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The US and China came closer to a full-fledged trade war last week when China imposed tariffs of up to 15 percent on key US agricultural exports. This was retaliation for President Trump’s increasing of tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States from 10 percent to 20 percent.

China’s retaliatory tariffs show how export-dependent industries are harmed by protectionist policies. Even if other countries refrain from imposing retaliatory tariffs, exporters can still suffer from reduced demand for their products in countries targeted by US tariffs. Businesses that rely on imported materials to manufacture their products also suffer from increased production costs thanks to tariffs. President Trump acknowledged how tariffs harm US manufacturers when he granted US automakers’ request for a one-month delay in new tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada.

Many American consumers who are struggling with high prices are concerned that President Trump’s tariff policy will further increase prices. They are right to be concerned. Contrary to popular belief, foreign businesses do not pay tariffs. Tariffs are paid by US businesses that wish to sell the imported goods. When tariffs are increased, the importing businesses try to recoup their increased costs by increasing their prices. Consumers then must choose whether to pay the higher price, find a cheaper alternative, or do without the product. Whatever they choose, consumers will be worse off because they cannot spend their money the way they prefer.

Tariffs may provide a short-term benefit to the protected businesses. However, tariffs could keep businesses alive that should be allowed to fail so the business owners and workers can put their talents to use in other endeavors that would more greatly benefit and the whole economy.

Defenders of tariffs, including President Trump, claim the revenue from tariffs can be used to “offset” the revenue government loses from tax cuts. Some even claim that tariffs can generate enough revenue to allow the government to repeal the income tax. The problem with this is that a tariff brings in more revenue to “pay for” tax cuts only to the extent the tariff does not cause consumers to cease buying imported goods. Thus, the tariffs, to bring revenue to the government, must not be large enough to discourage Americans from buying foreign products. The more tariffs increase government revenue, the more they will tend to fail in bringing about another often promoted tariff goal — an increase in the purchase of domestic goods.

According to the Tax Foundation, if President Trump’s tariff plan for China, Mexico, and Canada were fully implemented, it would increase federal tax revenue by 142 billion dollars this year — an average tax increase of over one thousand dollars per household. The tariffs would also decrease economic output. This does not account for the decline in consumer satisfaction caused by consumers being forced to alter their consumption choices because of government-caused price increases. It also does not account for the new businesses, products, and jobs that could have been created had government not drained resources from the productive economy via tariffs.

The economic effects are a good enough reason to oppose raising tariffs. However, the main reason to oppose tariffs is that tariffs, like all taxes (including the inflation tax), are theft.

The post Tariffs Are Theft appeared first on LewRockwell.

The politicians who run the GOP on Capitol Hill are about ready to rug-pull Elon Musk and his patron in the Oval Office big time. That is, the so-called “clean CR [continuing resolution]” that Speaker Johnson is apparently cooking up will ratify the entirety of the runaway spending in the last Biden budget, thereby cancelling virtually every single dime that the DOGE operation has purportedly saved.

This awful outlook, of course, is a consequence of the stacked institutional mechanics that Elon Musk is just beginning to grasp.

For example, the appropriations authority for every one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of idiotic foreign aid contracts that DOGE has exposed and cancelled must by law be recycled and respent on another contract. And therefore spent on projects perhaps only slightly less stupid but in any case no less unaffordable.

We are referring to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the passel of UniParty-appointed Federal district judges waiting to pounce in favor of lawsuits claiming funds are being illegally withheld by the executive.

To be sure, the anti-impoundment provisions of the 1974 Act are inconvenient albeit probably consistent with the black letters of the Constitution that delegate the power of the purse to Congress. But fortunately, there is a pretty creative hack that might be the next best thing to the now proscribed impoundment tool that Richard Nixon overused, thereby triggering the rebuke to presidential discretion embodied in the 1974 Act.

To wit, as Elon Musk apparently discovered earlier this week the Congressional rescission tool is a pretty good workaround to unspend money that has already been appropriated. This method of cutting existing spending authority does require Congressional approval within 45 days, but rescissions are subject to an up-or-down vote and no filibuster in the Senate.

So what the DOGE team needs to do right now is bundle up a massive pile of rescissions and send them to Capitol Hill to be voted upon as a pre-condition to consideration of the next CR.

We think there is enough fraud, waste, and abuse lying around, in fact, that a $300 billion rescission package could be sent to the Hill within the next week, which might well become known as “The Mother of All Rescissions”(MOAR)!

The proposition would be simple. Either pass MOAR or shut down the government when the current CR expires on March 14th. You choose. And keep it closed until the $300 billion of savings are approved by both Houses and signed by President Trump.

Moreover, to add stiffening to backbones on Capitol Hill, a “nay” vote on MOAR should carry an expectation of being primaried in 2026 on the GOP side of the aisle or being targeted for all-out attack on the Dem side among incumbents in districts/states that returned strong Trump majorities in 2024.

With interest expense having crossed the $1 trillion per year mark and rising rapidly, the nation’s fiscal accounts are now on the verge of plunging into a doom loop. That is to say, a cycle of rising Treasury yields, rising interest expense, and accelerating growth of the public debt that feeds back upon itself.

For instance, just since the end of FY 2024 on September 30th, the public debt has risen by nearly $850 billion, which amounts to $5.5 billion of new borrowing per day, including weekends, holidays, and snow days. So if the cycle is not broken soon, it will become beyond repair—especially if the impending tariff wars lead to an economic upheaval, which is entirely likely.

So in summary, here are the elements from which a $300 billion MOAR package could be assembled. It should be cautioned, however, that even something this big would be merely a down payment on the $2 trillion of annual deficit reductions actually needed, and not all of it would reduce cash outlays and borrowing immediately. That’s because, as will be explained in Part 2, some of the rescission amounts are for unobligated appropriations that might otherwise expire unused.

Still, the MOAR would amount to the crossing of the Fiscal Rubicon. If the Trump/DOGE forces can show that Congress can be compelled to walk the plank on real, material spending cuts, the remaining herculean tasks—sweeping reform of entitlement and drastic downsizing of the War Machine—will be far easier to accomplish.

• Rescission of Leftover Pandemic Relief Appropriations at SBA and the Departments of Energy, Education, HHS, Labor, and HUD: $139 billion.
• Rescission of Wasteful Foreign Aid Spending: $31 billion.
• Rescission of Funding For 5 Wasteful DOD Weapons Programs: $30 billion.
• 6.5% Across-the-board Rescission of FY 2025 CR Funding Levels For all Discretionary Appropriations: $100 billion.
• Total Rescission Package (MOAR): $300 billion.

We will provide a detailed analysis of the first three lines of the MOAR package later. But it should be noted here that the proposed 6.5% rescission of what would otherwise be Biden-level CR spending for each and every agency, department, and program in FY 2025 would hardly take a nick out of the inflation-adjusted dollars available to the far-flung agencies of the Federal government.

Thus, in nominal terms, combined defense and nondefense appropriations have risen by 47% since FY 2016—from $1.128 trillion to $1.658 trillion in FY 2024. As shown in the table below, about 40% of that gain came on Trump’s watch and 60% under Biden.

The $1.658 trillion figure would be the basis for the “cut-and-paste” CR for FY 2025, but even when you adjust the 2016 figure for the Federal spending deflator according to the Commerce Department, the constant dollar figure for Obama’s last budget would be $1.426 trillion (FY 20-24 $).

What that means is that Speaker Johnson believes the Federal bureaucracy can’t live with a +16% raise in real terms from Big Spender Obama’s funding level.

We have reached the point where a purported Republican Speaker wants not only to embrace Biden spending in current dollars, but even best Obama levels in constant dollars!

Yet here’s the thing: Real median household income only grew by 10% during that eight-year period. So what the DOGE team and their allies in the House Freedom Caucus should be shouting to the rafters is why in the hell should govenrment bureaucracies be getting a raise nearly twice as large as Main Street America has experienced since 2016?

And, besides, the 2016 funding level was the result of the Obama years, which were not exactly characterized by austerity.

In any event, the proposed 6.5% or $100 billion across-the-board rescission from what would otherwise be FY 2025 CR levels would still result in discretionary appropriations at $1.558 trillion. That’s a +9.3% gain from Obama levels and should be more than enough for a government that is otherwise plunging into fiscal calamity.

This originally appeared on Brownstone Institute.

The post It’s Rescission Time appeared first on LewRockwell.

There’s a change taking place in supermarkets – one that’s going largely unnoticed, in spite of the fact that it’s becoming a new norm.

Packaging for products, particularly foodstuffs, is getting downsized. Folger’s coffee, Chobani Yoghurt, Fritos, etc. – all are being offered in smaller packages than before.

The resizing is not dramatic; in fact, it’s so small – sometimes less than 10% – that it’s hard to imagine why they’re bothering to do it.

This is particularly true of items that come in plastic packaging. Gatorade, for example, has been reduced in size from 32 to 28 ounces, but the price is the same.

To the consumer, a change in the size of a plastic Gatorade bottle doesn’t raise an eyebrow, but for food producers, it’s a significant event. Each time a new bottle is designed, even if the change is very slight, new moulds must be designed and machined. And every machine in every factory across the country that produces the bottles must be fitted with new moulds. Then, the injection-moulding machine must be re-calibrated to insert a smaller amount of polyethylene into the mould, and the moulding time must be re-calibrated.

Injection moulding machines are notoriously temperamental, and it can take weeks or months to fine-tune them to perform consistently in continual production. Very costly.

While this information is boring for most of us, it’s of great importance to the producer of the product.

Resizing packaging is a last resort for any producer of goods. A simple downsizing is costly enough that he wouldn’t entertain the idea unless he’s backed into a corner and can’t do anything else. If an entire industry is downsizing products, it means something more concerning than just a few companies trying to remain competitive.

And, in fact, a writer for Consumer World commented recently that price increases and smaller packaging “comes in waves,” but that “We happen to be in a tidal wave at the moment.”

But, again, all this is small potatoes to the consumer – it’s not his problem. So why should we bother to think about the minutiae of food production when we have bigger issues to concern us?

Well, in actual fact, there’s no issue that’s of greater importance to us than the supply of food. Until recently, we’ve been able to be fairly complacent about food availability, as most of us have been accustomed to the shelves at the supermarket remaining full. But, recently, there have been a few scares. Some items have gone missing for several months. Certainly, the shortage of baby formula was important enough to have appeared on the evening news for several weeks.

But what if all food products were, without warning, in short supply? What if a percentage of the supermarkets began shutting their doors across the country?

Let’s back up a bit here.

In decades past, it was the norm for most major supermarkets to have their own warehouses, where backup stock could be stored. If, for any reason, shipments were delayed by, say, a snowstorm, the shelves could be restocked locally until the weather improved.

In addition, payment terms of 30 days net were not uncommon in the industry.

Markups, too, were substantial enough that items that were marked up 10%, 20%, or more could cover for those items that could not be marked up as much but were necessary as a draw to get customers through the door. A store owner might decide, “Put 5% on the milk, and we’ll get the shortfall back on the Häagen–Dazs.” 

But, over the last decade or more, the food industry has taken repeated economic hits. In each case, the industry has attempted to give the impression that there were no problems – that it has been business as usual. But, truth be told, the viability of the industry as a whole has degraded considerably.

The food industry has, for years, gotten by on a retail markup as low as 2% on most items. Also, suppliers are demanding three-day payment turnarounds in order to get by. In addition, the local warehouses that most supermarkets once maintained are largely gone. Supermarkets now rely on semi-weekly deliveries from wholesalers to keep the shelves full. There’s minimal backup supply.

What all this means is that the food industry, from the producers to the wholesalers, to the retailers, has no wiggle room left. At this point, the industry resembles a boxer who has given up and dropped his hands and is just waiting for the knockout punch.

It will come as no surprise to the reader that inflation is increasing due to dramatic government spending. In the last ten years, more currency has been created than in the previous 230 years put together. Dramatic inflation is unavoidable.

If significant inflation were to occur in any given month, food industry profits would be eliminated for the month. This now happens periodically in the industry, but it’s recoverable the following month. (The next shipment is marked up enough to cover inflation, and while the profit for the month in question is never recovered, the industry survives.)

However, if a mere three consecutive months of significant inflation were to occur, we might expect to see the lights going off in supermarkets across the country. Those that are the most heavily in debt would go first. They’d be followed in the following months by others for as long as the inflation trend continued.

If any nation were to lose suppliers and retailers in, say, shoes or washing machines, shortages would occur, and we would simply adjust. Our old shoes would go to the cobbler rather than being thrown out. We’d call the washing machine repairman if we couldn’t go to the appliance store and buy a new one.

But food is different. It’s the one product that must be replaced immediately. We cannot simply postpone our need for food for a period of weeks or months.

A decade ago, when I wrote that food shortages would take place in the coming economic crisis, unsurprisingly, few people took the notion seriously, as the warning had been made so early. But those shortages have now begun. They’re not yet serious, but we’re now seeing the warning signs.

Back then, I additionally projected that the shortages would become severe enough that food riots would take place and, worse, that famine would occur for the first time in living memory in the First World.

If there’s a shortage of shoes or washing machines – let’s say 10% or even 20% – we’d simply adjust. But if there’s a 10% or 20% shortage of food, it means that some retailers have folded and that a given area no longer receives food.

If producers, wholesalers, and retailers shut their doors in greater numbers, there is famine. It will be selective – that is – it will be greater in some areas than others.

And, of course, that’s a hard concept for us to wrap our heads around in an economy that until now allowed us to simply pop around to Burger King if we got a bit peckish.

So, the downsizing of a Gatorade bottle doesn’t mean that tomorrow, we’ll be without food. This is a mere symptom of a greater problem. But it’s a warning sign that we should be paying closer attention to an industry that has run out of wiggle room and may soon become unsustainable.

If and when that happens, the outcome will be far more important than any of the other economic concerns that we presently focus on.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

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CBS 60-Minutes’ Gaslighter-in-Chief Scott Pelley was at it again Sunday night trying to put over the story that Donald Trump had unfairly cashiered a broad swathe of federal agency Inspectors General — whose job it is to investigate crime, mischief, and administrative malfeasance. In the spotlight sat one Hampton Dellinger, Special Counsel to the independent Office of Special Counsel, who just resigned after a court battle over his firing weeks ago.

Do you have any idea what a laugh riot that is? Dellinger’s job was to protect whistleblowers and enforce the Hatch Act (against public employees engaging in partisan political activities). Would you say he did a great job protecting FBI whistleblowers who testified before Congress last year — say, FBI agents Marcus Allen, Garret O’Boyle, and Steve Friend? They were suspended without pay, not allowed to seek other employment, lost homes, were financially wrecked, and hung out to dry by then-FBI boss Christopher Wray. Was Hampton Dellinger heard to make a peep about that? (Nope.) So much for protecting whistleblowers.

You can state categorically that thousands of federal employees have been engaged in what they call “the Resistance” since the first Trump administration. They openly advertise themselves as the Resistance. The Resistance is simply and purely Democratic Party activism. How is that not a violation of the Hatch Act? Hampton Dellinger did not notice any of it. Maybe that’s why he got fired, ya think?

About those many Inspectors General fired from the various agencies. . . considering what is now known about the fantastic racketeering operations run during the Biden years — e.g., the USAID money laundry, the gazillion dollars flushed through the EPA to grifters such as Stacey Abrams under the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate change provisions, the vast royalties paid to NIH employees by Pharma companies for aiding in their product development — do you think the Inspectors General have done a bang-up job of protecting the US public against waste, fraud, and crime? (Maybe not so much, ya think.)

Of all the IGs, Michael Horowitz of the DOJ has been in place since 2012 and mysteriously remains on the job. He was on-the-scene through the entirety of RussiaGate, including the Crossfire Hurricane flimflam, the immense mischief perpetrated in the FISA Court, the whole run of the deceitful Mueller Special Counsel op, the 2020 election fraud, the FBI-sponsored J-6 riot (and the DNC / RNC pipe bomb caper), the Hunter Biden laptop shenanigans (and Biden Family bribery scheme), the feckless Durham investigation (on the origin of RussiaGate), and the matrix of lawfare cases launched by Merrick Garland against Mr. Trump in the 2024 election year. Seems like Mr. Horowitz missed a few things. How would you rate his Inspector General-ship? And why is he still in that office?

By now, you might have grokked that there is another side to the story presented by Scott Pelley, whose mission is to get the deranged half of the American public to go boo-hoo over ersatz threats to Our Democracy. Which might lead you to ask: how and why, exactly, is CBS so deeply invested in protecting the Administrative State (let’s call it) from allegations of corruption? Answer: CBS is the servant of the US Intel Community and its blob tentacles. They are captured. They do as they are told for their masters.

As it happens, Mr. Trump launched a $20-billion lawsuit against CBS last October for fiddling with the interview that candidate Kamala Harris did on 60-Minutes in such a way that it presented a false record of her answers in order to boost her floundering election campaign. So, let’s suppose we have been seeing CBS play a game of hardball against Mr. Trump, consistently painting the once-again president as a villain in case presiding U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk in the Northern District of Texas happens to have nothing better to do on Sunday evenings than watch 60-Minutes, out of sheer habit, like so many Americans.

Notice that you haven’t heard a whole lot for two weeks from AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. They have had their hands full attempting to clean up big messes in the Southern District of NY’s DOJ office and its companion, the Manhattan FBI office, where many lawyers and agents have been fired in recent days. Among other things, the FBI office in New York supposedly sat on reams of evidence in the Jeffrey Epstein case. Much flappery has been made over that. But, considering Mr. Epstein’s service to the Intel blob, and its political servants especially, is it really plausible that any truly significant evidence remains?

The FBI raided Epstein”s Manhattan townhouse in July, 2019. They found CDs and hard drives galore and lots of photos of underage girls. None of the videos ever managed to leak out. Do you find that suspicious, considering how sensationally incriminating they would have been? Would you guess that is because they were destroyed? Personally, I wouldn’t expect much now.

But I do expect Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel to develop a great many cases out of the aforesaid far-ranging corruption — overlooked by all those Inspectors General — that occurred throughout government at least since 2016, and probably involving a whole lot of well-know names, including Presidents Obama and Biden. It takes a lot of time and care to construct cases worth bringing to grand juries. Also consider that Dan Bongino will not take up his duties as FBI Deputy Director until March 15. As it happens, Mr. Bongino wrote several books about RussiaGate and its spin-offs. He will have a pretty good idea of exactly where to look and who to talk to, and he will be in-charge of making that happen. Be patient.

Reprinted with permission from JamesHowardKunstler.com.

The post The Glow of the Gaslight appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump has given every indication that he is as concerned with Israel’s interest as he is with the interests of MAGA Americans.  I have expressed the hope that Trump’s sickening kowtowing to Israel is a strategy to keep the Israel Lobby off his back until he can deal with other opponents who stand in the way of his domestic agenda.  I still have this hope, but it has been shaken by the Trump administration’s sacrifice of constitutionally protected free speech in order to protect Israel from criticism.

Last Friday the Epoch Times reported that the Trump administration had cancelled $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University for failing to act on allegations of anti-semitism.  The Trump administration’s “Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” consists of the departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Resources, and the General Services Administration.  The members of this task force are well positioned to ingratiate themselves with Israel, which can easily result in well-enumerated positions after their time in government is over.

What does the Trump task force mean by “anti-semitism”?  It means protests against Israel’s destruction of Palestine.  It means that no matter how horrific Israel’s war crimes and no matter the ICC’s indictment of Netanyahu, for students and faculty to protest genocide or mass murder, if Israel is the perpetrator, is “anti-semitic.”  It is OK to protest against other countries, but not against Israel.

Protests against Israel’s actions are equated with harassment and persecution of Jewish students at Columbia. This equation implies that Jewish Americans identify with Israel and not with the United States. Does an immigrant from England feel harassed and persecuted if Americans protest against England?  President Trump has branded  protests against Israel  “illegal protests.”  In other words, Trump is saying that the exercise of free speech if Israel is the target is illegal because it is anti-semitic.  Protesters can say whatever they wish about Americans, Russia, China, Muslims, and Palestinians, but not about Israelis.  

Trump is also guilty of conflating Israeli citizens with American Jewish citizens.  If Trump applied his Israeli standards to all ethnicities, no one would be able to express any criticism and protest any action by any government.

Trump declared: “All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on … the crime, arrested.”  Trump did not explain how the First Amendment became illegal.  Does his dictate apply to Black Lives Matter and Antifa, to LGBTQ protests?

Do Trump, the DOJ and other departments realize that they have criminalized a constitutionally-protected right if that right is used to protest Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians?  In the United States is it now illegal to protest genocide if Israelis are the perpetrators?  

I was surprised that Columbia, a wealthy private university, was receiving $400 million in US taxpayers’ money.  But it turns out that $400 million is only the tip off the iceberg.  The Epoch Times reports that Columbia “holds about $5 billion in federal grant commitments.” 

This is big money even for Columbia.  In response to the money threat, the university’s administration accepted the Trump administration’s destruction of the First Amendment and quickly got on board with the Trump administration.  Columbia announced that its administration is “fully committed to combatting antisemitism” and “looks forward to ongoing work with the new federal administration to fight antisemitism.”

Trump and his supporters do not recognize the blatant contradiction between suppressing free speech and Making America Great Again.

America’s greatness did not come from tyranny.  America’s greatness resides in the civil liberties guaranteed by the US Constitution. It is disheartening to find the First Amendment under assault by the Trump regime.

The post Is President Trump an Israeli Puppet? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Will Speaker Johnson Kill DOGE? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Haaretz.com

The post Why I Refused to Be a Cog in Israel’s War Machine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Ginny Garner:

Lew,

Remember when the Trump presidential campaign team floated the idea of Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin as advisor to the yet to be announced Secretary of Agriculture? I guess that was just a strategy to get the votes of the world renowned regenerative farmer’s followers, organic farmers and homesteaders, and clean food advocates and practitioners. The appointment of Big Ag Big Pharma backed Brooke Rollins as USDA Secretary didn’t get much publicity. Trump didn’t even mention her when he introduced his cabinet during his recent speech to Congress. In his blog Joel warns his readers that the bird flu scare is using the Covid playbook. See here.

The federal government, disregarding the concept of natural immunity, has killed millions of chickens and turkeys that survived bird flu, now renamed avian flu. This is what has caused the high price of eggs. The feds are deploying armed agents to farms to inspect chickens for bird flu using the discredited PCR test. The gentler, kinder Trump administration plans to replace the policy of culling fowl with a rollout of mRNA vaccines for fowl. Then humans can get the genetic-modifying “benefits” by eating the vaccinated birds. USDA has given conditional approval to vaccine manufacturer Zoetis to fight the H5N2 subtype. This USDA news release reveals the endorsement of these vaccines by politicians and Big Ag farm groups: See here.

The post Call to Resist Trump’s Big Ag/Pharma USDA Secretary’s Bird Vax Plan appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, David Neal.

The post Ian Carroll Tells Pam Bondi EXACTLY Where To Find Epstein List! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Gail Appel:

Lew,

This is what’s happening to Syrian Christians , Kurds,Druze and Allawites RIGHT NOW! This is what Erdogan and Biden installed.. that nobody is talking about. That NOBODY is “ protesting”.

I guess it’s bad optics.

See here.

The post Murdering thousands of civilians and minorities in Syria right now appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Gail Appel.

Facebook

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There’s an article on Breitbart with a paywall that announces the DOGE has uncovered $1.1 trillion in “improper” Medicaid payments over the past ten years.  As Bill Clinton would say, it all depends on what the meaning of improper is.  A former colleague of mine at Loyola University Maryland once participated in a discussion of Medicaid fraud in Maryland.  He told me that the poverty pimps in attendance — the left-wing political activists employed by the myriad “nonprofit” organizations that help administer Medicaid — publicly made the argument that Medicaid fraud is a good  and needed thing because, in their opinion, the taxpayers are too stingy.  The federal government administers very little of the welfare state.  It has created and funded hundreds of these “nonprofits” to do the work for them, and they see their jobs as protecting and expanding Medicaid fraud, not policing it.  So that $1.1 trillion that DOGE has discovered is probably an underestimate.

The post $1.1 Trillion in “Improper” Medicaid Payments appeared first on LewRockwell.

La tesi contro lo stato amministrativo ha molte giustificazioni. Quella principale è che esso è fuori controllo, andando ben oltre di quanto il Congresso gli ha strettamente richiesto di fare, aiutato inoltre da sentenze giudiziarie mal concepite come la dottrina Chevron che richiedeva ai giudici di rimettersi alle interpretazioni delle agenzie governative. Lo stato amministrativo ha raggiunto il suo apice durante la crisi sanitaria; ora le cose stanno cambiando. Prima dell'elezione di Trump, la Corte Suprema aveva avviato il processo di ripristino del governo costituzionale in una serie di decisioni, la più importante delle quali è stato il ribaltamento della dottrina Chevron, rimuovendo la deferenza giudiziaria di fronte all'interpretazione della legge da parte delle agenzie governative. Ciò di cui c'era bisogno era un'amministrazione disposta ad agire su questi nuovi principi legali e ciò si è concretizzato con il DOGE. Il suo assalto alla USAID ha reso evidente che i burocrati avevano un immenso potere clientelare, concedendo sovvenzioni col denaro dei contribuenti a molti destinatari immeritevoli che erano ideologicamente allineati con le amministrazioni precedenti. I contratti presso altre agenzie avevano uno scopo simile. Non solo, ma il DOGE ha continuato la sua campagna di individuazione degli sprechi tagliando il numero dei burocrati e riducendo il numero dei dipendenti pubblici dovunque si potesse fare. Queste prime due misure (annullamento di sovvenzioni e riduzione della forza lavoro pubblica) sono solo un preludio a quello che dovrebbe essere il vero lavoro del DOGE, ovvero ridurre il numero e l'onere delle normative. Se il DOGE dovesse avere successo in questo processo, allora si tratterebbe del più grande risultato di deregolamentazione mai visto nel mondo moderno.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di David Stockman

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/e-ora-di-far-fuori-anche-gli-sprechi)

Stanno sudando freddo nella palude di Washington. Kash Patel è stato confermato con un voto del Senato di 51-49 come direttore dell'FBI e questo significa che ci sarà una carovana di camion DOGE che trasporterà fuori i licenziati molto presto.

Soprattutto dopo che l'FBI è andata all-in nella campagna per defenestrare Donald Trump nel 2016 e in seguito; il livello di illegalità e di attacchi sfacciati ai processi costituzionali provenienti dall'Edgar Hoover Building non ha letteralmente conosciuto limiti. Presto avremo una documentazione in bianco e nero che dimostrerà che l'FBI non solo sapeva fin dall'inizio che la storia dell'interferenza russa nelle elezioni era una bufala, ma che i funzionari di alto livello dell'FBI erano in realtà complici nella sua fabbricazione/diffusione.

Ma l'illegalità presso la presunta principale agenzia di polizia della nazione non è una novità. Il Federal Bureau of Investigation è un'istituzione canaglia della palude di Washington immersa in una vita di ignominia e disprezzo per la libertà costituzionale e la democrazia.

Il suo predecessore fu creato durante le orribili retate del Procuratore generale Mitchell nel 1918-1919, quando migliaia di cittadini furono arrestati senza mandato, semplicemente per il crimine di avere opinioni socialiste o di sinistra o per simpatizzare con la Germania.

Poi prosperò durante il periodo del proibizionismo negli anni '20. L'abrogazione di quest'ultimo nel 1933 aprì la strada a una corsa ancor più malefica durante l'era di J. Edgar Hoover: una caccia alle streghe comunista e feroce persecuzione di leader per i diritti civili e la pace come Martin Luther King. Infatti la campagna di Hoover per esporre la vita personale del dottor King fu così odiosa da rendere il fatto che la sede centrale dell'FBI sia ancora chiamata “Edgar Hoover Building” è una vergogna nazionale, e una che supera di gran lunga gli oscuri tribunali del sud che prendono il nome da alcuni defunti generali confederati.

Hoover morì nel maggio del 1972, al suo 48° anno di mandato, ma aveva accumulato un dossier così vasto di informazioni compromettenti su tutti i politici e i leader nazionali di Washington che la sua segretaria personale, Helen Gandy, si mise immediatamente a distruggerli per paura che gli uomini di Nixon li potessero usare.

Infatti l'FBI di Hoover aveva archivi di decine di migliaia di americani senza una buona ragione, se non quella di avere opinioni o convinzioni politiche che il direttore dell'FBI disdegnava. Il sottoscritto ci è persino entrato dentro da giovane, non interessato a essere mandato nelle giungle del Sud-est asiatico per massacrare i “gook” che non avevano offeso la gente della nostra contea rurale nel Michigan. A tal proposito mi sono guadagnato un “archivio” all'FBI, qualcosa che considero ancora un distintivo d'onore.

Sfortunatamente la scomparsa di Hoover non portò alla purificazione dell'istituzione che era attesa da tempo. Invece durante la Guerra al Terrorismo divenne una fonte di falsi allarmismi, inganni e stratagemmi di intrappolamento. Ecco solo tre delle più note operazioni dell'FBI durante quel periodo, tutte ovviamente progettate per creare paura nell'opinione pubblica, sollecitare i legislatori e far sì che i budget e i livelli di personale dell'FBI si espandessero inesorabilmente.

1. The Newburgh Four Case (2009): in questo caso quattro uomini vennero condannati per aver complottato per far esplodere sinagoghe e abbattere aerei militari. L'FBI usò un informatore per incoraggiare e facilitare il complotto, fornendo bombe e armi finte. In realtà non c'era uno straccio di prova che gli imputati fossero predisposti a commettere tali atti, ma furono sistematicamente attirati nella trappola dell'FBI.


2. The Fort Dix Plot (2007): qui sei uomini vennero arrestati per aver pianificato un attacco a Fort Dix, una base dell'esercito americano nel New Jersey. L'FBI usò un informatore che si infiltrò nel gruppo, li incoraggiò a portare a termine il complotto e piazzò le prove che portarono alla loro condanna.


3. The Michigan Militia Case (2020): questa truffa coinvolse un piano elaborato per rapire il governatore del Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. L'FBI usò diversi informatori e agenti sotto copertura per incoraggiare e facilitare il piano. In questo caso il piano si concluse con assoluzioni e un processo nullo perché la facilitazione dell'FBI era goffa e ovvia.

Ciò che alla fine ha portato alla conferma di Kash Patel è stata la palese militarizzazione dell'FBI da parte della nomenklatura dello Stato profondo determinata a distruggere il Presidente degli Stati Uniti nel 2016 e dopo. In tale impresa hanno davvero oltrepassato ogni limite. La vendetta di Donald per l'oltraggiosa incursione dell'FBI nella sua stessa casa dopo aver lasciato l'incarico sarà spietata e senza riserve, e non potrebbe avere uno strumento di rivendicazione più capace e potente del suo direttore dell'FBI appena confermato.

In breve, la conferma di Patel segna la fine di 100 anni di aggressioni allo stato di diritto, non la sua promozione. E, come ho scritto nell'articolo “Come tagliare $2.000 miliardi dal bilancio federale americano”, quella storia è motivo sufficiente per abolire completamente l'FBI.

Il fatto è che non ce n'è mai stato bisogno in primo luogo di questa agenzia, al di fuori dell'opportunismo politico e della promozione di crociate che non rientrano nella competenza del governo federale. Tuttavia, in questa sfera di ingrandimento dello stato, i cosiddetti “conservatori” repubblicani condividono gran parte della colpa a causa della loro visione fuorviante che “legge e ordine” siano un legittimo obiettivo del governo federale.

D'altra parte c'è una ragione valida per cui abbiamo 90.000 unità in governi statali e locali: per decentralizzare, disperdere e silenziare l'esercizio del potere governativo centrale. Quindi l'applicazione delle leggi penali è proprio una di quelle funzioni che è meglio tenere il più lontano possibile dalla capitale della nazione, come dimostra a palate la storia dell'FBI.

In ogni caso l'azione penale e l'applicazione delle sanzioni penali sono già condotte dalle forze di polizia e dai tribunali statali e locali. Ad esempio, attualmente negli Stati Uniti si verificano circa 7,5 milioni di arresti ogni anno, ma solo circa 10.000 di questi vengono eseguiti dall'FBI. Si tratta solo dello 0,14%.

Allo stesso modo, ci sono attualmente 1.214.000 tra poliziotti e personale delle forze dell'ordine nelle buste paga dei governi statali e locali negli Stati Uniti. Ciò si confronta con solo 15.000 ufficiali dell'FBI (su 37.300 dipendenti) coinvolti nell'applicazione della legge penale nazionale. Ciò include tutti gli agenti e il personale di supporto che lavorano su un'ampia gamma di questioni come la criminalità informatica, il traffico di droga, i crimini violenti e i reati dei colletti bianchi, ma è una cifra che ammonta solo all'1,2% del livello delle forze di polizia statali e locali.

 In fin dei conti solo $2,5 miliardi del budget da $11,4 miliardi dell'FBI sono coinvolti in ciò che classifica generosamente come “antiterrorismo”. Direi di tagliare quella cifra del 60% e di trasferire personale e attività a un'unità antiterrorismo da $1 miliardo all'anno nel Dipartimento di Giustizia. Qualsiasi minaccia reale di terrorismo negli Stati Uniti, al contrario di azioni egoistiche escogitate dall'FBI come il complotto sopra menzionato per rapire il governatore del Michigan, può essere facilmente gestita con un budget annuale da $1 miliardo.

Dopodiché il vero mandato di Kash Patel dovrebbe essere quello di raccogliere e rivelare tutti i crimini e gli abusi della storia dell'FBI; creare un museo per disonorarla da qualche parte nell'entroterra americano, forse l'Alabama, come anch'egli ha suggerito; infine chiudere tutto il resto con una riduzione di 34.000 dipendenti e un risparmio sui costi di compensazione diretta di $5,4 miliardi all'anno, insieme ad altri $5 miliardi di risparmi sulle spese generali dell'FBI, sui contratti, sull'occupazione, sui viaggi e altri costi.

Il fatto è che, al di fuori di una funzione antiterrorismo, l'America non ha bisogno dell'FBI per mantenere sicure le comunità, le strade e le case della nazione. Le forze dell'ordine locali possono gestire benissimo tali funzioni.

Dopotutto, non c'è alcuna correlazione tra i tassi di criminalità in America e l'implacabile aumento del budget dell'FBI. Si consideri l'arco di 64 anni del tasso di omicidi negli Stati Uniti raffigurato nel grafico qui sotto.

Il numero di omicidi di 4,7 ogni 100.000 è lo stesso oggi di quello nel 1960; i giovani tra i 16 e i 40 anni commettono la maggior parte dei crimini violenti, quindi è stato essenzialmente il passaggio dall'epoca dei baby boomer al più recente calo demografico nella popolazione a causare l'aumento e la successiva diminuzione del tasso di criminalità come mostrato di seguito.

Tuttavia l'FBI ha sfruttato la paura pubblica della criminalità per giustificare i bilanci che continuavano ad espandersi, soprattutto durante le amministrazioni repubblicane desiderose di sfruttare la questione di legge e ordine. Ad esempio, il budget dell'FBI in dollari costanti (2024) è aumentato del 54% durante l'amministrazione Reagan e del 42% durante gli otto anni di Bush jr.: entrambi gli aumenti hanno superato di gran lunga quello durante le amministrazioni precedenti o successive.

Ovviamente l'implacabile aumento di 7 volte della spesa pro-capite dell'FBI tra il 1960 e il 2024 non ha avuto alcuna correlazione con il grafico demografico di cui sopra. Quindi, alla fine, l'occasione di sradicare finalmente questa agenzia canaglia dalla palude di Washington potrebbe essere finalmente arrivata.

Budget dell'FBI pro-capite in dollari costanti:

• 1960: $5,00

• 1980: $9,00

• 1988: $13,85

• 2000: $20,65

• 2008: $29,25

• 2024: $35,00

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

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Murray Rothbard was the chief architect of modern anarcho-capitalism, an uncompromising vision of a stateless society rooted in private property and voluntary association. He built upon classical liberal thought, particularly the ideas of John Locke and the individualist anarchism of 19th-century thinkers like Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker. However, unlike his predecessors, Murray fused these ideas with the Austrian School of economics, providing a rigorous theoretical foundation for the abolition of the state.

His magnum opus, Man, Economy, and State (1962), initially conceived as a textbook on Austrian economics, evolved into a groundbreaking treatise that systematically laid out the principles of praxeology—the science of human action, as developed by Ludwig von Mises. In this work, Murray extended Mises’s insights on the inefficiencies and coercion inherent in state intervention, arguing that only a system based entirely on voluntary transactions and private property could maximize individual liberty and economic efficiency.

Murray’s seminal book, The Ethics of Liberty (1982), further elaborated his libertarian philosophy by grounding it in natural law. He provided a radical yet logically consistent argument for self-ownership and absolute property rights, rejecting any form of state authority as an infringement on individual freedom. In this work, he also tackled controversial subjects such as children’s rights, punishment theory, and war, demonstrating the application of libertarian ethics to real-world problems.

Additionally, Murray was a fierce critic of statism and political compromises that diluted libertarian principles. His essays and books, including For a New Liberty (1973), articulated a vision of pure libertarianism that rejected the notion of a minimal state (minarchism) and instead proposed that all governmental functions, including law and security, could be provided through voluntary market mechanisms.

Murray was a pivotal figure in the resurgence of the Austrian School of economics in the 20th century. As a devoted student of Ludwig von Mises, he advanced the Austrian understanding of monetary theory, business cycles, and state intervention in markets. His work helped revitalize Austrian economics, making it a viable alternative to Keynesian and neoclassical schools of thought.

In America’s Great Depression (1963), Murray applied the Austrian business cycle theory to explain the causes of the economic crisis of the 1930s. He demonstrated how Federal Reserve policies, particularly credit expansion, artificially lowered interest rates, creating an unsustainable boom that ultimately led to a devastating bust. His critique of government intervention in the economy remains a cornerstone of Austrian economic analysis.

Another major contribution was his work on money and banking. In The Mystery of Banking (1983) and What Has Government Done to Our Money? (1963), Murray assailed fractional reserve banking, arguing it was inherently fraudulent. He favored a return to a 100% gold standard, believing that only sound money could prevent economic crises and state manipulation of the currency and wanted to end the Fed.

Murray also provided a sweeping historical analysis of economic thought in his massive treatise An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995). This work sought to reclaim the contributions of pre-Keynesian economists, especially the Spanish scholastics. He attacked the common view that Adam Smith was the founder of economics.

Murray was also an outstanding historian, specializing in American history.  His Conceived in Liberty is a monumental work that offers a revisionist and libertarian perspective on the American colonial period and the American Revolution. Comprising five volumes, the series meticulously traces the development of political and economic thought in America, emphasizing the struggles for individual liberty and resistance against centralized authority.  He presents a history that challenges conventional narratives, focusing instead on the role of radical libertarians and decentralist movements in shaping the nation’s foundation.

At its core, Conceived in Liberty provides a detailed and critical examination of the colonial era, from early European settlements through the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Murray argues that the American Revolution was not merely a struggle for independence from Britain but a deeper ideological conflict between libertarian principles and the forces of centralized government. One of the key themes in the series is the tension between liberty and authority. Murray strongly criticizes the mercantilist measures imposed by British colonial rule,  He does not reserve his criticism solely for the British; he also examines the post-revolutionary American government with a skeptical eye. He believed that, despite the rhetoric of liberty, many of the founding fathers were inclined toward centralization and the consolidation of power, particularly under the Constitution. In his view, the anti-Federalists, who opposed a strong central government, were the true defenders of liberty.

In addition to his broader historical analyses, Murray examined specific events through his libertarian perspective. For instance, in Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, he explores the connections between financial elites and government intervention, arguing that major historical events, such as wars and economic crises, were often driven by the interests of politically connected elites rather than the public welfare. This perspective aligns with his broader critique of state power and its tendency to serve the interests of a privileged few at the expense of the general population.

Murray was a strong advocate of historical revisionism, particularly regarding U.S. foreign policy. In “The Betrayal of the American Right,” he criticizes the shift of the conservative movement away from its non-interventionist roots. He was highly critical of American wars, arguing that they served the interests of the state rather than those of the people.

One of his more controversial positions was his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War II. Murray viewed the war as an unnecessary expansion of state power and believed that interventionism abroad inevitably led to greater domestic government control. He also argued that the Cold War was largely a creation of the American political establishment to justify continued military spending and interventionism.

Beyond his scholarly work, Murray was a dedicated teacher and mentor. His enthusiasm for engaging with young minds and his willingness to challenge mainstream academia set him apart as an intellectual leader. Although he spent much of his academic career in relative obscurity, marginalized by mainstream institutions, he cultivated a devoted following among students and scholars who sought an alternative to Keynesian and socialist orthodoxy.

Rothbard’s charisma and wit made him an engaging teacher, and he played a crucial role in inspiring a new generation of libertarian thinkers, such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe and Joe Salerno. He welcomed intellectual debates and encouraged rigorous inquiry, fostering a lively and open intellectual environment. His influence extended beyond the classroom, as he actively engaged with independent scholars, journalists, and activists who shared his commitment to liberty.

I had the great honor to be one of Murray’s closest friends and when I founded the Ludwig von Mises Institute in 1982, he was on board from the beginning. Murray was our Academic Vice President, and the Mises Institute has as its purpose to educate students in Murray’s ideas, as well as the ideas of Mises.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Murray and I founded the paleo-libertarian movement, which sought to fuse libertarian principles with a conservative social outlook. This approach was intended to build a broader political coalition against state overreach.

Murray was the greatest thinker and scholar I have ever met. He had a great sense of humor and was an unforgettable friend. I miss him every day of my life. “We shall not see his like again.”

The post The Great Murray Rothbard appeared first on LewRockwell.

Like most people, I am turned off by the stereotypical salesman personality. Saleswomen, too, although they are easier to tolerate if attractive enough. I know, I’m superficial. I’m not sure about transgender salespersons and their pronouns. But there is bound to be a receptive market for them in this crazed “Woke” society.

I was inspired to write this while thinking about Andrew Tate. I don’t really know why Tate is famous, much as I don’t know why most people who are famous are. I think he was, perhaps still is, some kind of professional kickboxer. At first glance, what he says makes some sense and is appealing, especially to emasculated, testosterone needy White males. Tate comes off as a White Nationalist, which is odd since he is half Black. Well, I guess if a Hispanic can lead the White Supremacist Proud Boys, anything is possible in America 2.0. Tate has come to rule the “Manosphere,” an online culture that revels in, and seeks to restore, the Patriarchy. From what I can determine, Tate wasn’t that successful of a fighter, but he rose to notoriety somehow. That’s one of the thoughts that nag at me the most; how so many celebrities become celebrities. And Tate is a perfect example of that.

Much of the alt media has embraced Tate. Candace Owens, for example, who is usually very sensible in my view, seems to adore him. Donald Trump’s latest hot but dubious lawyer, Alina Habba, was absolutely giddy over meeting Tate on a January podcast, gushing, “I’m a big fan!” Tate and his brother Tristan are currently wanted for rape and human trafficking in Romania, which has long been a hotbed of exploited women and underage girls. Along with his often astute politically incorrect public comments, Tate has been recorded as giving out demented advice to other males on how to get and “control” women. There is video of him describing how he has himself, and advises others to, choke and physically beat females to get them to “obey.” Perhaps more chillingly, he suggested doing this to stop them from leaving. More properly described as escaping. Tate is a misogynist if ever there was one.

But first and foremost, Andrew Tate is a pimp. Now, his half Black status qualifies him for this position. All pimps in real life are Black. Sorry, Hollywood, no one is buying your ridiculous caricatures of White skinhead pimps, any more than they buy your fantasies about White carjackers and Russian gangs oddly mimicking James Cagney-style lingo while ruling the streets of our big cities. So, the many conservatives who are supporting, even worshiping, Andrew Tate, are supporting and worshiping a self-proclaimed pimp. A White Nationalist with a Black daddy. And not just any Black daddy. We are told that Tate’s father was an international chess master. That’s right out of central casting. For all I know, maybe they also claim his White mother beat her Black husband, causing little Andrew to resent all women. The whole Tate phenomenon seems scripted. Someone or something “installed” him.

Now if you listen to Tate speak, in his unique accent that again sounds like it was developed on a Hollywood backstage, you get the idea that he’s selling something. I mean, he’s about as subtle as a used car salesman at the end of the month, struggling to meet his quota. Now what he’s selling isn’t exactly clear. Toxic masculinity? Bullying? Psychopathology? His aggressive, confrontational personality would work well in any sales industry. Insurance. Retail sales. And my own field of real estate. The top realtors are usually bullies. They know how to “close,” which translates into browbeating someone into making a decision. I would have sold a lot more properties if I knew how to “close” without being a bully. I just don’t know how to do that. But those that do somehow get good people to respect them while turning on the pressure. I’m positive Andrew Tate would be tremendous at applying pressure.

It often strikes me that we’re all selling something. Or we’re being sold. We’re buying or selling. Not products, but human beings. The worst of the lot, perhaps including Tate and certainly including powerful people all over the world, literally sell humans. Often children. For sex. Now someone has to buy these trafficked victims, but like the celebrities on Epstein’s forever unattainable official list, they remain unknown. I’ve had Cathy O’Brien and other trafficking victims on my podcast. O’Brien talked about Dick Cheney being among the notables who played an indescribably murderous version of “The Most Dangerous Game” with her and other child victims. For those not familiar with the story or film, it revolved around an eccentric man on a remote island who hunted humans. According to O’Brien, Dick Cheney hunted children. But he and his lovely daughter Liz criticize Trump, so millions simply shrug.

Our current president certainly is a salesman, selling everything from MAGA hats to Bibles. And plenty of people buy what he sells. No one sells a political agenda like Donald Trump. In his recent address to Congress, Trump did what he always does; brag incessantly about real and imagined accomplishments. Like a realtor claiming to be the “best” or the “top” agent in a given area, Trump makes sweeping claims that cannot be proven, or are contradicted by the evidence. He has said that we had the “strongest” border in history during his first term. In reality, he deported fewer illegals than Obama. Now he has extended that to say that during his first term, “we had the strongest economy this country has ever seen.” Now, it was certainly better than it became under Biden, but the strongest ever? In the 1950s-1970s, every job paid a living wage, and workers received regular raises, and chances for promotion. I’ll take that any day over the present rigged system, with its wealth disparity and cheap labor.

Trump has essentially “sold” his MAGA rhetoric to millions. He reaffirmed his commitment to free speech during that recent address to Congress. Now the Democrats, being philosophically opposed to free speech, were hardly going to applaud that. Not that they applauded anything from Trump, even the forlorn figures he trotted out to tug at our heartstrings during his speech. Conservative virtue signaling. But a few days after he declared how much he cherished free speech, Trump issued a statement on Truth Social, threatening to arrest and deport anyone on college campuses engaging in “illegal protests.” Because the Bill of Rights protects the right to peaceful assembly, there is no such thing as an “illegal” protest. Trump should know that better than anybody, given what happened to those protesting in his name on January 6, 2021. Translation; Trump will brook no criticism of Israel.

The “Woke” Democrats, on the other hand, are selling their own wares. They’re selling perpetual victimhood status. Be a survivor of anything from breast cancer to crack addiction. Sell it! If you’re Black, you’ve got a full arsenal. The nuclear weapon of virtue signaling; “racism.” No matter how rich and successful you are, claim that you’re still being held down. It pays to be a victim of “White Supremacy,” as all the unqualified Black figures on television prove so demonstrably. If you’re transgender, you are in a special class. They’re like multi-million dollar sales agents. And you can virtue signal while not even really “transitioning.” Ask “Lia” Thomas, breaking every women’s swim record imaginable with “her” penis tucked inside “her” swim trunks. In reality, the cultural overlords are selling sheer lunacy. And with the closing of so many mental health facilities, there are plenty of buyers.

Remember how, on Pee Wee’s Playhouse, there would be a running gag where a salesman would ring the doorbell, and Pee Wee Herman would scream in horror? That reflects how most people view sales figures, especially those trying to sell something door to door. I experienced the entire “pyramid” sales world years ago. I remember when Amway first entered the scene, and I went to several meetings, where pushy and confident sales personalities would brag about how successful they’d become. I tried A.L. Williams for a while, which was the insurance industry’s version of Amway, and even Herbalife, which I was naturally drawn to given my long time affinity for vitamins and natural supplements. It really disillusioned me when the founder of Herbalife, who was about my age, suddenly died. That’s really bad publicity for a group using a pyramid scheme to sell healthy products.

The basement of the sales world are those hapless telephone marketers. The ones who are told by their bosses that if they cold call 100 people, they should be able to make one sale. I don’t know anyone who has ever been receptive to cold calls like that, and bought whatever was being sold. Especially now, given that almost all the calls are from reps with thick Indian accents named Kyle. It doesn’t matter what they’re selling, no one is going to listen to their scripted pitch. When I started out as a realtor, my office advertised these incredibly cheap townhouses, but never listed the city, because they were close to a notorious prison. They generated most of the calls to the office, and we were instructed to answer, once the caller asked the logical question about the specific location, by saying that it was five miles south of a particular highway. I felt really stupid and dishonest doing this, and always broke the rule and disclosed the city. Have I mentioned that I’m not a great “closer?”

Almost everyone in the alt media, who has a large audience, sells things. They create online stores. Mostly vitamins, storable food, hats, shirts, etc. A number of these “influencers” are selling fear porn, just like the mainstream hacks on the Weather Channel. Dire predictions of doom. Be prepared! Many have a pay wall, where they use Patreon and other applications to offer paid subscribers additional content. To be fair, non alt media Fox News is hawking a pay channel- Fox Nation- where you can find things not on their regular network. Prostitutes have become respectable “sex workers” now, thanks to that ridiculous film somehow winning the best picture Oscar. Isn’t prostitution still illegal everywhere except for Nevada? Maybe there is a different legal standard for “sex workers?” Legal or not, “sex workers” are selling the oldest commodity in the history of civilization. One that’s always sold well.

Now we have online personalities, whether they are right-wing “influencers,” or young Tik Tok girls with no discernable talent, selling their personas. Not sure what they can possibly sell, beyond their looks. The most ambitious of these girls have created Only Fans accounts, where I guess lonely incels pay money to talk to them, or perhaps enjoy a flash of skin. Sounds easier than “sex work.” I have remarked before, with obvious frustration, about all the YouTubers who have hundreds of thousands, even millions, of subscribers, while providing “content” that is really nothing special. The same goes for all the people on Twitter/X with 50,000, 100,000, or a million followers. Who tweet the same kind of stuff I do, with far fewer subscribers. I know there’s a way to buy subscribers and followers, but do they all really do that? If you’ve watched Lex Friedman- Mr. Excitement- you know what I’m talking about. Maybe I’m just envious. It’s a capitalism thing, you wouldn’t understand.

Young men and women are selling themselves on dating apps. They used to sell themselves in person, at bars and parties, but I guess that’s rare now in America 2.0. And just like salespeople of all sorts use deceptive practices (like some despicable “investment counselor” creature that cheated me out of $8,000 from my retirement account), females especially on these dating sites are renowned for using old photos. When they weighed significantly less. Buyer beware, I suppose. Proud parents are invariably “selling” the abilities of their children, to coaches, relatives, and especially other parents. I bragged about my children as well. It’s natural. But it is a kind of sales pitch. To convince doubting family members that your child is an exceptional student. Or athlete. Or dancer. Or exceptionally attractive to the opposite sex. I don’t know, some Tik Tok mothers now probably “sell” how well their child is “transitioning.”

I always hated it when people used to ask me, at parties, or school functions, “so what do you do?” This is the standard opening for people to “sell” just what it is they “do.” I always answered “I’m a writer,” even though I hadn’t been published yet. And that was true. I have always been a writer. It’s what I am. I just never made any money at it for a long time, and make what amounts to a McDonald’s salary now doing it. Some people love to embellish their financial worth, to make you think they earn much more money than they do. Men especially love to “sell” you on how successful they are. This is particularly true if they suspect you may possibly be successful yourself. When I was really young, I told them I worked a hard physical labor job, pulling around 1,000 linen carts in the basement of a hospital. That usually ended the conversation. It’s no fun bragging, or wildly exaggerating, to a poor guy with a job like that.

Now you’re probably saying, hey, wait a minute, Mr. champion of the common man, aren’t you selling books? Don’t you hope for more paid subscriptions here on Substack? Aren’t you in effect “selling” your world view with everything you write? You’d be right, of course. I guess it’s hard to be alive without engaging in selling something, to someone. I once tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to “sell” small talk to attractive female strangers. Yeah, I probably even said “you have any fries to go with that shake?” a time or two. That was long ago, when such absurd lines weren’t a ticket to cancellation. Now, I am indeed selling myself as a writer and talker. But you’ll never see me badger anyone to buy anything I’m selling. If you’re reading this, then you’re interested at least to some degree in what I have to say.

“Everybody’s in show biz,” the Kinks once sang. I believe that everybody’s selling something. The Medical Industrial Complex is selling “healthcare,” and doctors sell tests, surgery and Big Pharma drugs. Casinos, the lottery, sports gambling, bingo- they’re all selling the notion that those who are living paycheck to paycheck- over 70 percent of the workforce- can make money quickly and easily, without having an ungrateful employer. The entertainment business sells you a world that is opposite to reality; with mixed race couples, kindly Black geniuses, powerful female fighters, and soft, pathetic White males who are subservient to all. The corporate world sells you a variety of subpar products at inflated prices. As one proud manager once told me, when I complained about a product, “What do you expect at that price?” I snappily shot back, “Well, I expected it to at least work!”

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The post Andrew Tate and the Art of Selling appeared first on LewRockwell.

So far, freer nations haven’t ended deprivations of life.

For now, Republican president Abraham Lincoln gets lauded for ending deprivations of blacks’ liberty, even though he provoked and escalated war, which caused deprivations of life, of free men’s liberty, and of property.

Meanwhile, many founders, and, later, Democratic presidents, were otherwise outstanding at protecting life, free men’s liberty, and property, but they now have their legacies fall under the shadow of their failures to take the actions they could have taken to try to end deprivations of blacks’ liberty.

Like liberty is better protected now, life will get better protected in the future. And like with liberty now, politicians’ widespread failures to take the actions they could take on life will look unconscionable and shameful.

Apart from during wars, liberty was deprived solely through slavery. In contrast, life is being deprived through health tyranny, abortion and IVF killing, and war.

Each can be remedied now.

Health Tyranny

mRNA covid therapies by design have made people’s bodies produce toxins, depriving many persons of life. These deprivations continue now. All mRNA therapies developed so far have had the same unsafe design approach, so as of now even more deprivations are coming.

If people had liberty to use proven-safe existing antivirals, antioxidants, steroids, and antibiotics, this would have prevented nearly all deprivations of life due to the gain-of-function SARS-CoV-2 virus, lockdowns, and mRNA therapies.

Emergency declarations other than suspension of habeas corpus aren’t allowed by the Constitution. Following the Constitution’s rules would have prevented all deprivations of life due to lockdowns.

Protecting the right of trial by jury in suits at common law would have prevented every deprivation of life due to mRNA therapies, apart from possibly a few deaths in safety trials.

1. Revoke all authorizations to use therapeutics that have mRNA as an active ingredient. Enact rules and sanctions prohibiting the use of mRNA therapeutics.
2. Repeal national-government control over prescribing. Enact rules and sanctions prohibiting government control over prescribing and dispensing in all jurisdictions.
3. Repeal national-government emergency powers. Enact rules and sanctions prohibiting maintaining emergency powers, and using them, in all jurisdictions.
4. Repeal all product-liability exemptions.

Abortion, and In-Vitro-Fertilization Killing

On abortion and IVF killing, the wrong national-government action would deprive vastly more persons of life, likely for many more decades. The right action is to fully support the Constitution’s protection of life, by only enacting measures that, with no exceptions, prevent deprivations of life starting at fertilization.

On IVF killing, natural reproduction respects life. Keep treating it as legal for IVF producers to deprive persons of life, the way things are now, and IVF producers won’t up and change on their own anytime soon. But raise up a clear legal boundary, and IVF producers will change their practices to not deprive persons of life, and from there will innovate to make their pricing attractive.

1. Enact a national statute establishing that life begins at fertilization, and that all jurisdictions’ statutes on killing apply starting at fertilization.
2. Prosecute under state laws in national courts.
3. Outlaw abortion and IVF killing, starting at fertilization, by national criminal statute.
4. Allow urban-core regions where majorities of voters support abortion and IVF killing to secede from the national government.

War

Major wars have not been initiated when freer people have substantially outproduced the less-free people under enemy governments. If we severely limit our governments to leave our people maximally free to outproduce less-free potential enemies, common sense suggests that potential enemies’ government people will prefer to stay alive. The available evidence also supports that they will. If it’s true that they will, then increasing our freedom will be the primary change that ultimately prevents major wars. So to prevent wars and limit any deprivations due to wars, economic power is primary.

Other actions seemingly more-directly tied to wars are secondary but are needed too.

1. Stop enforcing and formally repeal all national-government regulations. Outlaw and enforce against all regulations in other jurisdictions.
2. Order and enact that Fed people shall keep the money quantity
3. Formally repeal all statutes on the Fed, legal tender, and alternate stores of value.
4. Enact only overall total appropriations. Executively allocate budgets as appropriate to enforce the constitutional rules and sanctions.
5. End payments on national debt other than on the debt owed to USA retirees.
6. End transfer payments to any organizations—to other nations, other government jurisdictions, non-government organizations of all kinds, etc.
7. End all tariffs.
8. Repeal all infringements of the right to keep and bear arms. Enact a statute formally outlawing such infringements, and enforce this in all government jurisdictions and in all other organizations.
9. End all involvement in war without congress-passed rules-of-engagement cards and a congress-passed war declaration. Enact rules-of-engagement cards. If ever declaring war and fighting war, make the sole purpose be to destroy the enemies’ governments.
10. End all procurement of current-generation production weapons. Research and test weapons in secret, in rapid design cycles as if we were currently threatened by existential war.
11. Stop enforcing and formally repeal all treaties. Close and repeal all foreign bases and embassies.
12. Enact and enforce rules prohibiting each of China government people’s unconventional-warfare actions that is currently recognized. Give these rules force with one sanction: whenever any of these rules is being broken, all trade with China people shall be prohibited. Each time an additional warfare action is recognized, enact and enforce an additional rule that prohibits the additional action.
13. Repeal all existing legislative-house rules, eliminating the current committees. Ratify legislative-house constitutions modeled on the Constitution. In them, replace states with working groups, at most one per Constitution clause. Add a rule that each existing statute and new bill is constitutional only if it passes all of the following simple pass/fail tests: (1) no misleading parts; (2) only uses powers enumerated for the national government; (3) no delegation of legislative power; (4) no grabs of executive power; (5) no grabs of judicial power; and (6) not noncritical, complex, or long, and not helping make the total corpus of law incomprehensibly complex or long. With the new senate constitution, like with the Constitution, filibuster cloture would violate the constitution.
14. Repeal all statutes that interfere with customers’ control of health-product producers. Outlaw any such interference, and enforce this in all government jurisdictions.
15. Repeal all statutes that require employers or individuals to pay in towards individuals’ entitlements. Amend statutes to promise the lifetime benefits that correspond to the lifetime payments that were made up to the amendment date. Enact a statute formally authorizing the sale of government assets and providing model terms of sale.
16. Repeal existing statutes on patents and copyrights. Enact a new statute giving new rules for disclosures and durations: Grant patents only if the grantees provide open access to all business data on the monopoly-protected products, and only as long as the grantees maintain open access to all business data as business data continue to develop. Establish limited patent and copyright durations of 3 years.
17. Enact and enforce rules requiring that each state government must provide state residents a constitution that enumerates limited powers, vests all the legislative power in the legislature, defines separated and offsetting powers, and requires oaths like in the Constitution, which require officials to use their offsetting powers.

Executives are called on to take decisive actions. They naturally lead. They naturally emphasize some main areas and propose measures that could be a good start.

Legislators represent different groups of people and have different skills and experiences. They naturally work in groups. They can flesh out fuller ranges of innovative ideas, and develop rules and sanctions that can provide multiple independent protections.

Executives should use their powers the best they can, and legislators should go them one better. In the end, of the various areas they can focus on, all others are trumped by life.

The post Life Trumps All appeared first on LewRockwell.

In the post-conciliar age, there is often a tendency to look to the times preceding the Second Vatican Council and find attitudes that we can blame the whole crisis on. This is not an attitude unique to those who seek to save the Council from the “Spirit of the Council”; it is also found among traditionalists, who I believe don’t wish to seem unhinged by pretending that all our problems began in the 1960s. One of the so-called problems that can be presented is what is said to be the over-emphasis of Thomism. This, of course, was a primary point of the Nouvelle théologie theologians who repeatedly stressed the need for us to embrace an attitude of Ad fontes, oftentimes going to the sources around St. Thomas entirely. Father Garrigou-Lagrange, speaking of the Nouvelle theologians said of them “We do not think that the writers whom we have discussed abandoned the doctrine of St. Thomas. Rather, they never adhered to it, nor ever understood it very well.”[1] But those who decry the over-emphasis of St. Thomas now do so in different ways and are much more subtle.

For example, Bishop Barron, while calling himself a Thomist, decries the “closed Thomism” of the past which closes itself off as a self-contained system, but promotes an “open Thomism,” which allows for the simultaneous embrace of contemporary theologians like Balthasar or the embrace of phenomenology. Another way is by means of some elements of Eastern Catholicism, insisting on having their own means of theological and philosophical thought as we can see in one of the foundational documents of Eastern Catholicism, “The Courage to be Ourselves” of the Melkite Archbishop Tawil, which states that the East must not copy the theology of the West.

These attitudes, while potentially being able to be taken in a certain tolerable sense, has led to the exaggeration of such sentiments, often stemming from a poor understanding of the history and terms of the philosophical and theological topics involved. One still finds on the parochial level many priests who know more of Rahner or Kant than they know of St. Thomas, while perhaps paying lip-service to the contributions of the Saint. Similarly, I have encountered some Eastern Catholics who take the statement of Archbishop Tawil to mean that Thomism has no place for Eastern Catholics, and that they are free to accept everything within Eastern Orthodoxy, including a denial of the Filioque, as implied by Melkite Archbishop Zoghby.[2] It nowadays seems quite fashionable to say that one may be a Thomist as long as he realizes that he is on the same footing as everyone else, and acknowledges an egalitarian rule of theological and philosophical schools. But is this what the Church teaches?

An Already-Established Tradition

The most pre-eminent work on the authority of St. Thomas has already been written, and it would be foolishness and hubris to attempt to do a better job. This work was The Authority of St. Thomas Aquinas, by Santiago Ramirez, O.P. in 1952. I do not aim fully in this article to reproduce his treatise, but merely to summarize some of the essential points of his work, examine the pre-conciliar[3] teachings on the authority of St. Thomas Aquinas and use these findings as a basis to evaluate the present controversies in our time. In general, I wish to defend the claim given by Ramirez that “the slightest digression from Aquinas is neither permitted nor tolerated; but the Church urges and strongly praises fidelity in following him, even in minor matters.”[4] Further, I here also reiterate the claim made by the pre-conciliar manuals[5] that a doctrine, by virtue of being held by St. Thomas, while not reaching the theological note of de fide or theologice certa, still holds a unique authority and “can and must be held safely, with simple assent, while also respecting the opposite opinion of another School or Doctor.”[6]

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Authority

To understand the authority of the Angelic Doctor we must first distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic authority both in the philosophical and theological realm. Ramirez explains this as follows “One is intrinsic or scientific and is measured by the internal mental stature of the writer and the intrinsic doctrinal validity of his work. The other authority is extrinsic or canonical and is measured in a particular way by the approbation and commendation of the Teaching Church.”[7] In the former sense, we say that a man has intrinsic authority based on the stature of his work, and his ability in his science. In theology we also say that one has this intrinsic authority based on the sanctity of one’s life, and on this point, we see it reiterated time and time again by the Dominican school of thought and interestingly also in the East with its emphasis on sin darkening the intellect or the nous, and knowledge of divine things stemming from interior union with God. In the latter sense we say that a man has extrinsic authority based on statements from another. One could speak here of even having extrinsic authority in that other learned men give someone repute, which is certainly the case for St. Thomas, but I only wish here to look at the extrinsic authority that St. Thomas has from the teaching of the Church, a special kind of extrinsic authority often called canonical authority.

The Intrinsic Authority Considered

When we consider the intrinsic authority of St. Thomas, is there a man in the world who would so foolishly doubt the outstanding nature of St. Thomas’s intellect? Could anyone read and thoroughly understand the Summa Theologica or the Summa Contra Gentiles and come away with the idea that St. Thomas was of a simple-minded nature? We ought to here consider the very fact of his vast understanding not just of one linear school but of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius[8], St. Augustine, Boethius, Plato, Aristotle and the Islamic commentaries on them. He further displayed his command over the philosophical world by himself writing extensive commentaries on many of the works written by these men. I find it is common for Thomists within academic circles to point to Leo XIII’s excellent encyclical Aeterni Patris to establish the excellence of St. Thomas, and this encyclical is certainly to be admired for its revival of the Angelic Doctor. But this is not the only document we might use, but rather we can point to many documents, such as Studiorem Ducem of Pope Pius XI, who at length discusses how St. Thomas excelled, thoroughly treated and answered each of the prevalent issues of the Philosophical and Theological schools. The Pontiff, among a long list of praises for the saintly Doctor, tells us:

His teaching with regard to the power or value of the human mind is irrefragable.

The metaphysical philosophy of St. Thomas, although exposed to this day to the bitter onslaughts of prejudiced critics, yet still retains, like gold which no acid can dissolve, its full force and splendor unimpaired.

There can be no doubt that Aquinas raised Theology to the highest eminence, for his knowledge of divine things was absolutely perfect and the power of his mind made him a marvelously capable philosopher. Thomas is therefore considered the Prince of teachers in our schools, not so much on account of his philosophical system as because of his theological studies. There is no branch of theology in which he did not exercise the incredible fecundity of his genius.[9]

We ought to also mention here the sanctity of St. Thomas Aquinas in both his thought and in his life. The stories of St. Thomas’ sanctity are well known including his mystical experiences and his steadfast devotion towards purity earning him the title of Angelic Doctor. We might also speak of his many miracles, of which Pope John XXII said after the canonization of St Thomas:

Why should we seek more miracles? He has performed as many miracles as he wrote articles. Truly this glorious Doctor, after the Apostles and the early Doctors, has greatly enlightened the Church.[10]

But we also owe St. Thomas a great debt for the great Spiritual Tradition of the Church, providing us with clear principles for Mental Prayer. It is here sufficient to recommend one read the short book of Father Fahey, Mental Prayer According to the Principles of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which shows clearly how Thomistic thought thoroughly animates and provides great light to the spiritual life. It was this knowledge of the Thomistic influence that led Pope Benedict XV in 1921 to say of progressing in the spiritual life that it is “absolutely necessary, then, to repeat oftener what Holy Scripture and the Fathers of the Church have taught us on this subject, taking as our guide St. Thomas Aquinas.”[11]

It is with this understanding that we might not only say that St. Thomas has a great degree of intrinsic authority but that he has the highest intrinsic authority, and this is confirmed by Pope Leo XIII who teaches in his Encyclical Aeterni Patris:

Again, clearly distinguishing, as is fitting, reason from faith, while happily associating the one with the other, he both preserved the rights and had regard for the dignity of each; so much so, indeed, that reason, born on the wings of Thomas to its human height, can scarcely rise higher, while faith could scarcely expect more or stronger aids from reason than those which she has already obtained through Thomas (emphasis mine).

Read the Whole Article

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“How can the right be so wrong?” This refreshingly provocative pun serves as the opening salvo in British author Douglas Murray’s broadside against MAGA’s stance on Ukraine. Murray, undeniably gifted with words — if less so with ideas — initially led me to suspect that this was a lazy editor’s bait, cast to hook as many closeted neocons as possible. Sadly, the rest of his piece proved me wrong.

In it, we never learn exactly how MAGA gets it so wrong regarding Ukraine because Murray busies himself chasing fringe conspiracies instead of addressing core arguments head-on.

For starters, he conveniently sidesteps the clear point Trump made directly to Zelenskyy last week in the Oval Office: continuing this path risks World War III and nuclear annihilation, while American taxpayers pour hundreds of billions annually into a bloody stalemate that claims two thousand lives each week — all without any clear resolution.

Instead of addressing the undeniable practical concerns of the present, Murray bases his argument on a perceived MAGA shortsightedness about the past. He contends that Ukraine only entered American consciousness twice in the past decade — through Hunter Biden’s shady dealings and Trump’s impeachment over a phone call with Zelenskyy. In doing so, he implicitly accuses MAGA supporters of behaving as if the war started in 2022. Ironically, by overlooking two critical issues consistently raised by MAGA — the U.S. support for the EU-driven overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russia government in 2014 (the Euromaidan affair) and NATO’s relentless eastward expansion — Murray himself might be guilty of such oversight.

As is often true, the accuser unwittingly exposes more about himself. Murray belittles MAGA as “mainly online,” insinuating that by remaining outside established media narratives, they are susceptible to Russian propaganda. It’s the tired ‘Russian hoax,’ now dressed up in its latest ‘fierce and brave’ op-ed guise.

Murray wastes further paragraphs highlighting absurd fringe theories he claims are central to MAGA beliefs — such as Ukraine not being a “real country” or Ukrainians not being a “real people” — only to undermine legitimate concerns around Ukraine’s deep-seated corruption and the troubling neo-Nazi elements within its army.

He deeply regrets episodes like Hunter Biden’s Burisma scandal and the ousting of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating him — not for their substance, but because they unfairly, in his view, cast Ukraine as corrupt.

To top it off, he suggests that the online right “became bored” with the conflict. Bored with two thousand deaths a week? Perhaps Murray enjoys watching young men shoot each other from the comfort of his couch — but appalling is hardly appealing to everyone. At least not always.

The price tag for World War II was sixty million lives. Today, the markup with a nuclear power involved would be much higher. Is Murray ready to write that check? Just so we’re clear.

Neoconite in Shining Armour

I’m not quite ready to label Douglas Murray a woke globalist, which is a worrying sign that the neocons aren’t sending us their best — even when they are. Still, he’s bold enough to voice their latest swan song.

He champions what he calls a “Republican principle,” asserting that tanks should not roll unchecked into an “allied country.” Since there’s no formal defense treaty binding the U.S. and Ukraine, he presumably refers to the “U.S.-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership,” which explicitly references NATO’s 2008 declaration affirming Ukraine will join NATO.

However, Murray, perhaps blinded by his own briliance, contradicts himself: if he advocates for U.S. intervention based on NATO obligations, he cannot simultaneously deny that NATO expansion—the Holy Grail for neocons—is a fundamental factor driving the conflict, nor can he ignore its influence on MAGA criticism.

He praises the “old guard” Republicans who asserted themselves “pro-Ukraine and anti-Putin,” while decrying the MAGA Republicans “veering in a different direction.” In his eyes, anything short of full support for continued fighting in Ukraine must stem from historical ignorance, vulnerability to Russian propaganda, or — heaven forbid — a rejection of neoconservative dogma.

Here, Murray’s superficial understanding is glaring, as he mistakenly views MAGA as an offshoot of neoconservatism or believes conservatism began when history supposedly ended in the early 1990s.

What else does Murray accuse MAGA of misunderstanding? He mocks the idea that moderation or peace could be effective solutions, reducing the conflict to a beauty pageant between Putin and Zelenskyy — good versus evil, with no middle ground. You either back Ukraine wholeheartedly or you’re just a Russian dupe.

Is MAGA wrong to highlight that Zelenskyy overtly campaigned for Biden, thereby politicizing U.S. support? And what about the $61 billion Ukrainian aid package Congress passed last April, presumably as a stopgap until Trump’s anticipated return to the White House could end the war? Apparently, these are also trivial details.

To bolster his black-and-white narrative, he concedes — though fleetingly — Zelenskyy’s and Ukraine’s flaws, yet insists Russia and Putin are far worse: dictatorship, corruption, hypocrisy regarding Christianity, forced conscription, and fraudulent elections. All true, of course — but irrelevant to MAGA’s plea for peace.

His MAGA critique never transcends a simple matter of picking sides in an imaginary moral quandary. He fails to question the trajectory of the conflict, its true costs, or the potential outcomes. Murray’s fundamental mistake lies in assuming that ‘correctness’ in this conflict is determined by the ‘team’ you’re supposedly cheering for.

Read the Whole Article

The post Douglas Murray Is Wrong on Ukraine appeared first on LewRockwell.

“A simple but extremely powerful tactic – a mass disabling event from the perspective of technocracy – would be for a new social norm to cascade, whereby as many people as possible, got rid of their ‘smart’ (slave) devices and stopped voluntarily hooking themselves up to the control grid and feeding it information on all areas of their lives. There is a reason why these devices are designed to be highly addictive; notifications, for instance, create ‘short-term, dopamine driven feedback loops’, as the vice president for user growth for Facebook admitted. In that respect, society urgently needs to kick the habit” – David A. Hughes

David A. Hughes, University of Lincoln, UK, in his examination of the 2020 Pandemic and accompanying political coup, titled COVID-19 Psychological Operations and the War for Technocracy (2024), calls for individuals to pull the plug on their smart phones as a mass act of worldwide ‘revolution’ against the global technocratic attack that began in 2020.  Hughes asks:

“We are in a race against time. Technocracy’s bio-digital gulag is at an advanced stage of construction, with its CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), Internet of Bodies, smart cities, social credit scoring, ESG’s (Environmental Social Governance), 5-G (fifth generation) networks, etc. starting to materialize around us. Will enough people, in the wake of the ‘COVID-19 operation, be able to see what is happening and take decisive action to stop it, before it is too late (and irreversible)?”

Americans are not aware that we are on the verge of the elimination of a transactional economy based on two-party free market exchanges (using cash and checks) to be replaced by all-digitized crypto script that will allow a third-party into all transactions in the U.S. –the Bank of International Settlements — through its largest “stakeholder” the New York Federal Reserve Bank.  What this means is that money as free market currency will die and be replaced with an electronic totalitarian system of controlled transactions by central banks.  Moreover, German banking economist, Dr. Richard Werner, reports the eventual goal of CBDC is the replacement of all brick and mortar banks with a world bank and the implanting a chip under the skin, to exert total control over everyone except a tiny fraction of elite controllers worldwide. But fear about embedded chips being mandated seems exaggerated because they would require voluntary acquiescence as they can be “foiled” with simple tin foil.

Former U.S. HUD undersecretary and CBDG opponent, Catherine Austin Fitts, asserts that fiscal policy (spending) will no longer be a matter of congress or legislatures at the state and local level. Instead, reserve banks will take over fiscal policy and impose limits on spending at the individual level controlled by artificial intelligence systems. Market choices will become limited.  This will be guided by a policy of austerity that intentionally decreases the supply of foods, goods and services to inflate prices that disproportionately enrich oligarchs.

Augustin Carstens of the Bank of International Settlements has openly stated precisely what it plans to do with CBDG:

“We intend to establish (a system) equivalent with cash. With cash we don’t know who’s using a $100 bill or $100 peso today.  The difference with CBDG is the central bank will have absolute control of rules and regulations over use of CBDG and the authority to enforce those rules”.

CBDG Will Vastly Lower Standard of Living

CBDG will require a massive amount of more electricity to transfer funds (note: checks typically require 1 to 2 days to clear the bank while using a debit card takes up to 5 days, to assure the same money is not used twice). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the current amount of energy required for a credit card transaction is 1 thousandth of a kilowatt hour (1/1,000 kwh). But a bitcoin transaction will involve extra “proof of work” and/or “proof of stake” verification requiring 1,000 kilowatt hours, or one million times more energy expended per transaction (the average US home uses about 900 kilowatt hours per month).  At the current average cost of electricity of 16 cents per kilowatt hour in the U.S, this would equate to $16 dollars per transaction not the existing two-tenths of a cent. There were 18.5 trillion bank clearinghouse transactions in 2022.

The cost of this system would be economically unrealistic and would be a disguised excise tax that would circumvent local voter approval (e.g., California Proposition 218 Utility Users 4.5% Tax on electricity and phone usage).  Nonetheless, a central bank, that is privately-owned not a state bank, and not Venmo or Visa, would be electronically authorizing each transaction according to climate change energy efficiency goals to limit where those funds can be spent.  The exponentially higher cost is not purely for the crypto commercial transaction but for establishment of a draconian mechanism of totalistic social control.

Catherine Austin Fitts further reports that by 2015 the New York Fed Bank had pirated $21 trillion out of the US and its pension systems and social security fund investments to supposedly protect it from the uncontrolled spending by the US Congress. This was verified by Professor of accounting Mark Skidmore of Michigan State University.  However, Pres. Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) task force is not attempting to recover the $21 trillion removed by bankers from pension and Social Security-Medicare fund investments.

CBDG is effectually, a skimming operation meant to confiscate and redistribute a portion of the amount of funds from each transaction by the BIS to its globalist and climate change cronies. An historical example of this mafia like shakedown racket is ancient Rome mentioned in the Christian apocalyptic Book of Revelations and its obligatory ritual to give divine honors to Caesar.  All Roman citizens were required to have the “name of the beast” tattooed on their right hand or forehead and worship a statue of the emperor before they could buy or sell essential commodities, under penalty of execution (see Bruce W. Winter, Divine Honors for the Caesars, 2015, chapter 12). The modern analog to this tattooing is the COVID-19 vaccination certificate as a “mark of the beast” required to keep one’s job in the military, in academia and public schools, and medicine.

Where this emerging digitized transaction system is misunderstood by the public is that it would be the reverse of Marxism by robbing the value of money from the labor of the working class (proletariat) and replacing it with global banker Fascism and a new feudalistic caste system. One only needs to read William Dalrymple’s 2022 book The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence and the Pillage of a Country, to understand what the disastrous consequences of a corporation and world bank running a country would be.

Likewise, in his book The Princes of Yen: Japan’s Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy (price: $200 to $2,000), Richard Werner discovered the 23 years of slow growth in Japan was caused by concentration of power in the central bank.

Resistance Requires Class Consciousness of a Silent War Against the People

To untether us from smart phones, Hughes says we will first have to cultivate class consciousness. But Americans are mostly not cognizant of social class division between the elites and the mass class because of being socially conditioned that America is an egalitarian classless state.  Hughes states we are largely unaware that we are the target in an asymmetric (one-sided) Omni War war hell-bent on depopulation imposed on us by elites.

For example, we are mostly unaware that by government privatizing email, social media, and money transactions, we surrender our rights to free speech and privacy because private corporations are not subject to constitutional protections and the Bill of Rights is not part of the Constitution.

Alternatives to Smart Phones for Blow Back

Most of us feel we lack enough political power and are too divided and alienated by elitist policies to find anyway to meaningfully resist the emerging takeover of global banking as a system of total world control. Hughes calls for foregoing your smart phone as the only way to gain power against this emerging world banking system.

However, there are several technologies emerging as an alternative to trackable smart phones (I have no financial interest in the products or services listed below and do not endorse them):

Privacy Smart Phones have no 32-digit alphanumeric code for tracking and have a real kill-switch rather than the existing off button that nonetheless allows listening and visual reconnaissance. The Unplugged privacy phone is an example of such a dumbed down phone.  Advertising excerpt:

“The Unplugged © Privacy Weave cell phone stops the resale and tracking of your data, cold. It is powered by LibertOS, our proprietary privacy Operating System, with custom precise controls, advanced encryption, a no trace VPA (Virtual Payment Address), (text) Messenger, and a robust antivirus. You’ll find options to select your desired network modes to disable 5G, simply by selecting an option that includes 2G, 3G, or 4G, and is GPS (global positioning system) capable. Also provides anonymous browsing” – Unplugged.com.

Other privacy phones include: Blackphone Privy 2.0, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Linux based Fair Phone S, Murena 2, K-iPhone for VOIP network ($6,000), Bittium Tough Mobile 2C, Sirin Labs Finney UI blockchain phone.

Designated Privacy Carriers – Privacy phone expert Rob Braxman says what the government calls KYC (know your customer) is surveillance capitalism. The mobile phone is an ID card and requires you to authenticate your ID. Your phone traffic is captured by government. However, Braxman explains that no one is providing choice to users of alternative privacy carriers such as SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) over the internet or VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). – see The Privacy Solution No One Knows About.

Dumbed-Downed Smart Phone – Braxman also provides information on how to dumb down your smart phone to provide privacy. Ashton Womack how to make a cell phone a dumb phone mainly by dumping apps from your smart phone.

Gabb Network and Phones for Kids – Gabb is a cellular network that also offers kids phones not connected to the Internet.

No Identity Phone Number – Braxman also provides a service of issuing you a phone number that never reveals your ID and thus can’t be tracked – see Brax.Me App (@robbraxman).

Flip Phones – Smart phone consultant Ashton Womack online describes her experience in using a flip phone for one year. One must be careful because even flip phones can be made into smart phones.

As I was finishing this article, I got an email on my cell phone advertising Zelle to encourage me to abandon writing checks and using cash. I now pay all my utility bills by paper check (not electronic check) sent via the U.S. mail and buy food with cash as much as possible. I was told by a friend that the delivery time for ordering checks is backlogged because so many people are shifting back to using checks.

The post Technocracy Mass Resistance Starts with Swap Out of Smart Phones for Privacy Phones appeared first on LewRockwell.

There is a phenomenally good website that provides daily news-reports on the basically dictatorial inner workings of, and mass-mind-control methods being imposed by, the UK and U.S. armaments-manufacturers’-controlled government, which government’s #1 priority — and which therefore constantly guides its actions and its propaganda — is to constantly increase the sales-volumes and thus profits of their country’s weapons-manufacturers and other ‘national-security’ industries (and therefore the U.S. and UK are controlled BY their “military-industrial complex,” instead of controlling it like an authentic democracy WOULD).

The site is called “UK Column” and it is (except for a few installments, such as this one) strictly behind a paywall, but when they interview the great investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley, who specializes on Syria-related matters, she retitles the entire video and presents non-paywalled access to that day’s entire edition of UK Column at her non-paywalled Substack site. The original title is “UK Column News Extra – 5th March 2025”. She re-titled the video “The Zionist war against Turkey in Syria – David’s Corridor and the Kurdish alliance: The full news from UK Column yesterday”. Here it is, in excerpts I have selected to transcribe here, which relate specifically to how the empire imposes its tyranny upon the masses:

At 16:20, the announcer said “I wanted to focus on the legal framework that they [the intelligence services] operate under, because they said the Intelligence Services Act 1994 sets out GCHQ’s function as a foreign-focused signals intelligence agency. I just want to point out that that would seem to be incompatible with the integrated operating concept, which IS military doctrine in the UK at the moment, and which removes the distinction between foreign and domestic focus. [And think of Edward Snowden’s case in the U.S. — the same thing.] And we should keep in mind that 77 Brigade, which was claimed by the Government to operate only on foreign shores, was retasked domestically on a whim during covid. So, I’m uncertain whether we should accept the implication of this initial claim by GVHQ. The second thing that they say here is that the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 governs the use and oversight of investigatory powers by law enforcement agencies. But the amendments to the Investigatory Powers Act permit them to do all kinds of unpleasant things, and so I encourage everybody to read that document. It’ll be available in the show notes, and we’ll have more to say about this in Extra as well. Sandra [Sandy Adams], what have you got for us following on from Brian’s [Brian Gerrish’s] report on Ukraine on Monday [NOT paywalled — and it displays the documentation for most of what she says here]? Thank you, Mike [Robinson]. Well, I’ve been looking at, you know, what’s happened in social media this week. We sort of saw what happened in 2020 with covid. It’s almost as though the war in Ukraine and the Trump Zelensky theatre show has really triggered people, it’s become almost the covid 2.0. We have to remember that it’s the interest of the Deep State [the billionaires] to keep us all divided [against one-another so as NOT to be fighting against the Deep State itself]. I mean, I’ve heard people arguing, you know, all the time. And it’s important we don’t fall for that. So, I thought it would be just good to remind ourselves of the cover-up of corporate profiteering going on in Ukraine and the real reason for this devastating and corrupt war. Obviously, we know that Starmer has just agreed to send more UK taxpayers money to Ukraine this week. Investment so far to over 12 billion [pounds] since 2022, in the alleged help in their fight for democracy. Most of this money, as we know, isn’t actually going to Ukraine at all. Instead it’s being funneled into the pockets of defense contractors, multinational corporations and financial giants like BlackRock. This is a racket, it’s a system designed to enrich the elites [the billionaires, otherwise known as “the Deep State”] while keeping Ukraine in a cycle of war, debt and economic servitude.” (19:00).

She then talked about the main beneficiaries being “Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, and General Dynamics, all receiving massive military contracts.” Then she listed some of the (but much smaller, such as the Thales Group) British contractors who are cashing in on Ukraine. “What happens after the war — well, that’s where even bigger profits come in. BlackRock has already signed agreements with the Ukrainian government to advise on post-war reconstruction. They’re helping structure investment funds to rebuild Ukraine. … Obviously, BlackRock and its investors will control how rebuilding funds are going to be spent.”

So: this is entirely an insider’s game. She refers to “elites” but what those ARE is the most-super-rich individuals in America and UK. They are the wealth-“elite,” not any other type of “elite.” (Like she said, “it’s a system designed to enrich the elites.”) They are the mere thousand-or-so individuals who are routinely in contact with one-another in order to negotiate deals that will benefit both of them regardless of what it will do to their competitors or to the public; and, so, for themselves, it’s a win-win game (which is WHY their wealth constantly increases at a far higher percentage-rate per year than the nation’s GDP does), though for their competitors it is a win-lose game — and for everybody else it wil be a lose-lose game because all of the external costs will be paid by the public in higher taxes and higher federal debt (which will be paid by following generations of the public). (“It’s the same IMF debt trap that’s been used in Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and Iraq. … Ukraine … is being colonized by economic means.”)

Ukraine’s colonization started on 20 February 2014 when Obama grabbed Ukraine and started the ‘civil war’ there that when it became TOO threatening to next-door Russia, precipitated Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ten years later. And here was how Ukraine’s ‘civil war’ started that day regarding specifically the Crimeans (and which therefore caused its breakaway from Ukraine).

As regards the question of when and why the UK/U.S. war to take control specifically over Russia historically began, see here. It goes back to Cecil Rhodes in 1877, the origin of the “Special Relationship” between the UK and the U.S.

I shall close by noting that because (like I do) UK Column provides information that is almost 100% suppressed in other media, they (like I do when I always encourage readers to click onto any link when you doubt the veracity of a given allegation) discourage trusting ANY medium, but they instead advise viewers to fact-check any ALLEGATION:

Why should I trust the UK Column?

Put simply, you shouldn’t.

The question of whether or not to trust a news organisation is a false choice.

Making such a choice is promoted by government, the old media, and two new organisation types: the fact checker and the trust provider. It disenfranchises readers, viewers and listeners. It is based on the principle that if you trust the media organisation you are visiting, there is no need for you to check the information they present.

So we ask you not to trust us. Instead, view everything published here with a critical eye. Where possible, primary source material is made available for everything we publish: check it; make up your own mind.

I have fact-checked UK Column enough so that I place that site into the small category of ones I now DO trust. Since it is a video-site instead of a written one with allegation-specific links that can be fact-checked so easily as to simply click onto the given allegation’s link, I am especially reluctant to trust video sites (which are unable to provide such allegation-specific link-based access to a given source), but UK Column is one video-site that I do now trust.

Anyone who sub-contracts-out the ‘fact-checking’ is making a huge error, because the regime itself controls the ‘fact-checking’ ‘non-profits’ in order to censor-out sites such as UK Column, and this technique of mass-deceit is an important part of how the U.S./UK regime controls the empire. So, ONLY oneself can police truthfulness. This is not to say that there do not exist experts, but it IS to require ALL of them to be evaluated by one’s OWN investigation (spot-checking) of their alleged sources. Trust must NEVER be absolute; because, if one DOES trust someone ABSOLUTELY, then one is that person’s mental slave. No scientist is supposed to work that way: EVERYTHING is to be questioned ALWAYS. Otherwise, one is an authoritarian, or a person of mere faith. Intellectual freedom pre-supposes a constant skepticism about everything — absolute (100%) certainty about nothing.

This originally appeared on Eric’s Substack.

The post An Accurate Description of the UK-U.S. Empire appeared first on LewRockwell.