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Bureau of Labor Statistics head Dr. Erika McEntarfer is one of the latest persons President Trump has told “you’re fired.” President Trump said this month that he fired Dr. McEntarfer because the president believed she manipulated jobs data. Manipulations, he stated, include the updated May and June BLS numbers showing the U.S. economy created 258,000 fewer jobs than originally reported, as well as the weaker than expected July jobs report. All of this, the president suggested, was designed to make President Trump look bad.

Following Dr. McEntarfer’s firing, many commenters worried that President Trump’s actions would create the perception that government unemployment and inflation data is manipulated to produce the numbers desired by the president. A loss of confidence in government statistics could impact demand for US Treasuries. This is because the value of Treasuries is adjusted based on the BLS-issued Consumer Price Index (CPI). If investors don’t trust the CPI figures, they can demand higher returns, increasing government’s interest payments.

President Trump is correct that BLS manipulates statistics related to the economy, but it has been doing so since long before Donald Trump moved to the White House.

For example, starting in 1994, the BLS stopped including “discouraged” workers who have stopped looking for work in the official unemployment figures. The BLS also includes those working part-time as employed even if the only reason they are working part-time is they cannot find full-time work. According to John Williams, publisher of the website Shadow Stats, including discouraged and part-time workers who want full-time work in the unemployment figures increases the unemployment rate by almost 20 percent!

The government also understates the effects of inflation. One way it does this is by using “chained CPI.” Chained CPI means that even if price inflation has made steak unaffordable for most Americans, the government does not consider their standard of living lowered if they can buy a “substitute” such as hamburger.

This ignores the fact that if consumers viewed hamburger and steak as equivalent then they would likely have chosen cheaper hamburger before Federal Reserve-caused price inflation made steak unaffordable, leaving them no choice but to purchase hamburger. According to John Williams’s Shadow Stats, using a more accurate definition of inflation would increase the inflation rate to as much as 12 percent.

Manipulating the unemployment and inflation rates allows the government to gaslight the people into believing that the economy is strong and any signs of weakness — such as rising prices or an increase in unemployment in their town — are anomalies that do not reflect the economy’s real condition. Manipulating the inflation figures to understate the true amount of inflation also lowers the “cost of living” increases the government must provide for veterans, beneficiaries of Social Security, and others. This provides a way for government to cut spending without Congress members having politically difficult votes.

President Trump has done a service by highlighting that government statistics regarding the economy are manipulated. Many of those criticizing President Trump for endangering the “credibility” of government’s inflation and unemployment numbers are either unaware of, or more likely have no problem with, manipulating data to fool the public into thinking the welfare-warfare system and the fiat money system are “working.” They only object to manipulating the data to benefit President Trump. President Trump should ensure the government’s unemployment and inflation figures are as accurate as possible by appointing John Williams of Shadow Stats to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The post Newsflash: Governments Lie appeared first on LewRockwell.

Decades ago during my years in college and grad school, I had a strong side-interest in Soviet history, and read quite a number of weighty books in that subject. Most of these heavily focused upon the Stalin era, describing the almost unprecedented loss of life that occurred during that period from the combination of executions, Gulag deaths, and terrible famines.

But these horrifying stories were sometimes leavened by episodes so strange and ironic that I was never entirely sure whether they were real or merely invented.

For example, during the first half of the 1930s, the Great Famine caused by forced collectivization and dekulakization was widely described as having caused many, many millions of deaths. Stalin pushed ahead with this project despite the considerable misgivings of some of the other Soviet leaders, most of whom would themselves soon be purged and often shot just a few years later.

Given such horrifying famine conditions in the Ukraine and other Soviet regions, social order collapsed to the point that many of these deaths went unreported at the time. Thus, they only became apparent several years later when the Soviet Census of 1937 found that there were considerably fewer Soviet citizens alive than had been expected.

According to my history textbooks, Stalin was greatly dismayed by these Census results. But rather than admitting that his policies may have had such adverse consequences, the Communist dictator decided that the expert statisticians of the Census bureau were responsible for the problem, and had them all purged and shot as dastardly anti-Soviet saboteurs and wreckers.

Naturally, I always snickered a little at those forced to live under such a bizarre and irrational autocrat who reacted to a less than favorable message by shooting the messenger. And at least according to Wikipedia, the basic story of such Stalinist irrationality was apparently true, with the 1937 Soviet Census showing that the population was perhaps 10 million lower than had been expected and the Census bureau was indeed purged as a consequence.

But today, in the wake of the apparent economic and political consequences of President Donald Trump’s bizarre and autocratic tariff policies, I am reminded of the famous opening lines of one of Marx’s books, in which the author claimed that historical events appear twice, “first as tragedy, then as farce.” Thus, during the last week or so, we have seen our own government react in ways quite similar to those of Stalin, though so far at least lacking the sanguinary component.

Earlier this year on April 2nd, Trump had declared “Liberation Day,” unveiling a sweeping new set of tariffs against the trade goods of every other country in the world. His new tariff rates were so extremely high and seemingly arbitrary that I doubt I was the only one who wondered whether his presentation had accidentally been delayed twenty-four hours and he had originally scheduled his announcement for April Fools’ Day.

Certainly nothing like this had ever previously happened in American history. Indeed, I could not recall any foreign dictator let alone a democratically-elected leader who had ever unilaterally done anything so strange with regard to foreign trade. As I wrote soon afterward:

Tariffs are just a type of tax levied on imports, and America annually imports well over $3 trillion worth of foreign goods, so tariff taxes obviously have a huge economic impact. But Trump suddenly raised those taxes by more than a factor of ten, taking them from around 2.5% to 29%, rates far, far beyond those of the notorious 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff and reaching the levels of more than 100 years ago. This certainly amounted to one of the largest tax increases in all of human history.

Trump’s policies were so strange and destructive that the broader historical analogy that immediately came to my mind was the disastrous Great Leap Forward implemented in China under Chairman Mao. A few days after Trump’s declaration I published a piece making this suggestion.

• President Donald Trump and Chairman Mao
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review • April 7, 2025 • 3,800 Words

As might naturally be expected, our financial markets completely panicked at these huge new import taxes. The terrible blows to stock prices, bond rates, and the value of the dollar all seemed to reflect the belief of investors that our country was facing total economic disaster.

As I soon emphasized, one reason for such widespread financial fear was Trump’s bizarre claim that unlike all previous American presidents, he possessed the power to set tariff tax rates by emergency decree:

According to our Constitution, tariffs and other tax changes must be enacted by Congressional legislation. But Trump ignored those requirements, instead claiming that he had the power to unilaterally set tariff tax rates under the emergency provisions of a 1977 law that no one had ever previously believed could be used for that purpose.

Across our 235 year national history, all our past changes in tariff, trade, or tax policy—including Smoot-Hawley, NAFTA, the WTO, and Trump 45’s own USMCA—had always been the result of months or years of political negotiations, and then ultimately approved or rejected by Congress. But now these multi-trillion-dollar decisions were being made at the personal whim of someone who had seemingly proclaimed himself a reigning, empowered American autocrat.

As might be expected, Trump’s huge tax increase on $3 trillion of imports quickly led to a very sharp drop in stock prices, but Trump declared that he was unbending and would never waver. China had prepared for exactly such an economic attack, and when it soon retaliated with similar tariffs on American products, Trump counter-retaliated, with several days of those tit-for-tat exchanges eventually raising tariff rates against China to an astonishing 145%, essentially banning almost all Chinese goods. Many other countries and the EU also threatened similar retaliatory tariffs, but since their tax rates were governed by law rather than autocratic whim, their responses were necessarily much slower.

Although Trump initially promised to stay the course, the quick collapse in the financial markets soon forced him to back down, drastically reducing his new tariff rates for three months while he negotiated bilateral trade deals with other countries.

However, just a week after he announced those gigantic tariffs against the entire world and repeatedly promised to maintain or even further raise them, Trump suddenly changed his mind. Although he kept the Chinese rates at those ridiculous levels, he declared that tariffs on all other countries would suddenly be reduced to a very high but rational 10% rate for the next 90 days while he decided what to do.

Thus, during the course of a single week, Trump had raised American tariffs by more than a factor of ten, then dropped them by a factor of two, representing exactly the sort of tax policy we might expect to see in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Trump’s totally unexpected reversal naturally produced a huge recovery in stock prices, which regained much of the ground that they had previously lost, and Trump boasted about all the money that his friends had made from that unprecedented market rebound. This led to some dark suspicions that our unfortunate country had just witnessed one of the most outrageously blatant examples of insider trading in all of human history.

Across thousands of years, the world has seen many important countries ruled by absolute monarchs or all-powerful dictators, with some of these leaders even considered deranged. But I can’t recall any past example in which a major nation’s tax, tariff, or tribute policies have undergone such rapid and sudden changes, moving up and down by huge amounts apparently based upon personal whim. Certainly Caligula never did anything so peculiar, nor Louis XIV nor Genghis Khan nor anyone else who comes to mind. Lopping off the heads of a few random government officials was one thing, but drastic changes in national financial policies were generally taken much more seriously. I don’t think that Tamerlane ever suddenly raised the tribute he demanded from his terrified subjects by a factor of ten, then a few days later lowered it back down by a factor of two.

What will our tariff rates on $3 trillion of imports be like in a few months? I doubt that anyone can say, even including the current occupant of the Oval Office. For example, late Friday night the Trump Administration apparently exempted smartphones, computer equipment, and other electronics from his Chinese tariffs, hoping that the timing would help hide that further abject surrender from the American population.

Consider America’s major business corporations or even its small mom-and-pop operations. Nearly all of these have some substantial connection to international trade, even if they merely rely upon ordinary products that they buy at Costco or Walmart. On April 2nd, Trump announced his huge new tariffs that would greatly raise the price of those products or possibly lead to their disappearance, then on April 9th he changed his mind and suspended those tariffs for 90 days, but still proposed to afterward enact them, while essentially banning nearly all Chinese imported goods with a 145% tariff that may or may not continue.

Under those circumstances, how could any rational corporate planner—or even sensible small-businessman—formulate any long-term investment plans? For at least the next 90 days, virtually all business investment will surely remain frozen, except perhaps for a little panic-buying. It’s hardly surprising that consumer sentiment quickly reached the worst levels since record-keeping began.

• Donald Trump’s Looney Tunes Trade Policy
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review • April 14, 2025 • 3,800 Words

Trump’s dramatic U-turn a week after his initial tariff announcement did allow the financial markets to stabilize and regain the ground they had lost, though his many critics began to ridicule him with the acronym TACO—“Trump Always Chickens Out”—using it to describe our president’s regular response to strong challenges. Even so, most observers predicted that the higher tariff rates that remained together with the tremendous uncertainty and the sharp decline in consumer sentiment would probably result in serious economic problems whether or not Trump ever made good on his threat to revisit the tariff issue after ninety days.

But contrary to those plausible concerns, the employment numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) over the next several months remained surprisingly strong, puzzling those who had warned that economic uncertainty would sharply reduce the willingness of businesses to expand and create jobs.

Read the Whole Article

The post History as Farce with Donald Trump’s Tariff Policies appeared first on LewRockwell.

For all of its flaws, the United States has one of the best governments that has ever been developed. This is because the system is rife with checks and balances, where one part of the country or government can constrain another part from acting out of line, and the public has a voice that can frequently be mobilized if things become too egregious and bring everything back to balance.

This framework naturally leads to bad actors taking a multi-pronged approach where they attempt to co-opt every single thing that constrains their misdeeds. While challenging, this can eventually be done with concerted effort. For example, during COVID-19, virtually every institution that should have prevented the unconstitutional lockdowns, the top-down suppression of unpatented COVID-19 treatments, and the COVID-19 vaccine mandates (let alone their approvals) failed as every institution worked in concert to advance the COVID cartel—resulting in arguably the worst “public health” crime in history.

Yet, even here, due to the independent media, liberty-minded politicians, and the egregiousness of the COVID policies, a check was eventually able to neutralize the COVID cartel. Furthermore, beyond the COVID vaccine program failing to accomplish its primary goal (an annual mandated vaccine and mainstreaming mRNA technology) the trust they’ve long used to market medical products has been shattered and longterm, COVID is now arguably costing the medical industry far more than was made from the pandemic—all of which illustrates our political system has a robust series of checks once things get too out of line.

Exempting Liability

Since so many institutions within our society have been co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry, it has both become vital to find alternative options (e.g., creating a robust independent media) and to protect the viable options that remain.

One of those has always been the courts, as frequently, if a bad actor steps too far out of line, a legal framework exists to constrain their actions. For this reason, a holy grail of the industries which profit from poisoning us has long been to take away the ability of the courts to check them by passing laws (or securing court rulings) that shield them from liability and hence terminate the lawsuits that can stop their egregious conduct.

For example, the whole-cell DPT vaccine was long recognized to be a particularly dangerous vaccine which frequently caused brain damage and death, yet for decades the medical community and government covered it up, and industry refused to bring a safer (but more expensive) acellular DPT vaccine to market.

As a grassroots awareness of the dangers of the vaccine spread across the country (aided by a 1982 NBC program) more and more lawsuits were filed against vaccine manufacturers, the majority of which were for DPT injuries.

Information provided by the three commercial manufacturers of diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and pertussis (DPT) vaccine indicates a striking increase in the number of lawsuits filed against them alleging damage caused by the vaccine. Only one such case was filed in 1978, whereas 73 were filed in 1984. During the seven-year period from 1978 to 1984, the average amount claimed per suit has risen from $10 million to $46.5 million. If the current trend continues, suits will pose an increasing threat to the availability of DTP vaccines in the United States.

Because of this, DPT manufacturers rapidly left the market (e.g., due to rising liability insurance costs) and by 1984, only one remained. As such, something needed to be done to protect the vaccine supply, and a deal was brokered between advocates for vaccine injured children (along with their supporters within Congress) and the pharmaceutical industry. After some work, a framework was put together which was intended to help the vaccine-injured (as lawsuits for vaccine injuries were a grueling and not always successful process), create safer vaccines, and transfer liability from the vaccine manufacturers to the US government so the manufacturers could remain in business.

On one hand, this act accomplished positive things (e.g., vaccine manufacturers became required to list lots as previously ambiguous lot numbers had been used to escape liability for injuries, a safer DPT vaccine was finally brought to market, and VAERS was created). Conversely however, since many provisions of the act designed to protect the vaccine injured were at the H.H.S. Secretary’s discretion and the government ultimately paid for injury compensation. It created a massive incentive to deny that injuries could occur, and as a result, most of the acts’ intended provisions failed to manifest or were systematically undermined.

As such, there’s still very little reliable data on vaccine injury (e.g., VAERS was systematically undermined as the government did not want a publicly available injury database), the science linking vaccines to specific injuries that was supposed to be done never got done, and most importantly it’s nearly impossible for vaccine injuries “not supported by science” to be compensated in the vaccine court. Worst still, a 2011 Supreme Court ruling further gutted the act, making it impossible for vaccine manufacturers to be directly sued, even in cases of grossly defective vaccines that the 1986 law had specifically intended to allow.
Note: this is somewhat similar to how the highly contentious 2015 California law, which took away religious exemptions to vaccination (effectively mandating them), was signed by the governor under the understanding that medical exemptions would always be honored, shortly after which a new law was passed which banned medical exemptions to vaccination in California.

Conversely, this birthed a massive industry, as removing the primary check against the industry (lawsuits for injuries they caused) incentivized producing a glut of new vaccines to enter the market and removed any incentive to ensure their safety. As such, an apparatus gradually developed to ensure investors could expect a successful return on upcoming vaccines by ensuring they would always be approved and mandated upon our children, eventually culminating in the COVID catastrophe.

Fortunately, as our system has a robust series of checks and balances, even though a primary one failed (injury lawsuits), eventually the unrestrained proliferation of injurious vaccines went so far a new check emerged—public loss of trust in the vaccine apparatus, MAHA’s political ascendency and RFK becoming a H.H.S. Secretary who amongst other things has begun to implement the key safety provisions of the 1986 Act every Secretary before him refused to do.

Note: one of the remarkable results of RFK’s tenure and the H.H.S. at last no longer green-lighting (unproven) vaccines for all of America’s children is that the vaccine industry can no longer obtain investor funding for new vaccines (which their trade group has noted is creating an existential threat to the industry).

I mention all of this to provide some context as to when many are quite concerned by the recent push to exempt pesticides from lawsuits.

Monsanto’s Legacy

Monsanto (founded in 1901 where it first produced the controversial artificial sweetener saccharin) has long been one of my least favorite corporations, as it routinely conducts business practices which are both extremely damaging and cruel. For example:

1. Monsanto was heavily invested in dioxins (and related organochlorines like DDT), which they knew were extremely toxic but claimed were “safe.” The most notorious of these was Agent Orange, a potent defoliating (vegetation destroying) agent that was mass-sprayed on Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam (e.g., 12% of South Vietnam) to starve the local population and eliminate hiding places for the Vietcong (for which Monsanto and Dow Chemical were the primary producers). Unfortunately, while the military claimed Agent Orange was safe, it was highly toxic and has since persisted for decades in the environment.

Because of this, Agent Orange caused at least 400,000 deaths and 500,000, often severe, birth defects in Vietnam (with non-Western estimates showing roughly ten times as much harm), and with most of the victims (and their descendants) left with no recourse and a lifetime of death and disability. Likewise, it also severely harmed many Vietnam veterans (e.g., it frequently caused cancer—and in this manner killed a few friends of mine). This in turn, eventually resulted in a 180 million dollar class action settlement (of which Monsanto had to pay approximately 81 million).

Ultimately, while the two components of Agent Orange had some toxicity, the primary issue with Agent Orange was TCDD, a highly toxic dioxin produced during manufacturing, which contaminated the final product, allowing Monsanto to argue Agent Orange was “safe” since TCDD was not part of it. This is a critical point, as Dow had warned Monsanto of the need to reduce TCDD contamination, but Monsanto’s contained much higher levels due to them using a high temperature manufacturing process (which Monsanto’s internal memos described as “dirty”) to accelerate production. As such, depending on the manufacturer and batch, there was a roughly 1000-fold variation in Agent Orange TCDD content.

In 2004, Monsanto spokesman Jill Montgomery said Monsanto should not be liable at all for injuries or deaths caused by Agent Orange, saying: “We are sympathetic with people who believe they have been injured and understand their concern to find the cause, but reliable scientific evidence indicates that Agent Orange is not the cause of serious long-term health effects.

Note: I recently learned from an excellent vaccine safety book (that I’m currently reviewing for an upcoming article) that the same US agencies and scientists (e.g., the CDC and the IOM) who covered up vaccine injuries also spent decades claiming there was “no evidence” for much of Agent Orange’s toxicity.

Additionally, there were many other issues with Agent Orange being leaked into the environment. For example, at their production site in West Virginia, Monsanto routinely disposed of TCDD contaminated wastes in landfills and waterways, polluting the area, and eventually decades later, in 2012, paid $84 million for a class action lawsuit over this (as the residents had experienced a variety of health problems). Likewise, in the 1970s, Monsanto offloaded TCDD containing waste (an impurity in Agent Orange which was its most toxic dioxin) to a company in Missouri without warning them of its toxicity, after which it was disposed of throughout the soil of a popular Missouri riverside resort town (another friend lived next to)—rendering it permanently uninhabitable (for which Monsanto ultimately payed 33 million).

Note: a classic symptom of dioxin poisoning (often seen in these contaminated areas) is chloracne.

2. Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are extremely resistant to degradation, and hence have many industrial uses (e.g., for insulating, cooling, lubricating or hydraulic fluids or as additives to many common products). Unfortunately, they also persist for decades if not centuries in the environment and are highly toxic (e.g., they often cause cancer, immune suppression, reproductive and developmental issues, endocrine disruption, neurological impairments, liver damage, skin and eye conditions, and cardiovascular and metabolic disorders).
Note: the most extraordinary PCB story I know of is that Kenya had a longstanding problem with thieves dismantling power transformers to extract the durable PCB oil and use it to fry street foods.

Monsanto began producing PCBs in 1929, and before long produced over 99% of America’s. Despite knowing their toxicity as early as the 1930s (and definitely by the 1960s), Monsanto continually claimed they were safe, and only stopped selling them in 1977 shortly before a 1979 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ban due to their toxicity and environmental persistence.

As Monsanto excels in cutthroat legal tactics, they were able to hold PCB lawsuits back for decades (e.g., initially, the only “successful” ones were a few settlements with PCB workers in the 1990s), but eventually in 2003, the dam broke. Many judgments were awarded against Monsanto (primarily for environmental pollution). These included 600 million in 2003 [of which Monsanto directly paid 390 million], 52 million, and then 92 million in 2020, 25 million, 80 million, 537.5 million, then 698 million in 2022, 80 million, then 67 million in 2023, and 35 million, then 160 million in 2024.

Note: Superfund sites designate places too contaminated by hazardous wastes (e.g., toxic chemicals) for general human habitation. In 1995, of America’s 1,238 Superfund sites, 190 had PCB contamination and 80 had dioxin contamination. Sadly, these are not Monsanto’s only Superfund contributions (e.g., they’ve contaminated numerous areas with heavy metals, arsenic, radium and benzenes1,2,3,4).

3. Monsanto has also produced other problematic persistent chemicals. These include Acetochlor and Propachlor, carcinogenic herbicides which persist in the environment (one of which was taken off the market), and Lasso, another problematic herbicide that was phased out.

4. In 1993, Monsanto released a rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone designed to increase cow milk production that ended up in their milk. Health concerns (e.g., preliminary data suggested a cancer,1,2,3 allergy and obesity risk—all of which was subsequently never studied) and animal welfare concerns (e.g., overstraining their milk production lead to an 18% increase in infertility, a 25% increase in mastitis, a 50% increase in lameness and an overall 20-25% increase risk in the animal needing to be culled) it quickly created public concerns about rBGH milk.

To protect their market, Monsanto began an infamous public relations campaign. For example, in 1997 after investigative journalists revealed dairy farms were continuing to use rBGH despite grocery stores promising not to sell that milk (and showed the human and animal health risks from rBGH), Monsanto legally intimated the station into pulling the story and revising it to echo Monsanto’s (unsubstantiated) “safe and effective” claims, after which the journalists were fired for refusing to. Likewise, once milk producers responded to public demands and began specifying on their labels the milk was “rGBH free” Monsanto launched an aggressive legal and legislative campaign to outlaw those labels (which ultimately backfired and made the public much more cynical about the product eventually killing its market).

5. After realizing genetically modified seeds were a highly lucrative market, Monsanto repurposed many of their tactics to monopolize this sector. These included:

• Creating a division to sue small farmers who replanted Monsanto’s genetically modified (GMO) seeds (with over 23 million being awarded to Monsanto).

• Developing seeds which could not reproduce (so farmers would be forced to buy them perpetually), which was eventually withdrawn due to public backlash.

• Having a revolving door at the FDA to shield them from regulatory scrutiny (e.g., this Monsanto Vice President is a well-known example).

• Locking farmers in poorer nations into a cycle of poverty as the seeds were so much more expensive, most notably resulting in mass suicides of Indian farmers who became trapped by debt from Monsanto’s costly BT corn.

• As shown by court documents, manipulating the entire scientific system to create the impression their GMOs were safe (e.g., paying off academics to write or put their names on favorable studies and successfully targeting academic critics along with getting their papers retracted so others would not be willing to risk publishing critical data).1,2,3

• Since significantly more growing cycles exist in topical areas (3-4 rather than 1 in areas with winters), Hawaii became a popular area for cultivating and producing GMO seed crops, rapidly coming to comprise the majority of Hawaii’s agricultural revenue (with 92% coming from GMO corn). As this process required heavy use of restricted-use herbicides and pesticides, due to both environmental concerns and health effects (e.g., cancers and birth defects observed), community resistance gradually mounted against their cultivation.

Note: Monsanto also later received a $10 million fine for using a banned pesticide on Maui and Molokai and a $12 million fine for improperly using a restricted pesticide.

These practices eventually (in 2013-2014) resulted in Kauai (the primary growing site) banning spraying restricted use agrochemicals within 500 feet of schools, hospitals or parks (and requiring announcements of exactl what was being sprayed), a Maui citizen initiative pausing GMO cultivation there until safety studies had been conducted, and the island of Hawai’i banning GMO cultivation. When reading through the reports about what was happening (I was involved in the GMO field at the time due to serious concerns about their safety), I noted how contentious these laws were and was astonished Monsanto had upset Hawaii so much, the citizen initiative was able to pass despite being outspent over 87-1 by the GMO industry (which as far as I know has never otherwise happened). Sadly however, Monsanto was eventually able to overturn all of the laws with the courts by arguing only the state government (which was dependent on the GMO revenue) had the authority to restrict GMO cultivation.
Note: once Monsanto no longer benefited from using Hawaii’s land (e.g., due to fines and community pushback) they shifted their operations to their other USA-based (and subsidized) option, Puerto Rico, where they have continued poisoning the community, but due to the political climate have received minimal pushback. As the land Monsanto used in Hawaii was leased native land,1,2,3 they were able to escape any liability for poisoning the environment, and again offloaded the costs of their predatory practices onto the community.

In short, many people really detest Monsanto (and in my case, presenting all of this is quite cathartic for me—particularly due to my friends’ experiences with Agent Orange). In my eyes, the most important point to take from this is that it is not a good idea to give Monsanto additional legal leverage, as they have shown their legal team will use any means necessary to ensure they can continuing poisoning the world without accountability—and as they have already been successful in fairly outrageous cases, giving them additional tools will make it quite difficult to have any remaining check against their egregious behavior.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Deadly Campaign to Shield All Pesticides from Legal Liability appeared first on LewRockwell.

Social media sherpa “The Chief Nerd” posted a video clip of “entertainers” Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman discussing their anxiety over President Trump’s return to the White House.  Kimmel says he obtained citizenship in Italy so he can escape America.  Silverman thinks that is “amazing” and describes how she searches online for “Trump regrets or MAGA regrets” in the hopes that Americans’ shared misery “will bring people together.”  They both agree: “As bad as you thought it was gonna be, it’s so much worse.”

Celebrity therapy sessions such as this one resemble nature documentaries featuring exotic beasts.  It is fascinating to see rich, famous people living in their native habitats (read: leftist bubbles).  Whenever I think, “Wealthy woke-tards can’t possibly be this daft,” I inevitably stumble upon one of these nature clips documenting the behaviors of idiotically out-of-touch champagne socialists ruminating in the wilds of a Beverly Hills mansion, Manhattan penthouse, or exclusive island resort.

They always repeat something that is regurgitated on leftist social media accounts, too: Trump-voters regret their 2024 votes.  What kind of self-medicating Bizarro World do these mental cases call home?  Trump voters are thrilled with the way things have been going.  They want only more of it and at a faster pace!

They want members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Barack Obama’s administration, and the Brennan/Comey/Clapper Intelligence Community to be prosecuted for the Russia Collusion Hoax.  They want just-following-orders lawfare agents from the DOJ and FBI to be prosecuted for harassing Christians, pro-lifers, J6 protesters, First and Second Amendment–supporters, and everyone who told the truth about the Wuhan Virus and the unsafe and ineffective “vaccines.”  They want millions of criminal illegal aliens to be rounded up and deported posthaste.  They want schools that push boys into girls’ locker rooms to be punished.  They want universities and companies that discriminate based upon race, religion, and sexual orientation to face consequences for violating Americans’ civil rights.  They want the government to stop making it so easy for corporations to ignore American workers by offshoring plants to third-world countries exploiting slave labor and hiring illegal aliens here at home.  They want an end to endless wars.  They want “Green New Deal” regulations to be trashed for good and the vast administrative bureaucracy to be demolished.  They want cheaper energies, less inflation, and greater prosperity.  They want an exceptional America that once again protects free speech and private property and vigorously opposes the coercive strictures of “political correctness.”

MAGA Americans want all this and more, and President Trump is largely delivering.  They don’t expect to agree with everything the president does, but they do have a great deal of faith that they are all on the same side and working for similar things.  When Jimmy and Sarah say that Trump’s return is “unbelievable” and “way worse” than anything they had imagined, they reveal how insular their lives are and how little they understand of the world outside of their carefully pruned, socially segregated, gated communities.

I think the feelings I experience when I hear Kimmel and Silverman expressing their thoughts out loud must be similar to those of a poor kid from Victorian England seeing drawings of lions, elephants, and giraffes for the first time.  I am struck with a sense of disbelief.  Are these strange creatures real?  Oh, yes, the world is filled with many curious oddities!

Kimmel is so worried about imaginary fascism in America that he plans to flee to the land of Mussolini.  Silverman, displaying traits of a psychologically unstable adult, has built a fantasy world in her mind in which President Trump’s voters desperately wish that Drunk Kamala Harris were in the White House today.  In the real world, we might speak gently to Jimmy and Sarah and explain to them how their delusions are causing self-harm.  But this isn’t the real world. This is La La Land — where the best women have penises, Big Government is great (except when Democrats are out of power), and everything people enjoy causes planet-killing “global warming.”

You listen to caviar communists such as Kimmel and Silverman long enough, and a sensible person begins to wonder whether America would be better off providing loony leftists with complimentary straitjackets and taxpayer-funded housing in blue city–sized rubber rooms.  But that’s already what most Democrat-run cities have become!  They are dirty, cramped, crime-ridden hellholes whose residents can barely afford to live without welfare assistance.  Crazy, psychopathic gangs run the streets.  And crazy, sociopathic elites watch the mice scurrying around the urban maze from the safety of luxury lofts high above the carnage.  The only thing that privileged Democrat nobles share with the Democrat riffraff struggling to survive the effects of official Democrat party policy is that both the princes and the hoi polloi suffer from insanity.

If Jimmy and Sarah lost all their wealth and were forced to navigate the world without the help of servants, chemical stimulants, and a reality distortion field that shields them from alternative points of view, would they survive?  Or would we find them curled up in the fetal position, sucking their thumbs and shaking uncontrollably on the side of the road?

People who believe that free speech can survive only if conservatives are censored and the government funds NPR and PBS don’t tend to be made of hardy stuff.  People who think enforcing immigration law is “fascist” don’t tend to be blessed with much cognitive reason.  People who think the government should force citizens to be injected with the pharmaceutical industry’s latest experimental serums don’t tend to have a functioning moral compass.  People who think the sight of American flags on American lawns is “scary” and that the National Anthem should be replaced with “land acknowledgments” don’t tend to see America as “home.”  People who would rather embrace a “mermaid lifestyle” than befriend a MAGA American don’t tend to function well beyond the fortified perimeters of their insulated “safe spaces.”

Chances are that if Jimmy and Sarah were ever forced to survive in real America, they would perish in a puddle of their own tears.

But Jimmy has that Italian passport!  If he can find a team of human-smugglers (Mexican drug cartels operate many right in L.A.!) to get him through dangerous “MAGA country,” across the ocean, and into a nice villa on the Mediterranean Sea, all will be well.  Except has he ever met native Italians who weren’t also wealthy elites living in isolated retreats?

This may be hard for him to accept when he’s been kept in an endorphin-generating simulated reality equipped with cutting-edge wokeness (and no doubt powered by African child slave labor), but regular Italians are an awful lot like regular Americans.  They don’t share the same globalist worldviews so popular among the aristocrats vacationing in palaces on the shores of Lake Como.  Real Italians are tired of crumbling infrastructure, an economy that works only for privileged elites, and endless waves of criminal illegal aliens moving into their neighborhoods.  They are just as eager to “Make Italy Great Again” as Americans are at home.  Poor Jimmy might one day discover that his dual American-Italian citizenship just gives him a more expansive view of how Trumpian the world has become!

It is getting harder to see how leftism should be classified as anything other than a mental disorder.  It afflicts people who are so cut off from competing points of view that they mistake their fantasies as reality.  In this fantasy world, men have babies.  Illegal aliens are law-abiding citizens.  And sexy women wearing jeans are Nazis.

For leftists such as Jimmy and Sarah, fake is real, and real is fake.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

The post Jimmy Kimmel Lives in Bizarro World appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ahead of a planned Israeli assault on Gaza City which UN officials warn will further exacerbate death and suffering for the Palestinian people, Israel has chosen to assassinate five Al Jazeera journalists who’ve been stationed there. Among those killed was Anas al-Sharif, one of the most high-profile surviving reporters in Gaza.

The IDF is of course claiming that al-Sharif was Hamas, because that’s what they always do. They’ve been murdering a historically unprecedented number of journalists and defending their systematic effort to blind the world to their actions in Gaza by claiming that every journalist they kill is Hamas. The journalists are Hamas, the hospitals are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the peace activists are Hamas, the demonstrations are Hamas, telling the truth is Hamas, human empathy is Hamas, objective reality is Hamas. It’s all Hamas.

That Israel would feel the need to draw attention to its depravity with this targeted strike at this time shows it has some very ugly intentions for Gaza City that it doesn’t want the world to see.

❖

One of the many plot holes in Israel’s claim that it can’t let foreign journalists into Gaza because it’s not safe is that there are now huge areas which have been completely captured and controlled by the IDF. That’s where the GHF sites are, which is where journalists are most sorely needed right now.

It’s not like it’s 2023/2024 and journalists would need to follow Israeli forces into Gaza City to document gun battles with Hamas or take their crews through areas where the IDF could be carrying out air strikes. They could safely just set up their cameras at aid distribution sites and document what’s happening.

The only reason this hasn’t occurred is because Israel doesn’t want the world to see what it’s doing at those aid distribution sites. There is absolutely no other explanation.

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British police arrested 522 people for holding signs saying “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” in response to their government banning the activist group as a terrorist organization. Nearly half of those arrested were over sixty years old.

When I was young and naive I thought terrorism looks like someone detonating a car bomb or crashing planes into skyscrapers. Now that I’m mature and educated I know that terrorism actually looks like an elderly woman holding a sign saying people should be allowed to oppose genocide.

This is a society that has gone stark raving insane.

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U2 frontman Bono has finally issued a statement calling for peace in Gaza two years into a genocide, and however bad you expected it to be I guarantee it’s worse.

He works his way through pretty much every pro-genocide Israeli talking point while pretending to care about Palestinians. He spends paragraphs on October 7, mentions the word “Hamas” 14 times, falsely claims “Hamas are using starvation as a weapon in the war,” says “Hamas had deliberately positioned themselves under civilian targets, having tunneled their way from school to mosque to hospital,” babbles about the 1988 Hamas charter while ignoring its 2017 revisions, blames the whole thing on Netanyahu, and of course mentions “Israel’s right to exist.”

I seriously think he hit every major hasbara talking point. I don’t think he missed a single one. It’s genocide propaganda disguised as humanitarianism. Bono is a piece of shit.

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I judge the character of Jewish people based on how much they oppose the genocide in Gaza. This is also how I judge the character of anyone who is not Jewish.

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As soon as someone says they support Israel for religious reasons, you can dismiss anything they say in defense of Israel’s actions, because you know they’ll tell any lie and promote any kind of propaganda in order to advance their religious mission. They’re not engaging the subject to share facts and communicate, they’re engaging it to obtain promised rewards in the afterlife and please an invisible deity. They’ll say whatever they need to say in order to make this happen.

Think about it. If you sincerely held the religious belief that Israel needs to be supported no matter what in order to fulfill some kind of prophecy, or that if you don’t promote the interests of Israel you’ll be tortured for eternity in Hell, or that Actual Metaphysical Yahweh has commanded that helping Israel is the single most important thing in the world, would you not say whatever you need to say and promote whatever narratives you need to promote in order to help make that happen? Of course you would. It’s not about facts and truth for such people, it’s about getting into Heaven and bringing back Jesus and stuff.

The instant someone admits to supporting Israel for religious reasons, there’s no reason to believe anything else they say. Because you know they’ll say things they don’t really know to be true and pretend to believe things they don’t really believe in order to do what they’ve been told is the most important thing they can possibly do with their lives. It’s impossible to have a truth-based conversation with such a person.

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The post Israel Assassinates More Journalists To Hide Its Planned War Crimes appeared first on LewRockwell.

A couple of days ago Trump said it wasn’t worthwhile meeting with Putin, but suddenly ordered his aides to arrange a meeting with Putin in a week. The explanations we have been given for this is that Putin said Trump’s negotiator Witcoff had made an acceptable proposal. Putin’s negotiator Kirill Dmitriev declared “a historic meeting in which dialogue will prevail.”  One dreamer proclaimed that Putin and Trump “may reconfigure the world order.”

These premature declarations of agreement and success have led to further romantic theorizing. One Russian commentator declared that Alaska was chosen for the historic meeting because it “so clearly embodies the spirit of neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation lost during the Cold War.” The Russian Atlanticist-Integrationists whose hearts and interests are in the West are hopeful that their declarations of bliss, even if involves Russian surrender, will prevail  over Russian nationalism.

For example, Putin’s negotiator is Kirill Dmitriev, nominally a Russian, but in fact a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School–entrances into the American Establishment–who began his career at Goldman Sachs, an establishment member. He is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. His long list of honors and directorships of Russian companies is provided by the WEF. Currently he is chief of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Putin’s Special Envoy on International Economic and Investment Cooperation. Could Putin have chosen a more conflicted person to negotiate with Washington?

Among these and other highly hopeful statements, what is the reality of the situation? Does it conform to the expressed expectations?

No.  As far as I can tell, Trump is headed into a “historic meeting” with his Russian counterpart and still has no idea what Putin’s position is. Trump most recently spoke of a peace deal based on a “swapping of territories,” which Zelensky’s European supporters say must be a “reciprocal” swap of territory. Zelensky’s position is that all territory must be returned to Ukraine. Putin’s position is that all territory now incorporated into the Russian Federation must be accepted as Russian by Ukraine and the West. Otherwise, Russia has to repudiate its military victories in a war that was provoked by Washington.

But the main problem with Trump’s approach is that he is thinking of the meeting in a very limited context of ending the military conflict with a land swap, whereas Putin wants a mutual security agreement with Washington and NATO that gets NATO off of Russia’s borders. The war that Putin wants to end is the West’s hostility toward Moscow. The war in Ukraine Russia can take care off.

Putin’s objective is a highly desirable goal, because the worsening provocations of Moscow will eventually result in nuclear war. But how realistic is Putin’s goal?

I would say it is not realistic.

First, the Wolfowitz Doctrine is in the way. The Wolfowitz doctrine declares the principal goal of US foreign policy to be to prevent the rise of any power that can serve as a constraint on American unilateralism. The neoconservatives who originated this doctrine are still very influential in US policy-making circles. No US president or Secretary of State has repudiated this doctrine. Trump himself recently declared the policy when he said “I rule America and the world.” That is a hegemonic statement.

Indeed, the current military conflict in Ukraine is entirely the product of Washington’s hegemonic foreign policy. Washington orchestrated the “Maidan Revolution” in order to overthrow a Russian-friendly democratic government and to install a Russophobic puppet. The puppet government then attacked the people in the Russian territories of Ukraine until they forced a Russian intervention after the West used the Minsk Agreement to deceive Putin and after the West refused the Kremlin’s request for a mutual security agreement during December 2021-February 2022.  At this point Putin was forced to intervene in order to prevent the slaughter of the Russians in the independent Donbas republics by a large Ukrainian army trained and equipped by Washington.  If Putin had had the foresight to accept the Donbas republics’ request in 2014 to be reunited with Russia like Crimea, the war would have been avoided.  But Putin, badly advised, confused a defense of Russian people with a provocation to the West.  In 2014 the Atlanticists-Integrationists, whose interests are in the West, not in Russia, still intended for the Kremlin to crawl on its belly back into Western acceptance by being a good subject of Washington’s hegemonic rule..

The entire point of Washington’s orchestrated conflict in Ukraine was to destabilize Russia. Has Washington abandoned this policy goal?

Second, there is the interest of the US military/security complex. The power and profit of the military/security complex depends on having enemies. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the creation of the “Muslim Threat” used to sustain the military/security’s profits and powers with Washington’s 21st century wars that destroyed, so far, five Muslim countries, while supporting with money, weapons, and diplomatic cover Israel’s genocide of Palestine, and Washington is now being aligned with Israel to destroy Iran. A few days ago President Trump bragged that he had negotiated a deal with the EU to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of US weapons to send to Ukraine. What happens to this deal if peace comes to Ukraine? How does the military/security complex see the loss of its Russian enemy? Has Trump promised them an Iranian war and/or a war with China as replacements?

Third, if Trump favors peace with Russia, why did he just reinstall in Europe the US intermediate-range nuclear missiles that President Reagan had removed, and in addition deploy two submarines with nuclear missiles closer to Russia?

More importantly, why has Washington suddenly struck a massive blow against Russia, China, and Iran in the South Caucasus by obtaining for 99 years the Zangezur Corridor that runs along Iran’s northern borders with Armenia and Azerbaijan? This move by the Trump regime is a strike at the heart of China’s New Silk Road, BRICS, and Russia’s influence in former Soviet provinces, and it completes Washington’s encirclement of Iran. Washington is opening more points of military confrontation with Russia and its allies while Russia backs away, thereby inviting more provocations

This audacious Washington strike against Russia, Iran, and China should shatter the Russian illusion that a mutual security agreement is obtainable with Washington. Washington has made a decisive move against three powers which indicates Washington’s seriousness about its hegemony.

Russian commentators downplay the loss of the corridor as they fight to keep reality out of their hopes that Russia will become part of the West.

Before Putin goes to Alaska, Putin should ask Dmitrive how Washington’s takeover of the Zangezur corridor fits in with the “acceptable American proposal” about Ukraine.

And someone, if there is anyone, should ask Putin, XI, and the Iranians why they were yet again asleep at the switch.

Will Putin also be asleep at the switch in Alaska, lulled into illusionary dreams by the likes of Dmitrive?

In his two masterful histories, The First World War and The Origins of the Second World War, A.J.P. Taylor explains the triumph of delusion over reality when governments are confronted with conflict. We are watching it again in our time.

The post Putin’s Meeting with Trump: The Triumph of Delusion Over Reality appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Great Depression was one of the toughest times in United States history. Following a historic collapse of the stock market wages were low, and jobs were tough to find for just about everyone.

However, the saying goes “tough times make tough people”, and the Great Depression was no different. Families, friends, and communities banded together to support one another, and people got savvy with their savings and spending.

To write this article, I spent some time talking with my grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression. In chatting with them I learned some of the tools and tips that they and their families used to save money during this time of economic distress.

I thought it would be helpful to talk with real people who have experience in finding ways to make ends meet when things are tough.

If we can use and learn from the experiences of those who came before us, then hopefully we are better prepared for the hard times that lay ahead of us.

Here are tips for saving money from real survivors of the Great Depression.

Live As A Family

While today’s world encourages young adults to move out as soon as possible, it isn’t the best way to save money.

During the Great Depression families stuck together, and moved together in search of work. Living under one roof cuts down the cost of rent, utilities, food, travel, and more.

By living as a family you can not only save money but have a trustworthy team around you to work through these hard times.

Insulate The Home

Homes today naturally come with some insulation, but the more you can insulate the better. Especially in the colder months of winter keeping the house heated can be challenging and expensive.

My grandmother talked about using whatever they had spare, whether it be clothes, blankets, pillows, etc. Whatever material they had spare was used to try and provide an extra bit of insulation. By adding extra insulation you can find valuable savings on your heating.

Wet Sheets Over Entryways In The Summer

On the other side of things, during the summers of the Great Depression, they would hang wet or damp sheets over the doors and windows.

The water would evaporate during the day and in doing so it would cool the air inside the home some.

The less strain you can put on your AC unit means less strain on your wallet.

Buy Produce That Is Close To Spoiling

One tip my grandparents learned that they still practice today is buying produce close to it’s date of expiration. During the Depression, stores were closed on Sunday and the produce being sold would spoil in the upcoming following week.

As such, vendors would drop their prices on Saturday evenings in an attempt to offload all the produce before it went bad.

By purchasing produce on Saturday evenings their families were able to eat for much cheaper the following week.

Create Your Own Cleaning Supplies

Another tip for inside the home is to create your own cleaning supplies. With the adults in the family often taking on daily labor, my grandmother and the other children learned to take up the work around the home.

Rather than spending on costly household cleaners from the store, mixing hot water and vinegar can be highly effective for scrubbing away grime.

Consider Cheaper Protein Options

Much of the protein we consume today is either beef or chicken, but during the Great Depression, these types of protein became scarce and expensive. As a result, my grandfather talked about finding cheaper protein options like rabbit, eggs, and even squirrels on occasion.

As kids, one of the my grandfather’s favorite meals was fried bologna because it was cheap and easy to make. Eating meals like these may not be ideal, but it was a way for them to keep an entire family fed on a budget.

Another tip for inside the home is to create your own cleaning supplies. With the adults in the family often taking on daily labor, my grandmother and the other children learned to take up the work around the home.

Rather than spending on costly household cleaners from the store, mixing hot water and vinegar can be highly effective for scrubbing away grime.

Consider Cheaper Protein Options

Much of the protein we consume today is either beef or chicken, but during the Great Depression, these types of protein became scarce and expensive. As a result, my grandfather talked about finding cheaper protein options like rabbit, eggs, and even squirrels on occasion.

As kids, one of the my grandfather’s favorite meals was fried bologna because it was cheap and easy to make. Eating meals like these may not be ideal, but it was a way for them to keep an entire family fed on a budget.

Read the Whole Article

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Global Research Note 

The proposed location of these negotiations  remains to be confirmed.

Has Putin accepted to enter peace negotiations on American territory rather than in a Third Country?  (M.Ch)

Putin and Trump last week agreed to meet at a location in Alaska. Indications are the meeting will occur as soon as August 15, 2025 or soon after. In other words, in just days. Or perhaps a week or so at most.

If we’re to believe the US media, the meeting is about Trump and Putin negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. But does the meeting signify the start of serious negotiations and the beginning of the end of the war in Ukraine? Not necessarily. There are other possible interpretations for the meeting in Alaska:

A meeting with Putin may provide the cover for Trump to finally start an actual US withdrawal from the conflict. After all, during the past nine months the US has continued to send weapons, money and provide extensive military assistance to Ukraine. While calling for Ukraine and Russia to stop fighting, the US has continued to participate directly and deeply in the conflict providing general tactical planning by high level US officers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, communications, missile targeting, manning of technical equipment like Patriot systems, training, and so on. Perhaps Trump wants to withdraw from these activities. To do so he needs to show some kind of agreement with Putin as a justification.

Another interpretation is that the meeting is really about restarting discussions on future US-Russia economic relations. These began in the months before April 2025, showed some initial progress, but then were quietly suspended. Trump would no doubt like to ink some deals on Russian commodities, especially rare earths that China has recently decided not to export to the US. And perhaps deepening US-Russia economic relations sends a message to the Chinese the US is intensifying efforts to split Russia from it.

Yet another interpretation is that the purpose of the meeting is to get Putin to agree to a general ceasefire by conceding a ‘piece of the pie’, i.e. of one or two Ukraine provinces in the east where the fighting is mostly occurring. Russia has already taken all of the Lughansk province. Perhaps Trump will offer to Russia what it already has in Lughansk. More likely is the offer of the second province of Donetsk where Russia has been gaining territory daily but has only captured perhaps 60% of the total territory. By offering him the two provinces in exchange for a general ceasefire everywhere before starting negotiations on other issues, Trump is revising his original ‘Kellogg Plan’ that called for ceasefire everywhere in exchange for nothing—which Russia has consistently rejected since Trump took office.

A fourth interpretation is that the meeting is just another clever ruse by NATO and the west to lull Russia into a general ceasefire, with no intention of Ukraine actually withdrawing forces anywhere. According to this interpretation, Trump will offer a verbal or even written promise that Ukraine will then negotiate in good faith. But if this case, it is a repeat of the 2015 Minsk agreement signed by Ukraine and by Germany and France on behalf of NATO, the purpose of which was to convince Russia to halt its destruction of Ukraine’s forces at Debaltsovo that year which save the Ukraine army from defeat. The Minsk agreement of 2015 provided Ukraine and NATO with a diplomatic victory that halted Russia militarily and bought time for Ukraine to rebuild its military and defensive fortifications in the east the next six years in preparation for war.

A fifth interpretation is the most likely, however. That argues the meeting is just a last minute maneuver by Trump to stage a grand PR event, to be followed by statements of agreements in principle by US and Russia which neither side expects will take effect. Trump thereby gets a media event in which he brags he’s successfully gotten the Russians to move toward a final agreement—after he failed to do so the past six months. Trump thus declares a media ‘win’ for himself, even though nothing changes on the ground in the aftermath and the war continues. A typical Trump ‘smoke and mirrors’ event.

Putin may even agree to such an offer and let Trump have his much needed media victory. Even if it’s just a PR event enabling Trump to exaggerate, misrepresent and brag about, it still puts pressure on the Zelensky government and its European allies to respond. If Zelensky’s response is an adamant ‘no deal’—which is almost certain—then it shows Russia is willing to move off its negotiating position to get a peace deal but Ukraine (and Europe) are not. And that weakens US neocon support to continue the war in turn—undermining their current proposals so far held up in Congress to impose 500% tariffs on Russia, secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil, and to provide Ukraine another $55 billion from the US Treasury. If Ukraine and Europe reject outright whatever comes out of Alaska, Russia need not agree to any general ceasefire since the minimum precondition likely for such ceasefire is for Ukraine to totally withdraw its forces from Donetsk.

It is already evident Zelensky and Europe will reject anything coming out of Alaska.

Just the announcement of the possible meeting in Alaska elicited the immediate response by Zelensky and his government that they will never agree to give Russia even one province (Donetsk) in exchange for a general ceasefire. Similarly, Ukraine’s European allies also rejected the idea of any concession and within 24 hours of the Alaska announcement publicly told Zelensky he must continue the war.

US Mainstream Media Leaks

Events that got the ball rolling toward a meeting in Alaska were set in motion by Trump’s sending his second special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow last week. (Trump’s other envoy is General Kellogg who had carried the water for the US neocons’ demands for Russia to ceasefire first, then negotiate).

What provoked Trump to send Witkoff? It may have been Putin’s signal that Russia has now only two major demands: No NATO in Ukraine and Ukraine acceptance that the four provinces (+ Crimea) are now part of Russia. This appears as a concession without Russia actually making one.

Putin’s demands since June 2024, when he stated them succinctly, include both these preceding prime demands but also several more: political neutrality by Ukraine, reduction of Ukraine’s military to a force no larger than 80,000, denazification of its government, and restoration of rights for ethnic Russian Ukrainians. These latter points were not referenced by Putin who emphasized just the first two. That may have been interpreted by Witkoff, who then convinced Trump the Russians may be open to direct negotiations and a meeting. It was highly likely it was then that Trump sent Witkoff to Moscow.

That this was the likely scenario that led to the announcement of a meeting was leaked by the Wall St. Journal and Bloomberg News late last week. As the Journal suggested, Witkoff carried Trump’s proposal to Putin for Russia to agree to a general ceasefire, providing Ukraine withdraw all its forces remaining in Donetsk where fighting is the heaviest. In exchange for the withdrawal, Putin would agree to ‘freeze in place’ immediately all Russia forces elsewhere in Ukraine. The Journal and Bloomberg interpreted this to also mean Russia would in turn give up the unoccupied areas of Kherson and Zaparozhie provinces. But there’s no evidence of this and it is impossible Russia would, given that all the provinces have been formally integrated into the Russian Constitution and Putin could never agree to do so short of changing the Constitution.

Of course, Zelensky has also declared the four provinces and Crimea are part of the Ukrainian Constitution and are non-negotiable. What this means is one side or the other has to confront a Constitutional crisis in order to negotiate an end to the war. That will not happen. It is likely there can never be a compromised, negotiated settlement to the war—short of one side or the other (Ukraine or Russia) capitulating completely on the battlefield.

So why did Trump ever think he could single-handedly negotiate a settlement to the war?  Was he so blinded by his ego to think it was no different than negotiating some phony business deal? Was he misled by his neocon advisers the past six months not communicating the actual positions of the parties? Perhaps he wants a meeting to hear for himself? Not what his advisers tell him. Does Trump know so little about the origins and history of this conflict and their respective publics’ support? Why did Trump abandon his initial efforts to withdraw the US from the conflict and around April bend to the demands of the neocons and US Deep State and their EU allies, none of whom actually want an end to the war on any terms. Their Kellogg Plan got nowhere. Now Trump is desperate to try something else. So he grabbed at the possible shift by Putin and sent Witkoff to offer Putin something more substantial.

The Kellogg Plan is DOA, as the saying goes. So what does Trump do now? By pushing the Kellogg Plan the past six months, Trump put himself in the corner, appeared to have failed by August, thereafter threw out some threats and an ultimatum that Putin had 50 days to end the war, then cut it to 12, rattled his saber about sending US nuclear subs closer to Russia,  and sent some old nuclear gravity bombs to Britain. He then flip flopped again just days before the 12 day deadline was up and sent Witkoff off to Moscow.

What’s Next Post Alaska?

It doesn’t matter what’s discussed at the Alaska meeting. Or what is or isn’t agreed to or announced afterward in the official ‘read out’ summary report of the meeting, as it’s called.

Nothing will change on the ground. The war will continue. Why?

Because Zelensky, his European backers Starmer, Merz, Macron, and their US Deep State allies (Graham, Blumenthal, CIA, State Department)—along with mainstream US corporate media outlets like NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC et. al.—all want the war to continue.

Zelensky and the Europeans will reject whatever comes out of the Alaska meeting. Moreover, they will try to do everything they can to scuttle it before—with the cooperation and assistance of their US neocon friends. Both the Europeans and Zelensky will desperately try to get to Trump before the Alaska meeting. Both know face time is the key to turning Trump around.

It’s worked before. It was how last spring when Trump was in Rome and the Vatican they got to him personally. He flipped and assumed a neocon position and had Kellogg take the lead. Witkoff was ‘back-burnered’. Europeans have learned the formula for dealing with Trump: appeal to his ego, inveigle him with flattery, grovel if necessary. They even call him ‘daddy Trump’—as NATO’s director Rutte recently did—when they meet with him. They’ve reportedly even dangled arranging a Nobel peace prize for him.

Both Zelensky and the Europeans will try desperately to inject themselves into the Alaska meeting. They’ll work out a plan with their US neocon friends to step up the pressure on Trump at home in Congress. Their security services may even try to float a false flag threat that if Putin goes something dangerous will happen to him, hoping the Russians thereby cancel.

One should not discount any of these possible counters or that Trump may be convinced to shift gears once again. One need only remember Trump’s aborted efforts in his first term to meet with North Korea’s president Kim and with China’s Xi, both initiatives were thwarted by his neocon advisers and Deep State policy makers.

For it is increasingly clear the past half century at least that US presidents don’t determine US foreign policy or its wars. They are but one of many political ‘nodes’ in the system that do. And the neocons and Deep State—along with Israel and its deep influence over the US government—are the arbiters and deciders of US foreign policy in the 21st century.

In conclusion therefore, one should not expect much from the upcoming Alaska meeting between Trump and Putin, assuming it even comes off. Much can and will happen in the next five days. At best it will be a media and PR event by Trump. It will have little to no effect on the continuation of the war in Ukraine. And there will be no Minsk III or IV or even Istanbul 2.0.  The war will be decided on the front line, as has always been the case.

The war in Ukraine will continue so long as Zelensky and his crew are in power. They will remain in power so long as the Europeans want to continue the war. European leaders want to continue in order to rescue their two decade old stagnant economy, hoping they can revive it with a $1 trillion new expenditure and weapons industry by 2030. And the US neocons who remain deeply entrenched in the US political system want it.

Their combined grand strategy is to keep Trump in check for the next three years, block and thwart his foreign policy initiatives, wait him out, replace him in 2029 with another more amenable US president again, hope that Putin disappears from the political scene by then—and then escalate the war again.

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post Putin-Trump Meeting: What Next Post Alaska, Endgame or PR Event? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The more depraved Israel’s actions, the more antisemitic it is to point out the truth. The painful reality is that, through Israel, the West can dress up boilerplate colonialism as a ‘Jewish’ project

There’s a dangerous paradox that helps to dissuade people, especially public figures, from speaking up even as Israel’s genocide in Gaza grows more horrifying by the day. Let us call it the “blood libel” paradox.

It works like this. In Medieval times, Jews were accused of murdering non-Jews, particularly children, to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. Every time a Jew is accused of murdering a non-Jew, so the thinking goes, this endangers Jews by fuelling the very kind of antisemitism that ultimately led to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Responsible people, or at least those with a reputation to protect, therefore avoid making any statements that might contribute to the impression that Jews – or in this case, the soldiers of the Jewish state of Israel – are killing non-Jews.

If such criticisms are made, they must be carefully couched by western politicians, the media and public figures in language that makes the killing of non-Jews – in this case, Muslim and Christian Palestinians – appear reasonable.

Israel is simply “defending itself” in killing and maiming 100,000s of civilians in Gaza after Hamas’ one-day attack on 7 October 2023.

The enclave’s masses of dead innocents are just the unfortunate price paid to secure the “return of Israeli hostages” held by Hamas.

Israel’s active, months-long starvation of Gaza’s children is a “humanitarian crisis”, not a crime against humanity.

Anyone who dissents from this narrative is denounced as an antisemite, whether they be millions of ordinary people; every respected human rights organisation in the world, including the Israeli group B’Tselem; the World Health Organisation; the International Criminal Court; genocide scholars like Omer Bartov, himself an Israeli; and so on.

It is the perfect, self-reinforcing loop, one entirely divorced from the reality being live-streamed to us daily.

Aid death traps

The outrageous consequences of the “blood libel” paradox were highlighted a year into Israel’s genocide in Gaza by the Jewish writer Howard Jacobson.

Writing in the Observer newspaper, he accused the western media of a “blood libel” for reporting the fact that children were dying in enormous numbers in Gaza – even though that same media had been keen to minimise the death toll; implicitly questioned its truthfulness by attributing the number to the “Hamas-run Gaza health ministry”; and constantly rationalised the killings as part of Israeli military operations to “defeat Hamas”.

Jacobson, like other fervent apologists for genocide, wanted more. He demanded the media avert its eyes from the slaughter entirely.

Since then, Israel’s crimes against the people of Gaza have become ever more shocking, hard though that was to imagine nearly a year ago.

Israel has stopped food from reaching Gaza except through a mercenary force it has set up with the US, misnamed the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”.

The “blood libel” paradox means that Israel can act with ever more brazen depravity – of the kind documented above – and western leaders and media continue to ignore, or downplay, or rationalise these horrors.

It is the ultimate “get out of jail” card.

Phoney ‘fog of war’

There are several points to be made about why this is such a dangerous response to the Gaza genocide – but one, equally, that is all too useful for western capitals.

First, and most obviously. Israel is not “the Jews”. It is a state. Not just that, but it was founded as a very specific kind of state: one that is the last exemplar of a long and very ignoble tradition of western-sponsored settler-colonialism.

Settler-colonialism seeks to replace a native population with western-aligned immigrants through extreme ethnic-based violence. Think the United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa. They all committed appalling crimes against their indigenous populations.

Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is not unusual. It is the all-too-familiar, logical consequence of a racist colonial replacement ideology. We have been here many times before in modern history. If it wasn’t a blood libel in those earlier cases – but rather an established historical fact – why should Israel’s genocide be viewed any differently?

Second, this genocide is not Israel’s. It is the West’s. This is utterly a western co-production. Israel could have done none of the destruction of Gaza, the mass slaughter, the starvation of the population, without western assistance every step of the way.

It has been US and German bombs dropped on Gaza. It is British spy flights over Gaza from RAF base Akrotiri on Cyprus that have been providing intelligence to Israel. It is western capitals that have been repressing protest and making it a terror offence to try to stop the genocide.

It is the US and Britain that have been sanctioning and threatening the International Criminal Court to force it to reverse its decision to seek Netanyahu’s arrest for starving Gaza’s population. It has been western capitals staying silent as their citizens have been taken hostage by Israel illegally in international waters for trying to bring aid to Gaza.

And it is the western media that first lamely accepted its exclusion from Gaza by Israel, then barely reported Israel’s unprecedented mass murder of Gaza’s local journalists, and now eagerly conscripts its exclusion as the excuse for failing to scrutinise Israel’s actions amid a supposed “fog of war”.

New research shows Israel’s slaughter in Gaza has killed more journalists than the US Civil War, World Wars 1 and 2, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, the Yugoslav Wars, the Afghanistan War and the Ukraine War COMBINED.

More: https://t.co/YJi8bdIm9Y pic.twitter.com/p8XJSZpj3a

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) April 1, 2025

If noting that a genocide is taking place in Gaza amounts to a “blood libel”, then every western government is implicated in that libel. Are they all to be let off the hook? They very much hope that you will think that way.

Insurance policy

And third, it would be astonishing if Israel weren’t committing a genocide in Gaza, given that its every crime against the Palestinians has been supported decade after decade by the West.Israel has grown emboldened. The “blood libel” paradox has been its insurance policy against scrutiny and criticism.

The West has given Israel a permanent licence to brutalise the Palestinians, to ethnically cleanse them, to steal their land, and to kill them. The worse it behaves, the more the “blood libel” kicks in to shut down criticism. The more depraved Israel’s actions are, the more antisemitic it becomes to point out the truth.

For more than a century, generation after generation of western leaders have been backing Israel to the hilt. Why would Israel not conclude that there are no red lines, that it can do as it pleases and that the West will still arm it and still justify its crimes as “defence” and “counter-terrorism”?

The “blood libel” doesn’t protect Jews from another genocide. It licences Israel to destroy the Palestinian people, and to savagely bomb its neighbours, with utter impunity, while western leaders remain tight-lipped in a way they would never do were it Russia, China or Iran committing far less egregious atrocities.

Which, of course, is exactly what encourages antisemitism. Utterly baffled by this state of affairs, some observers are fooled into imagining that the only possible reason is that Israel controls the West; that it has special, unseen powers to intimidate the US, the strongest, most militarised state in history; and that behind all this, Jews and Jewish money are what pulls the levers in western capitals.

That assumption is a flight from a far more difficult, painful reality: that Israel is the bastard child of the West. It is nothing exceptional or extraordinary. It is white, western, colonial, genocidal racism, repackaged as a supposedly “Jewish” project.

Israel can carry out its crimes in the promotion of western control over the oil-rich Middle East, and the West knows that any criticism of its imperial control and pillage can be dismissed as antisemitism.

It’s win-win for colonialism. It’s lose-lose for our humanity.

This article was originally published on JonathanCook.net Blog.

The post How the ‘Blood Libel’ Paradox Keeps the West Silent on Israel’s Genocide appeared first on LewRockwell.

U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs under the false claim that certain trade imbalances with other countries created a national emergency.

This is contested in courts and should have no legal standing. As the U.S. constitution explicitly says:

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, …

Congress has not been asked to and has not consented to the arbitrary tariffs imposed by Trump since he, on April 2, declared his fake ‘Liberation Day’.

Moreover, Trump did not impose tariffs to balance trade. He immediately weaponized them by trying to to impose (archived) U.S. policy goals, as well as interests of individual companies, on foreign countries:

This month, State Department officials considered demanding that U.S. trading partners vote against an international effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the oceangoing container ships that are the backbone of global trade. In a draft “action memo,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio was told that department officials had sought “to inject this issue into the ongoing bilateral trade negotiations” with maritime nations such as Singapore.

That move came after administration officials this past spring debated broadening trade negotiations with more than a dozen nations, including by requiring Israel to eliminate a Chinese company’s control of a key port and insisting that South Korea publicly support deploying U.S. troops to deter China as well as Seoul’s traditional rival, North Korea, the documents said.

Administration officials saw trade talks as an opportunity to achieve objectives that went far beyond Trump’s oft-stated goal of reducing the chronic U.S. trade deficit. In the first weeks after the president paused his “reciprocal” tariffs April 9 to allow for negotiations, officials drew up plans to press countries near China for a closer defense relationship, including the purchase of U.S. equipment and port visits, the documents said.

Tariff impositions have thus become a form of blackmailing at large.

This was not only done to pursue general U.S. foreign policy interests but also in favor of individual, U.S. owned companies:

In Lesotho, a poor southern African nation that Trump had threatened with 50 percent tariffs, negotiators wanted the government to finalize deals with “multiple U.S. firms.”

OnePower, a renewable energy start-up, should be granted “a five-year withholding tax exemption” and a license to develop a 24-megawatt project. Regulators should waive a legal requirement for Starlink, Musk’s satellite-based internet provider, to provide a physical address in Lesotho before conducting business there, the document said.

To do so is not illegal, some may argue. Why shouldn’t the U.S. use its heft to press foreigners to make good deals?

One counter is that such mafia like behavior by a government against foreigners, once allowed, will come back to hit at home.

We did not have to wait long for that to happen. As the Financial Times headlines:

Nvidia and AMD to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to US government (archived)
Chipmakers agree to unusual arrangement to secure export licences from Trump administration

Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the US government 15 per cent of the revenues from chip sales in China, as part of an unusual arrangement with the Trump administration to obtain export licences for the semiconductors.

The two chipmakers agreed to the financial arrangement as a condition for obtaining export licences for the Chinese market that were granted last week, according to people familiar with the situation, including a US official.

The US official said Nvidia agreed to share 15 per cent of the revenues from H20 chip sales in China and AMD will provide the same percentage from MI308 chip revenues. Two people familiar with the arrangement said the Trump administration had not yet determined how to use the money.

The U.S. under Trump is imposing export duties on U.S. companies. This is, like the arbitrary imposing of tariffs on imports, highly illegal. Under the U.S. constitution not even Congress would be allowed to do this:

Section 9 Clause 5

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

Trump arbitrarily imposed export restrictions on certain computer chips made by Nvidia and AMD on national security grounds. He then used these export restrictions to blackmail the companies into agreeing to pay a certain ‘kick back’ tax to the U.S. government. Once they did the export restrictions were lifted.

As the NY Times reports (archived):

While the Trump administration publicly said a month ago that it was giving the green light to Nvidia to sell an A.I. chip called H20 to China, it did not actually issue the licenses making those sales possible.

On Wednesday, Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, met with President Trump at the White House and agreed to give the federal government its 15 percent cut, essentially making the federal government a partner in Nvidia’s business in China, said the people familiar with the deal. The Commerce Department began granting licenses for A.I. chip sales two days later, these people said.
…
The deal agreed to last week could funnel more than $2 billion to the U.S. government. Nvidia was expected to sell more than $15 billion worth of its H20 chip to China through the end of the year, and AMD was expected to sell $800 million, according to Bernstein Research.

If I were a Nvidia shareholder I would immediately sue the U.S. over this.

That such a deal was agreed to by Trump proves that the export restrictions previously imposed on H20 chips arbitrary and were never for national security reasons. (By the way: the $2 billion the U.S. is gaining from this deal is couch lint compared to the Pentagon budget.) The restrictions on sales were solely imposed to extort Nvidia, illegally, into paying additional taxes:

Christopher Padilla, a top export control official in the George W. Bush administration who is now a senior adviser with the Brunswick Group consulting firm, echoed those fears, describing the deal as “unprecedented and dangerous.”

“Export controls are in place to protect national security, not raise revenue for the government,” Padilla said. “This arrangement seems like bribery or blackmail, or both.’’

If this holds for chips one has also to ask about other items (archived):

The deal to license A.I. chips caused immediate outcry among national security experts who have been opposed to A.I. chip sales to China. They worry that the Trump administration’s decision to leverage export licenses for money will encourage Beijing to pressure other companies to make similar arrangements to loosen restrictions on other technology like semiconductor manufacturing tools and memory chips.

National security hawks, via FT, are enraged by the deal:

“Beijing must be gloating to see Washington turn export licences into revenue streams,” Liza Tobin, a China expert who served on the National Security Council in the first Trump administration, now at the Jamestown Foundation.

“What’s next — letting Lockheed Martin sell F-35s to China for a 15 per cent commission?”

Hmm – China would not F-35s as it is already making better planes. Nor will it use H20 chips from Nvidia for any security related activity. It has good ground to believe that those chips were specifically made for China with a backdoor to be hacked.

The Trump administration, like its boss personally, has obviously no qualms about making deals against U.S. interests, as long as they guarantee a large sounding income.

I wonder how much President Putin of Russia will have to offer on Friday to regain control of Alaska.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post Trump Extorts Companies To Pay Taxes on Exports appeared first on LewRockwell.

Early last month, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)sponsored a panel on the family at the organization’s Socialism Conference 2025. The organization described the topic this way: “How should the left relate to the family? Socialist analysis makes clear that the nuclear family form is an inherently repressive, racist, and hetero-sexist institution that functionally reinforces and reproduces capitalism.”

The roundtable featured Olivia Katbi, the co chair of Portland DSA;  Eman Abdelhadi, an assistant professor and sociologist at the University of Chicago; and Katie Gibson, a Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago.

Key observations from the panelists included:

• “When we talk about family abolition, we’re talking about the abolition of the economic unit… all of our material needs taken care of by the collective.”
• “We argue for abolition of the family in general… the institution of the family acts as part of the carceral system.”

Naturally, these leftists partly want to abolish the family because they agree with Marx that the family is a “bourgeois” institution that must be destroyed in order to clear the way for the socialist utopia. Another element of opposition to the family comes from the Left’s bizarre preoccupation with commodifying sex. It is ironic that these “anti-capitalists” seek so vehemently to turn sex into an economic commodity, but this appears to be a key tenet of leftist thinking in recent decades. Thus, they seek to normalize sex work. This is partly because the Left views marriage as a type of sex work itself. After all, the family is “inherently repressive,” and all sex within marriage is essentially rape. It is therefore “progress” to abolish marital sex and replace it with “sex work.”

A couple of quotations from the roundtable that capture this attitude include:

• “Sex work and marriage can’t exist without each other—they’re two sides of the same coin.”
• “The only real difference between marriage and prostitution is the price and the duration of the contract.”

These leftists also believe that the rearing of children ought to be managed and controlled by the state. That is, the raising of children should be collectivized and the parent-child bond replaced with the child-collective relationship.

This idea is certainly familiar to Sophie Lewis, another presenter at the conference, who has written a book pushing for the widespread use of surrogacy in the birthing of children. Specifically, Lewis contends that surrogacy is a helpful tool in breaking the biological bond between parents and children, and destroying traditional notions of gender and family.

(Lewis is partly correct. Surrogacy does indeed undermine the family as an institution and widespread surrogacy will prove to be a key building block for the post-humanist dystopian nightmare that people like Elon Musk are trying to build.)

At the core of all of this is opposition to the family as an independent institution, and the leftist contention that the family must be placed totally under the control of the state.

Whatever the Left might have to say about the economic mechanisms supposedly underlying the family, the fact is the Left’s hatred for the family mostly stems from the fact that the family is an obstacle to state power.

As I noted in this lecture last year, the family is an institution that predates all states and which is natural to the human condition and to all human societies.

Leftists such as those at the DSA conference seek to abolish any remaining vestiges of non-state independent governance. Although they deny it, “democratic socialists” are at the forefront of pushing for untrammeled state power, to be administered by an “enlightened” ruling oligarchy. The democratic socialists, therefore, seek to refocus all human loyalties toward the state, creating a direct state-citizen relationship for all, and setting up the state as the institution that meets all human needs. Unlike every particular family, which is relatively weak in its exercise of power, and is always temporary, the state’s power, in the Left’s vision, is to be overwhelming and permanent.

This idea of the family as an obstacle was central to advocates of state-building throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Marxists, being extreme advocates for state power, also saw the “problem” of the family. For example, as the Marxists saw things in nineteenth-century Europe, extended family enterprises made up a separate locus of power outside the state, and many of these families self-consciously sought to remain economically independent. Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm’s view of the “bourgeois family” captures some of the central role of the family in nineteenth-century society: “The ‘family’ was not merely the basic social unit of bourgeois society but its basic unit of property and business enterprise.”

But even this informal institutional competition with the state could not be tolerated by the advocates of greater state power. In the nineteenth century, the state’s opposition to independent institutions was taken to the next level with the welfare state. This came first in Germany, where a true bureaucratic welfare state was introduced for the first time by conservative nationalist Otto von Bismarck. (Bismarck was a conservative, but he implemented the welfare state-which was pushed by the socialists-as a means of co-opting the socialists, politically.) In any case, Bismarck, like the socialists, pushed the welfare state as a deliberate effort to end the population’s financial independence from the state.

Economist Antony Mueller concludes the welfare state established “a system of mutual obligation between the State and its citizens.” This also represented a powerful way of circumventing the family unit as an institutional buffer between the state and the individuals. Certainly, poverty relief had existed in the past. But, it nearly always was administered at a household level. The state, prior to Bismark’s welfare state, had not yet fully pierced the household family unit to deal directly with individuals.

The same plan has been copied throughout the world, and has been enormously successful in the state’s co-option of the family. Naturally, modern leftists want more of this. A lot more.

This has been key in building up state power, and the sidelining of the family is so important to the Left because resistance to the state has tended to be centered around some cultural or local institutional loyalty. Historically, this often took the form of local networks of families and their allies. Tocqueville noted that these groups provided a ready nexus around which to organize opposition to government abuses. He writes,

As long as family feeling was kept alive, the antagonist of oppression was never alone; he looked about him, and found his clients, his hereditary friends, and his kinsfolk. If this support was wanting, he was sustained by his ancestors and animated by his posterity.

Without these, or similar institutions, Tocqueville concluded, political opposition to the state becomes ineffective. Specifically, without institutions through which to practically build resistance to state power, even anti-regime ideology has no way of being brought into practice:

He continues:

What strength can even public opinion have retained, when no twenty persons are connected by a common tie; when not a man, nor a family … has the power of representing that opinion; and when every citizen—being equally weak, equally poor, and equally dependant [sic]—has only his personal impotence to oppose to the organized force of the government?

The reduction of individuals to impotent, isolated units—who interact primarily with state agents—is the ultimate outcome of the Left’s efforts, regardless of what its stated goals may be.  Instead of independent family groups, bonded by biology and ancient, natural modes of human affection and loyalty, we are instead to have, as the “norm,” state-regulated sex workers and state-apportioned children, conceived by IVF and grown in surrogate wombs. This, the left tells us, will free us from the “slavery” of marriage and family, and replace capitalism with the “freedom” to be utterly alone, atomistic, and without social or economic bonds outside the state.

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

The post Leftists Still Want To Abolish the Family appeared first on LewRockwell.

In this video production, Michel Chossudovsky and Drago Bosnic focus on the improvised political actions taken by Donald Trump. 

Sanctions, tariffs and punitive actions by an incompetent President, not to mention his ignorance concerning the dangers of nuclear war. 

$1.3 trillion allocated by Washington to the development of “peace-making nukes”.

Geopolitics coupled with a complex process of Economic Warfare and Deindustrialization. 

War against humanity: What is unfolding is a war against Planet Earth’s 8 billion people. 

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post Trump’s Emotional Actions. War against Humanity appeared first on LewRockwell.

Robert Mish wrote:

The PLANDEMIC even conned some of our heroes

https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/the-third-story-what-really-killed?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=355417&post_id=170650217&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=50tkw&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

deeper science on the flaws of virology theory

https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/a-farewell-to-virology-expert-edition?publication_id=355417&post_id=154186819&isFreemail=true&r=17kbbh&triedRedirect=true

The post There was NO virus? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, David Martin.

The post Five Al Jazeera journalists killed in Gaza by Israel’s ‘psychopathic liar’: Marwan Bishara appeared first on LewRockwell.

Steven Athanail wrote:

Thank you for publishing Pastereich this  morning and for keeping a spotlight on the “Covid” hoax .I  remember that Dr. Ron Paul was the first prominent individual to describe the global criminal terror with that term . Indeed it was exactly what I believed as a practicing physician during the early months of 2020. The neglected features of the hoax include careful planning and coordination, data manipulation, psychological manipulation, fraudulent testing, and the poisoning of selected populations to induce panic and compliance with medical tyranny. None of these features has been adequately addressed by the incumbent “public health” regime of the U.S. LRC remains a pertinent and essential counterweight to the ubiquitous official propaganda causing so much confusion and harm today.

The post Hasbara History appeared first on LewRockwell.

______________________________________________________________________________________

da Zerohedge

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/la-malattia-europea-la-germania-entra)

La Germania sta perdendo la sua reputazione di stato fiscalmente responsabile. Attraverso una spesa incontrollata il governo federale sta trascinando il Paese in acque tempestose.

Germany has just greenlighted the "largest sustained deficit in post-war history." What is the Polymarket on the next ECB QE? pic.twitter.com/kIfS4E78AV

L'Handelsblatt ha segnalato un nuovo deficit di bilancio. Entro il 2029 si prevede che i debiti aggiuntivi precedentemente non finanziati aumenteranno da €144 miliardi a €150 miliardi, secondo diverse fonti governative. Non fanno parte del debito federale pianificato, ma si aggiungono a esso. Più di recente la coalizione ha concordato di anticipare al 2027 un'integrazione pensionistica prevista per le madri, aggiungendo altri €4,5 miliardi di spesa.

Bisogna dirlo chiaramente: sotto la guida del Cancelliere Friedrich Merz la Germania ha abbandonato gli ultimi tentativi di rigore fiscale e di un bilancio conservativo. I costi del consenso politico di una coalizione instabile, progettata per evitare conflitti, vengono scaricati sui contribuenti.

Un crollo prevedibile

Questi numeri sono già allarmanti, ma siamo ancora nella quiete prima della tempesta. Nel 2025 si prevede che il rapporto debito/PIL netto raggiungerà il 3,2%. Questo include circa €82 miliardi di nuovo debito federale, €15 miliardi di prestiti aggiuntivi da stati e comuni e circa €37 miliardi di “fondi speciali” federali, ovvero debito ombra fuori bilancio.

Questa previsione crollerà nel momento in cui l'economia tedesca sprofonderà ulteriormente in recessione. L'aumento della disoccupazione e il calo delle entrate fiscali metteranno ulteriormente a dura prova il bilancio federale e i fondi della previdenza sociale. Mentre i politici si sentono ancora tranquilli con un debito pubblico al 63% del PIL, includendo il programma di spesa da €1.000 miliardi del governo Merz, i livelli di debito potrebbero superare il 90% del PIL entro la fine di questo decennio.

La Germania sta ora praticando una politica fiscale sconosciuta alla maggior parte dei suoi cittadini. Le abitudini dei PIIGS sono arrivate, ma non sotto forma di clima soleggiato, bensì di cattiva gestione delle finanze pubbliche.

Le entrate fiscali non possono più colmare i divari

In una dimostrazione di arroganza senza precedenti, nell'ultimo decennio la politica tedesca ha lasciato il suo Stato sociale completamente esposto alla povertà causata dall'immigrazione, cosa che ha generato non solo disordini fiscali, ma anche culturali ed economici. A ciò si aggiungono l'invecchiamento della popolazione e una crisi economica autoinflitta. Tutti i segnali nel sistema di welfare ora puntano verso il disastro.

Alla fine di quest'anno si prevede un deficit complessivo di oltre €55 miliardi, in particolare per l'assicurazione sanitaria pubblica che farà registrare un deficit record di quasi €47 miliardi. L'assicurazione per l'assistenza a lungo termine aggiunge ulteriori €1,6 miliardi di perdite e il fondo pensione si troverà ad affrontare un deficit di circa €7 miliardi.

Un tempo pubblicizzato come un sistema “adatto alle generazioni future”, il modello di welfare tedesco si è trasformato in un pozzo senza fondo. Salvataggi federali, prestiti di emergenza e contributi sempre più elevati caratterizzano ora uno Stato sociale che sta entrando nella fase iniziale del suo collasso.

Vae victis  – guai ai vinti – e benedetti coloro che hanno previsto questa discesa e hanno avuto i mezzi per sfuggire alla trappola dello Stato sociale. Il conto ora viene pagato dalla forza lavoro che soffre silenziosamente – gli eroi che assorbono le conseguenze delle linee di politica debitorie sconsiderate attraverso il loro lavoro e il tempo perso.

Oggi la politica sociale è principalmente un'officina per riparare i danni causati dall'interventismo politico. Nel tentativo di fondere un collante sociale artificiale nella società, la quota di PIL dello stato è salita al 50%. Nonostante i massicci aumenti delle tasse – si pensi alle imposte sulle emissioni di CO2, ai pedaggi stradali, alle imposte sulla proprietà e alla progressione a freddo – il divario tra spesa pubblica ed entrate fiscali effettive continua ad aumentare.

Rispetto al periodo precedente al lockdown, la spesa pubblica è aumentata di circa un terzo, mentre le entrate fiscali reali sono aumentate solo del 14%. Anche un analfabeta in economia dedurrebbe che questo squilibrio richiede una correzione strutturale urgente.

Il bivio più avanti

Ma a Berlino non c'è alcun segno di arretramento. La competizione politica tra i partiti statalisti, tra cui la CDU, produce un solo risultato: bilanci sociali più consistenti, infinite promesse di sussidi e una maggiore ingerenza nell'economia.

Con una fedeltà dogmatica nella politica climatica e nell'ideologia delle frontiere aperte, lo stato tedesco procede ciecamente verso un bivio. Le crisi di bilancio non possono essere programmate: si verificano quando gli stati perdono la capacità di indebitarsi sui mercati dei capitali. Come disse una volta Hemingway a proposito della bancarotta: “Prima lentamente, poi improvvisamente”.

Una volta giunto tal momento – quando i mercati obbligazionari dicono di no – una società si trova di fronte a due strade: lo statalismo totale, o il liberismo economico radicale. Nel primo caso sia i mercati dell'energia che quelli dei capitali cadono sotto il controllo statale, mentre la gestione economica diventa autoritaria. Questa è la strada che sta attualmente percorrendo la Germania.

L'alternativa è quella scelta dall'Argentina sotto la presidenza di Javier Milei, simboleggiata dalla sua ormai famosa motosega. Quella strada riporta a una civiltà basata su uno stato minimo, limitato alla tutela della sicurezza interna ed esterna.

L'Europa come laboratorio

Che ci piaccia o no, siamo tutti parte di un vasto esperimento sociale. La domanda è: l'Europa riuscirà a liberarsi del suo socialismo degenerativo – un'ideologia che ha inflitto tanti danni al continente e al mondo – o ricadremo in schemi infantili, rifiutando le riforme per paura e sentimentalismo?

Il dibattito sul bilancio e la paralisi politica della Francia offrono un'anteprima del nostro futuro. La quota di partecipazione statale francese è salita al 57%. Le sue politiche di apertura delle frontiere sono fallite. Il suo Stato sociale smisurato ha reso il Paese ingovernabile.

Tutto ciò culmina in uno stato permanente di crisi di governo, che si traduce in un crollo della fiducia pubblica. La volatilità economica, a lungo repressa dallo Stato sociale, sta ora esplodendo sotto forma di disordini sociali nelle strade.

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

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There is a dangerous view that threatens to derail the anti-woke movement. According to many people, unfortunately including some “libertarians,” the trouble with Woke programs is that they are untrue to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law was intended to ban discrimination against people because of their race. You couldn’t refuse to hire someone, or rent an apartment to hm, because, say, you don’t like black people. The law said we should be “colorblind” and treat everybody the same. But now, these people say, the woke movement requires people to give special treatment to people because of their race. If you own a business, for example, you must hire a certain number of blacks, even if they aren’t qualified for the job. It’s also perfectly all right to discriminate against white people. The solution, they say, is to return to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Murray Rothbard held a completely different view and, as always, he is our best guide on all political questions. In his opinion, employment, renting an apartment, etc. rests on the voluntary nature of the transaction. If an employer offers you a job, and you accept his offer, that’s all you need. If you are an employer who doesn’t like black people, you are perfectly free to refuse to offer him a job, in exactly the same way in which a black person can refuse to accept a job offer.

Rothbard saw the Civil Rights Act as a violation of the fundamental principle of freedom of contract. “On the entire question of legally and judicially imposed ‘civil rights,’ we have been subjected to a trap, to a shell game in which ‘both sides’ adopt the same pernicious axiom and simply quarrel about interpretation within the same framework. On the one side, left-liberalism, which in the name of equality and civil rights, wants to outlaw ‘discrimination’ everywhere, has pushed the process to the point of virtually mandating representational quotas for allegedly oppressed groups everywhere in the society; be it jobs and promotions, entry into private golf clubs, or in legislatures and among the judiciary But the Official Conservative opposition, which includes not only neocons but also regular conservatives, conservative legal foundations, and left-libertarians, adopts the self-same axiom of civil rights and equality. In the name of the alleged ‘original’ civil rights vision of Martin Luther King, conservatives also want to outlaw discrimination in jobs and housing, and to allow federal courts to mandate gerrymandering of electoral districts.”

A good recent example of what Rothbard is talking about is the recent effort of the Trump administration and MAGA supporters to use charges of “discrimination” to force universities to institute programs to combat anti-Semitism. According to the New York Times, “Columbia University will pay a $200 million fine to settle allegations from the Trump administration that it failed to do enough to stop the harassment of Jewish students, part of a sweeping deal reached on Wednesday to restore the university’s federal research funding, according to a statement from the university. In exchange for the return of hundreds of millions in research grants, Columbia will also pledge to follow laws banning the consideration of race in admissions and hiring and follow through on other commitments to reduce antisemitism and unrest on campus that it agreed to in March. The deal, which settles more than a half-dozen open civil rights investigations into the university, will be overseen by an independent monitor agreed to by both sides who will report to the government on its progress every six months. Columbia will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”

Let’s continue with Rothbard’s analysis. “But while Official Conservatives fully endorse outlawing racial and other discrimination, they want to stop there and claim that going beyond that to mandating affirmative action measures and quotas is perverting the noble original civil rights ideal. rest of the civil rights movement have tragically gone beyond that doctrine and come ‘precariously close to approving quotas.’ The original sin of ‘civil rights,’ which would have been perfectly understood by such ‘old conservatives’ as the much maligned Nine  Old Men [of the Supreme Court] who tried to block the measures of the New Deal, is that anti-discrimination laws or edicts of any sort are evil because they run roughshod over the only fundamental natural right: the right of everyone over his own property. Every property owner should have the absolute right to sell, hire, or lease his money or other property to anyone whom he chooses, which means he has the absolute right to ‘discriminate’ all he damn pleases. If I have a plant and want to hire only six-foot albinos, and I can find willing employees, I should have the right to do so, even though I might well lose my shirt doing so. (Of course, I should not have the right to force the taxpayers to bail me out after losing my shirt.) If I own an apartment complex and want to rent only to Swedes without children, I should have the right to do so. etc. Outlawing such discrimination, and restrictive covenants upholding it, was the original sin from which all other problems have flowed. Once admit that principle, and everything else follows as the night the day: Once concede that it is right to make it illegal for me to refuse to hire blacks (or substitute any other group, ethnic or gender or whatever you wish), then left-liberalism is far more logical than official conservatism. For if it is right and proper to outlaw my discriminating against blacks, then it is just as right and proper for the government to figure out if I am discriminating or not, and in that case, it is perfectly legitimate for them to employ quotas to test the proposition.”

As you would expect, Rothbard was even more radical in his challenging the orthodoxies of the Left, mostly definitely including  so-called “left -libertarians.” They said that private businesses should be free to discriminate, but that the government should not be. Rothbard rejected this too.  “To return to the fallacies of Left-Libertarianism: apart from the question of what to do with government facilities, left-libertarians are being grossly unrealistic by saying that anti-discrimination laws should only apply to strictly government operations, while private operations must be totally free. The problem is that, particularly in our State-ridden society, the line between ‘public ‘and ‘private’ has grown increasingly fuzzy, and it is precisely because of that fuzziness that left-liberalism has been able to expand very easily)!, and with virtually no opposition, the original application of civil rights from public to all sorts of private facilities. Everywhere, for example, and in front of or next to every private property; there are public streets and roads. Virtually every private business sells some service or produce to some government agency; every private business sells across state lines and is therefore subject to the ‘commerce clause’ of the Constitution; every private school or cultural institution receives, directly or indirectly, government funds; restaurants are somehow invested with a ‘public’ nature because they have doors open to the public; social clubs are not really ‘private’ correctness in high theory; are left totally irrelevant to the current social scene. So what is the remedy for all this? Certainly not to take the standard libertarian path: to endorse civil rights for public operations and then, if they are interested at all in the real world, to try to sort out precisely what is private and what is public nowadays. The result is that there is nothing ‘private’ left, and left-libertarians, as usual content with correctness in high theory; are left totally irrelevant to the current social scene. What has to be done is to repudiate ‘civil rights’ and anti-discrimination laws totally; and in the meanwhile, on a separate but parallel track, try to privatize as much and as fully as we can.”

Let’s do everything we can to get rid of the phony “civil rights” laws of the 1960s!

The post Rothbard on ‘Civil Rights’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

Netanyahu has confirmed reports that Israel plans an extreme escalation in Gaza which will entail the total military occupation of the entire enclave and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which the Israeli spin machine has termed “voluntary migration”.

To be clear, anyone who says the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza would be “voluntary” is lying. Starving a population and deliberately making their land uninhabitable is exactly the same as forcing them out at gunpoint. Saying “leave or you’ll starve” is not meaningfully different from saying “leave or I’ll shoot you in the head”. Israel’s planned mass expulsion will be as forced and involuntary as any in recorded history.

President Trump has fully signed off on this move, washing his hands of the mass atrocity he is cosigning by telling the press that it’s going to be “pretty much up to Israel.”

Trump is lying. It’s up to him. That’s why more than 600 former senior Israeli security officials from Mossad and Shin Bet just sent Trump a letter urging him to compel Netanyahu to make peace in Gaza. They understand that the US president has always had the power to end the Gaza holocaust; numerous Israeli insiders have said that this mass atrocity would not be possible without US assistance.

Trump could end all this at any time, and chooses not to. This makes him one of the most evil people in the world.

Source X

This whole genocide is powered by lies. Netanyahu just told Fox News that the horrifying aerial footage of the destruction in Gaza that we’ve been seeing is because every single building in Gaza was booby trapped with explosives by Hamas.

“The reason you see the flattened buildings is because Hamas booby traps every single building,” Netanyahu said. “So when we come in, we first have the population moved even though Hamas tries to keep them in the combat zones. But after they move, and we start to move into the neighborhoods that are now populated only by terrorists, they ignite these booby traps. So what we do is we put in an APC, an armored personnel carrier, with a lot of explosives. Detonate it. It sets off all the booby traps and the buildings begin to collapse as a result of that. They’re empty buildings, they’re not populated buildings.”

Absolutely nobody believes this is true. Not one single person alive on this earth sincerely believes that Gaza now looks like a gravel parking lot because Hamas placed explosives inside every single building. Netanyahu doesn’t believe it. Israel’s most venomous supporters don’t believe it. It’s just part of the nonstop fountain of lies they are spewing to avoid acknowledging what we all know we’re looking at. They’ve told so many lies by now that they’ve got to keep lying and lying just to stay afloat, like a man desperately treading water to avoid drowning.

This genocide is one nonstop insult to our intelligence. It’s actually degrading at this point. The lies Israel and its supporters have to pretend to believe are getting so ridiculous that supporting Israel is now an act of public humiliation and self-debasement.

Source X

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has a long rant on his social media accounts complaining that Israel’s “status in the United States is collapsing”, including among Republicans, with public sentiment turning against them because of what is happening in Gaza.

As you might expect, Bennett does not frame this as a sign that Israel should stop committing genocide in Gaza, but rather complains of a crisis of “antisemitism” in the United States, and accuses Netanyahu of failing to adequately propagandize Americans.

“Jews in the United States are subject to a torrential wave of anti-Semitism, like him I don’t remember in my life,” Bennett moans, adding, “Antisemites increase to compare the ‘hunger’ in Gaza to the Holocaust, and thus reduce the memory of the Holocaust. They act that the hunger accusation will haunt israel its citizens, our soldiers, for generations.”

“If Netanyahu’s propaganda men worked against the enemies of Israel *outside* a tenth of the talent, speed and dedication with which they operate the propaganda machine against their political rivals *inside* israel our situation would be amazing,” Bennet writes, saying he wants to “re-establish a rapid and synchronized explanation headquarters”.

“Explanation” is the literal translation of the Hebrew word “hasbara”, i.e. pro-Israel propaganda.

Source X

Meanwhile the term “hasbara” itself is reportedly being abandoned by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, as westerners have come to associate the term with genocide propaganda.

The Times of Israel reports:

“Long referred to as hasbara, a term used to denote both public relations and propaganda that has been freighted with negative baggage in recent years, the ministry now brands its approach as toda’a — which translates to ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’ — an apparent shift toward broader, more proactive messaging.”

So they’re not abandoning the genocide, and they’re not abandoning the genocide propaganda, they’re just abandoning the word for the genocide propaganda because people have come to associate that word with propaganda in support of genocide.

The entire Zionist project is built on a foundation of lies. And their lies are starting to catch up with them. They’re now at a point where the lies are beginning to damage the public image they’re intended to protect.

When a liar is recognized as a liar, his lies will forevermore work only as an antidote to his past lies, and as a light to further expose his intent. From that point on any lie he tells just shows people how ugly his character and intentions really are.

There is no other weapon that works that way. No other weapon which when it’s seen immediately stops working, actively disarms the attacker, starts fixing what he broke, and starts attacking him.

Truth will win in the end.

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The post Israel Is Beginning To Choke on Its Own Lies appeared first on LewRockwell.

Spending and regulating are simple to limit. Enough government people just need to support and protect the Constitution by limiting themselves and other government people to within constitutional boundaries.

Congressmen have the most power, so spending and regulating are simplest for congressmen to limit:

• First, a lower overall-total appropriation can be passed in both houses by simple majorities. Senate filibuster/cloture must never be respected. It unconstitutionally gives more weight to minority votes more than to majority votes, violating the explicit one person, one vote rule in the Constitution; and the Constitution overrides house rules. If the appropriation passes but the president vetoes, the veto can be overridden by two-thirds majorities.
• Second, the same majorities can mostly just pass commonsense repeals. Repeals can get changes underway in healthcare, pensions, defense, interest, and welfare. Repeals can end national-government control of education and transportation, and can end regulation.

The table shows how much spending and regulating can be limited from year one on, once congressmen start supporting constitutional boundaries.

Data: usgovernmentspending.com, Ten Thousand Commandments, 2025 Edition

Healthcare and pensions can initially have their spending unchanged, but have their rules changed so that customers and producers can start developing higher-quality, more cost-effective products, which will reduce spending in future years. Defense, interest, welfare, education, transportation, and regulation compliance can initially be reduced by already-substantial percentages that are practical starting points. Welfare and transportation can initially be added back into state-government budgets.

Even with only these changes, spending plus regulation compliance would be reduced in the first year by a sizable down payment of 41%.

These changes will create new political winners who will hold in place all of these improvements and more. Fast, extensive change always ends up best for freedom.

Constitution-defying Progressive government is complex. Majorities of congressmen and all presidents enact imposing statutory frameworks. All presidents enact an order of magnitude more laws, calling them regulations, and then enact still more laws, calling them guidance and other euphemisms. Majorities of judges opine in favor of essentially all of this.

In contrast, Constitution-supporting government is simple. Government people just need to be limited to better-securing people’s life, liberty, and property. Producers and customers then freely experiment and rapidly work out voluntary arrangements that add value optimally.

Healthcare (0% change in year one)

Congressmen should regularize healthcare products by passing healthcare-product descriptions that are customer-friendly, and by requiring producers to list their pricing or be punished with stiff fines and lawsuits. This will let customers compare base products and also additional products they might need if they experience complications.

Beyond this, congressmen should simply repeal national statutes and outlaw state statutes that interfere with healthcare producers and customers.

Pensions (0%)

Congressmen should formally repeal requirements to pay more money into Social Security. They should leave in place the benefits that past congressmen have promised up to now. They should formally support selling government-held assets to help pay for grandfathering-out these unconstitutional entitlements.

They should let a person retire as young or as old as he chooses and receive lifetime payments that are projected to have the same present value—the same actuarial adjustment they make now when people retire a little younger or older.

Defense (-50%)

Congressmen should formally repeal all defense treaties and authorizations for use of military force. They should pass or vote down declarations of war. They should pass rules-of-engagement cards.

They should formally repeal legislative grabs of executive power over organizational structures, positions, basing, and line-item funding.

They should formally repeal all infringements of the right to keep and bear arms, and they should formally outlaw all state-government infringements.

Interest (-90%)

Congressmen are explicitly required to not pay any debt or obligation incurred in rebellion against the USA people and Constitution—and Progressive government is rebellion.

They should immediately opine that presidents should repay the national debt held by USA retirees, who have been ill-advised by financial professionals and who could no longer recover from undue deprivations of property. They should immediately opine that the president should repudiate the rest of the national debt by immediately freezing all the debt, a month later repudiating interest except for USA retirees, and a month after that repudiating principal except for USA retirees.

Welfare, Education, Transportation, and Regulation (-100%)

The existing statutes are unconstitutional takings of private property for public use without just compensation, exercises of unenumerated powers, or delegations of legislative power. Congressmen should formally repeal the existing statutes and appropriations.

The Constitution’s rules are not only law but also best practice. What has worked best has been voluntary charity, government-free schooling, local ownership, and regulation by producers and customers. Limiting governments in these areas in the past freed the USA people to grow to lead the world.

A congressman’s got to know his limitations.

Nowadays, congressmen change the subject away from their current actions by focusing attention on ten-year budgets.

These call to mind Communists’ five-year plans, but these plans are worse. Congressmen project these plans out twice as far. Each year, they violate the previous plan and roll out a new plan. And shielded behind this ten-year wizards’ curtain, each year congressmen logroll the budget numbers for the next year—the only numbers that count. Aided by this subterfuge, Progressive congressmen and presidents have lately been sticking the people with another great inflation that will turn into another great depression.

Congressmen need to instead only set an overall-total appropriation, and then do their main job: pass bills that consist solely of constitutional rules and sanctions.

If any congressmen genuinely represent the people, the optimal path was already set for them long ago in the Constitution. Congressmen can hold themselves and their colleagues to within their constitutional boundaries. Or every last one who won’t, the people can replace with another who will.

The post Boundaries on Spending and Regulating appeared first on LewRockwell.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Palestrina, the great composer of sacred polyphony, whose masterful compositions for the sacred liturgy have been described by Catholic musicologist Susan Treacy as “a cathedral in music.” Palestrina was so much the musical voice of the Catholic Reformation in the sixteenth century that he is rightly revered as one of the most important composers of all time.

He is buried at St. John Lateran Cathedral, one of the four major basilicas of Rome, the inscription on his tomb lauding him as the “Prince of Sacred Music”, and he was described by the great composer Felix Mendelsohn as one of the West’s four musical tetrarchs—alongside Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. Clearly, Palestrina’s praises have been widely sung, and rightly so, placing him beyond the realm of the unsung heroes celebrated in this series. The same can be said of other great composers of sacred polyphony, such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.

Leaving these giants aside, we will focus instead on some of the great composers from the history of Christendom who are not as well-known or as widely lauded.

Guido of Arezzo, an eleventh century Benedictine monk, is well-known to professional musicologists but is largely unknown outside of the ivory towers of academe. This is unjust because he is responsible for the language that all musicians use. A music theorist and teacher, his seminal work, Micrologus, was the most influential musical treatise of the middle ages with the exception of Boethius’ De institutione musica. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern staff notation which was foundational to the development of Western musical notation.

Moving forward three hundred years to the high middle ages, the French composer Guillaume de Machaut composed the first polyphonic setting of the Mass. His Messe de Nostre Dame (Mass of Our Lady) is, therefore, a pioneering work which paved the way for Palestrina and others. A century later, in the fifteenth century, another French pioneer, Guillaume Du Fay, would emerge as the most illustrious musician of his time. A composer of both sacred and secular music, he would be described by his contemporary Piero de’ Medici as “the greatest ornament of our age.” Another composer of the fifteenth and sixteenth century whose praises were widely sung in his own day but who is largely unsung today is Josquin Des Prez. The composer of several settings of the Mass, his most celebrated work is probably the four-voice motet, Ave Maria … Virgo serena. Such was his importance that Susan Treacy has suggested that he might be considered “a Renaissance Beethoven.”

We will move now to an altogether different type of unsung composer, Antonín Dvořák. Whereas some heroes of Christendom are unsung because they have never been widely known or were once widely known but are now largely forgotten or neglected, Dvořák remains one of the most celebrated and famous of all classical composers whose praises are sung wherever great music is loved. He is unsung, however, because his role as a great composer of classical music has eclipsed his great Catholic faith and the influence that this faith had on his work. In this sense, he is unsung in the same sense that Shakespeare is unsung.

Take, for instance, the way that Dvořák’s importance is encapsulated in the opening sentence of his entry on Wikipedia:

Antonín Leopold Dvořák (8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czech composer. He frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák’s style has been described as “the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them,” and Dvořák has been described as “arguably the most versatile… composer of his time.”

Thus, in summarizing the salient features of Dvořák’s legacy, we are told of his nationality, and are informed of the influence of folklore and nationalism, and of his Romanticism and versatility, but we are not told of his deep Catholic faith, nor its role in his work, nor its being the inspiration for his great sacred compositions.

Dvořák is best known for his Symphony Number 9 in E minor, popularly known by its subtitle From the New World or simply as the New World Symphony. Such is its enduring popularity that it was selected to be taken by Neil Armstrong to the moon during the first lunar landing in 1969 and was voted the favourite symphony in a poll conducted by ABC Classic FM radio in Australia in 2009. This is all very well and all very good but this is not what makes Antonín Dvořák an unsung hero of Christendom. What qualifies him for such an accolade and for his inclusion in this series are his many sacred choral works. His setting of the Stabat Mater is the longest extant setting of that text, running to around 90 minutes, and he also composed a Requiem, a Mass in D major and a setting of the Te Deum.

The premiere of Dvořák’s Requiem in Birmingham (England) in 1891 was conducted by the composer himself, and was “very successful.” Such success was repeated the following year during a performance in Boston in which “the composer was frequently applauded between numbers and given a most enthusiastic ovation at the end.” A later performance in Vienna was described as “a triumph of Dvořák’s music.”

The Te Deum, composed in 1892, was dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America, and his Mass in D major, originally intended for organ, solo voices and a small choir, was subsequently arranged for a full symphony orchestra. The oratorio Saint Ludmila tells the story of the Bohemian saint and martyr, combining in its subject matter Dvořák’s patriotism and his deep Catholic faith.

With respect to the latter, he was a lifelong and devoutly practicing Catholic. He and his wife had nine children. There is little doubt that Dvořák’s New World Symphony will be performed across the United States as part of next year’s celebrations to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Perhaps we might hope and pray that the Te Deum that he composed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World might be performed with it. There can be few better ways of reminding ourselves that the United States is not merely a New World nation but that it is also and must always be One Nation under God.

This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.

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