s role in the 1953 overthrow of Iran’s duly elected President Mohammad Mosaddegh was the initial cause of strife with Iran before Israel’s Likud government and its cheerleaders decided to start an ever-intensifying campaign vilifying 3000-year old society. (That same campaign has been successful in the destruction of the Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Syrians, and other disobedient peoples.)

In the Pacific, the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975 killed millions in Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia. Cambodia was so destabilized by U.S. bombing that the Khmer Rouge managed to seize control of the ravaged country and killed over one third of their population, on top of the people killed by the U.S. military. Most of what we were told about that war was untrue from the beginning.

Our bad behavior has not been exclusive to the Eastern Hemisphere. Closer to home, numerous American-backed coups and interventions in Central and South America caused instability that continues to trouble those regions today.

In April 1961 the CIA engineered and supported the Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba. It was a complete catastrophe and cemented the Castros’ control, ensuring they ruled until their deaths six decades later. The inexplicable U.S. blockade still causes suffering for the Cuban people.

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“Donald Trump ran on a platform of relentless, thoroughgoing rejection of the Constitution itself, and its underlying principle of democratic self-government and individual rights. True, he never endorsed quartering of troops in private homes in time of peace, but aside from that there is hardly a provision of the Bill of Rights or later amendments he did not explicitly promise to override, from First Amendment freedom of the press and of religion to Fourth Amendment freedom from ‘unreasonable searches and seizures’ to Sixth Amendment right to counsel to Fourteenth Amendment birthright citizenship and Equal Protection and Fifteenth Amendment voting rights.”—Garrett Epps, law professor

If Donald Trump is remembered for anything, it may be his unintentional role in reviving public interest in the U.S. Constitution.

Indeed, few modern political figures have done more to prompt spontaneous national discussions about the Bill of Rights and constitutional limits on government power—if only because Trump tramples on them so frequently.

Through his routine disregard for due process, free speech, separation of powers, and the rule of law, President Trump has become a walking civics lesson.

From the First and Fourth Amendments to the Emoluments Clause, the Constitution has never had such regular airtime.

Ironically, this might be Trump’s greatest legacy: forcing Americans to learn what the Constitution actually says—by violating it.

Unfortunately, Trump himself remains constitutionally illiterate.

Days after issuing an executive order that openly hints at martial law, Trump made a mockery of his oath of office by confessing his complete ignorance about the Constitution on national television. When asked if he needs to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president, Trump replied, “I don’t know.”

This is the same man who appointed himself Chair of America’s 250th anniversary celebration but seems entirely unaware of what that history represents. Asked what the Declaration of Independence means, Trump called it a “declaration of unity and love.”

In reality, it’s a fiery breakup letter—a revolutionary indictment of unchecked executive power.

If Trump had been king in 1776, Jefferson might have named him in the first paragraph.

To be clear, Donald Trump is not the first president to stretch, sidestep, or outright violate constitutional limits—Democrats and Republicans alike have done so. But Trump is singular in the sheer scope, frequency, and brazenness with which he has stress-tested every clause, amendment, and founding principle of the U.S. Constitution.

His presidency has become a full-frontal assault on the rule of law.

The good news is that Trump’s constitutional ignorance has turned millions of Americans into more alert and informed citizens. In fighting off Trump’s excesses, the nation has reawakened to the rights and principles that many had taken for granted.

Consider some of the constitutional principles that Trump can be credited with bringing into the spotlight unintentionally during his time in office.

First Amendment (free speech, press, religion, protest and assembly): Trump’s repeated confrontations with the First Amendment have transformed free expression into a battleground, making it impossible to ignore the protections it guarantees. From branding the press as “the enemy of the people” and threatening to revoke media licenses to blacklisting law firms, threatening universities with funding cuts for not complying with the government’s ideological agenda, and detaining foreign students for their political views, Trump has treated constitutional protections not as guarantees, but as obstacles. Deportations and detentions based solely on political speech have shown the fragility of these freedoms when power goes unchecked. Even when Trump claims to be championing religious freedom for Christians, he skates close to violating the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another.

Second Amendment (right to bear arms): Although often portrayed as a defender of the Second Amendment, Trump has shown an inconsistent and, at times, authoritarian approach to gun rights. He has publicly suggested confiscating firearms from individuals deemed dangerous—without prior due process—summed up in his infamous 2018 statement: “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” This disregard for constitutional procedure alarmed even staunch Second Amendment advocates. At the same time, Trump has encouraged the militarization of domestic police forces, blurring the line between civilian law enforcement and standing armies—a contradiction that cuts against the very spirit of the amendment, which was rooted in distrust of centralized power and standing militaries.

Fourth Amendment (protection against unreasonable searches and seizures): Under Trump, the Fourth Amendment’s shield against unreasonable searches and seizures has likewise become a focal point of concern. His expansion of no-knock raids, endorsement of sweeping surveillance tactics, sanctioning of police brutality and greater immunity for police misconduct, and the use of masked, plainclothes federal agents to seize demonstrators off the streets have revived conversations about privacy, unlawful searches, and the right to be secure in one’s person and property. Executive orders have embedded DHS agents in local policing. All of this under the guise of “law and order”—but without lawful justification.

Fifth & Fourteenth Amendments (due process and equal protection): Perhaps nowhere has Trump’s disregard been more dangerous than in his approach to due process and equal protection under the law. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee that neither citizens nor non-citizens can be deprived of liberty without fair procedures. Yet Trump’s Administration has repeatedly floated or enacted policies that sidestep due process, from the suggestion that he could suspend habeas corpus to the indefinite detention of individuals without trial, and openly questioned whether non-citizens deserve any constitutional protections at all. His immigration policies targeting lawful visa holders for dissent have pushed these rights to the edge of collapse. When asked if non-citizens deserve due process, Trump said, “I don’t know.” That chilling admission sums up his approach to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments: treat them as optional.

Sixth (right to a fair and speedy trial) and Eighth Amendments (protection against cruel and unusual punishment): Even the Sixth and Eighth Amendments have found new urgency. Trump has promoted indefinite pretrial detention for protesters and immigrants alike, while presiding over family separations, inhumane detention centers, and support for enhanced interrogation techniques. Trump has also doubled down on his administration’s commitment to carrying out more executions, including a push to impose the death penalty for crimes other than murder. What once seemed like settled moral and legal territory is now back up for debate.

Tenth Amendment (states’ rights): The Tenth Amendment, which preserves state sovereignty against federal overreach, has been tested by Trump’s threats to defund sanctuary cities, override state public health measures, and interfere in local policing and elections. His efforts to federalize domestic law enforcement have exposed the limits of decentralized power in the face of executive ambition.

Fourteenth Amendment (birthright citizenship): No clause has been more aggressively misunderstood by Trump than the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. His push to strip citizenship from children born on U.S. soil to immigrant parents (birthright citizenship) ignores over a century of legal precedent affirming that citizenship cannot be denied by executive whim.

Article I, Section 8 (commerce and tariffs): Trump’s use of tariff authority provides another example of executive power run amok. Although the Constitution assigns Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, Trump has imposed sweeping tariffs on allies and used them as political leverage. These actions not only undermine the constitutional balance between the branches but also weaponize trade policy for political ends.

Article I, Section 9 (Emoluments Clause): Trump’s disregard for the Emoluments Clause—a safeguard against presidential profiteering—brought this obscure constitutional provision back into the public eye. By continuing to profit from his private businesses while in office, including his newly launched crypto companies, hosting foreign dignitaries at Trump-branded properties, and his reported willingness to accept extravagant gifts, such as a $400 million luxury plane from the Qatari government, he has raised urgent ethical and legal concerns about self-dealing, corruption and backdoor arrangements by which foreign and domestic governments can funnel money into Trump’s personal coffers.

Article I, Section 9 (power of the purse): Trump has also trampled on Congress’s exclusive power over federal spending, attempting to redirect funds by executive fiat rather than operating within Congress’ approved budgetary plan. Within the first months of his second term, Trump empowered Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to unilaterally slash government spending by reducing the federal workforce and dismantling whole programs. He has also threatened to withhold federal aid from states, cities, and universities deemed insufficiently loyal. These efforts to bypass congressional appropriations not only violate the Constitution’s clear separation of powers but set a dangerous precedent for future administrations to govern by fiscal coercion.

Article II (executive powers): At the heart of Trump’s governance is a dangerous misreading of Article II, which vests executive power in the president, to justify executive overreach and the concept of an all-powerful unitary executive. He has repeatedly claimed “total authority” over state matters, wielded executive orders like royal decrees in order to bypass Congress, and sought to bend the Department of Justice to his personal and political will. Trump’s use of executive orders—both in his first term and now again in 2025—reflects a belief in unchecked presidential power. He has declared “total authority,” fired independent watchdogs, pardoned political allies, and weaponized the DOJ. Such behavior undermines the balance of powers laid out by the framers.

Separation of Powers / Checks and Balances: This has also meant a sustained attack on the separation of powers. Trump has defied congressional subpoenas, pardoned loyalists implicated in wrongdoing, and threatened to jail political enemies. In doing so, he has tested—and often breached—the guardrails that prevent any one branch from overpowering the others.

Historical Emergency Powers and Legal Precedents: Beyond these standard constitutional provisions, Trump has also breathed new life into archaic emergency powers—tools that most Americans associate with authoritarian regimes, not a constitutional republic. His rhetoric and executive orders have invoked the Alien Enemies Act to justify rounding up, detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants without due process. He has also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops domestically in order to deal with civil unrest, raising the specter of martial law cloaked in patriotic language.

In routinely violating the Constitution and crossing legal lines that were once unthinkable, Trump—who appears to have no real understanding of or regard for the Constitution—is forcing Americans to confront what the Constitution truly protects, and what it doesn’t.

So where does that leave us?

Thomas Jefferson recognized that a citizenry educated on “their rights, interests, and duties” is the only real assurance that freedom will survive. As Jefferson wrote in 1820: “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of our society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”

Still, what good is a knowledgeable citizenry if their elected officials are woefully ignorant about the Constitution or willfully disregard their sworn duty to uphold and protect it?

Jefferson again has the answer: “In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

For starters, anyone taking public office, from the president on down, should have a working knowledge of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and should be held accountable for upholding their precepts.

One way to ensure this? Require government leaders to take a course on the Constitution—and pass a thorough examination—before being allowed to take office. And if they violate their contractual obligations to uphold and defend the Constitution, vote them out—throw them out—or impeach them.

“We the people” have the power, but we must use it, or we’ll lose it.

Trump may have contributed to this revival in constitutional awareness, but as we warn in Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the challenge isn’t just knowing our rights—it’s defending them, before they’re gone for good.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

The post Trump Is Making America Constitutionally Literate—By Violating the Constitution appeared first on LewRockwell.

Since 1898, the guys who developed and executed U.S. foreign policy have modeled it after British foreign policy during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries—that is, a policy of meddling in the affairs of the rest of the world in an effort to expand British domination.

On the whole, the British were considerably better at global meddling to their advantage than the Americans have been. This was because the guys who staffed the East India Company and later the Foreign Office tended to be educated and deeply interested in the peoples (and their languages) they were tasked with dominating. Richard Francis Burton and T.E. Lawrence were notable examples of British army officers who were capable of forming real relationships with foreigners.

Since World War II, U.S. foreign policy has increasingly neglected diplomacy and instead relied on U.S. aircraft carrier power projection—that is, “Do what we tell you to do or we’ll bomb you.”

During the presidency of George W. Bush, this policy was intensified to “Do what we tell you to do or we will bomb you and then overthrow your regime and replace you with an American-compliant regime.”

That U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East for the last twenty-two years has achieved nothing but death, destruction, instability, and mass migration to Europe has not dissuaded Washington’s foreign policy establishment to change tack.

On the contrary, the guys who fervently pursued the Bush-Netanyahu doctrine of regime change have made it clear that they want to continue on the same course.

Yesterday in Riyadh, President Trump announced that he IS changing tack in the Middle East. His speech struck me as one of the most remarkable foreign policy pronouncements in American history.

Before our eyes a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence.

This great transformation has not come from Western intervention, or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits, like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, and so many other cities.

In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves.

In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins.

Peace, prosperity and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly. And it’s something only you could do. You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way.

I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgment, and my job is to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity, and peace.

Wow.

Judging by video coverage of the visit, Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud had a grand time together and announced several U.S.-Saudi deals in the technology sector.

Many have objected to the Crown Prince’s terrifying methods in dealing with political opposition. After he succeeded his father as prime minister in 2022, he purportedly let everyone in the Kingdom know that there is a new sheriff in town and that no one should even think about challenging him.

A remarkable upshot of this—perhaps because he let Saudi clerics know that he won’t tolerate any trouble from them either—is that Riyadh has, like Dubai, become a much more open, cosmopolitan city that welcomes foreign investment and is trying to promote tourism.

During his speech he addressed the Crown Prince directly:

Mohammed, do you sleep at night? How do you sleep? He tosses and turns like some of us. It’s the ones that don’t toss and turn — they’re the ones that will never take you to the promised land. Critics doubted it was possible, what you’ve done, but over the past eight years, Saudi Arabia has proved the critics totally wrong. Oh, what I would do for the crown prince.

Reading between the lines, President Trump is trying to encourage the Crown Prince to assist in working out a deal with Iran to create regional peace and stability. The idea, it seems to me, is to convey the idea that great times lie ahead for Saudi Arabia in developing prosperity and peace. The country therefore has so much to lose from a regional war.

Could Saudi Arabia—the birthplace of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam—play a leadership role in persuading the rulers of Iran to become more cooperative?

The Middle East is a place of shifting sands, so I don’t know.

What I do know is that most of the guys in Washington and in the U.S. mainstream media have demonstrated for many years that they have no understanding of the region or how to improve it.

Fox News commentator Mark Levin recently had the temerity to suggest that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, had used an anti-semitic language by stating his rejection of the “neocon element” in U.S. foreign policy circles.

Give it a rest Mark. By saying such things, you meet Einstein’s definition of insanity—that is, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

The Neocon vision—set forth in the 1996 paper “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”—hasn’t worked, so Witkoff and Trump are trying a new strategy in the Middle East. I hope they succeed.

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

The post Donald of Arabia appeared first on LewRockwell.

I have been wondering if the Trump regime’s peace negotiations are sincere.  The plan revealed by Trump’s envoy Keith Kellogg indicates that the negotiations are not sincere.  Putin, Lavrov and Security Council Secretary Shoigu, the former Minister of Defense, have all made it clear that NATO troops in Ukraine are unacceptable and could result in World War III.  So why has Kellogg supported, or arranged, a joint statement by the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the UK pledging “robust security guarantees for Ukraine,” consisting of “a coalition of air, land, and maritime reassurance forces that could help create confidence in any future peace and support the regeneration of Ukraine’s armed forces.”  This is certainly not the de-militarization of Ukraine that the Kremlin requires, and protection by NATO forces is the same as being a member of NATO.

Putin has brought this upon Russia by his and his foreign minister’s continuous bleating for a negotiated settlement. For more than three years Putin has avoided a military victory.  The explanation I offer is that he saw in the conflict what he thought was an opportunity to use it to reach a great power settlement, like the mutual security agreement with the West that he and his foreign minister tried to achieve during December 2021 and February 2022.  

Putin’s failure to be prepared for conflict with the West in Ukraine and his withholding of military victory has produced a dangerous situation. Putin’s toleration of a never-ending conflict has widened the conflict into missile strikes deep into Russia and the recent closing of all Moscow airports as a result of drone attacks.  This must raise the question among Russians of Putin’s effectiveness as a war leader.  One result is that the West has so little regard for Putin that despite his dire warning the West is planning to station NATO forces in Ukraine.  It would have been much better if Putin had gone about the business of winning the war instead of trying to use it to negotiate a settlement with the West.  The result of Putin’s failure to fight to win is likely to be a much wider war. See this.

Does the Kremlin realize that the purpose of  Washington’s “Ukraine peace negotiations” is to sequence Washington’s wars with Russia and China because Washington doesn’t have the ability to take them on simultaneously? Does the Kremlin realize that the negotiations are not sincere and are being used to extract Washington from the conflict and to substitute NATO in order for Washington to be able to focus on China, regarded as the strongest opponent?  It is clear that Washington regards Russia and China as opponents to be defeated.  Are the “peace negotiations” being used to cause wars, not end them?

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Foreign policy statements by the Trump administration continue to surprise.

At the end of January Secretary of State Marco Rubio made remarks that strongly diverged from decades of U.S. policy. He did away with ‘unipolarity’ – the assumed leading role of the U.S. in global policy – and acknowledged and endorsed a multi-polar world.

He set a limit to U.S. intervention by acknowledging the legitimate interests of others:

The way the world has always worked is that the Chinese will do what’s in the best interests of China, the Russians will do what’s in the best interest of Russia, the Chileans are going to do what’s in the best interest of Chile, and the United States needs to do what’s in the best interest of the United States. Where our interests align, that’s where you have partnerships and alliances; where our differences are not aligned, that is where the job of diplomacy is to prevent conflict while still furthering our national interests and understanding they’re going to further theirs. And that’s been lost.

Rubio wants to reintroduce that concept:

And I think that was lost at the end of the Cold War, because we were the only power in the world, and so we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem. And there are terrible things happening in the world. There are. And then there are things that are terrible that impact our national interest directly, and we need to prioritize those again. So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with.

That was a great (if very late), and astonishing insight from the U.S. secretary responsible for foreign policy. Especially from one who had been previously affiliated with the neo-conservative movement.

President Trump is currently visiting the Arab states along the Persian Gulf. His main effort there is to collect tribute in from of weapon and investment deals given in exchange for ‘security’. In that he is continuing the protection racket that has been a main aspect of U.S. global policy since the end of World War II.

But during a speech (video) at the Saudi-U.S.investment forum, he also entered new territory. He took fifteen minutes to laud his host and to rumble about his own ‘achievements’. He lauded the crown price Mohammad bin Salman and other Gulf rulers to then jump, twenty minutes in, into a critique of previous(?) U.S. ‘regime change’ behavior.

The White House does not provide a transcript of the 50 minute long speech, only short excerpts. But a full transcript is available here.

Here are the excerpts that point to new policies:

Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts of tired divisions of the past and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos, where it exports technology, not terrorism, and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together, not bombing each other out of existence. We don’t want that.

(Applause)

And it’s crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from Western interventionists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives, developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies in your own way. It’s really incredible what you’ve done.

In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity, and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.

(Applause)

And it’s something only you could do. You achieved a modern miracle the Arabian way. That’s a good way.

(Applause)

Trump goes on to touch on other Middle East countries (except mostly Israel). He lambasts Biden and Iran to then over a (undefined) deal with it.

At some point he is returning to the intervention theme:

As President of the United States, my preference will always be for peace and partnership whenever those outcomes can be achieved. Always. It’s always going to be that way. Only a fool would think otherwise. In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins. They loved using our very powerful military, …
…
I believe it is God’s job to sit in judgment, my job to defend America, and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity, and peace. That’s what I really want to do.

The rest of the whole speech is typical Trump. There is a lot of bluster, a lot of self-praise and tons of hypocrisy.

But the parts I have excerpted above are new. They, together with the previous remarks by Rubio, point to very different policy than any other recent president has pursued.

The speech excerpts published by the White House are nearly the same than those I have quoted above. It clearly wants to give them extra importance by promoting them apart from the rest of the speech. Who wrote the speech and who in the White House was in favor of these wording?

Will Trump act along the lines described in the speech? Or will he fall back into for the usual trot of an interventionist U.S. foreign policy seeking regime change left and right?

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post In Saudi Arabia Trump Rejects Interventionism, Regime-Change Schemes appeared first on LewRockwell.

VATICAN CITY — What exactly will Pope Leo XIV’s papacy look like? The American Pope has given signs of his personal priorities, citing Vatican II and synodality alongside missionary activity and resistance to atheistic industrial developments.

Offering his inaugural address to the College of Cardinals on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate was presented to them in sum. He may have been less than 48 hours into wearing the white cassock, but Leo already had his priorities laid out in mind.

Key themes of the new pontificate

Not unsurprisingly, given the focus of all recent pontificates and the focus of the cardinals, Leo highlighted the future as being approached in light of the Second Vatican Council:

In this regard, I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.

“Practically, such an action plan would follow that as set forth in Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium,” said Leo, as he pointed to seven “fundamental points” of the text.

Vatican Media video of Pope Leo XIV explaining his name choice to cardinals at the Vatican today. https://t.co/nykBBIuCPE pic.twitter.com/wCkyhbUx8y

— Michael Haynes (@MLJHaynes) May 10, 2025

These priorities seem to combine aspects of Francis’ papacy – with a focus on “synodality” – with more traditional aspects of the faith such as the “primacy of Christ,” which was an aspect Francis infamously downplayed in the latter months of his pontificate.

Leo’s papal themes include:

… the return to the primacy of Christ in proclamation (cf. No. 11); the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community (cf. No. 9); growth in collegiality and synodality (cf. No. 33); attention to the sensus fidei (cf. Nos. 119-120), especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety (cf. No. 123); loving care for the least and the rejected (cf. No. 53); courageous and trusting dialogue with the contemporary world in its various components and realities (cf. No. 84; Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 1-2).

Indeed this list is perhaps unsurprising. Ardent devotees of the traditional Mass will perhaps be uneasy at the high priority given to adhering to Vatican II, given the confusion and errors that have been pushed in the name of Vatican II. However, it is nevertheless to be expected that Prevost – ordained in 1982 – would echo the theme even of many more “traditional” cardinals in emphasizing the Second Vatican Council.

But it is a cause for concern for some. Bishop Athanasius Schneider suggested that rather than playing Vatican II as the cornerstone of action, a pope should remember that “our first complete commitment is to Jesus Christ’s Gospel. This is the first commitment of every pope, every bishop.”

Schneider added that Vatican II was always posited as “pastoral” and did not seek to promote “definitive teachings,” and hence should not be the principle way the Church understands Herself.

But Leo’s style, as suggested by many a seasoned Vatican commentator, looks likely to be one combing elements of Francis and Pope Benedict XVI. This was attested to by Leo’s use of quotations from Benedict’s Spe Salvi, to further evidence the primacy he is giving to Vatican II in his pontificate.

Indeed, the American Pope looks unlikely to limit himself to following the example of just two popes. Elements of Francis and Benedict are likely to appear – such as the use of Francis’ term of “synodality” along with the Benedict style of papal dignity – but alongside these it seems that Leo is attempting to emulate the charisma of John Paul II.

As priest and cardinal, Prevost met or served under all three of his predecessors – most closely, of course, with Francis as head of the Dicastery for Bishops. But his character remains his own, and though he will be informed by others, he will not be a carbon copy of his immediate predecessor.

Read the Whole Article

The post What Are Pope Leo XIV’s Priorities and Why Did He Choose That Name? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Soon after his election, Pope Leo XIV revealed why he chose his papal name, and he noted that the rise of artificial intelligence was on his mind:

I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.

The new pope’s comments should signal to every Catholic: if you aren’t preparing for AI and how it will impact the world, you should be.

It’s a cliché at this point to say that AI will change the world. Tech moguls and Silicon Valley visionaries proclaim the dawn of an AI-driven utopia with all the breathless wonder of the Second Coming: a world where disease is eradicated, poverty is solved, and human toil becomes a relic of the past. But here’s the thing: some of the promises of the AI promoters might actually happen. You don’t have to be Nostrodomus to predict that our world in ten years will look far different than it does today because of AI.

These changes challenge many people’s conception of what it means to be intelligent, or even human, and what man’s place is in a world dominated by machines. As people are driven to ask these questions, Catholics need to be on the forefront, ready with answers that diminish neither the dignity of man nor his technological achievements.

It’s a formidable endeavor: while the technological aspects of the AI revolution might be exciting, many of the philosophical views of its high priests are downright frightening. The AI movement is led by men who hold to presuppositions that directly contradict a Catholic understanding of human nature and our origins. If Catholics don’t challenge some of these presuppositions, we risk being overrun by a movement that on the surface promises a future far brighter than Catholicism but in reality embraces a deeply anti-human philosophy. If we simply ignore or condemn the movement outright—ignoring its promise to condemn its dangers—we risk being relegated to cultural irrelevance. Catholics bear the responsibility to be a sane, competent, and truthful part of the AI conversation.

So what is the proper, balanced approach? When grappling with AI, many people fall into one of two errors. The first is blurring the distinctions between man and machine, between the brain and the mind, thus catapulting AI to equality with humanity. Dazzled by AI’s ability to generate poetry or defeat chess grandmasters, AI optimists envision machines that are not just intelligent but truly conscious—essentially “human.” This error stems from a fully materialistic mindset and thus a fundamental misunderstanding of humanity’s unique nature. In Life 3.0, one of the most popular books on AI (endorsed by Elon Musk and recommended by Barrack Obama), MIT professor Max Tegmark presents a compelling argument for the technical potential of AI—alongside a horrifying view of reality. Tegmark is relentlessly materialistic: he sees man as no more than a collection of atoms, and so a lifelike robot, which is also a collection of atoms, can be defined as “life” just as reasonably as your child.

Yet as Pope John Paul II emphasized in Veritatis Splendor, human beings possess a dignity rooted in their creation “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26), endowed with a rational—and immaterial—soul capable of knowing and loving the Creator. No matter how sophisticated and lifelike AI becomes, it remains a creation of human hands—code running on silicon, not a being with a soul breathed into him by God.

This overestimation isn’t merely a technical misstep; it’s a philosophical and spiritual crisis. It reduces humanity to a collection of algorithms, stripping away the transcendent dignity that defines us. It sees men as no more than electrical impulses controlling a physical body—without soul or spirit in any meaningful sense. Equating human consciousness with machine processes disavows the divine spark that animates us. This is the greatest societal danger AI poses: a materialist worldview that erases the line between creator and creation, human and machine.

Thankfully, most faithful Catholics are unlikely to fall into this trap. But there’s a second error we must guard against: underestimating AI’s capabilities and ignoring the profound impact it will have on how humanity views the world. It’s tempting to scoff at the notion of machines “thinking,” but AI is already mimicking human behavior in startling ways. Artificial neural networks, still in their infancy, can already “think” in ways similar to the human brain. AI can solve complex problems, reason through scenarios, and even convincingly and eerily simulate emotions. I’ve found that most people who dismiss AI’s capabilities haven’t spent much time with them. The release of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022 fundamentally changed the playing field: AI went from annoying bots and unfulfilled promises to a whole new—and somewhat unsettling—way that we interact with computers. These stunning advancements can’t be ignored or dismissed with a wave of the hand and a casual, “Well, AI will never be able to do [X].” On the contrary, AI likely will be able to do [X] and do it better than humans one day.

Avoiding these two errors is important for Catholics in order to get to the heart of the issues surrounding AI, which are often more philosophical than technological.

Read the Whole Article

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In Wednesday’s episode of The Peter Schiff Show, Peter unpacks the Federal Reserve’s recent decision to hold rates steady, dissecting Jerome Powell’s latest press conference for its contradictions and disconnect from the economic realities faced by Americans. He also critiques ongoing trade policy blunders and warns that political posturing could lead the U.S. into a major economic downturn.

Peter opens by reflecting on the Fed’s latest move and the market’s reaction, pointing out the gap between Powell’s rhetoric and investors’ response:

Well as expected earlier today, the federal reserve left interest rates unchanged. The fed funds target remains between 4.25 and 4.5%. You know, I think this was one of the most hawkish press conferences that I’ve seen Powell participate in. You wouldn’t really know that by the reaction in the stock market. Stock market kind of, you know, just ignored what Powell said. The bond market did get a boost as you would expect.

Noting the mismatch between the Federal Reserve’s statements and actual inflation data, Peter takes issue with Powell’s assertion that inflation expectations remain grounded:

First of all, in the prepared remarks, one of the interesting comments– or more lie than comment– is that Powell said that inflation expectations remain well anchored and the Fed’s job is to make sure they stay that way. Now, I don’t know what world Powell is living in, you know, kind of like the Baghdad Bob world from the Gulf War because inflation expectations left the 2% anchor a long time ago. I mean, hasn’t Powell been paying attention to any of the Michigan numbers that have been coming out on inflation expectations that show, I think, one year expectations with a six handle and five year expectations have got at least a four handle? So we’re nowhere near 2%. 

Peter is quick to highlight how the Fed’s optimistic portrayal of the economy doesn’t match the underlying risks. He questions how Powell can call the current situation “a great place” when real economic indicators tell a different story:

How is Powell describing the economy as being in a great place? How is he saying that inflation is in a great place? How was he saying that the labor market is in a great place? It doesn’t sound like a great place to me. I mean, a great place would be that the odds of higher inflation are going down, right, not where the odds are going up… That would be a good place, but when you’re admitting that the odds of higher inflation are going up, that’s pretty far from a great place.

Turning from monetary policy to international trade, Peter addresses the persistent uncertainty around trade negotiations with China. He suggests that China would be wise to reduce its reliance on American consumers, who are increasingly unable to afford the goods they import:

But I don’t have a lot of optimism for these China trade talks. And in fact, what I think the Chinese may finally be doing is the right thing. They’ve been resisting doing the right thing for a long time because there’s always some short-term pain. Because the biggest mistake that China made, and I’ve been talking about this for decades now, was hitching its cart to our wagon. They tried to service the US consumer, supply the US consumer with goods, without recognizing that the US consumer was broke and really couldn’t afford to pay for the goods.

Peter concludes with a critique of protectionist policy, using a recent proposal by Donald Trump as a case study in economic misunderstanding. He points out the self-defeating nature of a proposed 100% tariff on foreign-made films—a move that threatens an industry where the U.S. actually excels internationally:

Probably the most ridiculous thing that the president said this week wasn’t even during that interview. It was on a post on Truth Social out of the blue. Trump posts, ‘I’m going to impose a hundred percent tariff on movies filmed outside the United States.’ A hundred percent tariff, right? First of all, the movie industry, Hollywood motion pictures, that’s one of our industries that we have a trade surplus. We export a lot more movies than we import. So movies, the motion picture industry, Hollywood entertainment, that is not a problem that Donald Trump needs to fix.

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

The post The Fed Admits It Doesn’t Know Anything appeared first on LewRockwell.

Yes, there is a fight right now among MAHA activists. Yes, it has to do with the announcement on May 7 2025 that “wellness influencer” and bestselling author Casey Means was replacing Dr Janette Nesheiwat as President Trump’s nominee for the office of Surgeon General. Dr Nesheiwat, it emerged, had misrepresented her medical credentials.

A post by former Vice Presidential Candidate Nicole Shanahan, without whose financial and strategic support for RFK Jr’s candidacy, neither he nor President Trump would be in power right now, has been widely circulated. Shanahan found it “strange” that a direct assurance to her from RFK Jr, in exchange for her support for his confirmation, that neither Casey nor her brother Calley Means would be brought to serve in HHS, was disregarded.

There is a lot of condescension — unfortunately, much of it male — that followed the expressions of outrage from key MAHA voices, many of them female. The @SecKennedy account on X called criticisms of Casey Means by MAHA voices, “absurd”. This is a terrible tone in which to address the serious concerns of a base that has fought for this leader and supported him.

Calley Means, for his part, Casey Means’ brother, has been insulting. He used sarcasm to assign to me, as just one example of the regrettable reaction to MAHA outrage, views I do not hold:

I never said, contrary to this unfortunate post, that Casey Means “must be” part of “a CIA plot.” I never said that “the deep state” had anything to do with her meteoric rise to national prominence.

I said — and I stand by every word — that it looks to me as if both Casey Means and Calley Means have been sent to us by scarier interests than the CIA.

Silicon Valley is scarier than any government agency, and far more powerful. The Means siblings, I maintain, are representing Silicon Valley’s interests, and not ours.

I said — and again, I stand by every word — that they both appear to be tasked with representing Big Tech’s interests in the rush to exploit the gold mine that is the pristine, valuable data — especially our private medical data – that is currently held behind secure doors by the United States Government.

I made this point in my February 12 2025 essay about what I saw as Elon Musk’s targeting of our data at that time. The essay was titled “The Sack of Rome.” I warned then that Musk and other Silicon Valley oligarchs were after this data, and that President Trump’s team did not seem to understand the grave and irrevocable risks this mission represented.

I knew then, from my own experience as a tech CEO, that Musk would certainly use his own AI or code (and not only our sovereign government-owned AI) on our datasets. He did, one month later. I knew then that Musk’s team would seek to merge the datasets of multiple agencies (as they sought to do, later).

Anyone who works with technologists would know that these dangerous, destructive actions would be inevitable, because of the value to Musk’s AI that training it on our datasets represents, and because of the value to Musk’s ability to create an “everything app”, that merging datasets from multiple agencies, would represent.

I warned in that essay, and also on Bannon’s War Room podcast, that the Trump administration was facing a catastrophic security risk, via Musk seeking out email communications from national security and intelligence agencies about “five things I did this week.” I knew that Musk’s goal was to create a database of those emails. Those communications, I warned, could be machine-read and turned into a non-secure non-internal database containing our nation’s most important intelligence projects. I may well have been right: “Three sources with “knowledge of the system” reported to NBC that the responses are fed into a Large Language Model to determine “whether someone’s work is mission critical or not.”’

In at least two cases, DOGE has either rewritten its own code into government AI, or it has hosted sensitive government funding activity on a third party — Microsoft — platform.

I warned on WarRoom about the terrible national security risk represented by the administration using any third party platform. I was worried then about Musk’s AI, and about Musk having fired those US government technologists whose job would be to warn about the dangers to national, and to information, security, from what Musk was doing.

A month later, the Signal scandal broke — and our vital national security secrets, including details communicated by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about the timing of a military strike in Yemen — were all over…. a third party digital platform.

How could the administration have been protected from these appalling security breaches? A third of the US Digital Service tech experts, the ones who would have understood cybersecurity breaches, had been fired via an anonymous email; 21 others resigned, in a letter to the White House on February 25 2025, that blisteringly warned that the data of the United States Government could no longer be secured:

“DOGE’s actions — firing technical experts, mishandling sensitive data, and breaking critical systems — contradict their stated mission of “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,” the letter states. “These actions are not compatible with the mission we joined the United States Digital Service to carry out: to deliver better services to the American people through technology and design. […]

We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” the letter stated. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.”’

The US government technologists who had been let go, or who had resigned, would have been the ones to warn the administration that Signal was not secure. Once the technologists were gone, it was DOGE who should have been the ones to warn Musk’s non-technical colleagues that Signal was not secure.

But — DOGE didn’t.

Hm.

This brings us to Casey Means.

Casey Means is a creation, in effect, of Silicon Valley, for the purposes, too, I argue, of plundering our government data, and of rerouting US health policy, to align with the interests of Big Tech; especially in the booming realm of biometrics.

Let me now re-cite the sections of “The Sack of Rome,” that explain why data, especially biometric data, is so very valuable to Silicon Valley:

“The Value of Government Data

President Trump and the MAGA team, whose leadership is almost all from the pre-internet generation, may not understand the financial value to Silicon Valley of Elon Musk having potentially breached these data already.

But the Broligarchs certainly do understand the value of this, a value so vast it almost cannot be described.

What Musk and his engineers accessed over their weekend alone with our data, is a government, of course, holding the records of the civic business of Americans; but in a digital era, evaluated inside of a digital economy, it is also an unimaginably valuable gold mine.

Imagine a gold mine filled with fully minted, priceless doubloons. It is not a gold mine to citizens, many of whom express their hatred and contempt for the government, including for its bureaucracies. But from the point of view of the Broligarchs it is an immeasurably valuable trove of the purest, most accurate, most pristine, least ambiguous, highest-quality data. Due to privacy restrictions and government firewalls, the Broligarchs have not been able to breach this treasure trove. They want it. They salivate for it.

Why do they want it so much? Why are they likely popping Champagne corks, that one of their own got the keys to this gold mine and sauntered right in, and may have unloaded, in effect, all of these priceless doubloons, intact, while the guards to the gold mine were (by government contract) not present, or overruled?

Here is why.

Silicon Valley has built and monetized almost everything that can live inside your computer or inside your phone. The technologists of Silicon Valley know the existing business models; and there are only so many video games and word processing or bookkeeping software tools, or home shopping networks and weight loss apps, that anyone wants.

The technology for everything that lives inside your computer, and the business models, are now well understood. The limits to growth are visible to the Broligarchs— that is, the limits to growth for products that live inside your computer or phone, or that can be compiled from the world of publicly available datasets.

That saturation is why they are lusting after new sites, mediums and matrices for digitization.

That saturation is why they long to build the Internet of Things, and harvest those data; that is why they want to put sensors everywhere in the built or physical environment.

That is why Columbia University has a data journalism scholarship at the School of Journalism, which includes teaching budding reporters about sensors.

Silicon Valley also lusts after creating technology that manifests in the actual environment; that is why projects such as Harvard University’s Keith Group, which houses Prof David Keith’s evil geoengineering experiments in blocking out the sun, are funded by Intellectual Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s key venture capital firms. As a book on the Silicon Valley investment in solar radiation management notes, “Intellectual Ventures has developed a large portfolio of patents in this area: A number of other private and public entities have also filed patents in the field of geoengineering.”

The financial rewards of digitizing, harvesting data from new untamed fields, and thus of monetizing your sky and weather, your body and its processes, your brain and mood, your built environment, and yes, your protected government data sources, and privatizing its vast technological functionalities, is why there is so much excitement from investors for colonizing these not-fully-digitized and not-fully-monetized spaces.

This Wild West is why the Broligarchs wish to digitize your body; why they push “wearables” and digital tech inside the human body, so hard. This is why there was more excitement in biotech journals than in medical journals, about the mRNA technology and vaccines, in which Silicon Valley entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, owned investments, and some VCs even patents. The immense investments already made by Silicon Valley investors, push policy demands for mrna to be bought and put into everything, even as the science around mrna collapses.

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, which protects your medical data, is an angel with a flaming sword now keeping the Tech Bros from accessing this most valuable and most continually refreshed of datasets, Americans’ constantly evolving personal medical records.

If implants in the body such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink, or digital processes in or around your body such as “wearables,” can be normalized, this — an app or device for which you give consent in the boring, no-one-really-reads-them “terms of service” for use of your medical data — allows entrepreneurs to bypass current HIPAA privacy protections around your medical data.

That breach then represents yet another new colony in the unvanquished Wild West of data.

Freshly minted national “Health Freedom” personalities, Calley and Casey Means, both own digital health companies that are based on data accumulation business models; Calley Means’ company Truemed sells apps for mental health tracking and for sleep tracking, as well as technologies that digitally analyze your gut microbiome (though, since my public criticisms, he seems to have removed from his website the device he had offered that tracks your actual brain activity).

When I sought to point out on X the data management aspect of his and his sister’s business models, Calley Means called my cautions “unhinged”.

Casey Means, the sister in this duo, is cofounder of Levels.com. That company’s business model involves securing your glucose levels and food tracking data. Casey Means has had an astonishing ride through the VC funding process, especially for a female founder, indeed for a founder with no track record at all in building and exiting successful digital companies listed in her bio. (Female founders receive less than 3% per cent of VC funding).”[…]

Because I understood the data-harvesting value proposition of the Means siblings’ business models, I realized early on that their sudden self-representation as grassroots medical freedom activists was absurd. And when, within weeks, President Trump announced, standing alongside Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a $500 billion joint venture in AI, “Stargate,” which would combine the forces of usually-competing entities Microsoft, OpenAI, Nvidia, Oracle and Softbank, I saw another warning sign.

I realized as I watched all this unfold, that while President Trump may believe that he has harnessed Silicon Valley, the real risk is that Silicon Valley has harnessed him.

The goal of the Broligarchs in suddenly out of nowhere embracing MAGA, was very clear. It was not just a predictable kowtowing to the new guy in charge; though that surely was an element. This embrace seemed mostly, to me, even before I learned of Musk’s time with our most precious data, what they call in VC land, “a data play.”

The Broligarchs were after the most valuable tranche of un-monetized data in the world — that of the US Federal Government.”

Okay: so now that you have refreshed your understanding of the value of our government-held data, let’s look at more deeply at Casey Means.

Casey Means’ main credentials are that she is an entrepreneur in the health space, with a highly valued startup, and that she wrote, with her brother, a bestselling book, Good Energy.

Let us start with her tech startup, Levels.com. I will argue that her business is an empty storefront, a misleadingly-packaged void into which value has been pumped artificially by some of the most entrenched, corrupt interests in Silicon Valley.

Levels.com, which Casey Means cofounded in 2019, is a company that tracks your glucose levels via a “filament” continuously inserted under the skin in your arm. Shortly after she cofounded it, Casey Means gave an interview announcing “$12M of seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz and angel investors including Marc Randolph (co-founder and first CEO of Netflix), Dick Costolo (former CEO of Twitter), Michael Arrington (founder of TechCrunch), and Matt Dellavedova (NBA player on Cleveland Cavaliers).” These big names came in for a founder who had never founded a company before, let alone a tech company.

The funding journey for Levels.com continued to be stunning: The company raised $38 million in a Series A round in April 2022. A $10 million Series A extension was raised, including $3 million in crowdfunding. Another $7 million Series A extension was secured, following the initial $38 million Series A. Levels has successfully utilized crowdfunding to raise a portion of its funding, including $5 million from its original $38 million Series A round. So to date, Levels has raised more than $55 million.

Look at who came in as founders: “Josh Clemente (SpaceX, Hyperloop), Sam Corcos (CarDash, YC), David Flinner (Google), and Andrew Conner (Google) founded Levels to solve the metabolic health crisis.”

So Casey Means’ cofounders are….Twitter and SpaceX and Google.

If a business was launched that told people, “You can stick a tiny needle in your arm and have it hooked up to the inside of your body continuously, and it will transmit your internal biometric data to your phone and thence to the Google, X and SpaceX guys for harvesting and tracking, including geolocation tracking, and then it goes up to the Cloud forever to be monetized in ways that you can’t control” — people would probably run.

But that — that — is the gold rush, the Mother Lode. They want to get inside your body.

They want that living biometric data.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Imaginary Casey Means appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Tulsi Gabbard’s Message To All Americans appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Jerome Barber.

The post The Climate Scam appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.  

Reason

The post The Federal Government’s 175,000 Pages of Regulations Turn the Rule of Law Into a Cruel Joke appeared first on LewRockwell.

David Martin wrote:

Global provocateur while pretending to be the “global cop“?  Former CIA agent, Larry Johnson, makes a compelling case.

The post “CIA and MI6 are behind the war in India & Pakistan” Former CIA Agent admits appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

https://modernity.news/2025/05/13/they-just-hate-white-people/ 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce82e67p8p2o

https://www.vfplus.org.za/latest-news/kill-the-boer-is-and-always-will-be-hate-speech-and-should-not-be-tolerated-in-a-country-plagued-by-racial-tension/

https://rmx.news/article/racism-is-only-white-anti-white-art-installation-goes-viral-sparks-outrage-at-frances-university-of-grenoble/

The post They Just Hate White People – modernity appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

I agree. Ban leftists from dog parks.

See here.

The post Let’s Make Dog Parks Less Racist – Mother Jones appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith.  

CJPME

The post The Blockade of Gaza – CJPME – English appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Responsible Statecraft

The post Terrorism’? Israel has weaponized the charge for decades appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

American Greatness

The post Bad Day Sunshine? Climate Dimwits Declare War on the Sun appeared first on LewRockwell.