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The tyranny of COVID-19 caused many doctors to – quite reluctantly – wake up to the life damaging fraud they were party to and – for many – leaving the Pharma Based Sickness Treatment Model to recreate themselves in the now burgeoning Wellness-Promoting Health System.

One such is Dr. Leigh Willoughby from New Zealand who’s journey took her from, at first, promoting vaccines to later being prosecuted when she tried to stop the fraud after she herself became injured after taking a COVID-19 vaccine.

At first, she was duped by the fear campaigns and took the jab but after becoming vaccine injured (her fellow doctors told her her severe pain and damage was all in her head) – she then – after doing her own research and starting to speak out – was prosecuted!

This is a vitally important – and tragic – story of bravery about this courageous woman.

Her painful journey will inspire you – and likely outrage you – and hopefully will help you help others learn more before they take another poisonous jab themselves.

Please watch the entire interview, HERE – but if you’re time limited – please at least watch @1.5x Speed the 12.5 minute section from ~07:00 to 19:30.

Highly Recommended

The post Medical Gaslighting: How a Medical Doctor Was Vaccine Injured AND THEN Prosecuted For Speaking Out About It appeared first on LewRockwell.

Perché gli USA crescono mentre l'UE rallenta: la ricetta di Adam Smith

Freedonia - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 11:08

Ricordo a tutti i lettori che su Amazon potete acquistare il mio nuovo libro, “Il Grande Default”: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DJK1J4K9

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

____________________________________________________________________________________

di David Hebert

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/perche-gli-usa-crescono-mentre-lue)

Cosa spiega la curiosa mancanza di progressi economici nell'UE negli ultimi 16 anni?

Nel 2008 le economie dell'Unione Europea e degli Stati Uniti erano più o meno uguali in termini di PIL. Facendo un salto in avanti attraverso una crisi finanziaria globale e una pandemia, l'economia degli Stati Uniti è quasi raddoppiata mentre quella dell'Europa è cresciuta a malapena. Come possiamo spiegarlo?

Una risposta è il problema lampante nel confrontare il PIL dell'UE nel 2008 con il PIL dell'UE nel 2023: la Brexit. Dobbiamo ricordarci che il PIL è definito come il valore di tutta la produzione che avviene all'interno di un'economia. Nel 2016 l'UE ha perso la sua seconda economia più grande e con essa una parte significativa del suo PIL complessivo. Tuttavia con un PIL compreso tra $2.500-3.000 miliardi, l'uscita della Gran Bretagna dall'UE non può, da sola, spiegare il divario di quasi $10.000 miliardi.

Innanzitutto dobbiamo ricordare a noi stessi che la ricchezza non è qualcosa che avviene automaticamente, elargita dall'alto come se fosse manna dal cielo. Deve essere creata attraverso gli sforzi consapevoli di lavoratori, dirigenti aziendali e imprenditori. Avrete notato un gruppo di persone che manca a questa lista: i politici. Nonostante le loro affermazioni contrarie, essi non possono creare ricchezza. Tuttavia il loro ruolo in questo processo non può essere sottovalutato, poiché esercitano il potere simultaneo di promuoverla e inibirla.

Adam Smith ci fornì il modello per la crescita già nel lontano 1776: “Poco altro è necessario per portare uno stato al più alto grado di opulenza dalla più bassa barbarie: pace, tasse basse e un'amministrazione tollerabile della giustizia; tutto il resto è determinato dal corso naturale delle cose”.

Confrontando gli Stati Uniti e l'Unione Europea su questi aspetti emergono delle differenze sostanziali.

Pace

Classificare l'attuale clima degli Stati Uniti come “pacifico” risulterebbe poco sincero, soprattutto considerando le sparatorie, gli omicidi e il ciclo elettorale bellicoso. Infatti “ridurre la criminalità” è una preoccupazione crescente per tutti gli americani in tutto lo spettro politico. È interessante notare che i tassi di criminalità sono crollati drasticamente negli ultimi decenni. Nonostante le crescenti preoccupazioni, gli americani non sono mai stati così al sicuro nelle loro case e nelle loro comunità.

A livello internazionale gli USA sono più impegnati in modo pacifico di quanto non lo siano stati negli ultimi decenni. Non sono attualmente impegnati in nessun combattimento diretto su larga scala. Nella misura in cui gli USA sono coinvolti in Ucraina o nella guerra Israele-Hamas, lo sono attraverso il sostegno politico, gli aiuti economici, l'intelligence militare e il supporto diplomatico. In altre parole, sono impegnati in attività di supporto, non di combattimento.

Guardando all'UE vediamo risultati simili. I tassi di criminalità, in generale, sono per lo più diminuiti in tutta l'Unione, con qualche variazione tra i vari Paesi. Tuttavia va notato che i tassi di alcuni crimini sono aumentati negli ultimi anni e alcuni sono diminuiti solo leggermente, e non si sono avvicinati ai livelli a cui sono scesi negli Stati Uniti.

Vantaggio: Stati Uniti

Tasse basse

“Tasse basse” potrebbe essere interpretato in molti modi, quella più ovvia sarebbe la pressione fiscale complessiva. Poiché l'UE è composta da tanti Paesi diversi, ognuno dei quali ha la propria costellazione di linee di politica, i confronti diretti possono essere difficili da fare. Guardando alle aliquote massime riguardanti l'imposta sul reddito marginale, gli Stati Uniti arrivano a circa il 42,3%. I Paesi nell'UE vanno dal 55,9% (Danimarca) al 10% in Romania e Bulgaria, con una media del 42,8%. Su questa dimensione le tasse sembrano essere più o meno simili.

Si potrebbero anche prendere in considerazione i costi di conformità e se avvantaggiano in modo sproporzionato i clientes politici o le grandi aziende. In questo caso entrambi i Paesi vanno male. La Camera di commercio degli Stati Uniti ha riferito nel 2024 che il 73% delle piccole imprese ha trascorso “molto” o “una discreta quantità” di tempo su questioni relative alla conformità fiscale. Lo stesso Parlamento europeo, in una relazione del 2023 ammette la stessa cosa, affermando che “le piccole imprese sono gravate da costi di conformità relativamente maggiori. Tale onere aggiuntivo non sembra derivare da agevolazioni speciali per le piccole imprese, ma piuttosto dalla progettazione generale del sistema fiscale”. Le piccole imprese in genere non hanno accesso a un team interno di esperti fiscali in grado di gestire gli oneri amministrativi e di conformità di un sistema fiscale.

Infine potremmo anche prendere in considerazione se le tasse vengono applicate in modo equo. In questo contesto “equo” significa che le persone o le aziende in situazioni finanziarie o economiche simili pagano la stessa quantità di tasse. Negli Stati Uniti non è un segreto che molte aziende godono di speciali sgravi ed esenzioni fiscali e che molte sceglieranno di costituire una società nel Delaware per determinati vantaggi fiscali e commerciali. Ma lo stesso vale per i Paesi dell'UE, soprattutto se consideriamo che le aziende possono stabilire la propria sede centrale in un Paese particolarmente avvantaggiato a livello fiscale e che i lavoratori possono arrivare dai Paesi vicini con relativa facilità. Poiché le aliquote fiscali, le esenzioni e le interpretazioni degli statuti variano a seconda del Paese dell'UE, può facilmente accadere che le aziende intelligenti riescano a trovare scappatoie (involontarie o meno) che consentono loro di risparmiare sul fisco.

Vantaggio: Stati Uniti (ma solo leggermente)

Amministrazione tollerabile della giustizia

Ogni volta che anche solo due persone vivono in stretta prossimità, si verificherà un conflitto. Questo conflitto non deve necessariamente essere violento; potrebbe essere un semplice disaccordo tra parti che richiedono un giudizio esterno. Clienti e commercianti possono non essere d'accordo sui termini di una garanzia, le aziende possono credere di aver rispettato varie leggi e normative su cui la clientela potrebbe non essere d'accordo, o i vicini potrebbero non essere d'accordo sui livelli di rumore consentiti in determinate ore della notte.

Ciò che è necessario, quindi, è un qualche mezzo per risolvere i conflitti in un modo che sia ritenuto equo e imparziale per entrambe le parti. Questo meccanismo di risoluzione dei conflitti deve anche essere facilmente accessibile in modo che, quando si verificano delle controversie, si possa raggiungere una risoluzione rapidamente e a un costo (relativamente) basso. Nella maggior parte dei Paesi questo servizio è svolto da tribunali e altri servizi di mediazione.

Negli Stati Uniti il National Center for State Courts fornisce analisi delle opinioni pubbliche sul sistema giudiziario. Nella loro relazione del 2023 scoprono che, in generale, la popolazione si fida del sistema giudiziario, lo trova generalmente accessibile, ma che c'è una crescente preoccupazione che esso sia diventato politicizzato.

Per quanto riguarda l'UE la Commissione europea pubblica una relazione, intitolata EU Justice Scoreboard, che analizza il sistema giudiziario in base a “efficienza, qualità e indipendenza”. Mentre ci sono prove di miglioramenti generali all'interno dell'Unione, riconoscono anche che c'è ancora molto lavoro da fare e che c'è un'enorme variazione tra i Paesi per quanto riguareda la qualità della magistratura.

Possiamo anche farci un'idea dell'amministrazione complessiva della giustizia esaminando l'Economic Freedom of the World Index del Fraser Institute, in particolare il punteggio del sistema legale per Paese negli ultimi vent'anni. Mentre sia gli Stati Uniti che l'UE ottengono punteggi elevati in termini assoluti, dei ventisette Paesi dell'UE, solo sette (Austria, Danimarca, Finlandia, Germania, Paesi Bassi, Lussemburgo e Svezia) ottengono punteggi più alti degli Stati Uniti e solo di poco. Gli altri venti hanno tutti punteggi significativamente inferiori a quelli degli Stati Uniti.

Ciò è importante perché avere un accesso affidabile, conveniente e rapido a un sistema giudiziario imparziale consente di risolvere i conflitti e consente a entrambe le parti di andare avanti con le proprie vite e attività.

Vantaggio: Stati Uniti

Conclusione

Nel complesso gli Stati Uniti hanno una maggiore pace, sia a livello nazionale che internazionale, tasse più basse e un'amministrazione della giustizia più tollerabile rispetto all'Unione Europea. La crescita economica divergente tra i due è comprensibile in questi termini.

Ciò che resta un mistero è l'entità della disparità. Se includiamo il PIL del Regno Unito nel PIL dell'UE, ci sarebbe ancora un divario di $7.000 miliardi. E mentre alcuni potrebbero sottolineare che la Brexit ha causato una riduzione della crescita economica per l'intero continente europeo, è difficile immaginare qualcuno che sostenga seriamente che votare contro la Brexit avrebbe quasi raddoppiato il PIL di ogni singolo membro dell'UE. Molto ancora resta da esaminare.

Tuttavia Adam Smith aveva ragione: la pace, le tasse basse e un'amministrazione della giustizia tollerabile sono vitali per il progresso economico. Se ci sono questi elementi, il resto, come disse anche lui, seguirà e in effetti è successo.

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

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The US Should Not Take Over Gaza

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

This week, President Trump upended US Middle East policy by announcing that the United States would “take over” war-ravaged Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” President Trump also said the Palestinians living in Gaza would be (temporarily?) relocated to Jordan or Egypt.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul came out strongly against the proposal. Senator Paul pointed out that the plan contradicted the American people’s vote for “America First.” What was more surprising was that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham expressed skepticism about sending Americans to take over Gaza. This may be the first time in Senator Graham’s political career that he has opposed sending US troops abroad.

Senator Graham is correct that most South Carolinians are not excited about sending Americans or US tax dollars to take over Gaza. Neither are most other Americans. In fact, polls show that the majority of Americans oppose providing military aid to Israel or other countries.

One of the best comments was made by libertarian scholar and podcaster Tom Woods. He suggested that Trump’s Gaza proposal is the type of wasteful overseas spending that DOGE should be working to eliminate.

Trump’s plan has also been criticized by the government of Saudi Arabia. This could mean that if President Trump follows through with this proposal it will further push Saudi Arabia away from the United States and toward the BRICS alliance.

Some of the BRICS nations want to challenge the dollar’s world reserve currency status. One of the foundations of the dollar’s world reserve currency status is the “petrodollar.” This arose from the deal Henry Kissinger negotiated with Saudi Arabia where the Saudis agreed to use dollars for oil trade in exchange for US support for the Saudi regime. Recently, Saudi Arabia has given signs that it will be willing to use other currencies, such as the Chinese renminbi, for its oil trade.

The loss of the dollar’s world reserve currency status would cause a major US economic crisis. It would force the government to make massive cuts in warfare and welfare spending and could lead to violence and a government crackdown on our liberty.

US “ownership” of Gaza, accompanied by forcible relocation of Palestinians, would cause increased resentment of the US. This could result in increased terror attacks against the US.

Even if a long-term US occupation of Gaza went 100 percent according to plan, the US government, which has an over 36 trillion dollars and growing debt, cannot afford another open-ended overseas military commitment. Instead, President Trump should follow though on his campaign rhetoric about withdrawing from unnecessary military commitments. This, not tariffs, will help make America more competitive on the international economy.

The best thing the United States can do to rebuild Gaza and promote peace in the Middle East is to stop funding Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza. Instead, the US should work toward peaceful relations backed by free trade with Israel and its neighbors.

The post The US Should Not Take Over Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

Revisionist History and Sherman’s War Crimes

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

In his article “Why They Raped, Pillaged, and Plundered,” Tom DiLorenzo reviews the evidence of war crimes in “General William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous ‘march to the sea’ at the end of the War to Prevent Southern Independence,” observing that: “The Lincoln cult – especially its hyper-warmongering neocon branch – has been holding conferences, celebrations, and commemorations [of the march to the sea] while continuing to rewrite history to suit its statist biases.” The dominant historical narratives admire Sherman’s “total war” policies as a corollary of their admiration for Lincoln’s war. Sherman’s war crimes are well-documented, and the aim of this article is not to revisit the evidence of his war crimes but to examine some of the justifications that are often advanced to exonerate Sherman.

The fact that burning civilian towns and homes is a war crime is well understood, and should be obvious to anyone familiar with what Walter Brian Cisco calls the “code of civilized warfare.” In his book, War Crimes Against Southern Civilians, Cisco explains:

Through the centuries, by common consent within what used to be called Christendom, there arose a code of civilized warfare. Though other issues are covered by that term, and despite lapses, it came to be understood that war would be confined to combatants… breaking the code on one side encourages violations by the other, multiplying hatred and bitterness that can only increase the likelihood and intensity of future wars.

Cisco reports that despite this “code of civilized warfare,” some principles of which had been enshrined in the Lieber Code, Sherman insisted that it was necessary to treat civilians in the South as combatants. Cisco explains:

Yet warring against noncombatants came to be the stated policy and deliberate practice of the United States in its subjugation of the Confederacy. Shelling and burning of cities, systematic destruction of entire districts, mass arrests, forced expulsions, wholesale plundering of personal property, even murder all became routine… Abraham Lincoln, the commander in chief with a reputation as micromanager, well knew what was going on and approved.

The Lincoln cult, far from regretting the horrors of that war, continues to view the burning of the South as worthy of celebration. The triumphalist view of Lincoln’s war is reflected in an opinion piece published in the New York Times in 2015, which argued that Sherman’s war crimes were intended “to widen the burden and pain of the war beyond just rebel soldiers to include the civilian supporters of the Confederacy, especially the common folk who filled the ranks of the rebel armies.”

That is depicted as a necessary price to pay to meet Lincoln’s goal of saving the Union: “the March to the Sea reveals the moral ambiguity of war and the extent to which Americans are willing to go when our national existence is at stake.” Sherman himself is exonerated: “the burning of the South Carolina capital was in reality a result of confusion, misjudgment and simple bad luck. It was, in sum, an accident of war.” This moral ambiguity presumes that the morality of war varies according to which side one supports—a blatantly vacuous morality.

Some triumphalists rationalize their celebration of Sherman’s crimes by arguing that war crimes are in some sense “worth it” to bring war to a swift conclusion. David Gordon traces the roots of the view that brutality helps to end war, a view held by people who believe a “humane” war would only drag on needlessly:

As I have already mentioned, the antiwar movement of that time wanted to end war, not make it more humane, and indeed Tolstoy was sometimes tempted to go further. In War and Peace, Prince Andrei suggests that soldiers in battle should act as ruthlessly as possible, for example killing enemy prisoners out of hand. Increasing the horror of war might make it more likely that people would end it. By no means was this view confined to fictional characters; Tolstoy himself was of this opinion, though he later withdrew it, and the great Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz spoke in similar terms. Moyn lists a number of examples, but one should be added as well: General William Sherman, who justified his tactics of wanton destruction with this same argument.

The argument that Sherman’s atrocities were necessary to end the war is also associated with the perception that if a war is just, and is fought for a “righteous cause,” or what is sometimes described as “the right side of history,” it follows that any atrocities committed to advance that cause are also just. Such theories appeal to those who believe the end always justifies the means. That is a convenient ruse deployed in the service of brutal regimes, but in any case, it must also be asked: what “righteous cause” was Sherman engaged in? As DiLorenzo observes, “The reason Lincoln gave for launching a military invasion of the South was to save the Union.” Saving the Union cannot be a righteous cause for wars of aggression. Wars of aggression are always wrong, as a just war is one fought in defense. As for apologists who argue that Sherman should not be blamed for the devastation caused to civilians by his own troops, because he did not specifically order them to pillage, rape, and murder, that too must be rejected. If this argument were accepted, there would be little way of ever holding army officers morally responsible for the outrages committed by their men.

Another version of the “end justifies the means” argument focuses on the abolition of slavery, arguing that the end of slavery is sufficient justification for not being too concerned about the war. This argument ignores the repeated insistence of both Lincoln and Sherman that they were not fighting for abolition of slavery. Both men were perfectly happy for slavery to continue, and only wanted to prevent secession of the Confederate States. Sherman’s views on the inferiority of black people were so well-known that no one could be under the illusion that he was fighting to promote black welfare. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia:

During the Atlanta campaign of May-September 1864, General Sherman opposed Black enlistment with word and deed. An avowed white supremacist and a reluctant liberator at best, Sherman made no effort to conceal his contempt for African Americans or to disguise the racist dogma behind his opposition to Black soldiers. Such phrases as “niggers and vagabonds,” “niggers and bought recruits,” and “niggers and the refuse of the South” filled his personal letters. Anxious to employ Black workers as laborers, Sherman was determined that the forces under his command would remain exclusively white. On June 3, 1864, he issued Special Field Order No. 16 forbidding recruiting officers to enlist Black soldiers who were employed by the army in any capacity.

Some people argue that even though Sherman repeatedly defended slavery, we should treat that as irrelevant because all that matters is that slavery was, in fact, abolished. So what if Sherman was a “reluctant liberator at best”? Suffice it that liberation followed. They would argue that abolition by itself constitutes an ex post “righteous cause” for the war that can also be attributed to Lincoln and Sherman even though they did not endorse it—they see this as a welcome, albeit unintended, consequence of the war. This argument assumes that slavery would never have ended had the war not happened—an argument that is purely speculative, and makes no attempt to link the war causally to the ending of slavery. For example, it does not explain why other countries in the West were able to end slavery without waging deadly wars.

A final illustration of the abject moral failure of Sherman’s defenders comes from those who now simply ignore the entire war, treating Sherman’s crimes as inconsequential. The New York Times 1619 project, which aims to “reframe American history” as one shaped by slavery, pays scant attention to the reasons for the war or its conduct. Lincoln and Sherman play only a minor role as “white allies” in this version of revisionist history, which asserts that slaves emancipated themselves. Union soldiers are seen as allies of slaves, while Confederate soldiers are cast as enemies of slaves. In this cartoonish view of history, the process of reframing history “requires us to place the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story.”

Accordingly, it is the activities of black Americans—rather than the Radical Republicans, Lincoln, or Sherman—that are presented as central to the emancipation story. The war is reframed as having been fought by hundreds of thousands of slaves freed from the rebel states by Lincoln’s Emancipation Declaration, who joined the Union army and fought to liberate their brethren still held captive. The justification given for this fictitious framing is that “by acknowledging this shameful history [of slavery], by trying hard to understand its powerful influence on the present, perhaps we can prepare ourselves for a more just future.” But no “just future” can be founded on fairy tales. A just future can only be built on the truth. As David Gordon puts it, “The 1619 Project wants to replace what actually happened with an ideological myth.”

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

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Warfare on Lawfare

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

“It is axiomatic that those who are beneficiaries of waste, fraud and unnecessary government spending will be the most threatened by the cuts that DOGE is making in these programs. These beneficiaries of waste and fraud are also extremely worried about the reputational, legal and potential criminal risk they will suffer by being exposed by DOGE” — Bill Ackman

I’m so glad that The New York Times explained what Kendrick Lamar was up to in his Superbowl half-time act because all I could make out was a grown man dressed-up like an eight-year-old hollering nursery rhymes in front of a flash-mob. Apparently, KL is engaged in a feud with another rapper named Drake, whom KL styles as a child molester. So, you see, the whole thing was just a bit of wholesome family entertainment. Thank The NY Times, for putting a grad-school spin on it:

Speaking of metanarratives — and apart from the private vendettas on Planet Rap — a nice one is developing at center-stage of US political life: the Party of Chaos using federal judges to oppose the dismantling of their gigantic grift scaffold. In other words, more lawfare to obstruct any earnest effort to effectively reform the management of our country. So, last week, you get Judge Carl J. Nichols in the DC District arguing that the DOGE shutdown of USAID was unauthorized and potentially illegal, lacking congressional approval.

Then, late Friday (when most citizens are checking out of the week’s struggles) Judge Paul Engelmayer out of the Southern District of New York blocked DOGE and other executive branch officials from accessing US Treasury record of expenditures. The injunction, comically, prevents Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant from seeing what his agency doles out money for — that is, from managing anything his department does. The suit that prompted the ruling was brought by nineteen states’ Attorneys General led by NY AG Letitia James. So, you see how this works.

You must also imagine that the White House was prepared for these lawfare shenanigans, though they haven’t shown their hand in response so far. This is a constitutional quarrel, of course, since it concerns who has authority between the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary over agency spending and, in particular, who gets to audit it. The actual objective by the plaintiff in these cases (the Party of Chaos) is simply to delay any corrective action.

The DOJ under Pam Bondi can designate the US Solicitor General to petition the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) for certiorari — to expedite the resolution of this constitutional issue as to whether Mr. Trump, as chief executive, and his bona fide appointees, can carry out executive functions. The arguments against that appear to be weak.

It is the President’s duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed, meaning that the departments under him do their jobs correctly, which would give him inherent authority to audit and restructure agencies like USAID. Both judges Nichols and Engelmayer are arrogating executive and legislative functions on policy-making for themselves, triggering a separation-of-powers dispute that the SCOTUS must adjudicate promptly.

What matters most in these cases is that SCOTUS has an opportunity to put up new guardrails against the hijacking of the federal courts for the purpose of lawfare — that is, for political dirty-fighting under color-of-law. The law is slow-moving, arcane, and incomprehensible to most non-lawyer citizens and that is why the Party of Chaos has misused it so liberally.

In any event, DOGE is moving ahead on many other fronts and the next battleground looks like the US Department of Education, an agency which, since its creation in 1979, has only presided over an epic degeneration in the academic performance of young people. The agency has grown since 1979 to 4,400 employees overseeing a $238-billion budget. Otherwise, what it’s mainly accomplished is to enrich the various teachers’ unions and to raise the cost of college tuitions astronomically while degenerating the purpose and value of higher ed. The fifty states were arguably doing a better job on their own without any DOE on the scene.

Meanwhile, it’s satisfying to see the security clearances revoked from Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lisa Monaco, Letitia James, Alvin Bragg, Andrew Weissmann, Mark Zaid, and Norm Eisen. The reason: among other crimes, they all dabbled in election interference. And “Joe Biden” lost his, too, on account of being too feeble-minded to be trusted with classified information. Who knows what other legal complications lie in waiting up ahead for that whole gang? Lawfare giveth and lawfare taketh away. Or FAFO.

Reprinted with permission from JamesHowardKunstler.com.

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Rand Paul’s Questioning of Samantha Power About USAID to China for SARS-CoV Research

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

With revelations emerging about USAID’s spending spree on friends and pet projects, I was reminded of the following April 2023 exchange between Senator Rand Paul and Samantha Power, Administrator of USAID from 2021 to 2025. I vividly remember the vexation I felt as I listened to the recording on my evening jog the next day. Note how she repeatedly looks Senator Paul directly in the eye and insists that USAID has disclosed the grant documents he has repeatedly requested, even though he repeatedly admonishes her that he KNOWS she isn’t telling him the truth because he has never seen them.

Note as well that in October 2019, when USAID officially ceased funding PREDICT, papers like the New York Times lamented that, bereft of such funds, the program would not be able to predict emerging infectious diseases.

A great deal of evidence indicates that this was precisely the time it became apparent that a novel SARS coronavirus was circulating in Wuhan, almost certainly the result of GoF research conducted as part of the PREDICT program.

In other words, PREDICT predicted nothing—it actually created the monster.

Yet another irony was a letter that Elizabeth Warren—the Supreme Self-Righteous Bloviator of the Senate (SSBS)—wrote on January 20, 2020 to the then Administrator Mark Green, demanding to know why PREDICT funding had been cut off.

I would bet a considerable sum that at least someone in USAID knew in October 2019 about the circulating monster that PREDICT had created with the assistance of the $207 million the agency had given the program over a ten year period.

The evidence is clear: USAID has long been a rogue agency that should indeed be brought under direct State Department Control with new, stringent transparency requirements about its activities and long prison times for people like Samantha Power who conceal the agency’s activities and then lie to Senators about them.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

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The Hidden Dangers of Antidepressants and Why They’re So Hard To Stop Taking

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

Whenever I ask a holistic physician which commonly used medication classes they believe cause the most harm to society, SSRIs always are one of the top five.

Note: statins (discussed here), NSAIDS like ibuprofen (discussed here), and PPI acid reflux medications (discussed here) frequently make the top five as well.

This is because SSRIs rarely benefit patients (only a minority of depressed patients have a metabolic type that responds to SSRIs) and the drugs have a large number of severe and often life-changing side effects. For example, in a survey of 1,829 patients on antidepressants in New Zealand:

• 62% reported sexual difficulties
• 60% felt emotionally numb
• 52% felt not like themselves
• 39% cared less about others
• 47% had experienced agitation
• 39% had experienced suicidal ideation.

Many of these can be immensely impactful for individuals (e.g., SSRI sexual dysfunction is often permanent and frequently causes severe depression, while emotional anesthesia takes away the joy of life and can cause people to spend years, if not decades, in emotionally toxic situations).

Worse still, the SSRIs are somewhat unique in that they can also harm those not taking the drugs as they can trigger psychotic violence, which results in either suicide, homicide, and tragically, in numerous cases, mass shootings (discussed further here). Furthermore, the pharmaceutical industry was aware of this from the start, but chose to conceal all that evidence to sell the drugs (and only revealed it after lawsuits forced them to).

Note: another example of a pharmaceutical that harms others is the COVID vaccine as it causes certain recipients to shed the vaccine and then significantly harm those around them who are sensitive to shedding—to the point numerous sensitive readers have shared COVID vaccine shedding has greatly impacted their lives (discussed further here).

Maximizing Sales

Much of the medical industry’s appalling conduct makes sense once its actions are viewed through a business lens that seeks to maximize sales. This for instance, is why the SSRIs, rather than being outlawed, were able to become some of the most successful drugs in history (e.g., in 2027, they are projected to be an 18.27 billion dollar global market) and why almost all of their appalling side effects have been hidden from the public. Let’s review some of those unconscionable tactics.

Sales Funnels

A classic principle in marketing is to cast as wide a net as possible for your customers and then gradually pull some of those customers into costlier and costlier products. Since funnels gradually shrink as you go further down them, similar to how fewer customers will buy a product as it becomes more expensive, this method is often referred to as a “sales funnel.”

With the SSRIs, a robust sales funnel exists as:

• Through years of almost unbelievable marketing (discussed further here), depression was redefined to include the normal negative emotions of life. As such, depression became so subjective it became possible to market it to most of the population and patients frequently will ask their doctors to prescribe SSRIs after they encounter an emotional obstacle.

• Numerous mass screening programs exist for doctors to diagnose if someone is depressed (e.g., this is routinely done for pregnant women and the elderly).

• Once a patient is “depressed,” rather than using natural approaches that effectively treat depression, the medical system will aggressively push them to start SSRIs.

• The SSRIs frequently cause a variety of psychiatric issues which require taking even stronger psychiatric medications.

Bipolar Disorder: An Unintended Outcome

Since the SSRIs antidepressants are stimulants, they often trigger mania. In turn, one of the most common problems associated with their use is bipolar disorder (a disease where you alternate from a depressed to a manic state). To put this into context, in 1955, 1 in 13,000 people were disabled for bipolar, and the majority of patients who presented to the hospital for a manic episode permanently recovered. Now, bipolar affects 1 in every 20-50 people, and 83% of them are severely impaired in some facet of their lives.

A significant amount of data has linked bipolar disorder to SSRIs. For example:

• Yale researchers reviewed the records of 87,290 patients diagnosed with depression or anxiety between 1997 and 2001 and determined those treated with antidepressants converted to bipolar at the rate of 7.7 percent per year (three times greater than the rate for those not exposed to the drugs), ultimately resulting in between 20-40% of depressed patients becoming bipolar.

• A survey found 60% of bipolar patients only developed their illness after receiving SSRIs for depression.

• Peter Breggin reported that of 184 patients in the hospital starting Prozac, Zoloft, or Paxil, 11 developed mania and 8 became psychotic, and in Yale, 8% of 533 consecutive admissions were for mania or psychosis caused by antidepressants, and two patients heard voices commanding them to kill themselves.

Note: the psychiatric field gets around this issue by claiming SSRIs “unmask” latent bipolar a patient always had—even though it likely would have never been “unmasked” had they never taken the SSRI in the first place.

Likewise, since the advent of mass psychiatric medicating, the character of bipolar has changed, becoming much more complicated to treat, characterized by much more rapid cycling between the depressed and manic states, and much more likely to produce severe complications like dementia later on. Unfortunately, when the foremost experts in bipolar disorder presented these findings at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual conference and urged caution in the over administration of SSRIs, they were met with boos from their increasingly upset audience.

As such, the link between SSRIs and bipolar disorder is rarely focused on, and instead the dangers of bipolar disorder (e.g., being 4-6 times as likely to die prematurely) are continually emphasized to justify treating it. This is remarkable given that a strong case can be made that many of the disastrous complications of bipolar disorder result from the highly toxic antipsychotics the disorder is “treated” with, especially since those same drugs are often given to schizophrenic patients, a disorder characterized by similar long term complications (that are rarely seen in countries which do not use the drugs).

In short, a robust sales funnel exists to create lifelong psychiatric medication users, best demonstrated by the fact spending an ever increasing amount of money to “treat” mental illness has only resulted more of it:

Worse still, this sales funnel is particularly effective in capturing young adults who were raised in it (e.g., a recent post-COVID survey of those aged 18-24 found 42% had a mental health condition, including 37.8% with anxiety and 32.8% depression)—and is particularly predatory towards young women:

Note: birth control pills have been strongly linked to causing a variety of mood disorders and personality changes, including roughly doubling the likelihood of depression, with the greatest increase being seen in adolescent girls (a 130% increase). Given that 19.5% of adolescent American girls are put on the pill, those sales quickly add up.

Customer Retention

Since SSRIs “treat” rather than “cure” depression, they typically are a lifelong prescription (which is great for sales). However, since SSRIs have so many intolerable side effects and rarely help those who use them, tactics need to be used to retain those customers and safeguard their recurring revenue.

For instance, patients will often be told (sometimes not only by a doctor but also by a judge) that they lack the judgment to understand their mental illness, and they must hence take the prescribed medication. Likewise, physicians rarely recognize the adverse effects of SSRIs. Instead, they are often trained to attribute them to the patient’s pre-existing mental illness (which frequently leads to horrendous gaslighting and patients sometimes being forced to take the medications against their consent).

SSRI Withdrawals

Like many other stimulants, SSRIs can be extremely addictive. In fact, SSRIs have such a high risk for withdrawals that merely changing an existing dosage or accidentally missing a pill can be sufficient to trigger severe withdrawals (e.g., this has caused many SSRI suicides).

Unfortunately, when this happens, rather than recognize that withdrawals are occurring, physicians typically interpret them to mean the SSRI was effectively treating a severe (pre-existing) mental illness—and thus must urgently be resumed, even though the “mental illness” the patient exhibits was not present prior to them initiating the SSRI.

Likewise, since so few physicians know how to recognize the signs of SSRI withdrawals, almost none know how to treat it. As a result, individuals experiencing SSRI withdrawals frequently make the horrifying discovery that the safety net they thought existed simply isn’t there (an experience which likewise has been shared by many of those who developed significant complications from the COVID-19 vaccines).

As such, many who experience these withdrawals are forced to resume the drugs (as this is often all doctors can offer those patients), thereby ensuring customer retention.

Effects of SSRI Withdrawals

When withdrawing from an SSRI, severe withdrawals (e.g., becoming suicidal or violently psychotic) can happen. As such, I always urge readers to be extremely cautious in how they stop the medications.

However, far more frequently, less severe (and often fluctuating) withdrawal symptoms also occur such as:

• The feeling of an electric shock in your arms, legs, or head (these horrible things are commonly referred to as “brain zaps.”
• Dizziness (mild to severe)
• Visual problems
• Many sensitivities (e.g., to light, heat, a supplement or food).
• Anxiety, which comes and goes, sometimes in intense ‘surges’
• Difficulty in getting to sleep and vivid or frightening dreams
• Low mood, feeling unable to be interested in or enjoy things
• A sense of being physically unwell
• Rapidly changing moods (e.g., spontaneous weeping spells, attacks of sheer terror, or sudden plunges into unprecedented contentless black holes of pure dread).
• Anger, sleeplessness, tiredness, loss of coordination and headache
• A feeling that things are not real (‘derealisation’), or a feeling that you have ‘cotton wool in your head’
• Difficulty in concentrating
• Suicidal thoughts
• Queasiness or indigestion
• A feeling of inner restlessness and inability to stay still (this is known as akathisia and often precedes psychotic SSRI violence).
• Crippling muscle pain or spasms.

Worse still, these reactions are very common (e.g., I know more people than I can count who’ve experienced brain zaps).

In fact, a recent meta-analysis found that 56% of patients who stop using SSRIs experience withdrawals, that 46% who stop an SSRI experience severe withdrawals, and that these withdrawals last for weeks to months. Additionally, it is well known in the SSRI recovery community that the risk of a withdrawal varies greatly depending on the drug (e.g., Paxil is notorious for causing withdrawals, Cymbalta is also a common offender).
Note: a 1996 door-to-door survey of 2003 randomly selected people in England found that 78% of them considered SSRIs to be addictive.

The pharmaceutical industry is well aware of this, to the point they will often deliberately put “placebo” subjects in SSRI trials into withdrawals (by terminating their existing prescription) so they can make the drug group look “better” than the “placebo” patients or provide benzodiazepines to mitigate the negative side effects of the SSRIs (and hence remove them from the trial data).

Note: this is similar to how Merck hid Gardasil’s high rates of severe adverse reactions by using its toxic adjuvant (rather than saline) for the placebo group, resulting in similar injury rates in both groups, which, despite being extraordinarily high, went unquestioned by regulators.

Read the Whole Article

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Sacrificing Catholics for Ecumenism

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

It’s no secret that the Catholic Church is bleeding members. According to Pew Research, those who have left Catholicism outnumber those who have joined the Catholic Church by nearly a four-to-one margin. As such statistics continue to worsen, the emphasis on evangelization grows. Yet, few can state what that ought to look like. So much of the focus has been upon reaching “across the aisle” and attempting to assimilate with Protestants.

A recent case of a Catholic young adult group chat that was admonished by clergy for sharing memes with a jocular approach to Protestant themes serves as an example. Catholics, especially younger Catholics, are urged under the name of charity to be more open to Protestants, which is difficult if not impossible to delineate from simply being less Catholic, even though those who promote this behavior would never admit their stance with such candor.

One of the principal arguments posed against enthusiastic Catholics is that they will be offensive to Protestants and thereby drive them away. Thus, be careful about those memes, kids, lest someone might be repelled by jocularity. But this is a rather new mindset, out of lockstep with human behavior and a long chain of saints who said the truth because it was the truth and because people had a right to hear it. In Decem Rationes, Edmund Campion talked of Protestants in a way that might not be considered ecumenical today:

Throughout the whole course of fifteen centuries these men find neither town, village nor household professing their doctrine, until an unhappy monk by an incestuous marriage had deflowered a virgin vowed to God, or a Swiss gladiator had conspired against his country, or a branded runaway had occupied Geneva.

While sharp-tongued, his points were true, and Decem Rationes was massively influential in both aiding conversions and inspiring demoralized Catholics. (Campion was eventually killed for his faith.) If the modern mindset of conversion-by-tepidity were true, Campion would have merely alienated his readers, but that is not what happened.

Sometimes the truth bites, and humor can relieve its sting. Chesterton was well loved for his wit, with which he contended that “Protestantism was born of men who were sure they were infallible, and it has lived on in men who are not sure that anything is infallible.” It’s impossible to say how many people he converted to Catholicism after his own conversion, but we do know that it was considerable and that he was never shy about speaking the truth.

Masses with tambourines, World Youth Days with Tuppernacles, and attempts to mimic the megachurch all ignore that there was anything to draw people throughout the ages. All of these attempts to convert via dilution might lead us to ask: Why become Catholic at all? If Catholicism is merely one denomination among many acceptable options, then why would one assent to the higher mandate that comes with conversion? Catholicism asks us to change ourselves. If it is not possible to delineate Catholicism as being in some sense better than other denominations, then surely those of other Christian faiths would feel no reason for conversion, let alone the sacrifice that so often comes with it.

For many converts, crossing the Tiber means losing contact with family members and being rejected by old friends. People do not endure these things because Catholics are nice people (even though that’s often the case). They do it when they become convinced that what the Church claims of herself is true and that it is, therefore, the best way to serve Christ. They endure the sacrifices as acts of love. The idea that people will be attracted if we speak less about our differences and only about our similarities is simply false. There is no reason to convert to what you already have.

Then there is the topic of what is owed to the faithful Catholics, lest they be surrendered on the altar of conversion. Must we implicitly assert that they would be better off, or at least on equal footing, if they were elsewhere—deprived of sacraments and the deposit of faith? That is what we do when we cower away from speaking about the Faith boldly. It is offensive to assert that the distinctions of our Faith are so trivial as we revere the saints who died for what we now reduce to nuance.

St. Athanasius, when he was battling the Arian heresy, did not back away from speaking of the differences between Trinitarians and Arians, even though it was true that they shared a great deal in common. Yet it matters that some people are in error about that which is most important. So instead of conversion-by-dilution, he asserted that “Even if Catholics faithful to tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the true Church.”

To be clear, nobody is calling for aggression toward potential converts or even anti-Catholic Protestants. But neither is there room for complicit silence, and the latter is far more common today than the former. For decades, attempts to fill struggling churches have been embarrassing capitulations to either other faiths or to the broken world around us.

Read the Whole Article

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As the Gaza Agenda Moves Forward, the Imperial Narrative Shifts With It

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt acted shocked and appalled by questions from reporters about Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza on Wednesday, saying it was “evil” to suggest that these poor victims of Israel’s destruction should be allowed to stay somewhere that’s been completely demolished.

“Again, it’s a demolition site right now,” Leavitt said. “It’s not a livable place for any human being. And I think it’s actually quite evil to suggest that people should live in such dire conditions.”

Of course the question of whether or not it was evil for the US and Israel to deliberately create those conditions in the first place is never raised by the obedient press gaggle.

It’s been truly remarkable watching the official imperial narrative pivot from (A) claiming it’s outrageous to suggest Israel was waging a genocidal campaign of annihilation on Gaza, to (B) saying obviously everyone in Gaza needs to leave because the entire place has been annihilated and how dare you suggest otherwise.

White House was asked to clarify if plan is to permanently or temporarily resettle Palestinians.

Leavitt: They need to be temporarily relocated for rebuilding…I think it’s quite evil to suggest people should live in such dire conditions

Is it evil to create those conditions? pic.twitter.com/GyoThqhc40

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) February 5, 2025

This comes as Donald Trump himself proclaims on Truth Social that under his plan the Gaza Strip “would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.” Such a land transfer would require Israel to forcibly seize all of Gaza in order to cede the territory to the US. If Gaza becomes as a US territory it would of course no longer exist as a Palestinian territory, and would have already been purged of all Palestinians.

And it’s just so surreal how the narrative is changing now that the agenda has moved from destroying Gaza to ethnically cleansing it. It’s requiring some real Orwellian doublethink revisionism.

Israel apologists in 2023–2024: The IDF is the world’s most moral army! It’s a war of defense! They’re taking extraordinary measures to protect civilian lives!

Israel apologists in 2025: Well obviously Gaza’s an uninhabitable wasteland that’s been carpet bombed to oblivion, duh.

Israel apologists in 2023–2024: Israel would never deliberately target civilian infrastructure!

Israel apologists in 2025: We need to move the entire population of Gaza to Egypt and Jordan because all of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been completely destroyed.

Israel apologists in 2023–2024: How dare you suggest that Israel is deliberately destroying healthcare facilities, you blood libeling antisemite!

Israel apologists in 2025: You can’t expect people to keep living in Gaza! Don’t you know there’s no healthcare there?

Israel apologists in 2023–2024: Israel is only targeting Hamas! The only locations with civilians in them that have been bombed are the ones where they’re being used as human shields!

Israel apologists in 2025: These poor Gazans need to be evacuated immediately! The entire strip is a demolition site with hardly any buildings left standing!

Israel apologists in 2023–2024: Israel is taking the utmost care with its airstrikes to only target terrorists with the most pinpoint precision.

Israel apologists in 2025: Gaza’s not safe for civilians, the whole place is covered with thousands upon thousands of undetonated ordinances!

Israel apologists in 2023–2024: This will all be over as soon as Hamas releases the hostages.

Israel apologists in 2025: Now that we’ve got our hostages back it’s time to end the existence of Gaza as a Palestinian territory and fill it with Jewish settlements.

Israel apologists in 2023–2024: Blame Hamas! Hamas caused this with their unprovoked attack on October 7!

Israel apologists in 2025: The only possible solution to all the death and devastation that’s been inflicted on Gaza is to advance an ethnic cleansing agenda that we’ve been chasing for generations.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. When the needs of the empire change, so do the narratives.

__________________

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Mainstream Media Boost ‘Independent’ Media Which Depend On U.S. Assistance

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

What is the meaning of ‘independent’ in English language?

Cambridge Dictionary:

independent adjective (NOT INFLUENCED)

- not influenced or controlled in any way by other people, events, or things

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th Ed.) and others:

independent /ĭn″dĭ-pĕn′dənt/ adjective

1. Not governed by a foreign power; self-governing.
2. Free from the influence, guidance, or control of another or others; self-reliant.”an independent mind.”
3. Not determined or influenced by someone or something else; not contingent.”a decision independent of the outcome of the study.”
4. Affiliated with or loyal to no one political party or organization.
5. Not dependent on or affiliated with a larger or controlling entity.”an independent food store; an independent film.”
6. Not relying on others for support, care, or funds; self-supporting.
7. Providing or being sufficient income to enable one to live without working.”a person of independent means.”

Following the recent revelations that many outlets and journalist are financed directly or indirectly by U.S. government organization like USAID or NED the mainstream media have set out to redefine the meaning of ‘independent’.

‘Independent’ now seem to be anyone how gets his paycheck from the U.S. while producing reports or rumors designed to fit U.S. policy narratives.

Consider these recent reports:

USAID and the Media in a ‘Time of Monsters’ – Columbia Journalism Review, Feb 4 2025
What the aid funding freeze means for independent journalism around the world.
Foreign Strongmen Cheer as Musk Dismantles U.S. Aid Agency (archived) – New York Times, Feb 5 2025
Strongmen celebrate as Trump aid freeze hits media – Financial Times, Feb 6 2025
Independent media in Russia, Ukraine lose their funding with USAID freeze (archived) – Washington Post, Feb 7 2025

From the first one:

[A]ccording to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the aid freeze appears to have put a hold on $268 million that was earmarked to fund “independent media and the free flow of information” this year. In the recent past, USAID had boasted of supporting more than six thousand journalists, around seven hundred independent newsrooms, and nearly three hundred media-focused civil society groups in thirty or so countries—and yet, RSF notes, the full impact of the freeze is hard to measure, since many recipients are “hesitant to draw attention for fear of risking long-term funding or coming under political attacks.”

From the NYT report:

Agency grants to promote democracy, human rights and good governance have gone to support election monitoring groups, anti-corruption watchdogs, independent media outlets and human rights organizations — exactly the kind of oversight that leaders like Mr. Putin detest.

From the Post:

The suspension of USAID has had a dramatic effect on both Ukrainian and Russian independent news outlets that relied on the grants to operate and produced work often critical of their governments.
…
Ukraine’s independent media, a collection of small regional outlets, muckraking investigative websites and internet news platforms, have been reeling since the announcement, with some organizations saying that they are just weeks away from slashing staff or closing down entirely.

“We risk losing the achievements of three decades of work and increasing threats to Ukraine’s statehood, democratic values, and pro-Western orientation,” Detector Media, a journalism watchdog, said in a statement on its website last week.

The last paragraph seems to be an admission that ‘Ukraine’s statehood, democratic values, and pro-Western orientation’, which – when you scratch their surfaces are all quite dubious – are the result of U.S. paid propaganda.

One also wonders how the WaPo writers can write of independent media when even a few paragraphs in the Ukrainian Detector Media (also U.S. financed) admits that these are depending on foreign payments:

Detector Media’s head Nataliia Lygachova told The Post that she thought “more than 50 percent” of the media organizations that receive foreign grants were dependent on American assistance.

A more correct headline for the WaPo piece is thus:

“U.S. state-funded media in Russia, Ukraine lose their funding with USAID freeze”

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCPR) has been behind several large stories like the Panama Papers which revealed the dirty offshore businesses of a large number of people the U.S. dislikes. In a (highly recommendable) video reportage about the project its founder and publisher, Drew Sullivan, admits on camera that the ‘independent’ organization was launched and is financed by U.S. government entities.

The money, more than 50% of OCCPR’s budget, comes with strings attached. All major management positions within OCCPR have to be confirmed by the U.S. financing agency. OCCRP reporting about crimes the U.S. is involved in is discouraged if not prohibited. You might want to guess where the selected hacked and leaked material OCCPR reports of is coming from …

Over the last week we have learned that many ‘independent’ international outlets are primarily funded by U.S. government entities – directly or through U.S. funded Non-Governmental Organization. Some estimate that 90% of the media in Ukraine is depending on U.S. taxpayer money.

All this came out due to the Trump’s administration’s freeze of USAID money. But there are many more U.S. government entities, the National Endowment for Democracy, the State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA, who each have likewise funds to spend on ‘independent’ foreign media and influence organizations.

It is high time to dismantle networks like these:

WikiLeaks @wikileaks – 3:47 UTC · Feb 8, 2025

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, “Internews Network” (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and “training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.
…

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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Even the US Government is Worried There Won’t Be Enough Electricity

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

It was known as the “Timber Famine” in 18th-century Great Britain. And it was no exaggeration to say that it was a national crisis: Britain was running out of wood.

The first major reason was population growth; wood was the major material and fuel source of the era, used for cooking, heating, and construction. And Britain’s booming population growth created insatiable demand for timber.

The second reason was technological advancement. New machines like steam engines needed a reliable fuel source to generate heat… causing demand for wood to skyrocket.

Soon timber demand outstripped supply. Loggers cleared out entire forests, and timber prices shot up dramatically. British writer Malachy Postlethwayt lamented in 1747, “So great is the scarcity of wood. . . that where cord wood had been sold at six and seven shillings per cord, it is now sold for upwards of fifteen and twenty shillings; and in some places is all consumed.”

But Britain’s timber famine wasn’t just an economic problem—it was a matter of national security.

The domestic iron industry needed wood to fuel its fires. And with the timber shortage came a major risk of having to rely on foreign imports. Moreover, the timber famine also jeopardized the ability for the Royal Navy and merchant fleets to build new ships and repair existing ones.

The solution was clear: Britain needed to switch to a well-known alternative fuel source: coal.

But it didn’t happen without serious resistance.

Those profiting from the timber trade formed a powerful lobby, and the politicians in their pocket made ridiculous, specious arguments against coal.

Coal critics even went as far as arguing that the smell of wood smoke was preferable to coal smoke, and cleverly labeled coal “the devil’s excrement.”

Another criticism was that coal production was too dangerous (compared to logging). But technology fixed that too. Inventions like water pumps and safety lamps dramatically improved conditions in coal mines.

In the end, coal overcame the criticism and became the primary fuel of the Industrial Revolution; and the world became vastly more prosperous as a result of the combination of cheaper, more efficient energy, combined with groundbreaking productive technology (like the steam engine).

The world faces a similar choice today.

Like Britain throughout the 1700s, significant population growth has increased demand for electricity around the world, including in the US. And while there’s no “timber famine” today, there are major challenges in the production of electricity.

Much of this is self-inflicted. Years of climate fanaticism have pushed power companies to shut down coal-fired plants and replace them with inefficient wind and solar facilities.

Look, I like a clean environment as much as anyone. But the reality is that wind and solar simply aren’t as clean as the mainstream narrative would have you believe.

The mining of key input materials like germanium, cobalt, etc. is incredibly filthy. Batteries are filthy. The manufacturing process is filthy. And that doesn’t even get into child labor issues.

Plus, with wind and solar, you have to build in all sorts of extra redundancy for times when the wind doesn’t blow. Or, you know, night time, when the sun doesn’t shine. And all that extra redundancy increases the environmental waste even more.

Despite the costs and limitations, however, the share of wind and solar powering America’s grid is higher than ever before. This is a major reason why the electrical grid is struggling to keep up with surging demand.

Aside from population growth, another key driver of demand is new technology. Similar to Britain in the late 1700s, it’s well known now that our modern technology (AI) consumes massive quantities of electricity.

The net result of this supply and demand imbalance is a major concern for looming electricity shortages.

Elon Musk predicted last March that “the world will face supply crunches in electricity” this year. He’s far from alone.

One of the ventures that I’ve invested in (along with many of our Total Access members) is a technology company that focuses on specialized microchips. And the head of sales told me he was in the Washington DC area last week meeting with various government officials who are prospective customers.

One of the major concerns they expressed to him was that there simply wasn’t going to be enough electricity to meet their needs (hence their interest in our technology, which is designed to consume less power).

They recognize that there isn’t enough electrical production capacity coming on line to match demand. They also understand that demand for electricity can (and likely will) grow much faster than supply.

And it was extraordinary that even government officials were complaining about the intense, bureaucratic regulation at the local, state, and federal level to bring new power plants online. God forbid you have to displace a bird’s nest, which might set you back several years.

In Britain’s timber famine, they solved their supply shortage by turning to a better technology: coal.

Today there is also a vastly superior technology, and that’s nuclear.

We’ve written about this before— the idea that a single rock can power a small city is nothing short of astonishing. But like coal in Britain’s industrial age, nuclear power today has plenty of detractors.

But the latest emerging technology— small scale reactors— dispenses with virtually all criticism. It’s safer, cleaner, and cuts down on 90% of the waste. It’s also cheaper and faster to build, requiring 80% less energy to construct than traditional reactors.

And it has the potential to drive widespread prosperity throughout the world— something cheap energy has always been able to do.

A lot of countries have already woken up to this idea, which is why places like China, India, and even Russia have been rapidly building their own nuclear reactors.

Europe has naturally been shutting theirs down, but those governments are clearly insane. And if you have a problem with their self-destructive decisions then you’re a far-right fascist. Those people are in serious need of psychiatric care.

The US is now waking up from its green fantasy. And as America often does, it’s starting this race from behind… but will probably catch up quickly.

All of this makes uranium, i.e. the fuel source for most nuclear reactors, one of the most critical resources in the world.

Yet the supply chain for uranium is fragile, and the market is painfully underdeveloped. Decades of disinterest in nuclear have kept uranium exploration and production at a standstill, even as global demand is poised to soar.

The US government is acutely aware of this risk. In 2020, Congress established the US Uranium Reserve, allocating $75 million to buy domestically-produced uranium.

But $75 million is nothing. Even with this program, domestic production is expected to fall far short of what’s needed to fuel the next generation of reactors.

Meanwhile, the uranium market is taking notice. Prices have more than doubled since 2021, but they remain well below the levels needed to incentivize new production.

The few publicly traded uranium miners and developers have seen their stocks surge. Yet most investors remain unaware of just how critical this resource will become.

Uranium is also a quintessential real asset— a critical resource that is vital to economic prosperity and new technology.

Yet, again, uranium is in a deficit. Demand already outpaces supply, and that imbalance is only set to worsen.

That likely means skyrocketing uranium prices. And massive profits for the few producers left— many still trading at quite modest valuations.

This originally appeared on Dustfinger62.

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5 Quietly Deadly Gangs Causing Huge Havoc Worldwide

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

The golden age of organized crime may seem like a thing of the past in this era of surveillance. Law enforcement officers have technology and profiling capabilities now that they never had in the past. But make no mistake: Gangs are alive and thriving. They’ve simply evolved with the times. And we’re not just talking about low-level street gangs, either. Complicated, cunning, and cryptic multinational gangs still control the underworld in our modern age.

While some manage to outmaneuver the law, others receive tacit support from governments. A few have become so deeply entrenched in society that they function as de facto governments. Today, we’ll shine a spotlight on ten of the most influential and formidable gangs. These groups have amassed significant wealth, boast large memberships, and operate on a global scale. Their power and influence are undeniable in the criminal underworld—and beyond.

In my opinion, I think the most powerful criminal organization in the world is the various Italian organized crime groups known as the Italian Mafia. These include Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unita, La Stidda, Mafia Capitale, Basilischi and more.

First of all, from all of the research I have done, the Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta, Camorra, and Sacra Corona Unita make a combined $170-$180 billion per year. That is more than any other criminal organization that I have heard of. This would make them the 19th highest earning “company” in the world when compared to legitimate corporations. Remember, those are the 4 most powerful of the Italian groups, that figure does not include the other various groups. Money means power, they are able to buy vast amounts of weapons, vehicles, and whatever else they need for their operations. Not to mention, they can also buy many politicians and law enforcers.

Martyn V. Halm (Combat Pragmatist) cited a 2014 article in Fortune which is factually incorrect, their “estimates” are way off when it comes to the annual revenue of these organizations. In the article, it claims the ‘Ndrangheta makes $4.5 billion/year, this is not the case, as they make $72 billion/year according to various European and American law enforcement agencies.

They are one of the largest criminal organizations in the world. Combined, they have around 300,000 members and associates spread across various countries. There is strength in numbers is a statement which is often true.

They are very widespread, they operate in many places such as North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Russia, and Australia. This gives them the advantage of having a global reach and being able to call on support/flee to anywhere in the world. This global support gives on-the-run mobsters places to hide, ability to call for help, and better business opportunities, as ethnically-similar crime groups often do business with each other because

a) They trust each other more

b) They often share a similar history

Alliances, Italian organized crime groups (OCGs) have been known to cooperate with each other on many occasions. Sure, many other criminal groups work together as well, but Italians seem to have the best relationship with each other and seem to have the most peace among themselves as opposed to other ethnic criminal groups. Sure, they fight, they are criminals, but they seem to fight the least among each other. This re-enforces the past two points I made, and is a huge advantage for them.

Money-making versatility, this also goes for other criminal organizations such as the Bratva (Russian Mafia) but being involved in a dozens of different criminal operations allows them to fall back on something if one operation goes awry. It also gives them an opportunity to increase and spread their power and influence in a given area. Such as Cosa Nostra controlling labor unions to control entire ports, and sometimes even entire industries.

Legitimate businesses. Again, other OCGs own legitimate businesses too, but Italian OCGs seem to be most heavily involved in legit businesses in comparison to other groups. As I mentioned above, they are involved in unions, they own construction companies, various restaurants, they own real estate (‘Ndrangheta owns almost entire neighborhoods in Germany and Brussels as a form of investment.)

To recap:

1.Italian OCGs make the most money.

2. Italian OCGs are larger in numbers.

3. They are one of the most, if not the most widespread.

4. Great internal relationships.

5. Money-making versatility.

6. Involvement in legitimate enterprises.

Time for some counterarguments (I am going to name a powerful global OCG that others may have mentioned but I will explain why I believe they are not as powerful as the Italian OCGs globally)

Russian Mafia (Bratva): You could say that they traffic nuclear weapons, but this is simply a different money-making opportunity. They are not going to actually use them, as this would bring down heat from every law enforcement agency within 2000 miles of them. You could say they have submarines, but Italian groups have submarines bringing drugs from Colombia and Mexico as well. Italian OCGs (Camorra in this case) also find sunken WWII ships and retrieve weapons and bombs from them.

Mexican Drug Cartels: You could say that they control a large part of the world’s drug trade, they do, but they are not nearly as wide spread as other groups such as the Italian or Russian OCGs. They are mainly in Mexico and the US, they also operate in Canada, but not as heavily as in the US. They send over drugs to Europe but it is then controlled by Italian OCGs. (‘Ndrangheta controls 80% of Europe’s cocaine, and that is 1 of many Italian OCGs.) The Mexican cartels also make less money from their businesses than Italian OCGs do, cartels make around $40-$60 billion/year. Which isn’t shabby, but it doesn’t match up against $170-$180 billion/year. They are not as widespread, either. They do have people operating in other countries, but they are usually under the control of other criminal groups, and are their mainly to assist in the reception of drugs or they are on the run there. Most likely and most often the former.

Yakuza: I saw a few people mention this. Lets start with the Fortune article. They say the Yakuza makes $80 billion/year. Whether this is true or not, it is hard to believe because of their mistake on the annual revenue of the ‘Ndrangheta (they were off by $67.5 billion.) They also claimed that the Camorra makes more than the ‘Ndrangheta, which it doesn’t. While I have heard from >1 sources that they make an annual revenue of $13 billion. That is a lot, but not enough to compare to the Italian OCGs. I have seen $80 billion/year on other websites, but they are referring to what the Fortune article said, or they cited it. The Yakuza is not as large as the Italian groups, the Yakuza have an estimated 100,000-120,000 members across the world, most of them being in Japan. This does not compare with nearly 300,000 that the Italian OCGs have. The Yakuza are not as widespread as well. They operate mainly in Japan, Asia, and North America. That is only 2 continents, maybe another country on a 3rd continent. But the Italian OCGs operate on basically every continent except Antarctica.

Read the Whole Article

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Receipts Reveal U.S. Government Presides Over a Colossal Globe-Spanning Racket

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

Watching the receipts pouring in from Elon Musk’s DOGE – as well as from other places – one gets that sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach. Confronted with the hard evidence, the suspicion that has long been germinating is suddenly turned into a painful realization.

The realization is this: The U.S. federal government has turned into something akin to a vast criminal syndicate that routinely commits grave crimes against its own population as well as against those abroad.

Here are just some examples, in no particular order:

Sponsoring illegal bioresearch in the Wuhan Laboratory
Waging wars – direct, clandestine, and by proxy – based on brazen lies and false premises (Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, etc.)
Conducting covert regime change operations around the globe, often against populist, democratically elected governments
“Financially or logistically supporting narcotics networks in every major region they spring, from the Golden Crescent to the Golden Triangle to South America” see here
Sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars to organizations that facilitate illegal immigration into the U.S.
Bankrupting our national finances by contracting unpayable debts and destroying the value of the U.S. dollar
Funneling hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars into organizations that censor free speech of American citizens as well as citizens of other countries
Weaponizing the law, federal agencies, and the justice system for political purposes
Lying about the origins of Covid and imposing destructive lockdowns
Keeping a senile demented man in the highest office of the land
Forcing Americans to take dangerous and ineffective Covid mRNA injections
Inserting men in skirts into high government positions
Allowing men to defeat and physically abuse women in sporting events
Allowing men access to women’s bathrooms, locker rooms and private spaces
Lying about Hunter Biden’s laptop and refusing to investigate the crimes of the Biden family
Waging lawfare against President Trump and his followers
Rigging elections both at home and abroad
Maintaining biolabs in Ukraine
Illegally surveilling U.S. citizens on a mass scale through the NSA and such
Imposing LGBT and transgender ideology on children both at home and abroad
Forwarding Americans’ tax money to liberal media outlets
Channeling financial support to BLM and its rioters

The damage of these crimes and their costs are breathtaking by any metric.

The staggering depth and scale of wrongdoing, criminality and corruption within the U.S. government that are being exposed even as we speak is almost impossible to digest.

As the heroic Kari Lake aptly observed, “I think Washington, D.C. is a crime scene right now with what they’re uncovering with everything that our federal government has been up to.”

The Establishment and the Democratic Party are – predictably enough – trying to do everything they can to stop the expose.

“Elon Musk and DOGE are hacking the government,” reads an NBC News headline written by establishment courtier David Ingram.

It is most revealing that something that most normal people call an audit the Establishment alleges to be “hacking.”

Hoping to limit disclosure, the Democrat Senate Leader Chuck Schumer stepped out from the U.S. Capitol to publicly protest Elon Musk’s effort to conduct an audit of our corrupt government.

Once outside, he broke into an unconvincing chant “We will win! We will win! We won’t rest! We won’t rest!”

Schumer’s performance was so lamentable that even the left-leaning Independent ran a piece headlined: “Top Democrat rips Chuck Schumer for ‘depressing’ video of him chanting during Musk protest.”

The article quoted Tim Ryan, a Democrat and a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, who said:

“I just don’t even know what to say anymore when I see this kind of stuff. Is it Saturday Night Live or real life?”

Photo 1: Chuck Schumer protesting audit of the Treasury by DOGE

One almost feels sorry for Chuck Schumer. He strikes a tragicomic figure as he desperately tries to defend the indefensible. In a way he is the right man for the role, since his visage and manner seem to be a perfect fit for that which he seeks to safeguard: a thoroughly corrupt enterprise.

Schumer’s efforts notwithstanding – with all that has come out – it has now become quite clear that with a yearly budget of more than six trillion dollars and backed by unprecedented military might, the U.S. government runs the largest and most dangerous con in history.

There used to be a time when most of the world looked to America as the good guys, the bearers of freedom, prosperity, free speech, and democracy. Alas, this is no longer the case. Now we do the opposite: we impose censorship, export inflation and transgender ideology, undermine and overthrow democratically elected governments, and baselessly attack and destroy countries that pose no threat to the American people.

Painful as it may be to admit, our government is becoming that which we fought against in the past: the Evil Empire.

We have an extensive track record to show for. Mayhem, chaos, and destruction are the fruit of our works: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria… the list goes on. We can now add to that list Ukraine whose destruction we have provoked, sponsored, and abetted. And let’s not forget that we have also bankrolled the ruination of Gaza, which President Trump correctly described as a “demolition site” in a recent press conference.

On the positive side, President Trump seems to be trying his best to expose and rein in the corruption. Given the scope of wrongdoing and the resistance he faces, his is truly a gargantuan task. Predictably, he is getting little help from the Democrats.

Barely two weeks into his presidency, Congressman Al Green proposed articles of impeachment against Trump. Taking the House floor, the Texas congressman announced:

“I rise to announce that I will bring articles of impeachment against the president for dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done.”

This is what happens in Washington, D.C. when one attempts to expose wrongs and bring some accountability. Too bad it has not occurred to Congressman Green to bring articles of impeachment against the Establishment itself, given its long list of dark deeds.

Kari Lake has got it right: With all the facts that are coming out, it does seem that Washington, D.C. is one large crime scene. It apparently has been so for quite some time.

Would only that President Trump succeed in cleaning the place up. This should not be a partisan effort. All honest people of goodwill should support this enterprise.

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You Must Speak Your Mind — Freedom Depends On It — Even When You Are Being Blatantly Offensive

Lew Rockwell Institute - Mar, 11/02/2025 - 05:01

As anyone who has read my series called The Amtrak Vignettes knows, I’ve been on a train across the United States a time or two.

Recently, a loudmouth from Brooklyn was on the train. He was about 6 foot, 5 inches, about 300 pounds, a man’s man, from Williamsburg when it was still Williamsburg. He was wearing his bright yellow “Don’t tread on me” t-shirt.

We were on a train headed for the San Francisco Bay Area, so lots of liberals on this one. And this guy spoke his mind with a resonant voice and loudly. I loved it.

You would be able to hear the liberal sphincters snapping shut all around with every increasingly politically incorrect statement from him, if it were not for the fact that he spoke those inconvenient facts at however many decibels an aircraft engine is.

The man’s man had a collection of foreign exchange students around him as he held court, seemingly taking in his every word. He had gathered these disciples over the course of the train trip. It was something to behold. He had an Indian, a Chinese, and a French, though certainly others like me were also enjoying the colorful take on the affairs of the world.

During one of the few pauses, I said “Hey, I like that shirt,” and asked him, “But where’s that accent from? Montauk or something?”

Montauk is at the absolute end of Long Island, sticking all the way out into the Atlantic.

He said, “Aww man. There is no bigger insult you can give a guy from Brooklyn than to say he’s from Long Island.”

To which I said, “Well, actually Brooklyn is on the same island you know.”

If you look at a map, Brooklyn and Queens, both east of the East River, are part of that same geographic island. They are quite literally ON Long Island.

He was not having it, “Yeah, but it’s not the same!”

It’s fun to give a guy the razz.

A little later, another guy comes up and says, “I like your shirt.”

You could feel the weakness being exuded by this guy, especially when standing right next to man’s man. I did not like it. I did not like the exuded weakness. He is the kind of guy who finally found a spine in life the morning after Trump was inaugurated for the second time, after he heard Rachel Maddow, followed by his wife both mournfully acknowledge the inauguration as legitimate. Only then did he find his spine.

This scene took place about a week after that.

The formerly spineless man added about the t-shirt, “I guess you can finally wear it now!”

You see, Trump had just been inaugurated the week before, so the weak man who was new in the conversation was saying, “Now that someone has been inaugurated, we allegedly free Americans are now allowed to wear shirts that speak our minds as long as they agree generally with the man in the Oval Office.”

What a weak and pathetic man. Even if you thought it, why would you admit that weakness by actually speaking it aloud to another man?

The 8,000 decibel Brooklyn baritone wasn’t having it, “Never stopped wearing it.”

That’s right brother. That’s right.

Never stopped wearing it, you wuss. He omitted verbally speaking the, “You wuss” part, but when you speak openly to some people it is hard to miss the “you wuss” part that exists to anyone attentively listening. Your devotion to the truth is an affront to anyone who does not have the same devotion. That can be inspiring to those who do not have that courage. But the more likely response is to perceive a courageous person operating in your presence as effrontery. That is okay. Just keep being courageous. It is contagious. Also, those who are too weak presently to be encouraged by your courage, will feel the sting of shame. You will be doing the person a favor.

I do not care if I agree with the loudmouth. I do not care if I disagree with the loudmouth. Freedom of speech is perpetuated and secured and expanded by opinions being voiced. It has nothing to do with who is the US President. It has nothing to do with court rulings. It has everything to do with courage.

This piece you are reading is from my latest book, entitled Do Not Apologize For The Words You Use: A Call To Poets And Authors Of Our Era, and which you, dear reader, can get for free above for the next week until the book is released in print.

The harder it is to say something, often the more necessary it is to say that thing. The more unpopular an opinion, the more effective that hint of truth can be, even if it is just a little squeak. Even if you can only squeak the truth, just speak it. Though, to be honest, an obnoxious and proud Brooklyn baritone is even better.

It is necessary to speak truth. With it, you encourage the remnant of believers around you. With it, you encourage yourself. And with it, you melt the hearts of your opponent.

It is so very easy to just speak the unpopular truth. Unless of course you do not want to encourage your allies, uplift yourself, and melt the heart of your opponent.

That would, of course, just make you weak if you chose that option. And it would make you determined to have such little seriousness about your values, that it troubles you not that you have no potency to win victory on behalf of your values.

Victory for your values should matter to you. Otherwise, are they really deeply held principles at all? Or are they just lightly appreciated preferences?

Such a man, I cannot stand to be around. The more I grow in faith, the more I grow in values, the more I recognize the price I have paid for such treasures in life, the less I can appreciate a man who has no such treasures.

And I really do mean that these are some of the greatest treasures in life — the hard fought, hard won values.

Of course there are treasures the weak man, too, can claim as his own, but that is not saying much. When evaluating the uniqueness of one’s treasures in life, one must recognize that in the most prosperous county on the planet even the guy who just crawled across the border from Honduras and the guy who has spent the last two decades on the street both have treasures to their name that the middle class could not have imagined just a half century ago.

Those really are not that precious of treasures.

There are treasures of value. And then there are “treasures” that even a weak man can own. But they are not the same. And sometimes the more flashy the “treasure,” the less impressive the person, though that of course has its limits.

You and I, both, likely, know plenty of upstanding men and women who have flashy treasures. They are those who stood by dedicated values along the entire path that they earned those flashy values.

Nonetheless, contained in concepts like values and the faith are their real treasures. Those are the treasures that took the most work to come upon. Some weak men can not tell you that, because they do not get it. Others get it all too well, and it is a grievous pain to them, as are you when you insist on speaking the truth and standing openly by your values.

Courage is contagious, and cowardice too is contagious. The ancient Israelite generals like Joshua, the right-hand man of Moses, were given instruction by Moses. There were certain men who were not allowed to march into battle. The instructions about the cowardly were clear. One such man was the coward. Why? Because his cowardice was understood to be contagious.

Check out this excerpt from a pre-battle pep talk, or at least instructions for a pre-battle pep talk.

“And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.” (Deuteronomy 20:8)

That’s the “Coward Go Home!” clause of the pre-battle pep talk. Cowards go home. We do not even want you around us. Sure you may help us win a minor skirmish or two. You may cause us to look more formidable in number. You may help us get the job done better.

But you know what, we do not want you around the rest of us because the risk is too great. You may spread your contagious cowardice. You may convince others of being people of preferences rather than people of principles. You may espouse desire for treasures that are no treasure at all. It was so important of a concept that the cowards be separated from the real men on the battlefield that Moses included this as some of his final guidance before he left them and the Israelites crossed over into the promised land.

Now in a civil society, we must understand something. Every single interaction with every single individual is a battle of values and one of those values is freedom. Your silence is compliance with evil.

Where there are lies in your midst, just call them out. It does not matter what anyone thinks of you. Just speak the truth and only allow the truth to be spoken by you. Just speak the truth and only allow the truth to be spoken unchallenged in your presence.

Get my latest book on why writers need to always speak their mind, no matter how offensive it is, for free here for the next week. Do Not Apologize For The Words You Use: A Call To Poets And Authors Of Our Era. And that does not just go for writers. It goes for all of us. In this era of supreme deceit, we need to know our values, we need to speak our values, no matter how “offensive” we may think those to be. Seldom is the penalty for that as bad as we actually think it is going to be, but even if there is a penalty that should not stop us. Since when was the truth determined by plebiscite? Never. Since when was a deeply held value determined by plebiscite? Never.

The upside of speaking truthfully, openly, and clearly is so great. It is so great as to be immeasurable. Have that vision for the potential of what freedom means. Have that vision and do not forsake that birthright, especially not because you were worried what someone with less vision, less courage, and less principled resolve would think of it.

Speak. Speak now. Speak boldly.

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Treasury Department pays $100 billion annually to unidentified individuals

Lew Rockwell Institute - Lun, 10/02/2025 - 19:50

Thanks, Rick Rozoff.

Musk claims US Treasury annually pays $100 bln to unidentified individuals

He noted that the DOGE team and the US Department of the Treasury had agreed to require “that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits”

“Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious,” he wrote on his page on the X social network.

WASHINGTON, February 9. /TASS/. Entrepreneur Elon Musk who is in charge of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said that the US Department of the Treasury has been paying out $100 billion to unidentified individuals annually.

“When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!! This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately,” Musk emphasized.

That said, he noted that the DOGE team and the US Department of the Treasury had agreed to require “that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits.” Additionally, “all payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field.” Musk also noted that the Department of the Treasury will maintain and regularly update a list including “entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations.”.

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