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Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

He told Patrick Bet David, a big supporter of Israel, Netanyahu was ethnically cleansing Palestinians.

Want to see the EXACT SENTENCE Charlie said that ended his life?

No hyperbole intended. pic.twitter.com/JNUjGJXKdk

— Brandon Taylor Moore (@LetsGoBrando45) September 15, 2025

The post Is This What Ended Charlie Kirk’s Life? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

At the prayer vigil for Charlie Kirk at the Kennedy Center, RFK Jr. credited Kirk with being the primary architect of his unification with Trump during the 2024 presidential election. This proves Kirk was extremely effective at driving political change. That statement is at 2:05 in this video. “More than any other figure in our country, he led the effort to restore free speech.” Kirk was also called one of the greatest political minds and activists in history along with JFK, RFK, and MLK. 

https://t.co/53NPBsbclq

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 14, 2025

The post RFK Jr. Says Charlie Kirk Convinced Him to Endorse Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Rick Rozoff.

The post Gen Z Women Are Obsessed With Mental Illness, 72% Make It Their Whole Personality appeared first on LewRockwell.

The ‘Golden Age’ is not looking very golden, unless you happen to own actual gold. Government debts and deficits are increasing, Americans are paying 86% of the tariffs (according to Goldman Sachs), and The Fed is expected to crank up the printing presses by lowering interest rates, which will further increase the prices that American consumers pay for goods and services.

The post Trump Predicts “Biggest Boom” In History — We Say “Biggest Bubble” In History appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click here:

Gateway Pundit

The post Three Million March in London Against the Invasion appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click here:

Eric’s Substack

The post Trump Now Pushes Europeans to Intensify War Against Russia appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Suzan Mazur.

Gulf Cooperation Council’s Peninsula Shield Force?

The post Oscillations—Gulf Cooperation Council’s Peninsula Shield Force: WHERE IS IT??? appeared first on LewRockwell.

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

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/come-la-banca-centrale-europea-ha)

La crisi del debito francese ci ricorda che il gradualismo non funziona mai, che lo statalismo finisce sempre in rovina e che i Paesi che puntano su più stato e tasse più alte finiscono sempre nella stagnazione, nel rischio di default e nei disordini sociali.

Il rapporto debito pubblico/PIL della Francia supera il 114%. Tuttavia le passività pensionistiche future e non finanziate raggiungono il 400% del PIL, secondo Eurostat. Il deficit fiscale annunciato per quest'anno è del 5,4%, ma il consenso di mercato mantiene un'aspettativa del 5,8%. Il rischio di default creditizio a cinque anni è aumentato del 20% in dodici mesi. Il rendimento del debito francese a due anni supera quello di Spagna, Italia e Grecia, e il suo premio di rischio rispetto alla Germania ha raggiunto gli 80 punti base, 20 in più rispetto a quello della Spagna.

Il problema nell'area Euro è che tutti applaudono quando uno stato gonfia il PIL con ingenti spese pubbliche e posti di lavoro nel settore pubblico, oltre all'immigrazione, mascherando persistenti squilibri fiscali e un calo della crescita della produttività. Inoltre gli analisti keynesiani ignorano l'effetto crowding out sul settore privato e l'impatto dannoso di imposte elevate sulla sostenibilità dei conti pubblici a lungo termine.

Sono abbastanza vecchio da ricordare quando i media generalisti celebravano la Grecia come motore della crescita dell'Eurozona, quando stava gonfiando il PIL con ingenti spese pubbliche e posti di lavoro nel settore pubblico. La Grecia fu salutata come “foriera di un'elevata crescita economica” e “avanscoperta della ripresa dell'Eurozona” in base alle pubblicazioni dell'FMI e della Commissione Europea nel 2005 e nel 2006. Titoli e resoconti politici riconoscevano i risultati economici della Grecia come esempio di forte leadership all'interno dell'Eurozona. Sappiamo tutti cosa accadde poi nel 2008.

Non possiamo dimenticare che la Banca Centrale Europea ha avuto un ruolo determinante nel creare incentivi perversi per i politici, spingendoli a mantenere e aumentare gli elevati livelli di spesa pubblica e gli squilibri fiscali.

Nell'ultimo decennio la Banca Centrale Europea ha implementato un insieme di misure di portata senza precedenti, tra cui ripetuti tagli dei tassi, tassi nominali negativi, il controverso strumento anti-frammentazione e la monetizzazione del debito pubblico, tutti strumenti concepiti per salvaguardare la stabilità dell'Eurozona. Nonostante tutta la retorica di stabilità e indipendenza, queste misure hanno creato potenti incentivi all'incoscienza fiscale, erodendo le fondamenta stesse della credibilità monetaria europea e gettando le basi delle attuali crisi del debito sovrano, tra cui la debacle del debito francese.

I tassi d'interesse di riferimento della BCE, un tempo ancorati a disciplinare sia l'indebitamento sovrano che quello privato, sono crollati da oltre il 4% nel 2008 a livelli negativi, rimanendo in tale territorio per anni. Inoltre i programmi di acquisto di asset della BCE, ampliati con iniziative come il Programma di acquisto di emergenza pandemica (PEPP) e le Transazioni monetarie definitive (OMT), hanno saturato i mercati obbligazionari con liquidità e generato un enorme effetto crowding out che penalizza il credito a famiglie e imprese e maschera i problemi di solvibilità di chi emette debito pubblico.

Lo strumento anti-frammentazione, concepito per contenere lo “spread” tra i titoli di stato dei Paesi continentali e quelli periferici, spinge la questione oltre: promettendo un intervento illimitato, la BCE rassicura i mercati che sosterrà il debito sovrano praticamente a qualsiasi prezzo, diluendo la disciplina che i premi al rischio un tempo imponevano ai governi prodighi. Di fatto, potrebbe essere considerato uno strumento pro-sperpero, poiché avvantaggia i Paesi con scarso rispetto delle norme di bilancio e penalizza quelli che tengono sotto controllo debito e deficit.

Sebbene questi interventi calmino i mercati nel breve termine, alimentano una mentalità di indifferenza per le finanze pubbliche, inducendo gli stati ad aumentare costantemente la spesa pubblica. Pertanto molti governi, come quello spagnolo, si vantano dei bassi tassi d'interesse e della diffusione del debito nonostante i crescenti squilibri e il peggioramento dei conti pubblici. Lo strumento anti-frammentazione e i tassi nominali negativi distruggono il meccanismo di mercato che dovrebbe fungere da monito contro una politica fiscale sconsiderata. Gli stati membri, certi di finanziamenti a basso costo e del sostegno infinito della BCE, hanno scarsi incentivi a riformare bilanci gonfiati o a contenere i deficit, soprattutto quando ciò risulta costoso a livello elettorale. La persistente minaccia, sventolata dai politici tedeschi, che le azioni della BCE stavano sovvenzionando il “parassitismo fiscale” negli stati membri con un indebitamento elevato, sta diventando realtà.

Il caso più drammatico è la Francia. Il debito pubblico francese ha superato il 114% del PIL nel 2025, in parte a causa di persistenti e ingenti deficit coperti dalla BCE. I tentativi di consolidamento fiscale sono sempre stati timidi e quindi non sono riusciti a raggiungere una disciplina duratura, con il supporto della BCE sempre sullo sfondo come misura di sicurezza. Il risultato è un crescente premio per il rischio sovrano: i titoli di stato francesi, per la prima volta nella storia moderna dell'euro, ora rendono più dei titoli spagnoli, greci e italiani con rating comparabile, a dimostrazione del disagio del mercato nei confronti della traiettoria del debito francese, anche nell'era dei sostegni della BCE. Il fatto che questo aumento degli spread avvenga nel bel mezzo di un ampio piano di stimolo (Next Generation EU) e di tagli dei tassi è ancora più allarmante.

Il cosiddetto strumento anti-frammentazione, concepito come strumento di contenimento della crisi, è intrinsecamente un meccanismo di “responsabilità solidale senza controllo congiunto”. Vincola i membri prudenti dell'euro alle scelte fiscali dei partner meno disciplinati, socializzando il rischio ma nazionalizzando i benefici. Con questa facilitazione, i mercati non possono più discriminare il grano dalla pula in modo efficiente; l'ansia sulla sostenibilità del debito, che un tempo stimolava le riforme necessarie, viene soppressa anziché risolta. Inoltre è come una mutualizzazione del debito senza obblighi reali.

La filosofia del “costi quel che costi”, tanto elogiata dai leader della BCE, è ormai un’arma a doppio taglio: ha sostituito la responsabilità con la dipendenza e ha incoraggiato il lassismo fiscale.

Gli acquisti da parte delle banche centrali e la riduzione dei rendimenti in territorio nominale negativo rappresentano, per definizione, il caso peggiore di monetizzazione del debito. La BCE è un'entità in perdita perché acquista obbligazioni anche quando sono eccessivamente costose. Le perdite accumulate dalla BCE sui suoi programmi di acquisto di asset sono stimate a €800 miliardi, ampiamente superiori al suo capitale, secondo l'IERF.

Queste linee di politica mascherano problemi di solvibilità ed eliminano il deterrente definitivo alla spesa pubblica: il costo del denaro stesso. Il risultato a lungo termine è un contesto in cui i governi dell'area Euro, consapevoli che i finanziamenti pubblici sono garantiti a costi bassi anche in periodi difficili, accumulano debiti sempre più ingenti, rendendo l'area vulnerabile anche a lievi shock di fiducia, inflazione, o governance. Questa situazione potrebbe danneggiare l'euro in futuro se la Germania cadesse nella stessa trappola della Francia, uno scenario che sembra probabile alla luce degli ultimi annunci di politica monetaria.

Leggendo i giornali francesi, questo incentivo perverso è molto evidente. Invece di parlare di un percorso di spesa insostenibile, molti chiedono maggiori acquisti e stimoli da parte delle banche centrali. Inoltre altri chiedono l'accelerazione dell'euro digitale per attuare misure monetarie ancora più aggressive.

L'attuale crisi del debito francese è una conseguenza diretta di queste linee di politica. La spesa pubblica francese ha costantemente superato la crescita economica, eppure la promessa di un sostegno perenne da parte della BCE ha ritardato qualsiasi resa dei conti. Ora, con l'aumento dei premi al rischio e i mercati che mettono alla prova la determinazione della BCE, l'Eurozona si trova ad affrontare le amare conseguenze di un'era politica caratterizzata da azzardo morale e da una disciplina fiscale assente.

Sebbene l'attivismo della BCE possa garantire una stabilità temporanea, il suo costo a lungo termine è chiaro: aumento del debito, indebolimento del settore privato, svalutazione della valuta ed erosione degli incentivi per una responsabilità fiscale. A meno che l'Europa non riconsideri la sua dipendenza dagli stimoli eterni delle banche centrali e non ripristini i meccanismi di disciplina di mercato, l'attuale crisi francese potrebbe essere solo una delle tante tempeste fiscali future. Il successo dell'euro come valuta di riserva si basava sul pilastro della prudenza e della responsabilità fiscale. La mancanza di disciplina fiscale comporta sempre un rischio per la valuta.

Le banche centrali non possono stampare solvibilità e la mancanza di riforme strutturali e le eccessive politiche di allentamento monetario finiranno per distruggere l'euro.

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

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The assassination of Charlie Kirk is likely to be a pivot point, though the direction after the pivot is anything but clear. From the perspective of a decade hence, what is to come will seem logical and explicable, even inevitable. But right now, we are in the middle and nothing is clear.

What is not in dispute is that Charlie Kirk was a generational talent as a political communicator, in terms of energy and ability far ahead of anyone else. And he was—from every account of the many who knew him—a profoundly good man, growing in depth all the time, devoted to engaging in democratic politics at the most fundamental level, getting out and debating those who disagreed with him. It is also not a matter of dispute that there is a large number of people on the left—how big and influential we don’t yet have a firm handle on—who are willing to say in public that Kirk deserved to be murdered.

But we don’t know where this takes us. The Charlie Kirk assassination may one day be seen as an early stepping stone along the way to a dramatic break—a civil war whose winner isn’t obvious (besides China), leading to socialist revolution, right-wing authoritarianism for real, or the break-up of the United States.

The preconditions for civil war in the United States exist according to a growing body of knowledgeable opinion, as they do in most countries of the West. The ethnic fracturing due to mass immigration has destabilized the sense of a shared society and identity which all of them possessed 50 years ago, a sense which has helped ensure that extremist ideologies were, eventually, seen as extreme. In the United States in the 1960’s and 70’s, there was more political violence than today, but there was a common consensus about what was normally American and what was not. No one cared very much about whether their sons or daughters would marry Republicans or Democrats. Now most do. In the U.S. today, the most virulent leftism seldom comes from new immigrants or their descendants, but the general loss of societal cohesion which allows it to flourish does flow from multiculturalism and its resulting social instability.

We don’t yet know who killed Kirk, though some initial law enforcement reports indicate that the killer was some kind of sympathizer with transgenderism and “antifascism.” But we do know the milieu of the people celebrating Kirk’s murder, and they are far more entrenched in society and numerous than were supporters of the Weather Underground or the Black Liberation Army 50 years ago.

Many voices on the left have voiced genuine sorrow about the assassination, recognizing that killing someone for speech you disagree with is the most fundamental rejection of all that is best about American democracy. But inevitably these voices posit a kind of moral equivalence between left-wing and right-wing extremism, while ruing both.

Ezra Klein, the very smart New York Times columnist and podcaster, opens his own equivalency argument with the attempted “kidnapping” of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, which seemed to even a casual follower of the trial little more than FBI entrapment of some very unsuccessful men who lived in various basements. It doesn’t really match in weight with the shooting of congressional Republicans by a former Bernie Sanders volunteer or the two attempts to murder presidential candidate Donald Trump.

It is worth noting too that mass actions are probably more sociologically important than acts by lone gunmen; in this realm, equivalence of right-wing violence with left-wing violence is not remotely serious. For years, masked left wingers have been given virtual free reign to intimidate, shout down, or physically harm conservative campus speakers; there is no parallel whatsoever on the right. Indeed, part of what made Kirk so hated by the left was his unexpected ability to break through the left-wing campus control mechanisms and build a curious and often enthusiastic audience for mainstream conservative views.

Some paths forward are obviously better than others. A bad but hardly implausible scenario is that some individual or groupuscule on the right, taking note of the progressive celebrations of Kirk’s murder on social media, will say to themselves something along the lines “let’s see how much they like it” and act accordingly. One can see that escalating quickly. This would soon wipe out whatever bonds of comity and congeniality between liberals and conservatives remain (much weaker and fewer, in any case, than 15 years ago) and could become a veritable spiral of terrorism, perhaps escalating to conflicts between blue cities and red heartlands, involving infrastructure destruction and the like. Before Kirk’s murder, I would have thought Britain or France likely to descend into civil war before the United States. That now seems less certain.

A more optimistic path would involve sustained and effective governmental effort to break down the political and social networks which sustain left-wing violence. This would probably resemble the efforts to root out communist subversion in the 1940’s and ’50s and the later FBI attempts to infiltrate and undermine radical groups that continued through the 1960’s. The goal would be to make casual affiliation with violent progressivism personally risky and unprofitable—the kind of  choice that could cost you a comfortable career. There would be excesses and injustices in such a program—there always are—but if the alternatives are civil war or the left just winning though continued physical intimidation of conservatives, there is no better option. Presumably, this could be accomplished under political leadership that in style and substance sought to build the widest possible consensus among Americans while isolating the radicals. Eisenhower would be a good role model.

In its timing, the Kirk assassination is curiously twinned with the reporting, suppressed for weeks, of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a black maniac in Charlotte, North Carolina. The public transit killing was a plain-as-day consequence of progressive law enforcement and judicial reform doctrines, pushed relentlessly by major left-wing foundations. The two murders seem to reinforce one another as evidence of current left-wing ideology in action. Add to them the widespread celebration of the murderer Luigi Mangione, and it seems hard to deny that a cult of violence is metastasizing in the contemporary American left.

Perhaps it won’t be broken at all, perhaps there will be neither a violent counter-reaction, nor political efforts to legally root it out. Perhaps we won’t even see a meaningful reduction in violence-encouraging rhetoric from major Democratic politicians (most of whom have condemned the Kirk murder) and media institutions. We may then have before us not a pivot point but more of the same, a slowly escalating accommodation to violence from the left, the acceptance that it is just normal that conservatives be barred from speaking on campus. That too is possible. And probably the worst result of all.

This article was originally published on The American Conservative.

The post Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Could Change Everything appeared first on LewRockwell.

On August 22, 2025, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian, was murdered on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, after finishing a shift at a local pizzeria. She had fled her homeland in the hope of a brighter future in a supposedly safer country. A chilling surveillance video captures the moment she was stabbed from behind—three savage thrusts to her neck as she quietly scrolled her phone—before she collapsed in shock and bled out on the train floor. No one stepped forward to help until it was much too late. Within minutes, the attacker, Decarlos Brown Jr., exited the train, walking away with a bloody knife.

Brown, a career criminal with 14 prior arrests, including armed robbery and domestic violence, was a clear danger. He suffered from paranoid delusions about “foreign materials” in his brain and called 911 repeatedly in psychotic distress. Yet, in January, Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes released him on nothing more than a written promise to appear. He was released without bail, with no confinement, and no treatment. That decision sealed Iryna’s fate.

Her murder was horrific in itself, but the greater scandal is that mainstream America barely noticed. The silence was deafening. By contrast, her workplace, Zeppedies Pizzeria, responded with dignity: keeping her memory alive with a lit candle, a quiet symbol of her warmth and kindness. In a society that has largely abandoned truth, it was ordinary people, not elites, who bore witness to her worth.

And now, as I was working on this piece about Iryna, news broke of Charlie Kirk’s death. I began following the developments in shock, and I could not help but widen this reflection into a global theme—two tragic losses bound together: the slaughter of a young Ukrainian refugee who came seeking peace; and the assassination of a Christian conservative voice and defender of free speech in America, a husband and father now torn from his family.

A video posted on  shows the shooting occurring moments after Kirk had been asked a question from the audience: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters in the past ten years?” to which he replied, “Too many.” The questioner pressed, “Five. Now five is a lot; I’ll give you credit. Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last ten years?” Kirk responded, “Counting or not counting gang violence?” And then—in a grim twist of fate, he was shot viciously in the neck. The irony is inescapable. Only days earlier, I had written on the disturbing links between transgender ideology, violence, and murder in an article titled “Gender Ideology and Violence: Cultural Confusion and the Spiritual Battle.” Kirk’s death, unfolding in that very context, makes the point in blood.

These are not isolated sorrows but twin revelations of a world increasingly gripped by darkness.

Silence and Selective Empathy

Consider the hypocrisy. When George Floyd died in 2020, the world was engulfed in turmoil; he had a long criminal record, resisted arrest, and succumbed to drug toxicity. Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and other Democratic leaders knelt in kente stoles for eight minutes and 46 seconds in what looked like a disturbing ritual broadcast live across the nation (the same people, some of whom identify as Catholic, wouldn’t kneel eight seconds for Christ).

Unsurprisingly, in his predictable display of hollow, sycophantic, social-justice-supporting behavior, Justin Trudeau knelt near Parliament in Ottawa, masked during Covid, while ordinary Canadians were fined for walking their dogs or letting their children play basketball. At the very same time, destructive and violent groups like Antifa and BLM were given free rein to riot in the streets, shielded by political approval. The irony and double standard are inescapable.

Now consider Iryna: a refugee who fled bombs for safety, stabbed to death in public while passengers filmed her collapse. No hashtags. No vigils. There was no unending coverage. There was just pure, deafening silence. That is not compassion; it is political idolatry. Even Wikipedia became a battleground, with editors trying to delete her page for “lack of notability,” removing the killer’s name and race, and debating whether to call it a “murder” at all—an attempt to sanitize her death into oblivion.

One impassioned voice, an acquaintance of mine on Facebook, a black Christian commentator who clearly recognizes the dignity of every human life, unlike our political class, put it plainly:

If a Black woman had been stabbed by a white man, and the bystanders had all been white, it would be headline news everywhere. But because it happened the other way, the coverage is quieter. Regardless of race—how could a metro car full of people stand by while a woman bled to death? 

That silence, he argued, “speaks loudly.”

Kirk had already warned of the media’s silence, asking: “Why won’t they say Iryna Zarutska’s name?” Now, in a tragic irony, his own voice is gone. Though details remain sparse, the reality is clear: a Christian leader and defender of free speech has been struck down. Yet while his body has fallen, the truth he proclaimed cannot be buried. President Donald Trump confirmed the worst: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead…Charlie, we love you!”

Read the Whole Article

The post Witnesses of a Captive West: Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk appeared first on LewRockwell.

Author’s Introduction

While the joint inquiry (under the helm of Bob Graham and Porter Goss) had collected mountains of intelligence material, through careful omission the numerous press and intelligence reports in the public domain (mainstream media, alternative media, etc.), which confirm that key members of the Bush Administration were involved in acts of political camouflage were carefully removed from the joint inquiry’s hearings.

Porter Goss and Bob Graham were in Islamabad in late August 2001.

Senator Bob Graham, Representative Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl were received in Islamabad by President Musharraf together with members of Pakistan’s military and Intelligence brass including the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad.

Smoking Gun

Also present at this meeting in the President’s office was Afghanistan Ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who had conversations with the Congressional delegation including Bob Graham and Porter Goss. At this meeting, the Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Pakistan confirmed that:

“the Taliban [Government] would never allow bin Laden to use Afghanistan to launch attacks on the US or any other country” (AFP).

As we recall, Afghanistan was identified as a “state sponsor of terror.” The 9/11 attacks were categorized as an act of war, an attack on America by an unnamed foreign power.

On September 12, 2001, less than 24 hours after the attacks, at a meeting of the Atlantic Council in Brussels, NATO invoked for the first time in its history “Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – its collective defence clause” declaring the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon “to be an attack against all NATO members.”

What this decision implied is that the US and its NATO allies accused Afghanistan on orders of the Taliban government of supporting Osama Bin Laden and attacking America.

To my knowledge, the conversation of Porter Goss and Bob Graham with the Ambassador of Afghanistan during their visit to Islamabad was not mentioned at the meeting of the Atlantic Council, nor was it recorded by the 9/11 Inquiry Commission.

Also of significance, in the wake of 9/11, the Afghan government on two occasions had communicated through diplomatic channels with Washington indicating that they were open to delivering Osama bin Laden to US Justice, if there were preliminary evidence of his involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

These offers were casually turned down by the Bush Administration.

The following text published by Global Research in 2002 provides details on the breakfast meeting hosted by Sen. Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss on the morning of September 11, 2001 as well as their trip to Pakistan in late August.

—Michel Chossudovsky, September 4, 2025

Mysterious September 11, 2001 Breakfast Meeting on Capitol Hill

by Michel Chossudovsky, August 1, 2002

Was it an ‘intelligence failure’ to give red carpet treatment to the [alleged] ‘money man’ behind the 9-11 terrorists, or was it simply ‘routine’?

On the morning of September 11, Pakistan’s Chief Spy General Mahmoud Ahmad, the alleged “money-man” behind the 9-11 hijackers, was at a breakfast meeting on Capitol Hill hosted by Senator Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, the chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence committees:

“When the news [of the attacks on the World Trade Center] came, the two Florida lawmakers who lead the House and Senate intelligence committees were having breakfast with the head of the Pakistani intelligence service. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Sanibel, Sen. Bob Graham and other members of the House Intelligence Committee were talking about terrorism issues with the Pakistani official when a member of Goss’ staff handed a note to Goss, who handed it to Graham. “We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan,” Graham said.

(…)

Mahmoud Ahmad, director general of Pakistan’s intelligence service, was “very empathetic, sympathetic to the people of the United States,” Graham said. (NYT)

***

In late August 2001, barely a couple of weeks before 9/11, Senator Bob Graham, Representative Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl were in Islamabad for consultations. Meetings were held with President Musharraf and with Pakistan’s military and intelligence brass including the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad. An AFP report confirms that the US Congressional delegation also met the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef. At this meeting, which was barely mentioned by the US media,

“Zaeef assured the US delegation [on behalf of the Afghan government] that the Taliban would never allow bin Laden to use Afghanistan to launch attacks on the US or any other country.” (AFP, August 28, 2001)

Note the sequencing of these meetings. Bob Graham and Porter Goss were in Islamabad in late August 2001.

• The meetings with President Musharraf and the Afghan Ambassador were on the 27th of August 2001.
• The mission was still in Islamabad on the 30th of August.
• General Mahmoud Ahmad arrived in Washington on an official visit of consultations barely a few days later (September 4th).
• During his visit to Washington, General Mahmoud met his counterpart CIA director George Tenet and high ranking officials of the Bush administration.[2]
• 9/11 “Follow-up Meeting” on Capitol Hill

On the morning of September 11, the three lawmakers Bob Graham, Porter Goss and Jon Kyl (who were part of the Congressional delegation to Pakistan) were having breakfast on Capitol Hill with General Ahmad, the alleged “money-man” behind the 9-11 hijackers. Also present at this meeting were Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi and several members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees were also present.

This meeting was described by one press report as a “follow-up meeting” to that held in Pakistan in late August. “On 8/30, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) “‘was on a mission to learn more about terrorism.’ (…) On 9/11, Graham was back in DC ‘in a follow-up meeting with’ Pakistan intelligence agency chief Mahmud Ahmed and House Intelligence Committee chair Porter Goss (R-FL)”[3] (The Hotline, 1 October 2002):

“When the news [of the attacks on the World Trade Center] came, the two Florida lawmakers who lead the House and Senate intelligence committees were having breakfast with the head of the Pakistani intelligence service. Rep. Porter Goss, R-Sanibel, Sen. Bob Graham and other members of the House Intelligence Committee were talking about terrorism issues with the Pakistani official when a member of Goss’ staff handed a note to Goss, who handed it to Graham. “We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan,” Graham said.

(…)

Mahmood Ahmed, director general of Pakistan’s intelligence service, was “very empathetic, sympathetic to the people of the United States,” Graham said.

Goss could not be reached Tuesday [September 11]. He was whisked away with much of the House leadership to an undisclosed “secure location.” Graham, meanwhile, participated in late-afternoon briefings with top officials from the CIA and FBI.”[4]

While trivializing the importance of the 9/11 breakfast meeting, The Miami Herald (16 September 2001) confirms that General Ahmad also met Secretary of State Colin Powell in the wake of the 9/11 attacks:

“Graham said the Pakistani intelligence official with whom he met, a top general in the government, was forced to stay all week in Washington because of the shutdown of air traffic ‘He was marooned here, and I think that gave Secretary of State Powell and others in the administration a chance to really talk with him’. Graham said.”[5]

Again the political significance of the personal relationship between General Mahmoud (the alleged “money man” behind 9/11) and Secretary of State Colin Powell is casually dismissed. According to The Miami Herald, the high level meeting between the two men was not planned in advance. It took place on the spur of the moment because of the shut down of air traffic, which prevented General Mahmoud from flying back home to Islamabad on a commercial flight, when in all probability the General and his delegation were traveling on a chartered government plane. With the exception of the Florida press (and Salon.com, 14 September, 2001), not a word was mentioned in the US media’s September coverage of 9-11 concerning this mysterious breakfast reunion.

“A Cloak but No Dagger”

Eight months later on the 18th of May 2002, two days after the “BUSH KNEW” headline hit the tabloids, the Washington Post published an article on Porter Goss, entitled: “A Cloak But No Dagger; An Ex-Spy Says He Seeks Solutions, Not Scapegoats for 9/11.”

Focusing on his career as a CIA agent, the article largely served to underscore the integrity and commitment of Porter Goss to waging a “war on terrorism.” Yet in an isolated paragraph, the article acknowledges the mysterious 9/11 breakfast meeting with ISI Chief Mahmoud Ahmad, while also confirming that “Ahmad ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban”:

“Now the main question facing Goss, as he helps steer a joint House-Senate investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks, is why nobody in the far-flung intelligence bureaucracy — 13 agencies spending billions of dollars — paid attention to the enemy among us. Until it was too late.”

Goss says he is looking for solutions, not scapegoats. “A lot of nonsense,” he calls this week’s uproar about a CIA briefing that alerted President Bush, five weeks before Sept. 11, that Osama bin Laden’s associates might be planning airline hijackings.

“None of this is news, but it’s all part of the finger-pointing,” Goss declared yesterday in a rare display of pique. “It’s foolishness.” [This statement comes from the man who was having breakfast with the alleged “money-man” behind 9-11 on the morning of September 11]

(…) Goss has repeatedly refused to blame an “intelligence failure” for the terror attacks. As a 10-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine operations wing, Goss prefers to praise the agency’s “fine work.”

(…)

On the morning of Sept. 11, Goss and Graham were having breakfast with a Pakistani general named Mahmud Ahmed — the soon-to-be-sacked head of Pakistan’s intelligence service. Ahmed ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.[6] (Washington Post, 18 May 2002)

“Putting Two and Two together”

While the Washington Post scores in on the “notoriously close” links between General Ahmad and Osama bin Laden, it fails to dwell on the more important question: what were Rep. Porter Goss and Senator Bob Graham and other members of the Senate and House intelligence committees doing together with the alleged 9/11 “money-man” at breakfast on the morning of 9/11? In other words, the Washington Post report does not go one inch further in begging the real question: Was this mysterious breakfast venue a “political lapse”, an intelligence failure or something far more serious? How come the very same individuals (Goss and Graham) who had developed a personal rapport with General Ahmad, had been entrusted under the joint committee inquiry “to reveal the truth on 9-11”?

The media trivialises the breakfast meeting, it presents it as a simple fait divers and fails to “put two and two together.” Neither does it acknowledge the fact, amply documented, that “the money-man” behind the hijackers had been entrusted by the Pakistani government to discuss the precise terms of Pakistan’s “collaboration” in the “war on terrorism” in meetings held behind closed doors at the State department on the 12th and 13th of September.[7](See Michel Chossudovsky, op cit)

Smoking Gun

When the “foreknowledge” issue hit the street on May 16th 2002, “Chairman Porter Goss said an existing congressional inquiry has so far found ‘no smoking gun’ that would warrant another inquiry.”[8] This statement points to an obvious “cover-up.” The smoking gun was right there sitting in the plush surroundings of the Congressional breakfast venue on Capitol Hill on the morning of September 11.

Notes

1. Agence France Presse (AFP), 28 August 2001.

2. Michel Chossudovsky, Political Deception, The Missing Link behind 9/11, Global Outlook, No. 2, 2002, See also . http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO206A.html; See also Michel Chossudovsky, Cover-up or Complicity of the Bush Administration? The Role of Pakistan’s Military Intelligence (ISI) in the September 11 Attacks, November 2001, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html

3. The Hotline, 1 October 2002.

4. Stuart News Company Press Journal, Vero Beach, FL, 12 September 2001.

5. Miami Herald, 16 September 2001.

6. Washington Post, 18 May 2002.

7. Michel Chossudovsky, op. cit.

8. White House Bulletin, 17 May 2002.

[This article was first published by Global Research in 2002. You can read it here.]

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Defenders of the Civil Rights Act are always at great pains to portray themselves as eminently reasonable, when they argue that the nondiscrimination principle reflects the best of intentions to create a fairer world. Civil rights law indeed seems, on the face of it, to stand for nothing more than giving everyone a fair chance to participate in education or employment. What could be wrong with allowing black students to attend schools that were previously restricted to whites only, or preventing employers from firing anyone based entirely on the color of his skin? Are these not supposed to be basic liberal ideals on which we all agree? On that basis, champions of the civil rights cause levelled accusations against Charlie Kirk, described by the New York Times as a “leading voice among a cohort of young conservative activists who emerged during the Trump era,” for being an “extremist,” because he had the temerity to criticize both Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights Act. Mr. Kirk said:

“I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I’ve thought about it,” Kirk said at America Fest. “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”

The implication, in referring to this view as “extreme,” is that it falls outside the range of political views found among reasonable people – that it is so beyond the pale, that the bona fides of anyone expressing such views must be seriously questioned. As the boundaries of acceptable political opinion grow increasingly tight, the view now seems to be widespread that surely everyone admires Martin Luther King Jr and his civil rights movement – everyone except “extremists.”

The first response to those who think criticizing civil rights legislation is “extremist” is to point out that in fact we do not “all agree” on egalitarian ideals, the centrality of identity politics in the project of constructing a “good democracy,” the quasi-religious belief that America is irredeemably racist, or any version of the progressive worldview. It is not “extremist” to disagree with progressives, who have established themselves as the gold standard of opinion and now regard all their ideological opponents as renegades.

Most political debates are attempts to address precisely these types of questions – how society should be ordered, what values should be safeguarded, and the appropriate role of the state. Different political parties express their views on the principles that should govern society, and participants in public debate may favor any of the contested perspectives. To suppose that conservatives and progressives “agree” on the egalitarian worldview, or that they share common views on the role of legislation in social engineering and race-craft, is to foreclose public debate, and ultimately to render political freedom nugatory. What would be the point of having different political parties if they already all agreed on what the government should be doing? Free societies have more than one political party precisely because we do not, in fact, all agree on these issues.

One might perhaps argue that today, in the age of the uniparty, there are some core issues on which both major parties do in fact agree. The civil rights regime is often depicted as one such issue, as many in the Republican Party join their Democratic counterparts in agreeing that diversity, equity, and inclusiveness schemes are a great idea as long as they are implemented “properly” and used to complement rather than undermine merit. Or so they claim. However, to understand the superficial and precarious nature of this apparent consensus on civil rights, we must examine the political context in which the Civil Rights Act arose.

In the 1960s, as today, there was little clarity on what exactly the law was intended to achieve. To the extent that there was any consensus, it was on the idea that Jim Crow laws were abhorrent and should be repealed. Put that way, it indeed seems to be a principle with which most people would agree. But, as Christopher Caldwell shows in his book “Age of Entitlement,” the law was never intended merely to repeal Jim Crow. Hot off the press, it rapidly became established as a blueprint for the progressive vision of the ideal society – in essence, a new Constitution. David Gordon highlights this point in his review, addressing Caldwell’s argument that the Civil Rights Act functions in reality as a de facto constitution; it is “a rival constitution, with which the original one was frequently incompatible—and the incompatibility would worsen as the civil rights regime was built out.” As observed by Helen Andrews in her review, Caldwell argued that the Civil Rights Act not only functions as a rival constitution, but one which has an almost revered status:

One of the most astute observers of contemporary politics, Caldwell argues that the United States now has two constitutions. The first is the one on the books. The second arose in the 1960s and replaced the old liberties with new, incompatible ones based on group identities. “Much of what we have called ‘polarization’ or ‘incivility’ in recent years is something more grave,” he writes. “[I]t is the disagreement over which of the two constitutions shall prevail.” More bracing still, he puts the blame for this crisis on the most sacred totem in American politics: our civil rights legislation.

That polarization and incivility has now resulted in a situation where some people consider it reasonable to respond with violence to anyone adjudged by themselves to have uttered “hateful words.” As observed in the New York Times tribute to Charlie Kirk, this type of violence in political dispute is a world of horrors for everyone, regardless of their political opinions:

… there is no world in which political violence escalates but is contained to just your foes. Even if that were possible, it would still be a world of horrors, a society that had collapsed into the most irreversible form of unfreedom … it is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended with bullets.

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Russia was blamed in a damning outcry, yet the circumstances incriminate NATO’s Ukrainian client.

This week saw two false-flag provocations back-to-back, orchestrated by the NATO-sponsored Kiev regime. Tellingly, before any considered response was given by Russia or independent observers, European politicians were shutting down open discussion, warning about expected Russian lies and disinformation.

In other words, no critical examination of the incidents is permitted. These were “barbaric” and “reckless attacks” by Russia… take our [NATO] word for it, and if you don’t, then you are a Russian stooge.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski hammed it up in a video statement, denouncing Russian aggression, and dogmatically telling everyone to trust only NATO government information. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was competing in hysteria, claiming Europe was closer to all-out conflict than at any time since World War II. This points to how the European information space has become totally dominated by war propaganda in a way that George Orwell or Josef Goebbels would marvel at.

So, what happened this week?

Poland is claiming that Russia deliberately targeted its sovereign territory with 19 drones. European NATO allies are subsequently scrambling to deploy warplanes and air defenses to “protect Poland”. September is the month that Nazi Germany attacked Poland 86 years ago, kicking off World War II. That bit of timing perhaps lends a nostalgic flourish to the present events, as Tusk seemed to be implying with his melodramatic words.

The day before the much-hyped “drone invasion,” on September 9, the Kiev regime claimed Russia dropped one of its heavy FAB-500 aerial bombs on a village, killing 24 people who were collecting their pensions.

In both incidents, however, the evidence points to false-flag provocations for those who care to calmly examine the facts.

The alleged massacre in the village of Yarovaya in Ukrainian-held Donetsk oblast was not caused by a Russian FAB-500 bomb. The Kiev regime’s videos purporting to show the aftermath indicated a shallow impact crater and limited damage to nearby buildings. The explosion could not have been caused by a 250-kg Russian aerial bomb; otherwise, the entire area would have been devastated around a huge crater. The Russian MoD also said its forces were not operating in the vicinity on that date.

The rapid posting of the videos by the Kiev regime and the evidently scripted claims alleging a Russian massacre, together with the unquestioning amplification of those unverified claims by the Western media, strongly point to an orchestrated narrative.

The grave implication is that the NATO-backed regime detonated an explosive, deliberately killing civilians as a way to incriminate Russia.

Such heinous conduct by this regime has numerous precedents. There have been many incidents over the past three years when the Ukrainian forces shelled their own territory, endangering civilian lives for propaganda scores against Russia, as a way to drum up more military and financial support from the Western sponsors. Two examples: the atrocity carried out in the village of Hroza on October 5, 2023, when 52 people were killed. It coincided with Kiev’s puppet leader, Vladimir Zelensky, pitching an appeal at an EU summit in Granada, Spain, for more aid.

The month before, on September 6, 2023, in the town of Konstantinovka in Ukrainian territory, an air strike killed 17 people. That coincided with former Secretary of State Antony Blinken visiting Kiev to announce $1 billion in additional U.S. aid.

In both incidents, Russia was blamed in a damning outcry, yet the circumstances incriminate NATO’s Ukrainian client. The atrocity this week involving the murder of the pensioners falls into the same despicable category.

The Kiev regime is a false-flag merchant of death. The notorious executions carried out in Bucha in March-April 2022 were another classic, vile stunt. We covered that in detail in a previous editorial, whereby Ukrainian civilians were murdered in cold blood by Kiev agents to disgrace Russia. To an extent, the stunt worked because Western media and politicians continue to accuse Russia of responsibility in complete disregard of the evidence. The Bucha false flag is relevant because it came at a crucial time when Russia had proposed a peace deal to end the conflict in Ukraine at an early stage. After the “massacre,” the NATO proxy war surged, and a peaceful settlement was scuppered.

This brings us to the present open season for false flags. One way to discern a provocation is to observe the reactions and how the incident is used to serve motives and demands.

First of all, the concerted and theatrical reactions of the Kiev regime and its European NATO backers were primed and ready to go, as if scripted.

In the alleged targeting of Poland, the drones were of Russian design. They were unarmed, surveillance, or decoy-type Gerbera models. Russia claims that the 700-kilometer range means they couldn’t have been launched from Russian-held territory. They could have been launched by Ukraine after it replicated the drones, an easy enough task. But here is the key. Some 19 unarmed drones were quickly intercepted in Polish airspace by multiple high-powered NATO weapons: Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS surveillance aircraft, NATO tanker re-fueling aircraft, and German Patriot missile systems. That speaks of a prepared full-scale mobilization to maximize the allegations of Russian violation. The image of a sledgehammer to crack a nut comes to mind.

Moscow has offered to hold discussions with Warsaw to figure out how ostensibly Russian-made drones entered Polish airspace, but the offer has been rebuffed. Poland has refused any reasonable discussion to establish the facts. Instead, it has invoked NATO’s Article IV for emergency security consultations with other members. The over-reaction smacks of drama to seemingly validate flaky claims of deliberate targeting.

The French, German, and British leaders have all clambered on board the wagon of condemning Russia for reckless violation without a shred of evidence. Note how they are all careful not to accuse Russia of “attack” but rather “violation”. That suggests they want a calibrated escalation but not all-out war, cowards that they are.

France’s Emmanuel Macron announced he was sending three Rafale fighter jets “to protect Polish airspace”. The Germans and the British are likewise charging to declare their support to defend Poland. It’s a charade of chivalry by a gang of clowns.

This is sheer theatrics of absurdity. Accusing Russia of planning to conquer Europe has been the worn-out propaganda narrative for the past nearly four years since NATO’s proxy war erupted in Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly said it has no intention of starting World War III, and that its sole purpose in Ukraine is to stop historic NATO aggression encroaching on its borders.

The euro elites are facing mounting political crises in their own states, largely incurred by the vast, wasteful spending on the failed proxy war in Ukraine. France, for one, is exploding with social tensions as nationwide street protests showed this week amid the sacking of a fourth prime minister in two years. Germany and Britain are not far behind in the meltdown stakes.

No doubt, the Euro elites and their Kiev puppet regime are desperate to divert public attention from the corruption and criminal machinations in Ukraine. U.S. President Donald Trump’s diplomatic effort to end the war, for all its shortcomings, is an unwelcome development for the European leaders because it exposes their pathetic position. Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski, while condemning Russia for “deliberately targeting” Poland, made a sneaky point by saying that Moscow was also “making a mockery of Trump’s peace efforts”. Sikorski and the European NATO cabal are trying to incite Trump to ramp up military aid to Ukraine and impose more sanctions on Russia as a way to sabotage any diplomacy. Desperation begets desperate measures, even if innocent civilians are murdered and world peace is put at risk.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

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In February 2025 the U.S. started talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine. The Europeans were against such talks. They were still dreaming of winning the lost war – of keeping control over Ukraine by providing it with security guarantees.

The Trump administration gave them a lecture in form of a catalog of questions. As I summarized the issue at that time:

The U.S. has recognized that there aren’t enough troops, money or will to achieve a better negotiation position for what’s left of Ukraine. The European ‘elite’ still fails to get that.
…
There are still dreams of ‘security guarantees’ which would be given to Ukraine after it files for peace or surrenders.

No such guarantees would make any sense. When peace is achieved there will be only one manner that can prevent a new outbreak of war: good behavior towards Russians and Russia by what will be left of Ukraine.
…
The U.S. negotiation team handed the Europeans a list of questions that will hopefully help them to come to grips with that ..
…
Here are the questions with answers by me in Italic:

1) What do you view as a Europe-backed security guarantee or assurance that would serve as a sufficient deterrent to Russia while also ensuring this conflict ends with an enduring peace settlement?

There is no Europe-backed guarantee possible that would be a ‘sufficient deterrent’.

2) Which European and/or third countries do you believe could or would participate in such an arrangement?

Each could provide a few dozen soldiers (plus rotations). None has the size of forces and/or stamina to really commit to the mission.

Are there any countries you believe would be indispensable?

The U.S. – if it would give nuclear guarantees to prevent the eventual annihilation of any ‘security guarantee’ force.

Would your country be willing to deploy its troops to Ukraine as part of a peace settlement?

No!

3) If third country military forces were to be deployed to Ukraine as part of a peace arrangement, what would you consider to be the necessary size of such a European-led force?

…

The purpose and point of the six questions the U.S. gave to the Europeans was to induce some realist thinking:

Applying such one will come to the conclusion that nothing but a long term peace agreement, which does not necessitate ‘guarantees’, makes any sense.

But they still did not get it.

It took the Europeans seven month of highly publicized discussion to finally acknowledge that there was no way for them to provide Ukraine with ‘security guarantees’. The only realistic variant they could think of was to threaten Russia with a nuclear war which they can’t but did wanted the U.S. to do. The U.S. wont do that. Neither Trump nor any other U.S. president will agree to risk New York over Kiev.

But the Europeans still do not want to make peace. Their new idea was to push the U.S. to put more sanctions on Russia:

The European Union is sending a delegation to Washington to ready new joint sanctions against Russia, European Council President António Costa said Friday.

“We are working with the United States and other like-minded partners to increase our pressure through further direct and secondary sanctions,” Costa said at a press conference in the western Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod, following a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Costa added “a European team is traveling to Washington, D.C. to work with our American friends” but did not reveal who would take part in the delegation.

The Trump administration is now copying the February idea of the catalog of question about security guarantees.

Trump is telling the Europeans “you jump first”:

Donald J. Trump – @realDonaldTrump – Sep 12, 2025, 23:15 UTC

A LETTER SENT BY PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP TO ALL NATO NATIONS AND, THE WORLD: “I am ready to do major Sanctions on Russia when all NATO Nations have agreed, and started, to do the same thing, and when all NATO Nations STOP BUYING OIL FROM RUSSIA. As you know, NATO’S commitment to WIN has been far less than 100%, and the purchase of Russian Oil, by some, has been shocking! It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia. Anyway, I am ready to “go” when you are. Just say when? I believe that this, plus NATO, as a group, placing 50% to 100% TARIFFS ON CHINA, to be fully withdrawn after the WAR with Russia and Ukraine is ended, will also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR. China has a strong control, and even grip, over Russia, and these powerful Tariffs will break that grip. This is not TRUMP’S WAR (it would never have started if I was President!), it is Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s WAR. I am only here to help stop it, and save thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives (7,118 lives lost last week, alone. CRAZY!). If NATO does as I say, the WAR will end quickly, and all of those lives will be saved! If not, you are just wasting my time, and the time, energy, and money of the United States. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”

Like with the catalog of questions about security guarantees Trump is trying to induce some realist thinking into the boneheaded European ‘elite’.

Nearly every country in Europe is still consuming Russian oil. It is either bought directly from Russia or through Turkey or India. Europe can not put high tariffs on China or India. The responses from those countries would be devastating for Europe’s economies.

There is no way to sanction Russia, directly or indirectly, into ending the war.

Trump knows this. It is why he is calling the Europeans bluff.

We can only hope that they will learn from it …

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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Charlie Kirk was not killed by a kook in the audience .  It was an organized assassination.  The rifleman was on a roof, which indicates planning and forethought. The rifleman was an expert.  One shot did the job.  The rifleman disappeared, which indicates planning. Kirk’s murder has the mark of a professional planned assassination.

Why was Charlie Kirk assassinated?  Because he was a leader beyond the control of the ruling establishment?  The ruling establishment has never tolerated leaders who are not their pawns.  Think Martin Luther King.  He was a rising leader of black Americans, and some white Americans were beginning to see some merit in the man. Like all humans, King had his faults, but he spoke reconciliation not only between black and white Americans  but also between the US and the world. The establishment eliminated the leadership threat.  Think of the eight-year effort to politically assassinate Donald Trump:  Russiagate, documents gate, insurrection gate, four criminal indictments, civil suits to confiscate his assets, constant media hostility.  

Kirk is credited with leading American youth back to God and family values, away from drugs, video game violence, and pornography.  He thus threatened important commercial profits.  If Andrew Anglin is correct, Kirk’s downside is that he was a shill for Israel. See this.

Kirk was a possible future president who could have sufficient public support to dismantle the  American Ruling Class.  This could be the reason Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

Trump’s supporters should make some effort to comprehend the enormous challenge Trump faces.  If they keep showing their unhappiness with him, the Ruling Establishment will decide the time is right for a third assassination attempt. 

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With the murder of 31-year-old noted conservative advocate Charlie Kirk, it’s worth asking an important question: Is America great again yet?

My answer: Far from it. In my book, Kirk’s killing demonstrates that America is still a very sick, dysfunctional nation. Not only are there periodic killings like this one, there are also mass killings. Just recently, there was the killing of those children at a Catholic school in Minneapolis. There was also the recent killing of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, a refugee from Ukraine who was killed by man who seemingly had no apparent motive to kill her.

And let’s not forget that we still live in a massive drug-addled society, one in which millions of Americans are ingesting drugs because, U.S. officials say, they are being “attacked” by international drug dealers who, I guess, are somehow forcing them to ingest the drugs against their will. The fact that President Trump and his militarized drug warriors are still fiercely waging the decades-old, ongoing, never-ending, perpetual war on drugs — and are now knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately killing people who they suspect of violating U.S. drugs laws, with the aim of preventing millions of Americans from ingesting drugs — is, it seems to me, proof positive that America is not yet great again.

Let’s also not forget the soaring suicide rate among young people. When people who are just starting out in life are checking out early, that, to me, is a surefire sign that not only is America not great again yet but, in fact, is still a very sick society. Add to that suicide phenomenon the soaring suicide rate among veterans, including those who have supposedly protected our “freedoms” by killing millions of people in foreign countries.

And therein, I contend, lies a big problem — the fact the U.S. government — our government — is one of the biggest killing machines in history. But the fact that the millions of people it has killed are foreigners makes the killings, in the eyes of U.S. officials and many Americans, no big deal. After all, don’t forget: Those millions of dead people are not Americans. They are just foreigners.

Here is my contention, one that I have regularly made over the years, especially in the context of one of America’s periodic mass killings:

In every society, there are what I call “off-kilter” people. In normal times and in a healthy society, those off-kilter people don’t harm anyone. We all can tell that they are off-kilter but people feel sympathy for them, not fear.

For all of our lives, the mindset has been that so long as the U.S. killing machine is killing people “over there” (i.e., in foreign lands), Americans need not concern themselves, especially if a large number of U.S. troops aren’t being killed in the process. The notion has been that the mass killings in foreign lands would have no effect on American life at home. Americans could go on with their work, vacations, and hobbies and just block out of their minds, their consciousnesses, and their consciences what the Pentagon and the CIA were doing to people “over there” with their invasions, coups, assassinations, provocations, foreign aid, undeclared wars, and wars of aggression.

I contend that that was never going to happen. I hold that, like it or not, the mass killing “over there” at the hands of the U.S. national-security state was inevitably going to seep into society here at home. It is those mass killings, I contend, that have triggered something in the off-kilter people that causes them either to retaliate in a perverted way here at home for what the U.S. government has done (and continues to do) to people “over there,” or to engage in some sort of warped copycat killing here at home, or both.

Most everyone is expressing tremendous shock and grief over the killing of Charlie Kirk — and, of course, rightly so. But consider, on the other hand, the U.S. government’s killing of those 11 Venezuelan citizens in that boat in international waters a few days ago. Where is the grief over those deaths? It is virtually non-existent. Indeed, many right-wingers are exultant over those deaths and want the U.S. military to do it much more of the same. They exclaim, “Death to more suspected Venezuelan drug dealers!” It’s considered to be no big deal. After all, it’s not like they are Americans. They’re just foreigners.

But it is a big deal. Every one of those dead Venezuelans was innocent — that is, if one accepts the traditional American jurisprudential principle of innocent until proven guilty in a court of law with competent and relevant evidence. Those dead people were never convicted of anything. Under the law, they are as innocent as you and I. I don’t care if the president or vice-president of the United States or any other federal official are accusing them of pushing drugs. Their accusations constitute nothing. After all, let’s not forget that there are plenty of people who the feds accuse of crimes who are later found not guilty by a jury.

Moreover, even if those 11 dead people were carrying drugs, that doesn’t mean they deserved to be killed. It’s just a drug offense, one that wouldn’t even have entailed the death penalty if they had been tried and convicted in a court of law. Indeed, contrary to what U.S. officials claim, international drug dealers don’t “attack” Americans by forcing them to snort cocaine or inject heroin. Instead, they sell their drugs to drug-addled Americans who are eager to buy the drugs as part of living in a very sick and dysfunctional society.

The biggest factor in all this is that those dead Venezuelans are not Americans. They are foreigners. That means they just don’t count. Why should we feel sorry for them? They are no different from the millions of Iraqis, Afghans, Iranians, Vietnamese, Koreans, Chileans, Cubans, and other “gooks” who the U.S. killing machine has killed, either directly or indirectly, over the decades. Why should we feel bad about their widows and children? Those dead people weren’t entitled to be arrested, prosecuted, and tried in a court of law, no matter what the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states. After all, they weren’t Americans. They deserved to be killed, just like the other millions of foreigners that the Pentagon and the CIA have killed during our lifetimes. Indeed, notice what U.S. officials declared immediately after those extra-judicial killings near Venezuela — they wanted to assure the American people that no American soldiers had lost their lives while killing those Venezuelans. That’s all that matters. Americans need not concern themselves. They can just return to their ordinary lives and leave the killing to their national-security-state killing machine. Except that the off-kilter people somehow fail to get the memo.

We don’t know who killed Charlie Kirk and so we obviously don’t know what the motive was. But I’m willing to bet that there is a good chance that whoever it was, he was one of those off-kilter people in American life. I suppose it is just a coincidence but it is ironic that many Americans are celebrating the deaths of those eleven innocent Venezuelans while, at the same time, mourning the death of American Charlie Kirk. Like I say, America is clearly not great again yet. It remains a very sick society.

Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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For several years I’ve been turning over in my mind an idea that initially struck me as far-fetched, but now strikes me as a distinct possibility. Could it be that people suffering from some degree of mental illness are now heavily influencing or even directing cultural, political, and economic affairs? To put it more bluntly, are we now being constantly buffeted and even, in some jurisdictions, governed by lunatics?

I’d already been pondering this for some time when I stumbled across an essay that Carl Jung wrote in 1957 titled The Plight of the Individual in Modern Society. His opening reflections strike me as an apt description of the irrational and destabilizing phenomena we’ve witnessed in recent times. I have highlighted in bold the sentences that strike me as the most relevant to our situation today.

Everywhere in the West there are subversive minorities, who—sheltered by our humanitarianism and our sense of justice—hold the incendiary torches ready, with nothing to stop the spread of their ideas except the critical reason of a single, fairly intelligent, mentally stable stratum of the population. One should not, however, overestimate the thickness of this stratum. . . .

Taking plebiscites as a criterion, one could, at an optimistic estimate, put its upper limit at about 40% of the electorate. A rather more pessimistic view would not be unjustified either, since the gift of reason and critical reflection is not one of man’s outstanding peculiarities. And even where it exists, it proves to be wavering and inconstant, the more so, as a rule, the bigger the political groups are. The mass crushes out the insight and reflection that are still possible with the individual, and this necessarily leads to doctrinaire and authoritarian tyranny if ever the constitutional state should succumb to a fit of weakness.

Rational argument can be conducted with some prospect of success only so long as the emotionality of a given situation does not exceed a certain critical degree. If the affective temperature rises above this level, the possibility of reason having any effect ceases, and its place is taken by slogans and chimerical wish fantasies. That is to say, a sort of collective possession results, which rapidly develops into a psychic epidemic.

In this state, all those elements whose existence is merely tolerated as asocial under the rule of reason, come to the top. Such individuals are by no means rare curiosities to be met only in prisons and lunatic asylums. For every manifest case of insanity, there are, in my estimation, at least 10 latent cases who seldom get to the point of breaking out openly, but whose views and behavior, for all their appearance of normality, are influenced by unconsciously morbid and perverse factors.

There are, of course, no medical statistics on the frequency of latent psychosis, for understandable reasons. But even if their number should amount to less than 10 times that of manifest psychoses and of manifest criminality, the relatively small percentage of the population they represent is more than compensated for by the peculiar dangerousness of these people.

Their mental state is that of a collectively excited group ruled by affective judgments and wish fantasies. In a state of collective possession, they are the adapted ones and consequently they feel quite at home in it. They know from their own experience the language of these conditions, and they know how to handle them. Their chimerical ideas, spawned by fanatical resentment, appeal to the collective irrationality and find fruitful soil there, for they express all those motives and resentments which lurk in more normal people under the cloak of reason and insight. They are, therefore, despite their small number in comparison with the population as a whole, dangerous sources of infection, precisely because the so-called normal person possesses only a limited degree of self knowledge.

The expressions of jubilation at the coldblooded murder of Charlie Kirk while he was speaking at a college campus reveal that we are now facing a psychic epidemic in the United States along these lines.

Social media is full of posts by totally deranged people making exclamations of joy and excitement while recounting—in pornographic detail—the spectacle of a young man shot in the neck by a high-powered rifle.

There was a time not so long ago when expressing homicidal blood lust was considered the exclusive domain of psychopathic killers. Now one may peruse thousands of posts by people doing precisely this, and their posts are liked by hundreds of thousands of people in aggregate.

Given that Dr. McCullough and I have been relentlessly censored on social media for talking about early treatment of COVID-19 and vaccine safety concerns, we find the current state of affairs especially indicative that the lunatics are now running the asylum.

Especially discouraging is Jung’s observation:

Rational argument can be conducted with some prospect of success only so long as the emotionality of a given situation does not exceed a certain critical degree. If the affective temperature rises above this level, the possibility of reason having any effect ceases, and its place is taken by slogans and chimerical wish fantasies.

To me, one of the many astonishing things about Charlie Kirk is that he made a bold, valiant, and persistent effort to try to speak with young, overheated lunatics on college campuses. I would rather take my chances at bull riding or venomous snake handing than try to reason with deranged college students.

It saddens me to write this, as I spent many of my happiest years in college, graduate school, and as a research fellow at an academic institute in Vienna. However, the events of recent years have taught us the futility of trying to reason with lunatics.

Reprinted with permission from Courageous Discourse.

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Slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk had claimed he received death threats on a daily basis for speaking out on issues including Washington’s funding of the Ukraine conflict. At least one assassination threat from a Ukrainian spokesperson could have targeted him personally, he reportedly said.

In 2023, Kiev’s Center for Countering Disinformation accused Kirk of “spreading Russian propaganda.” The following year, the Ukrainian media outlet Texty.org.ua placed Kirk and TPUSA on a blacklist of 386 individuals and 76 organizations in the United States that opposed funding for Ukraine.

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, a US transgender woman and ex-head of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense’s English-language propaganda, vowed to “hunt down” those she called “Kremlin propagandists,” adding that a strike against an individual favored by Russian President Vladimir Putin was imminent.

“Are they going to murder, or try to murder Steve Bannon or Tucker Carlson, or myself?” Kirk asked in response, referencing other conservative American media personalities.

“None of us are Putin puppets or Russian propagandists, but The New York Times calls us that, Twitter calls us that,” Kirk said on his show. “And that person, who is funded by the US Treasury, says: we are gonna come murder you.”

Whether the US government was paying Ashton-Cirillo became a point of public debate in the country after her statement went viral. She was swiftly removed from the Ukrainian forces.

Kirk has remained a persistent critic of Zelensky, whom he labeled “an ungrateful, petulant child,” a “go-go dancer” undeserving of a single US tax dollar, and “a puppet of the CIA who marched his own people into a needless slaughter.”

This article was originally published on RT News.

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On September 10th, the Reuters propaganda-news agency headlined “How united is the ‘autocratic alliance’ challenging the West?” and said that “Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang are far from forming a cohesive bloc.” However, on the last day of August and the first day of September, was held in Tianzin China the 25th annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is a mutual-assistance organization whose members are Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan,, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. North Korea isn’t even included in it; so, its ideology isn’t at issue here.

Here was the 1,300-word ideological statement that was made on September 1st by the meeting’s convenor, China’s head-of-state:

——

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xw/zyjh/202509/t20250901_11699629.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20250911031329/https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xw/zyjh/202509/t20250901_11699629.html

“Pooling the Strength of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to Improve Global Governance”

1 September 2025

Statement by H.E. Xi Jinping

President of the People’s Republic of China

At the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus” Meeting

Tianjin, September 1, 2025

Distinguished Colleagues,

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory of the World Anti-Fascist War and the founding of the United Nations. It is a milestone prompting us to remember the past and create a better future together. Eighty years ago, the international community learned profound lessons from the scourge of two world wars and founded the United Nations, thus writing a new page in global governance. Eighty years later, while the historical trends of peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit remain unchanged, the Cold War mentality, hegemonism and protectionism continue to haunt the world. New threats and challenges have been only increasing. The world has found itself in a new period of turbulence and transformation. Global governance has come to a new crossroads.

History tells us that at difficult times, we must uphold our original commitment to peaceful coexistence, strengthen our confidence in win-win cooperation, advance in line with the trend of history, and thrive in keeping pace with the times.

To this end, I wish to propose the Global Governance Initiative (GGI). I look forward to working with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system and advancing toward a community with a shared future for humanity.

First, we should adhere to sovereign equality. We should maintain that all countries, regardless of size, strength and wealth, are equal participants, decision-makers and beneficiaries in global governance. We should promote greater democracy in international relations and increase the representation and voice of developing countries.

Second, we should abide by international rule of law. The purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter and other universally recognized basic norms of international relations must be observed comprehensively, fully and in their entirety. International law and rules should be applied equally and uniformly. There should be no double standards, and the house rules of a few countries must not be imposed upon others.

Third, we should practice multilateralism. We should uphold the vision of global governance featuring extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefit, strengthen solidarity and coordination, and oppose unilateralism. We should firmly safeguard the status and authority of the U.N., and ensure its irreplaceable, key role in global governance.

Fourth, we should advocate the people-centered approach. We should reform and improve the global governance system to ensure that the people of every nation are the actors in and beneficiaries of global governance, so as to better tackle the common challenges for mankind, better narrow the North-South gap, and better safeguard the common interests of all countries.

Fifth, we should focus on taking real actions. We should adopt a systematic and holistic approach, coordinate global actions, fully mobilize various resources, and strive for more visible outcomes. We should enhance practical cooperation to prevent the governance system from lagging behind or being fragmented.

Colleagues,

The founding declaration and the Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization made it clear at the outset that we should promote a more democratic, just and equitable international political and economic order. Over the past 24 years, the SCO has adhered faithfully to the Shanghai Spirit of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diversity of civilizations, and pursuit of common development. We have discussed regional affairs together, built platforms and mechanisms together, and benefited from cooperation together. We have also initiated many new global governance concepts and put them into practice. The SCO has increasingly become a catalyst for the development and reform of the global governance system.

In response to the once-in-a-century transformations unfolding faster across the world, the SCO should step up to play a leading role and set an example in carrying out the GGI.

We should contribute to safeguarding world peace and stability. With a vision for common security, SCO member states have signed the Treaty on Long-Term Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation, conducted effective security cooperation, and maintained overall stability in the region. We should continue to uphold the principles of non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party. We should combine our efforts in addressing various threats and challenges, give full play to the newly established SCO Universal Center for Countering Security Challenges and Threats and the SCO Anti-drug Center, and build a community of common security in the region. We should remain a force for stability in this volatile world.

We should step up to take the responsibility for open cooperation across the globe. SCO member states have rich energy resources, big markets and strong internal driving forces, and we are contributing a rising share to world economic growth. We should continue to dismantle walls, not erect them; we should seek integration, not decoupling. We should advance high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and push for a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization.

China will readily share the opportunities of its vast market, and continue to implement the action plan for high-quality development of economic and trade cooperation within the SCO family. China will establish three major platforms for China-SCO cooperation in energy, green industry, and the digital economy, and will set up three major cooperation centers for scientific and technological innovation, higher education, and vocational and technical education. We will work with fellow SCO countries to increase the installed capacity of photovoltaic and wind power each by 10 million kilowatts in the next five years. We are ready to build with all sides the artificial intelligence application cooperation center, and share the dividends of progress in AI. We welcome all parties to use the Beidou Satellite Navigation System and invite countries with relevant capacities to take part in the International Lunar Research Station project.

We should set an example in championing the common values of humanity. Among SCO member states, cultural exchanges are packed with highlights, people-to-people interactions are frequent and robust, and different civilizations radiate their unique splendor. We should continue to promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations, and write brilliant chapters of peace, amity and harmony among countries different in history, culture, social system and development stage.

China will host and ensure the success of the SCO Political Parties Forum, the SCO Green and Sustainable Development Forum, and the SCO Forum on Traditional Medicine. In the next five years, China will treat 500 patients with congenital heart disease, perform 5,000 cataract operations, and carry out 10,000 cancer screenings for other SCO countries.

We should act to defend international fairness and justice. In compliance with the principles of justice and fairness, SCO member states have engaged constructively in international and regional affairs, and upheld the common interests of the Global South. We should continue to unequivocally oppose hegemonism and power politics, practice true multilateralism, and stand as a pillar in promoting a multipolar world and greater democracy in international relations.

China supports the SCO in expanding cooperation with other multilateral institutions, such as the U.N., ASEAN, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, to jointly uphold the international economic and trade order and improve global and regional governance.

Colleagues,

An ancient Chinese philosopher said of the importance of principles, “Uphold the Great Principle, and the world will follow.” In two days, China will commemorate solemnly the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. Many colleagues will join us in Beijing. We are ready, together with all parties, to uphold courageously the great principle and the common good of the world, promote a correct historical perspective on World War II, resolutely safeguard the fruits of our victory in the War, and deliver more benefits to the entire humanity through the reform of the global governance system and the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

Thank you.

——

China is overwhelmingly the nation that in the U.S. is called the “top adversary” (meaning enemy-number-one), and also called “#1 adversary”. On 18 March 2024, Gallup headlined “Americans Still See China as Nation’s Top Foe, Russia Second.”

On 19 May 2024, I headlined “China & Russia (ChinUssia or RussChina) Announce Their Foreign Policy” and presented the 10-part, 8,000-word “Joint Statement between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for a New Era on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries”

That is far (more than 6 times) lengthier than Xi’s 1 September 2025 statement, and both of them are saying essentially the same thing.

What it is, is the ideology that America’s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt developed (during August 1941 through April 1945) for handling international relations in the post-WW2 world but which his immediate successor President Truman aborted and reversed so as to create an all-inclusive U.S. empire, which Truman started on 25 July 1945, when he created on that date the Cold War. Russia and China should credit FDR with having first created this foreign-affairs ideology, in order to challenge the U.S. empire to adopt it for themselves (which would mean their ending their empire; and they could then praise Gorbachev for having done something similar in 1991).

So, if that ideology (FDR’s vision) is the U.S. empire’s enemy, then what does this make of the U.S. empire itself? (Like Hitler’s, only with different top-targeted victims — other than Russia and China themselves?) Whatever it is, should end as peacefully as is possible (just as Gorbachev had set the example).

This article was originally published on Eric’s Substack.

The post Here’s the ideology of The West’s ‘Enemies’: appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump says that tariffs are good for American workers. He claims that because tariffs raise costs on products manufactured abroad, they will make it feasible for American firms to make these goods here. Economists who oppose tariffs argue that free trade is more “efficient” than protectionism, but what they ignore is that this alleged “efficiency” comes at the expense of American workers. We are Americans, and we should follow an “America First” policy. In this week’s article, I’m going to examine Trump’s case, relying on the insights of the great Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.

The key point to bear in mind in the whole tariff controversy is that trade is voluntary. People aren’t forced to trade but will do so only if they expect to benefit from the trade. This basic principle applies internationally as well as nationally: people won’t engage in trade unless they think they will get something out of it. As Rothbard says, “Before analyzing the problem of the terms of exchange, it is well to recall the reason for exchange—the fact that each individual values more highly the good he gets than the good he gives up. This fact is enough to eliminate the fallacious notion that, if Crusoe and Jackson exchange 5,000 berries for one cow, there is some sort of ‘equality of value’ between the cow and the 5,000 berries. Value exists in the valuing minds of individuals, and these individuals make the exchange precisely because for each of them there is an inequality of values between the cow and the berries. For Crusoe the cow is valued more than the 5,000 berries; for Jackson it is valued less. Otherwise, the exchange could not be made. Therefore, for each exchange there is a double inequality of values, rather than an equality, and hence there are no ‘equal values’ to be ‘measured’ in any way.”

Because tariffs interfere with voluntary trade, they distort the market and raise costs for American consumers, who must pay higher prices for what they want. They will be buying American products instead of foreign goods, but this costs them more than they would have spent without the tariffs. Rothbard explains: “Tariffs and various forms of import quotas prohibit, partially or totally, geographical competition for various products. Domestic firms are granted a quasi-monopoly and, generally, a monopoly price. Tariffs injure the consumers within the ‘protected’ area, who are prevented from purchasing from more efficient competitors at a lower price. They also injure the more efficient foreign firms and the consumers of all areas, who are deprived of the advantages of geographic specialization. In a free market, the best resources will tend to be allocated to their most value-productive locations. Blocking interregional trade will force factors to obtain lower remuneration at less efficient and less value-productive tasks.”

Trump supporters object that even if consumers pay higher prices, American producers will profit. More manufacturing jobs will come to the United States. But this objection ignores the fact that many producers lose as well. Rothbard pulverizes this notion by pointing out that while trade barriers may save jobs in protected industries, they destroy jobs elsewhere in the economy by artificially raising the price of labor, in effect punishing more efficient businesses with higher costs of labor for the sake of the favored businesses or industries. Also, higher consumer prices mean less disposable income, leading to reduced spending in other sectors. Moreover, industries that rely on imported materials face higher costs, forcing them to cut back production or lay off workers. For example, suppose a tariff on steel raises the price of steel. Companies that use steel in their products will now have higher costs. They won’t be able to hire as many workers as before and some American workers will lose jobs. Trade, by contrast, reallocates resources to their most productive uses, creating wealth and enabling job growth in competitive industries. Rothbard stresses the fact that the free market, not government intervention, is best equipped to direct labor and capital efficiently.

But, Trump supporters will say, isn’t it true that some manufacturing jobs are created by tariffs? Well, let’s see what happened during Trump’s first term. Tariffs were imposed on a range of goods, from Chinese electronics to Canadian steel, under the banner of “America First.” The consequences were predictable: higher prices for consumers, disruptions to global supply chains, retaliatory tariffs from trading partners, and a bailout for negatively affected but politically important constituencies. While these policies were marketed as a way to revitalize American manufacturing, they often had the opposite effect. Many businesses faced increased costs, forcing them to scale back operations or relocate production overseas. Meanwhile, consumers bore the brunt of higher prices, effectively paying a hidden tax to fund protectionist policies—to say nothing of taxpayers,

It is true that some new jobs were created, but these jobs cost the American economy more than they are worth. According to a study published in 2024 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the “Buy American” policies of Trump’s first jobs had a bad effect on the economy: “In a rare instance of agreement, Republicans and Democrats have converged on the idea that “Buy American” provisions should be expanded in order to increase American jobs. But a new paper finds that existing federal rules impose high costs on consumers. A September 2024 paper published by the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER) found the Buy American Act has created more than 50,000 jobs. Just one catch: Each one of those jobs costs the economy more than $100,000. The Buy America Act of 1933 (BAA) is a New-Deal–era law that prohibits the federal government from purchasing foreign-made goods. The BAA’s mandate comprises two principal requirements: first, goods must be manufactured in the U.S.; second, at least 50 percent of the cost of inputs for final goods must be domestic. The NBER paper found that removing the BAA’s provisions would eliminate 100,000 manufacturing jobs, each of which costs the economy $130,000.” This study didn’t mention tariffs specifically, but you can be sure the result would have been the same.

Further, we need to bear in mind that particular tariffs are also supported by lobbyists for special interests, who pretend to be acting for the public good. In his great book Liberalism. Mises exposed this tactic: “Thus, the parties of special interests are obliged to be cautious.  In speaking of this most important point in their endeavors, they must resort to ambiguous expressions intended to obscure the true state of affairs.  Protectionist parties are the best example of this kind of equivocation.  They must always be careful to represent the interest in the protective tariffs they recommend as that of a wider group.  When associations of manufacturers advocate protective tariffs, the party leaders generally take care not to mention that the interests of individual groups and often even of individual concerns are by no means identical and harmonious.  The weaver is injured by tariffs on machines and yarn and will promote the protectionist movement only in the expectation that textile tariffs will be high enough to compensate him for the loss that he suffers from the other tariffs.  The farmer who grows fodder demands tariffs on fodder which the cattle raisers oppose; the winegrower demands a tariff on wine, which is just as disadvantageous to the farmer who does not happen to cultivate a vineyard as it is to the urban consumer.  Nevertheless, the protectionists appear as a single party united behind a common program.  This is made possible only by throwing a veil of obscurity over the truth of the matter.”

Trump claims that tariffs are needed for national security, but in fact free trade encourages peaceful international relations. Again, Mises gets at the heart of the matter: “It is a question of whether we shall succeed in creating throughout the world a frame of mind without which all agreements for the preservation of peace and all the proceedings of courts of arbitration will remain, at the crucial moment, only worthless scraps of paper.  This frame of mind can be nothing less than the unqualified, unconditional acceptance of liberalism. Liberal thinking must permeate all nations, liberal principles must pervade all political institutions, if the prerequisites of peace are to be created and the causes of war eliminated.  As long as nations cling to protective tariffs, compulsory education, interventionism, and etatism, new conflicts capable of breaking out at any time into open warfare will continually arise to plague mankind.”

Let’s do everything we can to end tariffs and promote free trade!

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