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This article was written by Brandon Smith and originally published at Birch Gold Group

Ever since the days of Herbert Hoover and the official start of the Great Depression the concept of trade tariffs has been readily demonized across most of academia and among the majority of modern economic ideologies. Is is actually one area where globalists and free market economists tend to align (though each group has very different reasons).

Proponents of Adam Smith’s free market philosophy or Ludwig Von Mises and his Austrian school are Just as likely to be opposed to Donald Trump’s tariff plans as any globalist from the halls of Davos.

First and foremost we have to make it clear what tariffs are: Tariffs are taxes on international companies importing goods from other nations. These taxes are designed to force companies to import from countries outside of the tariff list or produce goods domestically. The primary targets of tariffs are actually corporations. The secondary targets are countries on the tariff list.

Austrian economists in their opposition to tariffs operate on the assumption that large corporations are “free market” entities. They also assume that globalism is a product of free markets.

Adam Smith might have witnessed the corruption of mercantalism, but he had no inkling of the monstrosity of modern globalism and how it would ultimately pervert the free market ideal. The same goes for Mises. Their support for global trade was contingent on the idea that government interference is always the root problem, the fly in the ointment.

They did not take into account the blurring of lines between corporations, governments and NGOs – They did not consider the corporate shadow government of Davos and the manipulation of markets in the name of “free trade”. They couldn’t have even fathomed the creation of organizations like the IMF, World Bank, the BIS, etc. at the time they came up with their economic theories.

After the Bretton Woods conference Mises would go on to question the motives of the new “global order” and the trade agreements being put in place. He would also oppose at least some aspects of globalism before his death, leaving Austrians to debate the merits of “good globalism” vs “bad globalism”.

The reality is that today there is no “good globalism”. It doesn’t exist because the entities dictating global trade collude rather than compete. They are not actually interested in free markets, they are interested in global monopoly. And corporations are the key to this monopoly.

Adam Smith criticized the idea “joint stock companies” (corporations), but there are a lot of Austrians and Anarcho-capitalists that defend international companies as if they are an inherent evolution of free market progress. This is simply not so. Global corporations (and central banks) are pure socialist constructs chartered by governments and given special protection. Their immunity to constitutional restrictions serves government interests and government legal chicanery serves corporate interests.

This is the opposite of free markets. I’ll say it again – Under the current conditions, global conglomerates are NOT free market organizations. They destroy free markets by using government partnerships to erase competition.

The covid event and the rise of woke propaganda in the US are perfect examples of the collusion between companies and governments to institute social engineering and erase free economic participation. Anyone not suspicious of these entities after everything that happened is beyond help at this point.

These corporations also act as wealth siphons; sucking up consumer cash in one country only to deposit it in other countries instead of cycling that wealth (after their cut) back into the economy they rely on for sales. In other words, global corporations act as a kind of wealth redistribution machine that takes money and jobs from Americans and spreads them around the world to the detriment of the American public.

As the middlemen of this wealth redistribution scheme, companies generate vast profits while people on both sides of the exchange get very little in return. Mexico might seem like it benefits from the NAFTA trade imbalances, but this is a mistake – The Mexican people and their standard of living enjoy minimal benefits; the companies that use them for labor get the advantage, along with some government officials on the take.

In turn, US GDP and our supposed national wealth continues to rise due to global corporations. But the majority of that wealth increase is not going to Americans, it’s going to the .0001% of elites. The longer globalism carries on the wider the wealth gap becomes. This is an undeniable fact and I think people on the left and the right mostly agree on this issue, but nobody wants to make the hard decisions and do something about it.

Leftists think bigger government and more regulation is the answer. Conservatives think smaller government and less regulation is the answer. Conservatives are closer to the mark, but neither solution confronts the core problem of collusion between governments and conglomerates.

Keep in mind, the US operated on tariffs for hundreds of years.  The “T-word” did not become a bad word until the creation of corporations, the Federal Reserve system and the income tax.

So, I stand with my Austrian School economist friends on most things, but when they cry foul on Trump’s tariffs I have to remind them that the situation is not as simple as “government interference bad”. The current system is long overdue for a course correction and fiscal Libertarianism is not going to provide it.  They think they’re defending free markets, but they’re not.

Another key problem of globalism is forced interdependency. If each nation is producing an ample supply of their own necessary resources, they have resilient domestic job creation, and they decide to trade excess goods with each other then global markets make sense. But, what happens then when each nation is pressured though trade agreements to rely on every other nation for the basic economic needs of their populace?

Then we must reexamine the value of globalism in general.

International economic interdependency is a form of slavery, especially when corporations and NGO middlemen are involved. Only resource redundancy and localism foster true free markets and individual liberty. Tariffs can help to energize local production and trade and make communities more self reliant. That said, there’s going to be a cost.

The comparisons made between Donald Trump and Herbert Hoover are rampant and have been since 2016. I warned during Trump’s first term that accelerating fiscal decline and growing stagflation could be dropped in his lap and blamed on conservative policies. That is to say, anti-globalism would be blamed for the financial destruction caused by globalists. I continue to believe that this agenda is still in play.

Hoover was blamed for exacerbating the Great Depression in 1930 with his Smoot-Hawley tariffs. In truth, the Great Depression spread because of a series of policy decisions by major banks and rate hikes by the Federal Reserve (Former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted to this openly in 2002). At the time it didn’t matter who caused it – Hoover was president and so he was the scapegoat.

The same situation could happen for Trump if he’s not careful, and all conservatives will be blamed by extension. It’s important to remember that US production has been hollowed out by decades of government interference supporting globalization, along with unchallenged corporate power. Reining in corporations with tariffs is not going to be enough, there must also be incentives to reverse the damage done by decades of government corruption.

I can’t think of any other way to rebuild America’s production base fast enough to counter the price increases that will inevitably come with tariffs. Defeating inflation would require an unprecedented national effort to bring back manufacturing specifically for necessities. Tariffs by themselves are not going to make this happen.

We need mass goods, energy and housing NOW, not several years from now. Otherwise, in the long run tariffs will only make the situation worse.  Libertarians are right to warn of negative effects on American consumers, but the solution is not to let corporations do whatever they please and for globalism to continue unchallenged.  The solution is to break globalism and return to a domestically independent model.

Finally, there’s the issue of the dollar and its world reserve status. After Bretton Woods the great unspoken arrangement was that America would act as the military pillar of the western world (and apparently the consumer cash cow of the world). In exchange, the US would enjoy the advantages of having the world reserve currency.

What advantages? Namely, the dollar could be printed well beyond any other currency for decades without suffering the immediate effects of hyperinflation because most of those dollars would be held overseas. The breakup of NATO and a trade war might trigger the end of this arrangement. Meaning, all those dollars held in foreign banks could come flooding back into the US and cause egregious inflation.

Reserve status has long been the Achilles Heel of the US and it must end eventually. Just take note that globalists have been preparing for this shift since at least 2008 with the SDR basket and CBDCs.  This past week the EU announced they will be distributing retail CBDCs by the end of this year.  They know what’s coming.  A trade war will not only require the Trump Administration to facilitate increased domestic production, but also facilitate a new commodity backed currency system to protect against the fall of the dollar.

In the meantime, individual citizens and communities are going to have to prepare as globalism breaks down. This means local production of goods, retailers seeking out local suppliers, people trading goods and services through barter networks, etc. State leaders should consider introducing commodity backed scrip to offset any potential damage to the dollar. They should also open up more natural resources to improve local industry.

There’s a lot to do, and not much time to do it.

Reprinted with permission from Alt-Market.us.

The post Trade War: Tariffs Are Needed To Defeat Globalism But They Come With a Cost appeared first on LewRockwell.

In the past few days, violence and mass killings of Christians and Alawites in Syria have seen an unprecedented upsurge, with thousands of deaths in all regions under the control of the extremist Islamic movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant), affiliated with the terrorist group al-Qaeda.

The reasons for this persecution of the two minorities by the Syrian government are to be found first and foremost in the regime change desired by the previous American administration, in agreement with NATO and the European Union.

The ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and the installation of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (whose party was until yesterday considered by the American State Department to be a terrorist organization) have inevitably led to the genocide of the Alawites and Syrian Christians.

This genocide is taking place today right before our eyes, even as the parliaments of the “democratic” nations and the “Catholic” hierarchy subservient to the interests of globalism remain silent.

Our Christian brothers are being barbarically killed in cities and villages. Elderly people, women, and children are being crucified and massacred purely because of their Christian faith: a faith that decades of compromises and concessions have almost completely erased in Western countries and especially among their leaders.

And while the warmongering madness of international high finance is trying to persuade European nations to finance rearmament against the Russian Federation and to be ready to sacrifice our children in a reckless and specious war, on the Syrian front (but also in Gaza, where other Christians are being ethnically cleansed) the hierarchs of globalism are culpably silent, and indeed they are aligning themselves with a criminal terrorist on whom a $10 million bounty was hanging.

It is from the globalist deep state in the United States that this new hotbed of violence and extermination has been hatched: it is therefore from the United States that an action aimed at putting an end to the genocide of Christians and other minorities in Syria must start. At their side must stand all those who recognize Our Lord Jesus Christ as the only savior, both individuals as well as societies and nations.

We cannot remain silent or inert in the face of the martyrdom of our Christian brothers. Those scenes of inhuman violence and cruelty that we see happening in remote lands could tomorrow be replicated in our own Western nations, which the betrayal of corrupt rulers has caused to be invaded by hordes of fanatical Mohammedans of military age, in order to impose on Europe ethnic substitution and the definitive cancellation of Christian civilization.

I urge Catholics, during these days of Holy Lent, to pray, fast, and do penance to implore from Heaven protection for the faithful who are being persecuted and martyred in Syria, Gaza, and many other parts of the world.

May their example of heroic steadfastness in the profession of the true faith animate, before it is too late, an awakening of the consciences of Christians and a return to God, on whom the peace, harmony, and prosperity of peoples depends. Deus vult!

This originally appeared on Lifesite News.

The post US-NATO Regime Change Has Sparked a Christian Genocide in Syria appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Trump administration has decided to resume the provision of weapons and intelligence to Ukraine. It is thus aiming at escalating the conflict.

The outcome of yesterday’s talk between a Ukrainian and a U.S. delegation Saudi Arabia was not completely in favor of the European/Ukrainian idea of a 30 day ceasefire restricted to air and sea attacks. But it opened the desired pathway to prolonging the war.

The U.S. asked the Ukrainians to accept a 30 day long ceasefire offer. This would of course only be implemented if the Russian side agrees to it. Meanwhile the U.S. resumes all war support for Ukraine. The outcome demonstrates weakness on the U.S. side:

According to the latest from Riyadh, Ukraine says it is ready for a 30 day cease fire. If this is what Washington “extracted” from the Ukrainians, it is operationally meaningless. With Russia on the brink of winning in Kursk and elsewhere, the Russians won’t accept any such deal. If it is a ruse to allow the US to resume arms shipments to Ukraine, knowing Russia will reject it, the so-called peace initiative is a dead letter.

‘The ball is now in Russia’s court’ was the media slogan launched by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and obediently repeated by various European underlings.

But why would or should Russia agree to this when the idea seems to be to trap Russia:

This marks a significant shift in the US approach to ending the conflict. Previously, Washington sought to pressure Ukraine into accepting a US- and Russia-brokered deal largely on Moscow’s terms. Now, America is attempting to strong-arm Russia into accepting a ceasefire as the first step toward a broader peace plan — warning that if Moscow refuses, “we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here”, as Rubio put it.

Whether Russia will agree remains uncertain. Moscow has repeatedly stated that it does not view a ceasefire as viable without a broader framework for negotiations. But the parties are far from agreeing on this broader framework. Russia’s demands are clear: above all, legal recognition by Ukraine and the West of Russia’s annexed territories as part of the Russian Federation.

The u-turn by the Trump administration, from pressure on Ukraine to new bellicosity to Russia, leaves a question:

So what does the Trump Administration think it is doing by retying the Ukraine millstone to its neck? This isn’t Trump’s war. The Oval Office row provided him with the perfect excuse to cut Zelensky loose, even put new elections as the condition for providing much help, and provide only bare bones support (not that the US could do more than that on the weapons front) so as to blunt criticism that the US was abandoning Ukraine, as opposed to getting them to sober up about their true condition.

Yves Smith, quoted above, sees four potential reasons:

• the U.S. really believes that Russia is in a bad shape economically,
• the U.S. really believes that Russia would and wants to profit from a ceasefire,
• the neocons (i.e. Marco Rubio and the Europeans) have played Trump,

or (most likely):

Finally, Trump may, even more than before, be in “All tactics and no strategy is the noise before the defeat” mode. It is becoming more and more apparent that his top priority is dominating any interaction, no matter whether that advances any long term aim. Trump and his allies derived pleasure from beating up on Zelensky during and after the White House row. Even though Zelensky asked for it (at a minimum by not donning a suit), what did the US gain? Zelensky ran around Europe, getting support that bolstered him at home. The US, despite holding the cards, got bupkis in Riyadh aside from some optics.

Since 2014 the Ukrainian side has multiple times agreed to this or that ceasefire after its forces received a strong beating. It also immediately broke each of its promises. The defeat of its incursion into the Kursk region of Russia will have motivated it to accept the U.S. position. But what force could make it stick to a ceasefire if Russia would agree to one?

The current situation on the battle field is very much in Russia’s favor. Any pause in fighting would allow the U.S. and its allies to accumulate more arms and ammunition for Ukraine. Russian forces are well supplied and not in need of a break in the fighting. Should the Russian leadership agree to a pause it would open itself to considerable critique from Russian nationalists and hardliners.

Russia, at the same time, wants to keep its friends in China and the Global South on its side. Pressure from them is the only reason I can think of that might push Russia into accepting a temporary ceasefire deal. But there has been no public noise in this direction from China or other BRICS and Global South countries so far.

Russia has yet to receive the official result of the U.S.-Ukrainian talks. It will not react to media noise before having read those.

—
Recently three U.S. bloggers, Judge Napolitano, Larry Johnson and Mario Nawfal, had an interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (video, transcript). It is as always refreshing to follow Lavrov’s reality based reasoning about the conflict over Ukraine.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post Trump Opts For More War With Russia appeared first on LewRockwell.

Why They’re Suddenly Preppers

It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes, but an even wiser man to learn from others. 

The super-rich, major corporations, and fund managers are circling their wagons right now and are in full-blown protect their “assets” mode.  If you follow the flow of money, you also have a good indicator of how the future will play out for the common person.  You won’t know the actual conclusions because anything could happen, but you will know the possible outcomes.  These massive wealth holders have gotten to where they are by understanding and overcoming the threats they’ve faced.  They are unique positions to look a bit over the horizon, and they’re driving us all, sometimes kicking and screaming, to where they want us to go.  They are also particularly averse to loss.  Their goal for themselves and their investors is to maximize profits at any cost while reducing costs.  Survive and maximize, you might say, just like a prepper.

In this blog, we will examine what the ultra-rich are currently doing, how this could impact your future, and what you should be doing now to prepare if anything.

What are they doing?

The wealthy are buying land, energy, and water.  According to at least one article this week, the ultra-rich are also looking to build bunkers and purchase private land and mercenary security forces to get them through the next unknown disaster.  They are looking to preserve assets simultaneously as they are staring at a prolonged global recession and currency slowing and decreasing in value.  Traditionally, this has driven investors into bonds or precious metals, and some of that is still going on; however, with whole economies teetering on the brink of a more significant decline, bonds aren’t yielding much return.

Investments in precious metals occurred in the run-up to the current economic crisis and through the COVID lockdowns, so they are still riding all-time historical highs.  Now, the money is flowing to the most stable assets–resources in the form of land, water, and energy.  During the 2020 market crash, the wealthy came out ahead the following year, doubling their asset ownership. The rich buy assets when when everyone else is selling, and this year is no exception.

These are the three things you are always going to need to survive.  We have previously done a blog on the rich buying up farming land and water resources, and we will link to those two blogs at the end of this one because they are still valid.  To see how the future will likely play out, you must look at where these ultra-rich are pumping their money.  That’s what will get protected and promulgated.  In addition to those big two of land and water resources, the rich are investing in alternative energy because they know that the fossil-based system is an increasingly unreliable and inconsistent profit generator.  Companies like Tesla, Lucid, and Rivian, makers of electric vehicles, are doing well.  With countries reeling from inflation and rising energy costs, government policies also reflect a move toward renewable energies with the added benefit of severing their dependencies on foreign energy sources, a problem Europe is currently facing.

Policy often mirrors the desires and investments of the wealthier citizens, so expect incentives and tax breaks favoring renewables.  As we pointed out in earlier videos, oil and natural gas are currently being used as a weapon of war, with OPEC+ and Russia scaling back output to keep the price of a barrel of oil high.  Meanwhile, Russia sells to China, which then sells to the world to circumnavigate sanctions and keep the money flowing.  There’s too much potential for sanctions, seizures, and policy for intelligent, wealthy investors to sink too much capital into this industry.

As an alternative to gold and to combat inflation, the ultra-rich are also taking advantage of the low prices of crypto and possibly suffering through their losses in that market by doubling down on significant cryptocurrencies.  It’s in these moments when others are fleeing markets that the wealthy come in and scoop up assets at discounted prices.  Wealth is built in bear markets.

It’s not so much the “what” they are investing in here as it is the “why” they are investing this way.  Again, whole economies are teetering on the precipice of a more significant decline.  At least some economies will probably collapse in the coming years.  If you watched our recent video on China’s economic collapse avoidance we released a few weeks ago, you’ll see what a house of cards the world economy really is right now.  Already there are a few countries with CBDCs – Central Bank Digital Currency, and even more, governments are exploring moving their currency to a digital coin.  Speculators suspect it’s only a matter of time before a robust and secure enough platform is implemented or adopted that can carry fiat currencies into the digital realm.

We detail these trends of the rich not to try to encourage you to go out and do the same.  If you are like me, you could invest maybe the hundreds but not the millions required to truly profit off the same investment strategies.  If you were to muster the $1,700 spare cash to buy an ounce of gold, for instance, and it doubles to $3,400, that’s great.  The only problem is the cost of everything you need to survive also doubled in price while you were waiting on that return.  The question now becomes whether you’ll invest in speculative assets or the here and now…items that you’ll require in the next few years that will increase in price.

The reason we note all these trends is because, in all of them, there is an overabundance of caution and a strong desire to hide and squirrel away money and survival resources.  There isn’t confidence in the systems of government or commerce.  It is as if the ultra-wealthy aren’t looking at investing in the future as much as they are interested in protecting what they have built and escaping in the future.  The ironic part is that so many of the ultra-wealthy became so rich by selling the dream of the future in the first place.  Many of the products they brought to market to better our lives are fueling our very demise.  Given recent articles and revelations about the ultra-rich building bunkers, establishing remote ranches, seeking citizenship in New Zealand, residency in Alaska, and other resource-rich, low-population areas, it is clear the ultra-wealthy aren’t very confident that we are going to get through this swiftly approaching economic and societal downturn.

How will this impact you?

So, if we factor in their pessimism with the knowledge that they are also the ones with the long-term vision who are also pulling the strings, for the most part, we have to ask then how this will impact us.  First, there’s land.  Whether that’s land purchased for large-scale farming and ranching, for the resources they contain, or for future building, raw land retains value through any economic cycle.  Even if the commercial and residential real estate markets both implode, raw land remains a stable investment.  In fact, as suburban residential housing fails, rural land increases in value because it is more sought after.  While the percentage of corporate farms remains low, they aren’t as incentivized to grow as the family farm is.  It’s easier to write off the loss on taxes than to struggle with the land and extreme weather.  The same is true with factory farming operations.  When the cost of grain and water is too high and cuts too deeply into shareholder profits, the inclination is to reduce the output supply while demand remains high.  Profits continue, but the available food supply is reduced.

The real impact of land is when it comes to the resources they contain.  As water continues to be a vital resource, especially in the western states, the value of the land containing pockets of it goes up.  None of that water makes it into the available supply until profits are high enough.  Commercial operations can also impact output.  In California and Pembrokeshire, Wales, Nestle operations are extracting, bottling, transporting, and selling millions upon millions of gallons and liters of water, even as those locations reel and suffer through horrible droughts.  You might even have some of these bottles of water in your emergency supplies.  Largescale farming and winery operations in several areas throughout the US have dropped the aquifer levels and forced locals to continue digging deeper wells.

A modern-day corporatocracy has come to life that challenges your ability to prep and be free from its system.  When it comes to ruling and passing laws in your favor or answering to the ultra-wealthy, let’s just say money talks.

Read the Whole Article

The post What the Super-Rich Know That We Don’t appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trump and Zelensky have agreed on a cease fire, a pause in the conflict.  How does this benefit Russia?

It doesn’t.  The Ukrainian military is collapsing on all fronts. 86% of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk has been retaken, and the remaining Ukrainian forces are surrounded.  What remains of the Ukrainian military is retreating from the few kilometers of Russian territory still occupied in the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions that have been reincorporated into Russia.  A cease fire is the last thing Russia needs when Russia is on the verge of total victory.

Russia should be imposing surrender terms on Zelensky, Trump, and Europe.  Russia has won the conflict.  Why agree to a negotiation?  The victor dictates the surrender terms. If Russia’s surrender terms are not accepted, Russia should proceed with the conquest of the entirety of Ukraine and reincorporate Ukraine into Russia where it historically belongs.  It was Washington  taking advantage of the Soviet collapse that cut out Ukraine from its historic multi-century home as part of Russia.

Are Putin and Lavrov too besotted with good will toward the West, which has been trying to destroy Russia, to understand the basics?  Does Putin understand that Trump should first have come to him, worked out the terms of surrender between them, and imposed them on Zelensky, who in fact is not a legitimate head of government as his term in office has expired?  Putin is correct.  There needs to be a Ukrainian election that installs a legal government  to whom to dictate the terms of surrender. What is the worth of a document signed by an illegal occupant of office?

If Putin agrees with the Trump-Zelenzky cease fire, will it obligate Putin to agree to a settlement that is less than victory?  A cease fire would halt the Russian advance, provide Ukraine with time to rebuild with the weapons now again supplied by Trump. Will negotiations be a repeat of Putin’s Minsk mistake which cost Russia so dearly?  If Putin denies Russia a victory, could he be removed from office?

Peace must be conclusive.  Cease fires never are.  If memory serves, the Korean War in the 1950s is still governed by a cease fire, and antagonisms still exist between North and South Korea with Washington still adding to the confrontation. 

From what I know of Russia’s Westernized intellectual class that influences Putin and Lavrov, they are Westernized to the point of treason.  Putin needs a Russian government occupied and advised by Russian nationalists.  Otherwise Russia will remain a target despite its unrivaled weapons systems.

In my column on March 11, I asked, “What should Trump do about Ukraine?”  I answered: 

“To end the conflict Trump doesn’t need to be holding meetings and talking about meetings with Putin, Zelensky, EU or anyone.  It is extremely simple for Trump to end the conflict as far as the US is concerned. All he has to do is to make the hold he has put on delivery of weapons permanent and withdraw all US operatives in the proxy conflict with Russia.  Without the US supplying weapons, intelligence, targeting information and money to keep the conflict alive, the conflict will quickly end. This is what Trump needs to tell Putin:  “I know Washington is responsible for this conflict.  I am withdrawing Washington’s participation. The conflict would not have happened if the Democrats had not stolen the 2020 election.  I am cancelling the sanctions.  I will be accused by the Democrats and the presstitutes of selling out Ukraine to you. Your job is to be merciful to Ukraine.  As the US is responsible for the conflict, the US will help you to rebuild a demilitarized Ukraine in which economic advancement takes precedent over war. You must not fail my good intentions, or the Cold War will resume.”

As I asked later in my column, can Trump’s ego permit him to allow the settlement on Putin’s terms?  For three years Putin has been slowly fighting a conflict that a capable war leader would have ended in three weeks. Putin’s failure as a war leader is clear. Putin, being sufficiently Westernized, never realized that his never-ending war would result in negotiations in which he was the last participant included.  As Trump and the illegitimate Zelensky have arrived at a cease fire, the pressure is on Putin to join in, or Russia will be reviled for blocking a settlement with intentions of proceeding from the conquest of Ukraine to the conquest of Europe.  If Putin joins in the cease fire, he risks Russia’s victory being watered down  by the terms of a negotiated settlement.

Russia has been in many ways an easy target for the West. Soviet Communism having bred distrust of Russian government, has left Russian intellectuals easy pickings for Western propaganda. Many Russian intellectuals represent the West, not Russia.  This Russian vulnerability  has been skillfully exploited by the West.

The question remains:  How serious are  Putin’s mistakes in his dealings with Washington?   By permitting a conflict to continue until the initiative for its end passed into Washington’s hands, Putin has lost the initiative.  If Putin doesn’t agree to a cease fire, he risks offending Trump’s ego. Does Trump than become coercive because he is on the line with his promise to end the conflict? Does Putin submit to Trump’s coercion?

The outlook for this conflict being resolved is not as good as it seemed.

The post Is Putin Being Boxed In by Trump and Zelensky appeared first on LewRockwell.

In his recent appearance with Todd on the Sachs Realty Podcast, Peter Schiff paints a sobering picture of America’s current economic landscape, challenging mainstream narratives promoted by Wall Street and the Federal Reserve. Throughout the discussion, he covers alarming trends from unsustainable debt levels and hidden recessions to mounting inflation and misguided trade policies, warning listeners of consequences that policymakers will have to face sooner or later.

Starting with the political landscape, Peter argues that the underlying economic distress voters experience was a critical factor in Donald Trump’s political rise. While official narratives tout economic successes, Peter sees through the smoke and mirrors:

I think the economy is in a lot of trouble. I think that’s why Trump was elected. The voters are living in this economy, and despite what they’re being told by the media and Wall Street that we have a great economy, they know that’s not the case. They’re struggling to get by. Many people are working two or three jobs, whereas they used to be able to pay the bills with one. They can see prices rising rapidly for everything they need to buy as their debts are rising. People have their savings depleted. They’ve got record amounts of debt. The interest rates on that debt are much higher now than they’ve been in many, many years or decades. I think we’re a real mess.

As for Trump’s economic policies, Peter finds some positive initiatives but strongly criticizes the administration’s expansionary fiscal policy and heavy reliance on budget deficits. He emphasizes the urgent need for fiscal responsibility—in actions, not just words:

Well, he’s done some things that I think are pretty good. But where I think he’s really failed is he has been encouraging the Republican Congress to pass this big, beautiful bill, which also includes a four trillion dollar increase in the debt ceiling and includes an increase in government spending so that the deficits that Trump inherited from Biden will be larger if the bill that he now supports is enacted. So I would much rather see the president telling Congress, ‘I don’t support that bill and if you pass it, I will veto it,’ because I don’t want to increase the debt ceiling.

Peter also challenges Trump’s handling of trade, particularly his reliance on tariffs. Tariffs, he argues, act as hidden taxes ultimately paid by ordinary Americans, driving up prices and reducing purchasing power:

I don’t like all the tariff threats personally. I mean, tariffs are taxes. They’re taxes on the American people. The American people need to pay more taxes unless we’re going to cut spending because the government is spending a lot more than it’s collecting in taxes. So level with the public and say, ‘Look, we got to raise taxes because we’re spending too much money, and the way I’m going to raise taxes is tariffs, and it’s going to mean that everything you buy is going to be more expensive because of these tariffs.’ And that’s the reality. I don’t like trying to fool the public into believing they’re getting something for nothing.

Moreover, Peter explains Trump’s misunderstanding of the trade deficit. Rather than foreign countries taking advantage of America, he clarifies that trade deficits can signal a domestic economy consuming beyond its means:

Trump mischaracterizes the current nature of the relationship. Trump believes that these trade deficits are the world taking advantage of America and that they’re somehow screwing us over, that they’re getting something for nothing. The opposite is true. We’re getting something for nothing because we get to consume more than we produce, we get to borrow more than we save, so our standard of living is higher today as a result of these trade deficits.

Peter asserts that America needs to confront its economic imbalances and unsustainable debt head-on rather than waiting for a crisis to force its hand. The looming threat is stagflation—rising inflation coupled with a recession—and Peter believes policymakers are vastly underprepared:

And the crisis is going to come because the numbers are exploding exponentially with our debt and our trade deficits and our budget deficits, and the interest on the debt is spiraling out of control. Inflation is already reaccelerating. It’s risen now four or five months in a row. If you annualize the last month now, CPI is up to about 6%. Consumers are catching on. Consumer expectations now of inflation are the highest they’ve been since 1982 at 6%. So the Fed is completely wrong when it says that inflation is resolved.

This originally appeared on SchiffGold.com.

The post It’s Time for an Economic Reckoning appeared first on LewRockwell.

Okay, quiz fans, if you think Europe is in trouble, think again. There is always Hollywood, the place where megalomaniacal, pompous, boastful, self-entitled, bald, untalented jerks are taken seriously. The embarrassing but saccharine cesspool that is the Oscars has just voted Anora—a sanitized, voyeuristic movie about a hooker—as Best Picture. I have not seen it and do not plan to. I have nothing against the oldest profession, but now that I am of a certain age, I find it the most humiliating and enslaving line of work ever invented by man or woman.

The ladies now go by the euphemistic name of sex workers. We used to call them hookers, named after the brave Union General Hooker during the Civil War, who always traveled with at least ten of them in his camp. Critics raved about the movie’s “authenticity” and its “fresh perspective.” What bullshit. There is nothing authentic about being a prostitute, and there are no fresh perspectives about going to bed with some disgusting, fat slob in exchange for the root of all evil.

Pretty Woman was fun to watch some thirty years ago, although not to be believed. It was a fairy tale, a glossy cover-up of the dirtiest profession outside murder. The trouble with making a movie that turns a whore into Cinderella is that it makes us forget the exploitation that involves prostitution. And then there’s the prurience. The film is made because the greedy ones know that men will salivate and pay for it. Voyeurism is a male disease, and the Hollywood scum know how to exploit it. No wonder Mother Earth had a quake hit Los Angeles just as the vulgar beings who vote were coming up with an—I am told—unwatchable one. The movie’s star is Mikey Madison, and I’m sure she’s enjoying her moment in the limelight. But if anyone thinks that it helps the real victims, I’ve got a bridge that connects Brooklyn to Manhattan that I can sell you at a very low price.

“There are no fresh perspectives about going to bed with some disgusting, fat slob in exchange for the root of all evil.”

Mind you, I’m no angel where the oldest profession is concerned. My only excuse is that it was during my youth. And it took place mostly in Paris, where the famous Madame Claude had probably the best whorehouse ever. Claude Grudet took a liking to me when my friend Porfirio Rubirosa first introduced me to her. She later told me that her girls—among the prettiest and best behaved in the City of Light—had ranked me among their favorites because I was always kind and very polite. The irony of the Claude girls was that whenever anyone from the tight and closed French society married someone unknown or an outsider, no sooner had the rice stopped flying than the rumors began: “She is definitely a Madame Claude girl, I would recognize her anywhere,” and that sort of thing. That’s where I came in. On three occasions, and concerning three rather grand French families, I was asked point-blank about the lady in question, and on all three times I had to answer in the negative. Not that I would ever have given the lady away, but all three times I answered truthfully that none of them was ever a Claude girl. Not many believed me.

Oh well, now that we have Hollywood making prostitution legit and a nice thing for one’s daughter to do, no use for me to say anything that might detract from the oldest profession. The movie apparently contains 471 “f–k”s, living proof that the writer oozes talent. According to Tinseltown, prostitution is ranked far above patriotism, at least in the most boring movie I’ve seen in a long time, one that won the leading man an Oscar this year. The Brutalist goes on and on, with the rich Van Buren family being the bad guys, while the Hungarian Jewish refugees are all saints. What struck me was its anti-American message. Rich white people in Pennsylvania are secret rapists and manipulators of poor Jewish émigrés. It is not enough that we have every lefty writer and poet chronicling the mythical and brutal enslavement of American blacks today, we now also have untalented Hollywood types preaching to us via the movies how rotten the U.S. really is.

Read the Whole Article

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Constitutionalists universally have had disdain for the United Nations (U.N.), as it has been the bane of American sovereignty from the beginning of its existence. I am on record as saying, and I still believe, that the U.N. was created primarily for the purpose of being the birth canal for the Zionist State of Israel. Over time, however, perpetual ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Zionist state against its Palestinian neighbors caused the U.N. to become increasingly critical of Israel’s behavior. Now, with Donald Trump as president, conservatives are cheering the prospect that he might take the U.S. out of the U.N.

Such anticipation was given a symbolic boost when Trump announced that he would not resume funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council based in Geneva. I say symbolic, because his predecessor, Joe Biden, had already discontinued U.S. funding for that U.N. agency. But anti-U.N. conservatives take this as a sign that Trump will remove the U.S from the U.N. altogether.

Of course, Trump’s motive for making this decision (his announcement coinciding with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House) is that this is the agency that provides humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees. And as a secret Jewish Chabadist, Trump hates all things Palestinian including the Palestinian people.

Trump is such an arrogant Zionist (the arrogance of Zionists stems from their deep-seated belief that they are superior to everyone else) that he is now targeting Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) for removal from office, vowing to support a Republican primary challenger in the next election. It is no coincidence that Massie is the GOP congressman in Washington, D.C., who is the most critical of Zionist Israel (and supportive of the Palestinian people) and who refuses to accept bribes from the Israeli lobby or kowtow to their demands.

Whether Trump will actually separate the U.S. from the U.N. is yet to be seen. But if he does make such a move, it won’t be for the same reasons that members of the John Birch Society have been talking about for so long. If he makes such a move, it will be for his desire to fulfill his campaign pledge to “make Israel great again.”

On February 12, 2025, the Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem sent a congratulatory letter to President Trump. I quote in part:

We extend our heartfelt gratitude for bringing faith to the forefront of American and global culture through the establishment of the Faith Office in the White House. Your recognition of the importance of religion in public life is a step toward restoring moral values and spiritual leadership in the world.

When Hashem gave the Children of Israel the Torah, He provided an ethical standard for the entire world. This standard is known as the Seven Commandments of Noah, which form the basis of universal morality. When a person accepts the Seven Noahide Laws, they receive divine blessings.

You will not find the “Seven Noahide Laws” anywhere in the Books of Moses or anywhere else in the Old Testament, for that matter. The “Seven Noahide Laws” are the invention of the Jewish Talmud. When the Sanhedrin speaks of the “Torah,” they are speaking of the Talmud, NOT the Old Testament Pentateuch.

In 2017, the Nascent Sanhedrin minted a special coin featuring your image on one side and Cyrus the Great on the other. This symbolized your historic role, likened to that of Cyrus, who was chosen by Hashem to fulfill a divine mission.

You have been elected, as Cyrus was in his time, to fulfill a heavenly mission: To unite all believers in God and foster ethical cooperation across all spheres of human activity. A Call to Establish an International Divine Court – IDC.

We invite you to meet with the Sanhedrin Court Rabbis in Jerusalem to discuss the establishment of an International Divine Court (IDC) for all nations. This court would be based on the seven universal commandments given to Noah and reaffirmed at Mount Sinai—a foundation for global peace and divine justice.

The Sanhedrin’s “International Divine Court” necessitates the Sanhedrin’s plan to institute the “Organization of 70 Nations” to replace the United Nations.

On March 8 of this year, my friend Steven Bennun at Israeli News Live hosted a podcast entitled The Seven Noahide Laws – Just the Facts. I quote segments of this extremely enlightening broadcast:

I don’t know of any time in the bedrock of society that we ever have any evidence where they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws. But that is where the Revolution was done at, and of course, they’re doing it through education. Now they just do it through education the way they’re doing it here. And we thought they were going to try to institute this as a law of the United States, but they’re going to make it an international law. This is why, by the way, the ICC court found Netanyahu guilty of violating war crimes for the murder and genocide of the Palestinian people, and rightfully so.

But then what did Trump do? Put sanctions on the ICC. Just like Nikki Haley went against the United Nations years ago, right? So, all these things are being done, set up, to be able to set your new global system, this new world order.

So, they’re setting the world up for this. And they’re going to get rid of the United Nations and the ICC, and they’re going to replace it with the Sanhedrin.

Also, too, in the website mizrachi.org, Not Just Seven Noahide Mitzvot, an interview with Rabbi Oury Cherki. But it says here, “In Parashat Noach, Hashem commands Noach and his children to fulfill certain commandments known as the seven Noahide mitzvot, Rav Oury Cherki, however, explains that these seven mitzvot are just the beginning. The larger goal, he says, is to glorify the name of Hashem in the world and transmit Judaism’s universal message to all nations.”

Listen [to the rabbi]:

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, former director of the Chabad of Poway: And the rabbi pleaded if only the United Nations will go back to the basics and empower their nation to adopt the Seven Noahide laws, then this world would be a very different world, and perhaps we wouldn’t have lost 150 million lives that we have lost in the last 200 years. So, I ask every nation that’s here, everyone that’s listening: Consider taking the Seven Noahide laws back to the basics and apply it to real daily life, and we will see a world difference.

So, as I mentioned to you, Nikki Haley is to be the honorary president of the organization of the 70 Nations, that was what they were pushing for.

And so, Nikki Haley definitely doesn’t like the United Nations. They’re going to replace this [the U.N.] eventually. That’s going to happen.

Rabbi Mizrachi, here he is right here on the Seven Noahide Laws. Let’s listen to a little bit of what he says, what he says about the Noahide Laws.

Rabbi Mizrachi: You have 6 billion idol worshippers who make God angry every second of their life: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Tibet, Nepal, Thailand, so many. India alone is 500 million; China is 2 billion, so many; 2 billion Christians which are idol worshippers. Between Chinese, India, Hindus, Buddhist and Christian, at least 6, 6 and a half billion people are idol worshippers that, according to the Torah, do not have the right to live. Idol worshiper, goy. It’s [the] death penalty.

There you go. You have it right there.

Steve and Jana Bennun have a great podcast and put out much-needed information regarding all things Jewish/Israeli.

A few years ago, I delivered a message entitled The Talmud, Chabadism And Noahide Laws. (This is my second most requested and most viewed of all of my messages, by the way.) I now quote from this address:

Every president since Jimmy Carter in 1978, including Donald Trump, has signed this public law instating Noahide Laws and Chabadism in the United States.

Jewish Noahide Law calls for the death of anyone practicing idolatry (anyone who worships the Lord Jesus Christ is an idolater according to Noahide Law), blasphemy (this was the charge the Sanhedrin used against Christ), sexual immorality (according to Talmudic law) and stealing (from Jews—but it is perfectly permissible for Jews to steal from the Goyim); it also obligates non-Jews to set up courts to carry out these Talmudic executions.

Rabbi Schneerson, whose birth is commemorated, stated that, according to Jewish law, non-Jews have no other purpose than to serve Jews who are the reason for creation.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka is a Chabad-Lubavitch cultist (as is her husband Jared Kushner), she prays at Rabbi Schneerson’s grave and has been blessed by Rabbis who demand non-Jews (Goy) follow the Noahide Laws and refer to them as “animals.”

As a closet Chabadist, Donald Trump follows the laws of Maimonides by constantly not paying back loans and investments. He declared bankruptcy 7 times and each time was bailed out by fellow Chabadists.

I concluded with a summary:

Noahide Laws are Jewish Laws that apply to all non-Jews of the world, which forbid forms of worship not approved by Judaism, blasphemy of the Jewish gods, sexual relations which are not approved by the Judaic religion and require that non-Jews must set up courts to enforce these laws.

American Public Law 102-14 states that these laws are the foundation of American civilization (NOT TRUE), that it is our responsibility to transmit them to the next generation, and every president since Jimmy Carter has signed an international scroll along with other heads of state pledging to use education to put the world under the Noahide Laws.

Jewish legal groups who advocate for the Noahide Laws are promoting capital punishment that complies with the Talmudic form of execution, namely decapitation, be established.

There are non-Jews (including Christian Zionists) who are willingly complying with this agenda, and they are working with the Sanhedrin in Israel to promote the Noahide Laws.

Pastors, Christians and churches that support Zionism, Chabadism, Talmudism, etc., are blaspheming God by supporting an antichrist agenda that attempts to:

*Deny the deity, Messiahship and Saviorhood of Jesus Christ.

*Deny His completed work on the Cross for our sins.

*Deny the New Covenant, the Body of Christ, the Church.

*Deny the New Testament doctrines of grace.

And to establish:

*A global Talmudic order.

*The enforcement of Talmudic law by capital punishment.

*A global religion of works salvation based upon Talmudic law.

*A global political union based upon the doctrines of Zionism.

This is the down and dirty reality of what Trump’s pro-Israel agenda is all about. And this is what Christian Zionists in America are supporting.

Therefore, should President Trump decide to separate from the United Nations, you can be assured that the Jewish Organization of 70 Nations will take its place. And if you thought the U.N. was bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

Reprinted with permission from Chuck Baldwin Live.

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Ginny Garner writes:

Lew,

After reading five pages of “Wired,” Bob Woodward’s book on Bill Murray’s close friend John Belushi, Murray came to the conclusion that Woodward’s reporting on Watergate in the Washington Post played a role in framing Richard Nixon on Watergate. Murray made these comments during an interview with Joe Rogan. Link: 

https://rumble.com/v6pze8a-bill-murray-to-joe-rogan-based-on-what-woodward-wrote-about-john-belushi-th.html

Murray reportedly had words with Woodward when both recently attended a showing of a documentary about Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham. Link:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14461997/bill-murray-bob-woodward-confrontation-john-belushi-book-watergate.html

There is a growing consensus Watergate was a silent coup by the CIA and that Woodward acted as Navy intelligence to set Nixon up because the former president was going to expose the CIA’s involvement in the assassination of JFK. Link:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/05/nixon-helms-cia-jfk-assassination-00037232

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Thanks, Bruce McLane.

Shifting the goal posts.. they are NOT done. pic.twitter.com/E9eVEYTuG8

— Boone Cutler (@boonecutler) March 10, 2025

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Thanks, John Frahm.

The Federalist

The post Covid Taught Americans To Stop Trusting A Govt That Puts Us Last appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

 Ukrainian organ harvesting/trafficking isn’t an urban myth or Russian propaganda. Nor is Ukraine a “ Democracy”. The U.S. made certain of it.

See here.

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Thanks, John Frahm.

Reclaim the Net

The post Congressional Hearing Reveals Stablecoins and CBDCs Share the Same Financial Control Risks appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Modernity News

The post Flu Vaccine Exposed: The Shocking NIH Discovery They Don’t Want You to Know appeared first on LewRockwell.

Jerome Barber  wrote:

AI is not the only thing they want to replace us.

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As President Trump and President Putin negotiate a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine in the weeks ahead, the outcome now is indisputable. We, the U.S. and NATO, lost our proxy war in Ukraine, a war that will go down in history as one of our worst foreign policy disasters, even worse than our ignominious withdrawal from our 20-year war in Afghanistan.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are dead, and even more are wounded and maimed. We fought to the last Ukrainian soldier, with no skin in the game. Sorrow blankets the land. Ukraine’s infrastructure has been decimated. Russia is substantially stronger economically and militarily, with stronger ties to Iran, North Korea, and China. Sanctions had little if any effect. The economies of Western Europe lie stagnant or contracting, the paucity of their military forces, capabilities, and industries starkly exposed. Political upheaval is in the air across Europe. $183 billion of our U.S. taxpayer money proved a foolish investment, enriching the corrupt Zelensky regime and the U.S. defense industry, and served no purpose other than protracting the war.

Lest we forget, it was all borrowed money increasing annual deficits and the U.S. debt, which now exceeds $36 trillion. Not surprisingly, the war’s political and military pundits are growing silent. The years of utter propaganda and untruthful narrative espoused by U.S. and NATO political elites and think tanks to justify and sustain the war appears for what it was. NATO’s viability and utility have been further diminished, having proved useless for deterring Russia for over a decade, much less demonstrating that its combat equipment and methods of training enable an army to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield. Calls for dissolving NATO and creating a new security arrangement for Europe become louder each passing day. An unbiased, objective look at NATO’s performance as a military organization since 1989 strongly supports the need.

For those who believe NATO is the most effective military alliance in history, I offer a more pragmatic, realistic view based on cold, hard facts. Since the Soviet Union collapsed some 35 years ago, new reasons were forged by the political elites of member nations to justify and sustain NATO’s existence. NATO morphed into an organization far removed from the purpose it was originally formed to achieve and did achieve. Yet, the treaty has never been changed. For example, from March to June 1999, NATO launched an offensive air campaign attacking the armed forces of Serbia over a period of 78 days until Serbia agreed to withdraw from Kosovo and end its conflict with Kosovo Albanians. Politicians of NATO nations, without the direct authorization of the United Nations Security Council, justified this war ostensibly to end and prevent egregious human rights abuses. Article 5 of the treaty was not invoked. It was ignored. Not a single NATO country was attacked by Serbia. Nor has peace been restored. For the past 25 years, some 4,500 NATO soldiers have remained in Kosovo to preserve an unstable peace at immense cost and expense with no end in sight.

Next, consider the war in Afghanistan. NATO assumed command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in August 2003. This military operation marked the first deployment of NATO forces outside Europe and North America. By 2006, NATO forces were engaged in intensive combat to defeat Taliban insurgents across the entire nation. All 30 nations of NATO contributed forces to this effort. ISAF continued operations until December 2014, when the U.S. withdrew most of its forces. For these 11 years under NATO command, soldiers suffered under fifteen commanding generals, continual mission turbulence, and conflicting rules of engagement. Many commanders served six months or less. The rest, a little over a year. The Taliban was not destroyed. Just the opposite. On the heels of the U.S.’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, followed by the unexpected and rapid collapse of the Afghan National Security Force, Taliban forces stormed across the nation and retook control of Afghanistan. 3,606 NATO soldiers were killed during operations from 2001-2021, and thousands more were grievously wounded: 68% of the casualties were from the U.S, 12% by the United Kingdom, 4.5% by Canada, and the remainder from other NATO nations. The cost was almost $1 trillion, the majority paid by U.S. taxpayers on borrowed money, and it achieved nothing.

Add to this the fact that NATO was unable to deter Russia from invading and seizing Crimea and large portions of eastern Ukraine in 2014. President Putin sensed NATO’s political, economic, and military weakness and rightly judged that NATO would not intervene and engage in direct conflict with Russia. Eight years later, in February 2022, NATO failed to deter Russia from extending its invasion into Ukraine and securing even larger areas of territory in the eastern oblasts of Ukraine and Crimea. Having failed to deter Russia, NATO, led by the Biden administration, without invoking Article 5 of the NATO charter, decided to go to war against Russia in support of President Zelensky’s uncompromising political objective—recover all territory lost to Russia. Without any viable military strategy—demanded by Congress and ignored for two years—or a political objective to achieve other than “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”, NATO limited its support to providing combat equipment, ammunition, and military supplies, but placing restrictions on all long-range missile systems that could strike deep into Russia for fear of provoking Russia into using nuclear weapons. NATO provided just enough to sustain the war, but not to win it. NATO nations knew full well their populations would never support the employment of NATO air and ground forces in direct combat against Russia. Instead, NATO decided to fight to the last Ukrainian soldier, with no skin in the game, hence the proxy war that it was.

Let’s review the bidding. Based on its performance as a military organization since its founding mission was achieved in 1989, it’s evident that NATO, under U.S. leadership, is anything but the most effective military alliance in history. Granted, it may serve a political purpose, but it has proved inept at the conduct of war and devoid of political and military strategies that brought lasting peace to any conflict it touched. Moreover, the idea that NATO could cobble together one or more army corps, blending forces from 32 nations, speaking as many different languages, all equipped and highly trained to prevail against Russia under the conditions of the Russia-Ukrainian battlefield the past three years, is laughable.

There is no reason the American taxpayer should continue to support a security alliance that no longer serves the purpose for which it was formed in April 1949 nor serves as a deterrent. It’s time for European nations to shoulder the burden of their own security and seek different means. No doubt the trans-Atlantic political elites and globalists will be apoplectic, let them. The people of the European nations deserve a security arrangement and military capability far better than NATO has provided. It’s time to turn out the lights.

Colonel (Ret) John D. Rosenberger served 29 years in the U.S. Army as a combined arms warrior and lifelong student of military history and strategy. Among his military assignments, he directed the SACEUR’s training program for NATO CJTF HQs and commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the vaunted OPFOR at the National Training Center. He has written and published extensively on issues related to battlefield leadership, the art of battle command, military readiness, and Joint combined arms training. He recently published op-eds highlighting critical shortfalls in military capabilities in the Pacific. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of JANUS Research Group, Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

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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.

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/bitcoin-portera-a-una-rinascita-dei)

Il diritto alla proprietà è considerato un diritto umano fondamentale, riconosciuto in tutto il mondo, come affermato in documenti internazionali sui diritti umani come la Dichiarazione universale dei diritti umani e la Dichiarazione dei diritti dell'uomo. È storicamente legato ai diritti naturali. La Dichiarazione dei diritti dell'uomo considera la proprietà come “un diritto inviolabile e sacro”.

Secondo Shane Courtland, Gerald Gaus e David Schmidtz, mentre i liberali classici concordano sull'importanza della proprietà privata, le loro opinioni spaziano da quasi anarchiche a quelle che sostengono un significativo coinvolgimento dello stato. Tuttavia i diritti di proprietà sono generalmente visti come diritti di prima generazione, intesi a limitare il potere dello stato e a proteggere gli individui dall'espropriazione.

Al contrario, l'emergere dello Stato sociale ha portato a una relativizzazione dei diritti individuali a favore di presunti diritti collettivi, mirando alla cosiddetta “giustizia sociale”. Questo cambiamento significa che, sebbene i diritti di proprietà rimangano “fondamentali”, sono ora soggetti a numerose limitazioni e condizioni che ne diminuiscono la natura assoluta. Le costituzioni moderne, come la Costituzione brasiliana in diversi articoli, riflettono queste restrizioni, suggerendo che la proprietà è ora un diritto relativo piuttosto che assoluto.

Esempi concreti, come il basso punteggio del Brasile nell'Economic Freedom Index per quanto riguarda i diritti di proprietà e i vincoli legali sulla proprietà immobiliare, classificati come “repressi”, con un punteggio di 49,1 su 100, illustrano queste limitazioni. Questioni come l'espropriazione di terreni senza il dovuto indennizzo in Brasile e persino l'Ordine esecutivo 6102 negli Stati Uniti dimostrano ulteriormente i vincoli imposti ai diritti di proprietà.

Gli asset monetari come espressione della proprietà

I metalli preziosi e altre materie prime hanno svolto un ruolo significativo nell'evoluzione del denaro, poiché l'uso di beni ampiamente richiesti ha facilitato l'emergere di mezzi di scambio, come spiegò Carl Menger. L'ascesa degli intermediari finanziari ha contribuito all'universalizzazione dei metodi di scambio. Nel tempo gli stati hanno iniziato a controllare il denaro, stabilendo regolamenti e creando valuta. L'abbandono definitivo del gold standard nel 1971 ha segnato un passaggio alla moneta fiat, coperta esclusivamente dalla fiducia politica.

Fernando Ulrich sottolinea che gli individui sono stati a lungo limitati nella loro scelta della valuta, essendo costretti a usare denaro emesso dallo stato che spesso viene svalutato. Friedrich von Hayek criticò gli stati per non aver fornito denaro sano/onesto e per aver abusato dei loro poteri quando non erano vincolati dal gold standard. In ogni caso, dati i suoi benefici come mezzo di scambio, il denaro rimane un'espressione primaria dei diritti di proprietà, garantendo ai detentori un potere significativo su altri asset, sia nel presente che nel tempo, come affermato da Menger.

Svantaggi della valuta controllata dallo stato

Friedrich von Hayek sosteneva che la politica monetaria è una causa importante di instabilità economica, sottolineando che la gestione delle finanze pubbliche e la regolamentazione della valuta sono spesso obiettivi contrastanti. La loro combinazione sotto la stessa autorità ha portato a conseguenze disastrose, rendendo il denaro un motore primario delle fluttuazioni economiche e facilitando la spesa pubblica incontrollata. Hayek sottolineò l'urgenza di separare le politiche fiscali e monetarie per preservare un'economia di mercato funzionante e la libertà individuale.

Un altro problema con il monopolio statale sulla valuta è l'erosione del controllo individuale sul denaro. La regolamentazione statale può imporre restrizioni all'uso della valuta. Hayek scrisse che il controllo statale sulla valuta e sul movimento di capitali minaccia sia l'economia globale che la libertà personale. Casi storici, come la confisca dei risparmi individuali in Brasile, o la confisca dell'oro negli Stati Uniti, esemplificano questi rischi. Saifedean Ammous collega le questioni relative al denaro fiat con la relativizzazione dei diritti di proprietà, affermando che gli individui non controllano mai completamente la moneta statale; la possiedono a discrezione del governo di turno.

Bitcoin e il suo impatto sull'ordinamento giuridico contemporaneo

Il passaggio dal gold standard alla moneta fiat ha consentito un'emissione monetaria e un debito statali incontrollati. Friedrich von Hayek sosteneva che, mentre il controllo storico del denaro da parte dello stato sembra giustificato, ha portato a problemi significativi, tra cui pratiche monopolistiche che limitano la scelta del consumatore.

I recenti progressi tecnologici, in particolare l'emergere di Bitcoin, sfidano questo monopolio consentendo la creazione di “valute private”, un concetto espresso da Hayek a suo tempo. Bitcoin opera come un asset digitale che non si basa sul controllo statale, o su un controllo centralizzato di alcun tipo, e offre agli individui un mezzo per gestire i propri asset finanziari senza intermediari.

Bitcoin è un asset digitale scarso, in quanto esiste unicamente all'interno della sua blockchain, il che impedisce la doppia spesa. La sua offerta è regolata da una rete decentralizzata (con migliaia di nodi in tutto il mondo che sono anche responsabili dell'integrità della rete stessa), assicurando che non possa essere manipolata come la valuta fiat. Bitcoin può fungere da riserva di valore e la sua accettazione sul mercato rafforza la sua utilità come denaro.

Le transazioni possono avvenire in modalità peer-to-peer (P2P), o tramite exchange, sebbene quest'ultimo introduca degli intermediari, indebolendo leggermente uno dei principi fondamentali di Bitcoin. Tuttavia gli utenti possono trasferire i loro averi a wallet privati ​​per riacquistare quel controllo diretto.

In questo senso Bitcoin fornisce proprietà e controllo assoluti sui beni, incarnando la forma più pura di diritti di proprietà. Funziona indipendentemente dal sostegno statale, consentendo agli individui di utilizzarlo come denaro indipendentemente dalle definizioni ufficiali di valuta. La vera libertà economica richiede la capacità di negoziare in base a termini reciprocamente concordati senza il monopolio statale sull'emissione di valuta.

Conclusione

La natura decentralizzata di Bitcoin, archiviata in una rete globale, ne rafforza l'indipendenza dall'autorità statale, riaffermando i diritti di proprietà. L'emergere di Bitcoin e del suo protocollo rivitalizza i diritti di proprietà, fornendo un punto cruciale di resistenza contro ripetute violazioni e relativizzazioni di questi diritti, avvicinandoli al loro concetto classico di inviolabilità.

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

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Here are more recovered/restored Amazon Listmania! book lists created before they discontinued this service. I had 120 lists before they were purged. Hundreds of hours of labor were involved in preparing these lists for Amazon patrons and readers. Amazon data indicated that several hundreds of thousands of persons world-wide had accessed and viewed my lists. Emails to me confirm this. Unfortunately, Amazon has removed my comments on each volume. I’ve also included a few intriguing relevant lists others had posted. Save/earmark these lists for future reference. Enjoy!

Click upon the shown book on each list and also on the empty book spaces to be taken to the appropriate Amazon descriptive link.

The Great Depression and the New Deal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/WRA3R4587PAU/the-great-depression-and-the-new-deal/

Critical Views of FDR’s New Deal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3G6JM97W9IH1H/fdrs-new-deal-critical-views/

Theological Canon of the Welfare-Warfare State
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1YR6KNKXQUTR8/theological-canon-of-the-welfare-warfare-state/

Power Brokers, Fixers, and Elite Insiders
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3R15C6XC3B7QI/power-brokers-fixers-and-elite-insiders/

The New Political History: Ethnoreligious and Ethnocultural
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R8L20UY34S9PS/the-new-political-history-ethnoreligious-and-ethnocultural/

Court Historians – Servile Scribes of State Power
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3DT7I2Y5M4C7Q/court-historians-servile-scribes-of-state-power/

Politically Incorrect Guides
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R30Q20HSBM24U8/politically-incorrect-guides/

The Essential Paleo Bookshelf
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R2JRQG7UBB9KUJ/the-essential-paleo-bookshelf/

Ron Paul: The Champion of the Constitution
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1MORJTYFX9BC3/ron-paul-the-champion-of-the-constitution/

Ron Paul’s Reading List for a Free and Prosperous America
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1J1EQ2H6J02CB/ron-pauls-reading-list-for-a-free-and-prosperous-america/

Ron Paul’s Reading List – Part II
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/RQO7LF175SQGS/ron-pauls-reading-list-part-ii/

A Reading List for a Free and Prosperous America Part 1
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1IQ4RNQHCTWDU/a-reading-list-for-a-free-and-prosperous-america-part-1/

My Favorite Libertarian and Paleo-Libertarian Books
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2OH6Y1NEIERW0/my-favorite-libertarian-and-paleo-libertarian-books/

Libertarian books for Christians
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1UVRSMAIRKLB1/libertarian-books-for-christians/

Books That Promote Liberty
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R6TRKVA3S6E81/books-that-promote-liberty/

Recommended Books on the Free Market
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2K903OLDPUV45/recommended-books-on-the-free-market/

Our Libertarian American Revolution
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/16GUZ7S87IK4Y/our-libertarian-american-revolution/

“The Special Relationship”
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3BMYEUARYHXQJ/the-special-relationship/

O.S.S. and the “Special Relationship”
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1913KFB0YPUVE/oss-and-the-special-relationship/

Dissident Histories of US Foreign Policy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/9FIXFBYAQKA6/dissident-histories-of-us-foreign-policy/

Isolationism: The Unknown Ideal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1IC102ACY3N3H/isolationism-the-unknown-ideal/

The Cold War: Soviet Communism’s Murderous Legacy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3N0W0ARDH5ZHT/the-cold-war-soviet-communisms-murderous-legacy/

The creators and executors of Cold War foreign policy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/26ZM7RRF1ISAO/the-creators-and-executors-of-cold-war-foriegn-policy/

The end of the Cold War and confronting its legacies
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1HRYKWOBMAI7P/the-end-of-the-cold-war-and-confronting-its-legacies/

A Critical Account of Socialism – Theory and History
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1THKC4K23USQ4/a-critical-account-of-socialism-theory-and-history/

Utopia in Blood – Red Delusions and Nightmare Reality
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/20ITHH2X135QS/utopia-in-blood-red-delusions-and-nightmare-reality/

Magic History
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1AYXMYISUU36D/magic-history/

Gnosticism and Esoteric Christianity
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2CLVYVAX20RJH/gnosticism-and-esoteric-christianity/

Gnostic Texts and the Nag Hammadi Library
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1E69CPTYVDO5B/gnostic-texts-and-the-nag-hammadi-library/

Gnostic Gospels and the Other Bible
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/RVLFGO1Y760L/gnostic-gospels-and-the-other-bible/

Utopian Nightmares and Gnostic Political Religions
https://listmania.org/list/id/1E8UKBWSGZB5P/utopian-nightmares-and-gnostic-political-religions/

Hermetica
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R253EN9KOIYJEC/hermetica/

historiography / philosophy of history
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1AAGALDEZIPR0/historiography-philosophy-of-history/

Robert D. Kaplan-Journalist and Foreign Relations Expert
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/18JN2KEO1T54V/robert-d-kaplan-journalist-and-foreign-relations-expert/

The Katyn Massacre the Gulag (Gulags) and Communist Genocide
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/RRDUTKEW4HTFD/the-katyn-massacre-the-gulag-gulags-and-communist-genocide/

Poland: Invaded by totalitarians and betrayed by the Allies
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2YJFVLD12EV29/poland-invaded-by-totalitarians-and-betrayed-by-the-allies/

Best books about the WWII Eastern Front
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1O0J3XG9BQO3I/best-books-about-the-eastern-front/

Soviet Politics VII: Perestroika
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R2ACLZEPBM0T5G/soviet-politics-vii-perestroika/

The Spanish Civil War
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3TQ2WB6HK4VHQ/the-spanish-civil-war/

The Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40 & the Continuation War
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R311N4VELL7VD5/the-russo-finnish-war-of-1939-40-the-continuation-war/

Nazism: Ideas Have Consequences
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3K8A4UAW2R4B0/nazism-ideas-have-consequences/

National Socialism – a different perspective
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1BW89Z7J70T8M/national-socialism-a-different-perspective/

The A-to-Z of Nazi Germany
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1SZ9MC2OEWZAM/the-a-to-z-of-nazi-germany/

Esoteric Aryanism and Nazi Occultism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2QPMV1UEDUQQM/esoteric-aryanism-and-nazi-occultism/

An Overview of the First World War
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3GW9ZJDDIUR6V/an-ovesrview-of-the-first-world-war/

Hitler Is Winning: 21st Century Proxy Wars
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3ETQVYRU8DN5U/hitler-is-winning-21st-century-proxy-wars/

Military Studies 1–Insurgency and Counterinsurgency
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1MF2EWJJCCWOE/military-studies-1-insurgency-and-counterinsurgency/

Bushwacked America: Exposing Lies Corruption and Treason
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3652VNCID3Z1K/bushwacked-america-exposing-lies-corruption-and-treason/

Dissecting Leftism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/35NPZRLXRZVGW/dissecting-leftism-no-2/

My Favorite Libertarian and Paleo-Libertarian Books
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2OH6Y1NEIERW0/my-favorite-libertarian-and-paleo-libertarian-books/

Libertarian books for Christians
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1UVRSMAIRKLB1/libertarian-books-for-christians/

Recommended Books on the Free Market
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2K903OLDPUV45/recommended-books-on-the-free-market/

The American Revolution
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1JB6WKSRDJJX1/the-american-revolution/

Essentials in Political Philosophy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/NHUC7GZS6TJW/essentials-in-political-philosophy/

History/Politics – All the Best that’s Been Thought and Said
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/NEMYNXZ17B5Q/historypolitics-all-the-best-thats-been-thought-and-said/

A Reading Assignment For Conservative Americans
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R8KDU9BNSGTYJ/a-reading-assignment-for-conservative-americans/

Robert Anton Wilson favorites
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3SZRH90PNLGNX/robert-anton-wilson-favorites/

a discordian reading primer (evolve your mind damn it!)
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1ID2U768MPAZZ/a-discordian-reading-primer-evolve-your-mind-damn-it/

Great Works of Psychedelic Philosophy & Literature
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1YGLOOR70G83A/great-works-of-psychedelic-philosophy-literature/

Gore Vidal: Our American Cicero
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3DNMOFS33DQQR/gore-vidal-our-american-cicero/

Last Partisan of the Old Republic: The Essential Gore Vidal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/331PNJ7HPR1OX/last-partisan-of-the-old-republic-the-essential-gore-vidal/

Robert V. Remini-The eminent Jacksonian Historian
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/YWYC6YMP4OWS/robert-v-remini-the-eminent-jacksonian-historian/

The Golden Age of Sci-Fi Movies (1950s)
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3C1LIYKP0D7UK/the-golden-age-of-sci-fi-movies-1950s/

Understand the Lincoln Assassination
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R322TUSNFST7B/understand-the-lincoln-assassination/

VINCE PALAMARA IN JFK & SECRET SERVICE BOOKS
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R159E1MYPECO9B/vince-palamara-in-jfk-secret-service-books/

Counter Reformation
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/373TLMIBJV344/counter-reformation/

Compromised Campus: Scientism and Statism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R2QOBOYZL1I939/compromised-campus-scientism-and-statism/

Southern Conservatism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3T4KA28WCEO7K/southern-conservatism/

the Americanist Library
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1G2FWF1ZWT33/the-americanist-library/

The post My Recovered Amazon Listmania! Book Lists appeared first on LewRockwell.

Five years ago, politicians and bureaucrats went berserk and pointlessly ravaged Americans’ freedom. The Covid-19 pandemic provided the pretext to destroy hundreds of thousands of businesses, padlock churches, close down schools, and effectively place hundreds of millions of Americans under house arrest. Despite all the forced sacrifices, most Americans contracted covid and more than a million were listed as dying from the virus.

“Pandemic Security Theater Is Self-Destructive, And Won’t Make Us Safer” was the headline of my first salvo against the pandemic hysteria, published on March 24, 2020 in the Daily Caller. I scoffed at President Trump’s proclamations about being a “wartime president at war with an invisible enemy.” Wartime presidents too easily pretend they’re on a mission from God to scourge all resistance. I warned: “The pandemic threatens to open authoritarian Pandora’s Boxes. Permitting governments to seize almost unlimited power based on shaky extrapolations of infection rates will doom our republic.”

From the start of the pandemic, the Mises Institute was in the forefront of condemning policies that eradicated prosperity in the name of public health. In a May 19, 2020 Mises piece headlined, “Hacksawing the Economy,” I noted, “The political response to COVID-19 is eerily similar to Civil War surgeons’ rationales for hacking off arms and legs…. As long as politicians claim that things would be worse if they had not amputated much of the economy, they can pirouette as saviors.”

Living in the Washington area, I had a front row seat for many of Covid-19’s biggest absurdities. After federal officials whipped up panic, “I Believe in Science” lawn signs popped up like mushrooms, soon accompanied by “Thank You, Dr. Fauci” placards. Those signs looked to me like frightful decorations of a Halloween that never ended.

Thoreau provided my lodestar for the pandemic: “A man sits as many risks as he runs.” I knew that isolation would make me too ornery for my own good. I had survived the flu plenty of times in prior decades and I didn’t reckon covid would deliver my coffin nails. I was a co-leader of a Meetup hiking group which continued hiking almost every weekend throughout the pandemic.

But politicians made such jaunts more difficult. In February 2021, President Biden decreed that face masks must be worn in national parks. Probably 95 percent of the National Park Service’s 800+ million acres is uncrowded 95 percent of the time. The only “evidence” to justify the mandate was that many Biden supporters were frightened or enraged whenever they saw anyone not wearing a mask. The new mandate quickly became an entitlement program for junior Stasi members.

I told attendees on my hikes that masks were optional but kvetching about other hikers wearing or not wearing masks was prohibited. Biden’s edict helped turn the C & O Canal Towpath—one of my favorite hiking venues—into a hotbed of self-righteousness. That Towpath was ten feet wide in most places, but it was the principle of the matter. I had numerous people furiously screaming at me because I wasn’t wearing a facemask as I strolled outside. If mask hecklers were especially persistent, I would shrug and ask them: “How is your therapy going?”

Washingtonians pride themselves on being smarter and better educated than most other Americans (okay, maybe excepting San Francisco and Boston). They instinctively knew that total servility was the only hope for surviving the pandemic, and maximizing hatred was the key to compliance. After Biden ordered 100 million adults to get injected with the covid vaccine, Biden derided the unvaxxed as aspiring mass murderers who only wanted “the freedom to kill you” with covid. (The Supreme Court struck down most of that illegal vax mandate.)

Thanks to Biden’s fear mongering, almost half of Democratic voters favored locking the unvaxxed into government detention facilities, according to an early 2022 Rasmussen poll. The same survey showed that almost half of Democrats favored empowering government to “fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy” of Covid-19 vaccines on social media. The Biden administration unleashed a massive censorship campaign on social media and beyond that effectively muzzled millions of Americans who doubted the feds.

At that point, most American adults were vaxxed, but the injections were catastrophically failing against the latest covid variant. There were a million new covid cases per day—mainly among the vaxxed—and most covid fatalities were occurring among the fully vaxxed.

But “best and brightest” Washingtonians retained their absolute faith in a command-and-control response to the pandemic. District of Columbia Mayor, Muriel Bowser, decreed that anyone who was not vaccinated and carrying proof of the jab was banned from entering any restaurant, bar, gym, or meeting space in her domain. Affluent Washingtonians happily rushed to get free software apps so the government could track them and their health status. That new app had a spiffy logo that quickly became the ultimate status symbol.

I stopped hosting hikes within DC city limits: I would be damned if I would condone Bowser’s biomedical caste system. But I did venture into DC in early 2022 to pay respects to an editor who was fleeing southward. Exiting at the Dupont Circle metro station, I briefly stepped out of a torrential downpour into an upscale coffee shop. Every table hosted a hefty warning sign: “Masks on & Vaccine Cards out!” Patrons were hectored: “All cafes and restaurants… are REQUIRED by the Mayor’s Office to check vaccine cards of dine-in customers. Thank you for helping us comply with local regulations to remain open!” Why didn’t that establishment just advertise the slogan: “Come Sip with the Gestapo!” I skedaddled before anybody asked to see a vax passport.

I was mystified why people would pay $6.50 for a coffee to be treated worse than parolees. Dupont Circle was home to many of DC’s best educated residents. The more graduate degrees they amassed, the more submissive they became. Flourishing your vax card proved your moral and intellectual superiority over anyone who balked at bending over again.

But it was a different story in Anacostia, the poorest part of the city, where one of the unsung heroes of the pandemic emerged. Blacks had a much lower vaccination rate and the mayor’s edict effectively made many of them second-class citizens. Bowser, Fauci, and a PBS film crew pounded on front doors in Anacostia and hectored residents to get injected. A guy in his 30s came to the front door of his row house, saw Fauci and the TV cameras, and condemned the entire covid carnival: “Y’all campaign is about fear. You all attack people with fear. That’s what this pandemic is.” He scorned the speedy vax approval: “Nine months is definitely not enough for nobody to be taking no vaccination that you all came up with.” Actually, the Biden White House had browbeat the Food and Drug Administration to unjustifiably grant final approval to the Pfizer vax. With the video cameras rolling, he angrily told Fauci and Bowser: “The people in America are not settled with the information that’s been given to us right now.” Watch the PBS Fauci “Vaccine Outreach” Anacostia brawl here.

Fauci and the PBS film crew probably thought that exchange exemplified the type of fools who refused to submit and be saved. Fauci justified covid mandates because average citizens “don’t have the ability” to determine what is best for them. But despite getting any and all boosters, Fauci was personally ravaged by covid at least three times. Fauci’s frauds began to be exposed, including his role in covertly bankrolling the reckless gain-of-function research that escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and killed seven million people worldwide. Instead of receiving a Nobel prize, Fauci was grateful that—on President Biden’s final day in office—he received a full presidential pardon for any and all of his crimes committed for the prior decade.

But what sort of savior scientist needs a presidential pardon, anyway?

A virus with a 99+ percent survival rate spawned a 100 percent presumption in favor of despotism. The government has no liability for the injections it mandates or the freedoms it destroys. The Covid-19 pandemic should teach Americans to never defer to “experts” who promise that granting them boundless power will keep everyone else safe. In the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from viruses.

The post Five Years Later, We Remember How Politicians Unleashed Covid Tyranny appeared first on LewRockwell.