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Thanks, John Smith. 

MSNBC News

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Thanks, John Smith. 

The New Republic

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Thanks, John Frahm.

ABC News

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Gail Appel wrote:

A must watch!

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Tim McGraw wrote:

Some say, Dane Wigington, that the Elliott winter storm that hurt Southwest Airlines was geoengineered by bad actors. Odd that the investment group that took over and ruined the airline is also named Elliott. I don’t think it is a coincidence. The elites like rubbing our noses in their s….

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Brian Dunaway wrote:

Shocking Data Shows Massive Demographic Transformation In Europe | ZeroHedge

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Many were cheering when HHS Secretary Rober Kennedy Jr., NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, and FDA Director Marty Makary, provided a brief video statement announcing that the CDC will no longer be recommending COVID shots for healthy children and healthy pregnant women. Hmmm….so this means that they are still recommending mRNA bioweapon injections to everybody 18 and older and to sick people of all ages. Those of us not suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or cognitive dissonance, responded with multiple expletives…

This action was about as minimal as could possibly be done. It was an embarrassment. It was a disgrace. It was unacceptable. This is not 2021. This is 2025.

A limited hangout is a tactic used in intelligence, politics, or media to manage information by revealing partial truths while withholding critical or damaging details. It’s like letting out just enough of the story to satisfy curiosity or defuse scrutiny, without exposing the full extent of a scandal or operation. The term comes from espionage, popularized by former CIA officer Victor Marchetti, who described it as a “gimmick” where clandestine professionals admit some truth when their cover is blown, but omit key facts to prevent deeper investigation. The public, intrigued by the partial disclosure, often doesn’t dig further.

A modified limited hangout goes further, mixing truth with misinformation or altered details to obscure the bigger picture.

Was the statement by Kennedy, Bhattacharya, and Makary, a variation of a limited hangout?

President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have been getting intense scrutiny for appointing globalist, transhumanists, and pro mRNA bioweapon appointees. As already stated, the action taken was about as minimal as could possibly be taken.

Was the purpose to look like they are working hard to stop the shots and protect people?

Was the purpose to appear to be fighting and to get loyalists to cheer this as if it were a big victory to diffuse criticism?

Some high profile influencers will defend this action, largely because they either don’t want to admit they were wrong and have been played, or simply because they do not want to lose access. Having access to high profile politicians is a plus.

The loyalist will cheer, but they will stop cheering once they see the rest of us calling BS. I predict this strategy of trying to blunt the energy that is bubbling up will fail. It will fail simply because most people that you know will have a shortened lifespan because of these shots. It will fail because people you know and love will continue to get sick and die due to complications from these shots.

The COVID 19 mRNA nanoparticle injections are associated with neurological disorders, autoimmune disorders, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, metabolic disorders, chronic fatigue, chronic inflammation, and death, to name a few of the issues. The COVID mRNA shots are associated with a 1236% increase in cardiac arrest deaths, 112,000% increase in brain strokes when compared to the flu shots, reduced birth rates, increased infant mortality, increased mortality overall, and a 37% reduction in lifespans. Extrapolated over the course of a lifetime this would be a 29 year reduction in lifespans. This means that children getting these shots will be lucky to live into their 50s. The continued immune system failure or Vaccine Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (VAIDS) will continue to contribute to cancers and the other disorders and diseases.

There is an attempt to normalize all of this. There is an attempt to get you to accept that it is normal for so many people to suffer chronic illnesses and exotic diseases. There is an attempt to normalize turbo cancers. There is an attempt to normalize autoimmune diseases and neurological diseases. There is an attempt to normalize young people having heart problems. There is an attempt to normalize increased infant mortality and decreased birth rates.

Enough is enough! There must be justice.

ALL mRNA injections and products must be halted immediately. They violate 18 USC 175 CH 10 BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS. President Trump must issue an Executive Order immediately stopping all mRNA injections and products. This is his clear duty as President of the United States.

How do I know that the mRNA injections violate 18 USC 175 CH 10 BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS?

I have an affidavit under penalty of perjury from the law professor that wrote the law! At my request, Dr. Francis Boyle provided affidavit for my cases. Dr. Boyle actually publicly stated that COVID injection was a bioweapon as early as the fall of 2020 before it was even available.

We are in the midst of a massive depopulation campaign. Reducing birthrates and shortening lifespans makes that apparent.

I honestly don’t know if Secretary Kennedy’s CDC statement is a limited hangout. Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn. It was weak, feeble, and feckless. Not impressed, not enough. Tired of the excuses and claims that there is some delicate process to be followed not to upset the apple cart.

Think back to when they locked us down and caged us like animals. They didn’t worry about offending anybody. They terrorized you into compliance. It took all of a minute to lock us down, it shouldn’t take more than ten seconds to sign an Executive Order stopping the distribution of mRNA biological weapons in America.

We have them on the run. It is long past time that people that voted for Trump put maximum pressure on his administration to stop the biowarfare campaign against Americans. One way to put pressure on them is to help get my bill introduced in more states. I have a version of the ‘Sansone mRNA Bioweapons Prohibition Act’ adapted to all 50 states’ laws.

You can’t be America First and look the other way while biological warfare is carried out against Americans.

This article was originally published on Mind Matters and Everything Else.

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The title of today’s column is the same as the title of my homily last Sunday, May 25, 2025. On this day, my wife and I—along with our local Liberty Fellowship family—commemorated the 50th anniversary of my ordination into the ministry. My message was a brief reflection of what I have seen and experienced in the last half-century. This column will be the same.

I began last Sunday’s message with my boyhood, but I’ll begin this column from the time I was 27 years old (four years into the ministry) and had accepted a leadership position in the newly formed Moral Majority.

The Moral Majority

At the personal invitation of Dr. Jerry Falwell, I was the Executive Director of the Florida Moral Majority from 1979 – 1989. During my years with the Moral Majority, I met most of the leaders of the Religious Right. I couldn’t count the number of meetings I attended in Washington, D.C. I had personal audiences with President Ronald Reagan and then Vice President George H.W. Bush—and met Pat Buchanan for the first time. He later came and spoke at our church in Florida to a packed-out auditorium.

I travelled with Jerry on his jet on multiple trips (I didn’t know then that the jet was a gift from the State of Israel). I traveled with him overseas on two separate occasions; he featured me in his National Liberty Journal; I had a guest appearance on his national television program, the Old Time Gospel Hour; I spoke at the school, and Jerry spoke at my church several times.

I say all of that to simply let all of you know my background.

Most of the grassroots pastors in the Moral Majority were good, decent, honest men who truly wanted to do what was right for God and country. I later discovered, however, that some of the national leadership—and I’m not here pointing the finger at Jerry—seemed to have visions of political power and financial reward.

Remember, I was only 27 when I began this journey.

I remember a press conference with the Religious Right’s national leaders in Washington, D.C., in which a reporter asked the men on stage, “What is it that you really want?”

When I heard the question, I thought to myself, “What a perfect question. What a great opportunity to give the nation a truncated but descriptive summary of what we were all about.”

I was shocked when I heard one of the men (not Jerry Falwell) say, “All we want is a seat at the table.”

The answer stunned me. I remember thinking to myself, “What? All of this effort, expense, energy—blood sweat and tears—was so some of us could have a seat at the king’s table?” I later discovered that that was exactly what some of them seemed to want.

I can honestly say that much good came about due to the work of the Moral Majority, especially at many State and local levels—and even at the national level to some degree.

However, the ultimate (and persisting) result of those years was not so good. I’m talking about the political marriage between evangelical Christians and the Republican Party. To this day, that marriage remains intact.

Throughout America, evangelical pastors and Christians will turn their backs on spiritual friendships, courageous, truth-telling pastors (pastor-friends), spiritually minded family members or anyone else in deference to a Republican politician—especially a Republican president. And it doesn’t matter one whit how immoral, unethical or unconstitutional the conduct or public policies which that president promotes might be.

That was the forbidden fruit that grew out of the Moral Majority tree.

The other thing that happened was a theological marriage between evangelical Christians and the Zionist State of Israel. To be sure, the relationship between the two had been in an extended engagement period since 1948, and the two began sleeping together after the Six Day War in 1967. But the organized efforts of the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, Religious Right, etc., produced an overt, unbreakable bond between evangelicals and the Zionist State of Israel.

At another D.C. press conference I attended, a reporter asked Jerry specifically, “Are you a Zionist?”

That was the first time that I heard the word “Zionist.” I was totally ignorant of what it was. But amazingly (looking back), I remember distinctly thinking that Jerry’s answer would be, “No.” Even though I had never heard the term and knew nothing about it, the instinctive answer within my heart was that this was something bad. No sooner had the thought entered my mind than I heard Jerry reply with an emphatic, “Yes.”

Being as young as I was, I simply assumed that my instincts were wrong. After all, Jerry was my mentor and was much older and more knowledgeable than I, so I dismissed my internal inhibitions. I’m SO thankful that the Holy Spirit would later awaken my soul to the truth of Biblical Israel and Christ’s New Covenant and to the wickedness of Talmudism, Chabadism, Kabbalism and Zionism.

Today, of course, Christian Zionism is a deeply entrenched major doctrine within most evangelical churches. Most evangelicals would as soon deny the deity of Jesus Christ as to deny that Zionist Israel is a resurrected Old Testament Israel, essential to the Second Coming.

But the overall purpose of the Moral Majority was to bring goodness back to America after the eight years of the debauched administrations of Bill Clinton. By the way, much of the turmoil, trouble and travesty in which the U.S. is now embroiled in the Middle East had their roots in Clinton’s two terms in the White House.

But my point is that during the Moral Majority years, evangelical pastors by and large stood for goodness. They professed and propounded good government and good behavior in our elected representatives.

The G.W. Bush years

By the time G.W. Bush was elected, I had been hosting my nationally syndicated radio talk show, Chuck Baldwin Live, for seven years. That radio talk show opened doors of opportunity for me throughout the country, including my friendship with Dr. Ron Paul and his endorsement of my presidential campaign with the Constitution Party in 2008.

It’s funny how history keeps repeating itself. The evangelical friends who praised me for publicly speaking out about the unconstitutional conduct of Bill Clinton called me every dirty name in the book when I spoke out about the unconstitutional conduct of Bush. And they still call me every dirty name in the book when I speak out about the unconstitutional conduct of Trump.

But I digress.

What started as a desire for basic human goodness during the Reagan years morphed into a desire for religious supremacy during the G.W. Bush years.

Evangelicals cheered and applauded as Bush declared war on Muslims and as he ejected the Constitution from the White House and shoved the Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, the Military Commission Act, etc., down the throats of the American people.

In 2003, evangelicals were completely clueless that Bush’s wars in the Middle East were in reality Israel’s wars. And when Trump takes us to war with Iran, it will again be Israel’s war.

To demonstrate how controlled these politicians in D.C. are: Donald Trump is sending financial and military aid to the same al-Qaeda/ISIS Muslim terrorists that G.W. Bush sent thousands of U.S. soldiers to their deaths fighting. And isn’t it strange how these ISIS Muslim terrorists never attack Israel?

And how ironic that the Republican Donald Trump is using the Republican G.W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to declare war on the First Amendment freedom of speech to anyone who simply criticizes Israel and its genocide in Gaza either audibly or in print.

To make matters worse, the head of DHS, Kristi Noem, is so constitutionally illiterate that she doesn’t even know what Habeas Corpus is. Judge Nap played Noem’s comments before a U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing recently.

New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan asked Noem: “So, Secretary Noem, what is Habeas Corpus?”

Secretary Noem replied, “Habeas Corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”

The good senator had to then school the DHS secretary on the true meaning of Habeas Corpus, that it is the constitutional (Article.1. Section.9. Clause.2.) requirement that law enforcement must present the prisoner and evidence of wrongdoing before a judge to justify the prisoner’s continued incarceration.

Watch Kristi Noem make a fool of herself on national television. These are the kinds of imbeciles that Trump has appointed to protect the freedoms of the American people.

And here is a short video of Kristi Noem visiting the “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem as a prelude to meeting with her boss Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the Muslim world, Shias and Sunnis fight each other for not being Muslim enough. In essence, that is what the Religious Right did during the Bush years: They wanted to make their brand of religion the law of the land at the expense of a constitutional government that protects the rights of ALL men, regardless of religion.

And each president since 2008—including Donald Trump—has continued the same Neocon/Zionist foreign policies of GW Bush.

To be sure, Obama and Biden didn’t share the right-wing religious fervor of Bush. But one needs to understand that Bush’s emphasis on right-wing religion was but a ruse to sell the Neocon/Zionist war agenda abroad and the attacks against the Fourth Amendment at home to evangelical Christians. And it worked!

Today, evangelicals are at least 80% pro-Zionist and pro-police state. Oh, they would take umbrage with the term “police state,” but that’s exactly what’s taking place under Donald  Trump. When he and Attorney General Pam Bondi talk about stamping out antisemitism, they are talking about eviscerating the most fundamental right of a free society: the freedom of speech. And evangelicals either sit in silent indifference or enthusiastically support banishing public criticism of Israel and its grotesque genocide in Gaza.

What they don’t seem to realize is that once you start censoring speech about one subject, the door is open to censor speech about any subject.

The Moral Meltdown

Those same evangelicals who worked so feverishly during the 80s and 90s to bring basic human goodness to America now support the destruction of innocent men women and children—including Christian men, women and children—in Gaza and the Middle East.

They condone Israel’s mass murders; they excuse Israel’s mass starvations; they justify Israel’s genocide; and they facilitate Israel’s ethnic cleansing.

The laws of basic human goodness, the laws of humanity and the laws of fairness and equality have been jettisoned from the conscience of evangelical Christians. All in the name of Israel; in the name of the Bible; in the name of Christianity; in the name of God.

The entire world recognizes the utter depravity of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Almost everyone in the United States recognizes the utter depravity of Israel’s genocide in Gaza—except a Republican president, congressmen and senators from both parties inside the Beltway and evangelicals.

Those same evangelicals who so strongly supported constitutional government during the days of the Moral Majority are now totally silent or actually endorse government abridgment of our constitutionally protected liberties (particularly the freedom of speech) and support America’s direct involvement in and partnership with Israel’s genocidal mass murders.

Over the past 50 years, I’ve watched evangelical Christians take America from the Moral Majority to a Moral Meltdown.

Reprinted with permission from Chuck Baldwin Live.

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In his book Nation, State and Economy, published in 1919, Ludwig von Mises wrote of how nineteenth-century imperialist powers often preceded their wars of “conquest, subjugation, and extermination” with the dehumanization of their victims through massive propaganda campaigns which then continued during the wars and beyond. He noted that German, British, and American imperialist powers had waged wars against what they called “the lower races” — people who are supposedly “not ready for self government and never will be.” Mises highlighted British imperialism in India and the Congo and American imperialism against “the Asiatic peoples” of the Philippines and elsewhere.

The U.S. government’s twenty-five year war of genocide (1865-1890) against the Plains Indians should be added to this list. General William Tecumseh Sherman was the commanding general of this “war” for the duration. (How ironic that his parents included an Indian name, Tecumseh, when they named him). “The Indians give a fair illustration of the fate of the negroes if they are released from control of the whites,” said Sherman as quoted by biographer Michael Fellman in Citizen Sherman. Sherman, wrote Fellman, called for “a racial cleansing of the land” by killing off as many Indians as possible. “All the Indians will have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers,” said Lincoln’s favorite general. Fellman notes that Sherman gave his subordinate, fellow Civil War “hero” General Phil Sheridan, “prior authorization to slaughter as many women and children as well as men” when attacking Indian villages. It would be too time consuming to distinguish between them, said Sherman.

When the Filipinos finally separated from the Spanish empire the U.S. government engulfed them into the American empire by killing at least 200,000 of them (as many as a million according to some historians) during the 1899 Philippine Insurrection. In his biography of Teddy Roosevelt entitled Bully Boy, Jim Powell wrote of how Roosevelt “justified” the mass murder of Filipinos by calling them “Chinese half breeds, savages, barbarians, a wild and ignorant people.” A “lower race,” in other words.

The conquest and subjugation of Hawaii occurred in the early 1890s when the U.S. government sent soldiers to Hawaii who literally held the Hawaiian king at bayonet point and forced him to sign a new constitution that disenfranchised all Asians as “an inferior race” and empowered wealthy American land owners like James Dole, who then founded the Dole Fruit Company. Hawaii was formally annexed in 1898. In a well-received 1895 speech in Boston, the eugenicist President Teddy Roosevelt bloviated that “I feel it was a crime against the white race that we did not annex Hawaii three years ago.”

This brief historical sketch brings us to how the American and Israeli militaries of today have adopted this nineteenth-century demonization and war of extermination against what they consider to be another “lesser race,” the Palestinians. A May 21, 2025 headline in the French publication Le Monde declares that “In Israel, rhetoric dehumanizing Palestinians and calls for eradicating Gaza have become commonplace.”

The dehumanization of Palestinians by “government ministers, lawmakers, military experts, and public figures,” writes journalist Luc Bronner in Le Monde, has been used “to justify the mass killing of Palestinians civilians, especially women and children, the destruction of entire cities, the concentration of more than two million people in conditions deemed unlivable by international organizations, incitement to forced emigration, and the blockade of food and humanitarian aid to the point of famine.” More than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed, “a majority of them women and children,” and “over 60% of buildings have been destroyed.”

All of this was supported by Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli defense minister, who called all Palestinians “human animals.” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gushed that in a few months “Gaza will be totally destroyed.” Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu has been calling for the dropping of nuclear bombs on Gaza and destroying the remaining food sources there because all the Palestinians “need to starve.”

Nissim Vaturi, the charming president of the Knesset has called for a genocidal war that would “wipe Gaza off the face of the Earth.” Major General Giora Eiland also called Palestinians “human animals” and called for making Gaza “unlivable” while denouncing all the women of Gaza as “mothers, sisters, or wives of Hamas murderers.” A recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (May 20) wrote that “Starving Gazan babies aren’t a problem as long as there are no photos of them” that others around the world can see.

In short, the twenty-first century Holocaust that is occurring in Gaza has its roots in the ways of war of mid-to-late nineteenth-century American imperialism. It is being “justified” by a modern-day version of Teddy Roosevelt-style eugenicist “lower race” theory, with the implication that the promulgators of this theory must then think of themselves as some kind of master race.

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

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The first ever ASEAN-China-GCC trilateral summit was a de facto celebration of the New Silk Road spirit.

The first ever ASEAN-China-GCC trilateral summit earlier this week in Malaysia – with 17 Global South nations at the table – was a de facto celebration of the New Silk Road spirit.

Malaysian Prime Minister and current ASEAN chair Anwar Ibrahim summed it all up: “From the ancient Silk Road to the vibrant maritime networks of Southeast Asia to modern trade corridors, our peoples have long connected through commerce, culture, and the sharing of ideas.”

That inspires a lot of reflection. Let’s try a first, succint approach matching East and West – and what divides them – guided by an extraordinary study, La Mediterranee Asiatique: XVI-XXI Siecle, by CNRS research director Francois Gipouloux, also a specialist in the Chinese economy.

The European tradition is far from monolithic – and it’s only part of the picture – when it comes to global perceptions about political philosophy and the conception of the State. There are stark differences even when referred to Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.

The heart of the matter used to be the land/sea opposition. For Carl Schmitt, land/sea relates to friend/enemy – the matrix of politics – providing a key interpretation of world history, yet one among many.

It’s on “continental” Europe – to borrow the Anglo terminology –, mostly in France and Prussia, and not in England, that the Hobbesian concept of the State materialized. Britain became a world power thanks to its navy and trade, eschewing the characteristic institutions of the state such as a written constitution and a legislative codification of law.

Anglo-Saxon international law in fact voided the continental conception of the State and also war. According to Schmitt, it developed its own concepts of “war” and “enemy” out of maritime and trade conflicts which did not make a distinction between combatants and non-combatants (when it comes to its lasting legacy, think “the war on terror”).

My war is Just, because I said so

The opposition then solidified between the right to wage war on land – war is “just” if it happens between sovereign states, via regular armies, and sparing civilians – and waging war on sea, which does not imply a state-to-state relation. What mattered was attacking the trade and the economy of the enemy. And methods of total war were directed against either combatants or non-combatants.

That led to a new Western concept of “Just War” and international law: when the enemy is turned into a criminal, juridical and moral equality between belligerents is shattered. That’s the perverse logic behind psycho-pathological genocidals legitimizing the destruction of Palestine.

These differences in the formulation of law came out of two different conceptions of space: closed, overland – featuring sovereign states, territorially delimitated – and open, over the seas – a unique space, unlimited, free of every state control, where primacy is about securing communication links. The British did not think about space in terms of territory, but of routes of communication, just like the Portuguese and the Dutch before them.

Schmitt identifies in the State an entity linked to land and territory. So, as startling as it seems, it’s Behemoth, the terrestrial animal of the Old Testament, and not the marine monster Leviathan that should have been chosen by Hobbes as a symbol of the State.

In the development of the West, three institutional forms – equally viable – were in competition: Leagues of Cities – like the Hanseatic Legue; City-States – especially in Italy; and the Nation-State, especially in France.

Few across the West may remember that the Hanseatic League and the powerful Italian city-states, for at least two centuries, were viable alternatives to the territorial state. Two top researchers, Douglass North and Robert Paul Thomas, in The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, argue that the modern state was imposed on Western Europe because it was the best equipped to fulfill two key tasks: to efficiently guarantee property rights and the physical security of people and goods.

If we go back to Europe in the 14th century, before the Renaissance, there were at least a thousand states, of all sizes. That means no concentration of power – and some sort of creative competition in store. There was a reasonable amount of choice for those who wanted to find better places to exercise their freedom.

We had for instance Germany, with its three main actors constituted as the Emperor, the nobility and cities; Italy, with its main actors as the Papacy, the Emperor and cities. And France with its three main actors as the King, nobility and cities. In each case, different alliances proliferated.

In Germany, the Emperor allied with the nobility against the cities. In Italy, nobility was urbanized, and cities profited from endless squabbles. In France, nobility was very suspicious of the bourgeoisie, and the King allied himself with the cities against nobility. England chose a completely different path. Even before France, the Brits created a centralized state, but under a quite original political set up.

Asia and the Mandala State

Asia is a completely different story. Here we cannot use the terminology of “state” to designate the political constructions of Southeast Asia before decolonization. In Southeast Asia, the borders were arbitrary between the tribe, so-called “primitive” political formations (from a Western perspective) and the State.

Springing up from political concepts prevailing in India, Islam and the West, states showed up in the Insulindia (maritime Southeast Asia) archipelago, for instance, as courtly bureaucracies, based on a network of complex alliances. Whatever the degree of institutionalization, the distinction between The King, The Vassal and The Bandit was tenuous at best.

Vietnamese researcher Nguyen The-Anh has remarked how “political fragmentation is generally the preliminary conclusion of the first Europeans who made contact with Southeast Asia. Marco Polo saw in the north of Sumatra ‘eight kingdoms and eight crowned Kings…each kingdom possesses its own language.”

China, on the other hand, featured a unitary state imposing – via a quite efficient administration – social order over a vast territory. There was no competition against the centralized state issuing from a landed aristocracy; no urban bourgeoisie; and no military contesting the imperial order, as in Europe. That’s the major difference between China and the West.

Thomas Aquinas decreed that if the power of the king belongs to a multitude, it’s not unjust that the king is deposed or sees his power restrained by this very own multitude if he turns into a tyrant and abuses royal power.

This distinction is completely alien to the Chinese tradition. What happened over the past century or so in China is that the peculiar configuration – and competition – between local actors and central power led to what could be defined as an unstructured empire, whose force comes from its shape-shifting borders and the diffused character of transnational networks.

In a global economy, this gives China an exceptional projection capacity. When borders become fuzzy, and the link between the state and individuals is fuzzy, the unstructured character of this Empire allows the Asian periphery of China to develop in an arc from Japan and the DPRK to Singapore and Indonesia. This is exactly the subtext of some of the key discussions in Kuala Lumpur at the ASEAN-China-GCC summit. Jeffrey Sachs totally got the picture beforehand.

Now, the opposition between a system of international relations deemed “backwards” and irrational in Asia and modern and rational – because based on realpolitik – in the West is over. Cultural factors now shape reality in Asia as well as in the West about the conception of the state and international relations.

China is finally self-assured enough to start disengaging from the current, Western-dominated system of international relations – because it has the means to do so.

The Chinese concept of harmony in international relations used to be linked to the proclamation of a natural order of which China would be the guarantor. But now we are a long way away from the 18th century, when the international environment of the China of 18 provinces was constituted by Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Chinese Turkestan, Tibet, Burma, Annam, the Ryuku archipelago and Japan. The Qin dynasty was keen to reassert its suzerainty on the political and cultural domains, assuring the protection of China by managing a belt of favorably disposed states.

Today a self-assured China sees a new system of international relations directly linked to a Belt and Road network of geoeconomic opportunities for all. That underlies the relationship between China and ASEAN, GCC, CELAC, Central Asia and the whole of Africa.

Welcome to the archipelagic world

The world has surpassed the “overland” or “maritime” dilemma, beyond Mackinder and Mahan. The world is now best defined, as Gipouloux coined it, as archipelagic (italics mine), linking urban nebulas of different sizes and vocations.

Globalization accelerated the transformation of a terrestrial world into an archipelagic world. New technologies, economic and financial pressure, disinformation on a mass scale – China is navigating all these rocks in shallow straits in the quest to solidify itself as a global power.

All that implies the progressive, thalassocratic advance of China: a flexible and tolerant Empire (“community of shared destiny for mankind”), a rich confederation with a capacity for global influence supported by polymorphic communities – the “bamboo internet” of the Chinese diaspora.

This is what was on display in Kuala Lumpur – and will continue to evolve via an array of multilateral organizations. Mandala at work, Chinese-style.

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

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To regulate itself, the body often relies upon sensors that detect something amiss and then emit a signal that is amplified by the body so that a process can be set in motion to fix the issue that set the sensor off. One of the key signals the body relies upon are hormones, as small amounts of these molecules being released are often sufficient to change the internal state of the body drastically.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is the body’s central stress response system. It has three main components: the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain, and the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys. When you experience stress, the hypothalamus releases corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which signals the pituitary gland to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). ACTH then travels through the bloodstream to the adrenal glands, prompting them to release the corticosteroid cortisol (the body’s primary stress hormone). Finally, once cortisol levels are high enough, they signal the brain to reduce CRH and ACTH production, creating a negative feedback loop that prevents over-activation of the stress response.

Cortisol, in turn, has a few key functions in the body:

Immune Modulation: Cortisol first enhances the immune system’s immediate response to threats (protecting the body during stress), then limits excessive immune activity to prevent autoimmunity. It does this partly by inhibiting pro-inflammatory cytokines (e.g., IL-1, IL-6) and reducing T-cell activity. Over time, this shifts to immune suppression, making synthetic corticosteroids, a popular treatment for inflammation and autoimmunity.

Note: at lower doses, this transition from immune stimulation to immune suppression takes much longer, whereas at high doses it’s faster (hence why high steroid doses are given for dangerous autoimmune flares).

Blood Sugar: When blood sugar is low, cortisol raises it by stimulating gluconeogenesis in the liver, mobilizing amino acids (from muscle) and fatty acids (from fat) for glucose production, and reducing insulin sensitivity in tissues like muscle and fat. Excessive cortisol can lead to diabetes, abdominal fat accumulation (obesity), weight gain, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular issues.

Connective Tissues: Cortisol promotes protein catabolism (breakdown) in muscles, providing substrates for glucose synthesis and inhibiting collagen synthesis. Excessive cortisol causes muscle wasting, bone loss (e.g., osteoporosis or osteonecrosis), poor wound healing (which is also a result of immune suppression), skin thinning, easy bruising, and purple striae.

Circulation: Cortisol raises blood pressure by increasing sodium and water retention, sensitizing blood vessels to epinephrine and norepinephrine. This causes vasoconstriction and an increased heart rate while also damaging the blood vessel lining. This elevates the risk for cardiovascular disease1,2,3 (e.g., a one-standard deviation increase in morning plasma cortisol is linked to an 18% higher risk of future cardiovascular events).

Cognition: Cortisol modulates arousal, attention, and memory consolidation. Chronic excess corticosteroids (from either endogenous cortisol or synthetic steroids) impair hippocampal function, causing memory deficits, increased pain sensitivity, attention issues, cravings for high-calorie foods, substance abuse, and, rarely, psychosis.

HPA Axis Dysfunction: Since the HPA axis is regulated by cortisol levels, once natural or synthetic corticosteroids are chronically elevated, the HPA axis becomes desensitized, leading to excessive cortisol secretion or loss of the ability to secrete cortisol when needed. This in turn creates many issues such as those associated with chronically excessive cortisol or varying degrees of fatigue (e.g., due to the adrenal glands not secreting cortisol when needed).
Note: excessive cortisol can also cause other effects such as blood electrolyte imbalances, alkalosis, cataracts, and glaucoma.

Because of this, many argue excessive cortisol secretion and HPA axis dysfunction (e.g., due to chronic stress, poor diet, poor sleep, alcoholism, too many stimulants like caffeine, social isolation, a lack of exercise, or irregular daily rhythms) is a root cause of disease (e.g., the metabolic syndrome afflicting our country). As such, they advocate for lifestyle practices that counteract these HPA axis-disrupting factors, and in many cases significant health benefits follow the adoption of those practices.

Corticosteroids

The hormone cortisol belongs to a class of steroids known as corticosteroids due to its release by the cortex of the adrenal glands. While many related corticosteroids (henceforth referred to as “steroids”) exist within the body, the body’s primary ones are cortisol (a glucocorticoid) and aldosterone, a mineralocorticoid that regulates blood pressure, volume, and electrolyte balance.

In 1946, the first synthetic steroid (cortisone) was synthesized. Two years later, enough had been produced to test on it a human, where it was discovered to improve rheumatoid arthritis symptoms (which won the 1950 Nobel Prize) and was immediately hailed as a ‘wonder drug.’ Before long, it was discovered that other inflammatory syndromes also responded to cortisone, and a rush of other steroids hit the market:

Following its success in rheumatoid arthritis, steroids (e.g., prednisone, hydrocortisone) were rapidly adopted for a wide range of inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, including systemic lupus erythematosus, inflammatory bowel disease, and multiple sclerosis, due to their ability to suppress immune-mediated tissue damage.

In the early 1950s, steroids were hailed as a revolutionary treatment for those conditions (and hence widely prescribed), with new steroids (e.g., prednisone) being rapidly introduced to the market, but in the late 1950s, serious side effects began to accumulate from long-term steroid use. By the early 1960s, steroid treatment was ‘‘shunned altogether by the rheumatology community” (to the point shortly after that NSAIDs like ibuprofen were named non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to distinguish them from the disastrous steroids) after which point steroids were prescribed with more caution and at lower doses until it was reborn in the 1980s under a low dose regimen.

Currently, steroids remain widely used, and their use has gradually increased. For example, in 2009, 6.4% of American adults had used oral steroids at least once in the last year, whereas in 2018, 7.7% did, while a 2017 study found 21.4% of adults (age 18-64) had used at least one oral steroid prescription in the last three years.

Note: after harms were discovered with steroids, a pivot was made that they are safe if “low doses” are given. However, over the decades, what constituted a safe “low dose” has greatly declined (i.e., doses now considered toxic previously were routinely prescribed), and that drop will likely continue to (e.g., in 2016, Europe’s Rheumatology group concluded in was unsafe to give more than 5mg a day of long-term steroids—a figure significantly lower than the current amounts used in America).

Steroid Side Effects

As you would expect, the side effects from taking steroids mirror those seen with excessive cortisol, although in many cases are much more severe.

Furthermore, they are quite common (e.g., one study found 90% of users report adverse effects, and 55% report at least one that is very bothersome). Consider this summary of what users across the internet have reported:

Likewise, much of that has been established within the scientific literature:

Bone Loss: Corticosteroids double one’s risk of a fracture (and even more so for a vertebra), with 12% of users reporting fractures. At typical doses, steroids cause a 5-15% loss of bone each year, and in long-term users, 37% experience vertebral fractures (additionally, high dose steroid use increases the risk of vertebral fractures fivefold). Steroid bone loss in fact, is such a common problem that treating it is one of the few official indications the FDA provides for bisphosphonates (which while widely prescribed for bone loss have many severe side effects—including making your bones more likely to break). Lastly, higher doses increase the likelihood of avascular necrosis (with 6.7% of users taking higher steroid doses developing it).

Weight Gain: approximately 70% of individuals taking oral corticosteroids long-term (over 60 days) report weight gain. One study found a 5.73–12.79 lb increase per year, and another found a 4-8% increase in body weight after two years of steroid use. Additionally, this fat typically stores in areas like the face, neck, and belly.

Adrenal Insufficiency: corticosteroids reduce the adrenal gland’s ability to produce cortisol (which can sometimes be life threatening). This is a huge problem that increases with the duration of therapy and systemic routes of administration (e.g., affecting 48.7% of oral users).

Diabetes: a systematic review found individuals taking systemic corticosteroids were 2.6 times more likely to develop hyperglycemia (with 1.8% of those receiving steroids in a hospital then developing diabetes). Likewise, patients who’d taken systemic corticosteroids at least once were 1.85 times more likely to develop diabetes. Finally, a meta-analysis found that, in patients without pre-existing diabetes, a month or more of steroids caused hyperglycemia in 32% and diabetes mellitus in 19% of them.

Cardiovascular: high doses of steroids have been observed to increase heart attacks by 226%, heart failure by 272%, and strokes by 73%.

Eyes: Steroids have been found to increase the risk of cataracts by 245-311% (with 15% of users reporting this side effect) and the risk of ocular hypertension or open angle glaucoma by 41%.

Gastrointestinal: Steroids are linked to many gastrointestinal events (e.g., nausea and vomiting) and have been found to increase the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding or perforation by 40%.

Psychiatric: between 1.3%-18.4% of steroid users develop psychiatric reactions (with the rates increasing with the dose), and around 5.7% experience severe reactions. Additionally, 61% of steroid users reported sleep disturbances, and steroids can also sometimes cause psychosis.1,2

Infections: Steroids also increase the risk of infections. For example, users of inhaled steroids were found to be 20% more likely to develop tuberculosis, and this increased at higher doses in patients with asthma or COPD. Similarly, patients on steroids were 20% more likely to develop sepsis (possibly due to the initial symptoms of the infection being masked by the steroids).

Skin: prolonged topical use of steroids also frequently causes skin issues (e.g., up to 5% experience skin atrophy after a year of use).

Lastly, certain steroids are much more potent than others, and the more potent ones that persist in the body (e.g., dexamethasone) are more likely to create systemic effects like HPA axis dysfunction.

Uses of Steroids

The toxicity of steroids greatly increases with prolonged doses and routes of administration that have systemic absorption (e.g., oral). Because of this, many now believe they should be reserved for life-threatening emergencies (with the side effects that frequently follow being an acceptable trade off) and for a prolonged period, only be used in a manner with minimal systemic absorption (e.g., topically).

Note: I recently interviewed a variety of specialists for their perspectives on using steroids in their fields of medicine. Collectively, they felt that while steroids can be helpful, they are frequently prescribed in an inappropriate manner that causes more harm than good (discussed here).

Inhaled Steroids

Inhaled steroids are routinely used to treat asthma and COPD. Since the systemic absorption of inhaled steroids is much less than from oral steroids, systemic side effects are rarer (but can still occur with prolonged use at higher doses).

While inhaled steroids (along with the other medications commonly prescribed for these respiratory conditions) can help and are often the only option available to patients, I believe in most cases natural therapies that directly treat the conditions are preferable. For example, COPD is seen as a progressive and incurable illness which can only be delayed or partially mitigated with the existing therapies. In contrast, when nebulized glutathione is used to replenish the protective lining of the lungs, it halts the progression of the disease, and unlike steroids does so without side effects. Likewise, many natural therapies exist for asthma.

Topical Steroids

Topical steroids are routinely used for skin issues and sometimes in other areas as well, such as for certain eye conditions, like preventing graft rejection after a necessary corneal transplant. In these instances, systemic side effects are rare, and most local issues result from prolonged use (e.g., skin changes or skin thinning—particularly on the face).

Note: I have long suspected topical steroids in part work by reducing fluid circulation to the skin (via the insterstitium), thereby preventing inflammatory toxins from arriving there and creating skin reactions (whereas agents like DMSO treat skin conditions by augmenting the skin’s microcirculation so stagnant toxins cannot irritate a set area). As such, due to the potential issues with suppressing skin symptoms, I typically treat skin issues with natural therapies like DMSO or by eliminating the underlying cause of the skin issue.

Read the Whole Article

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While Jake Tapper leads the Mea Culpa Chorus singing Kumbaya in a minor key, absolutely nobody is fooled that the grotesque psychotic deformities of US politics can be reduced to a few White House factotums lying to the news media about “Joe Biden’s” cognitive abilities. For one thing, the news media was not lied to. The news media (including Jake) lied to the nation, consistently, flagrantly, mendaciously, for years, and most of all they lied about the gigantic racketeering operation that government had become in the age of Anything Goes and Nothing Matters.

Cases-in-point, as reported by Alex Krainer, the $93-billion barfed out of the Department of Energy between the November election and January 20 to scores of hastily-formed NGO gangs with no business model or record of competency. . . and the staggering $375 billion spread around similarly out of the EPA from a slush fund run by John Podesta (as Senior Adviser to the President for International Climate Policy and Clean Energy Innovation).

That was pure grift, you understand, and it was how the Democratic Party kept its activist troops of the so-called “marginalized” paid and happy. As it happened, the “marginalized” who dwell on the edge of society — and also just beyond the set of agreements that define reality — are out-numbered by the rest of us, who voted against the tyranny of the margin and their hallucinations. And so now, the country goes through a convulsion attempting to readjust to reality — for instance, the unhappy fact that all that money was unreal, mere bookkeeping entries by dishonest accountants.

One reality we struggle with is the doleful fact that there is no work-around for the nation’s monumental debt. Since it can’t possibly be paid off, there are two stark paths for it: default and ruinous deflation (that is, money vanishes and the nation goes broke); or a futile attempt to inflate it away with more fake money creation (you’ll have money, but it’s increasingly worthless, so you’re effectively broke). Either way, you’re broke. In the meantime, the remorseless interest that has to be paid on $36.2-trillion squeezes out everything else we’re supposed to care for as relates to the common good.

Every broke-ass family or individual person knows how debilitating money-worries can be. And since unpayable debt is the common denominator across all of Western Civ, this perhaps explains the gross, suicidal mental disorder displayed lately by leadership all across Europe, North America and Anglo-Oceania. Europe, especially, exhibits behavior that is completely cuckoo — inciting war with Russia, inviting in murderous hostiles from foreign lands, and sadistically policing their own citizens.

The exception is Mr. Trump, a businessman-outsider to government trying to pull off an escape from the deadly debt quandary. It’s probably impossible, but he is trying nonetheless. It has three main features: 1) to readjust trade relations that, in theory, would restore industrial production across the land — a bootstrapping operation to kick off “growth.” 2) to engineer a severe re-set of the money system that would effectively amount to defaulting on debt but somehow without the feature of disappearing money. At best, this would induce some kind of fall in living standards, but mostly among the small sector of financial buccaneers who thrive on swindles and the Boomers living on investment accounts (figment wealth), who are now dying off anyway — which is to say, Great Depression Lite. And 3) the least understood feature of Trumpism: to decouple the USA from the resource scarcity in the rest of the world, and the consequent strife it’s inducing, and withdraw into a sort of Fortress North America that can somehow carry-on self-sufficiently while everybody else collapses.

As big pictures go, this is a pretty wild one, stupendously ambitious, risky, and perhaps improbable. But what do Mr. Trump’s domestic opponents have to offer? To go back to their asset-stripping operation with its insane sideshow of race-and-sexual hoaxes and hustles? Let’s face it, the Democratic Party has utterly shot its wad. If it tries to start another civil war, it will have its ass handed to it. Despite all the desperate, rear-guard lawfare underway now, the party is already withdrawing into the political thickets to hide while it considers some drastic reorganization of its purpose and personnel. It may skulk there for many years, just as it did between James Buchanan (1857) and Grover Cleveland (1885).

And despite his daunting agenda, Mr. Trump at least presents a sense of confident determination to get the country righted in some fashion, to recover a sense of purpose and enterprise after years of feckless, dissipative drift into the hallucinatory madness of the Left. You must give him a chance. There is no one else right now with no other way.

Reprinted with permission from Kunstler.com.

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Douglas Horne, the author of the watershed five-volume book on the JFK assassination, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, has a new blog post about his recent testimony before Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. Horne served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s. Posted today at JFK Facts is an article by Chad Nagle about Horne’s recent testimony.

In his blog post, Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) in the 1990s, addresses the failure of the mainstream media to cover that particular congressional hearing, which also included testimony from (1) federal judge John Tunheim, who served as chairman of the ARRB; (2) Dan Hardway, who served a counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which reinvestigated the JFK assassination in the 1970s; and (3) Abraham Bolden, a Secret Service agent assigned to JFK. Complimenting Forbes News, which posted the video of Horne’s testimony on YouTube, Horne also points out the decades-long aversion of the mainstream media to conduct independent investigations of the JFK assassination.

The big question is: Why? Why was the mainstream press so eager to accept the official findings of the Warren Commission, no matter how ludicrous they were (e.g., the infamous “magic-bullet theory”), rather than assign fierce and competent investigative reporters to ferret out the truth behind the assassination?

My answer: Fear.

After all, why have big, powerful law firms capitulated to President Trump’s demands? Why have enormous universities done the same? In my opinion, the reason is fear. They know that with the overwhelming power of the presidency, Trump has the ability to do very bad things to them. Just ask the people running Harvard, which has decided to fight rather than capitulate.

The mainstream press back in 1963 knew that Lyndon Johnson, who automatically became president on the death of JFK, was a vicious man, one who would not hesitate to use the overwhelming power of the presidency and the federal government to smash anyone he wanted, including any national news media outlet.

In his multi-volume biography of Johnson, author Robert Caro describes how Johnson pressured the officials in two different newspapers in Texas to shut down investigations into Johnson’s corruption. Johnson mentioned the possibility of IRS action against one paper and adverse regulatory action against the other. Both newspapers promptly shut down their investigations.

There was also undoubtedly the fear arising not just from Johnson but also from the entire national-security establishment, specifically the military and the CIA. When a person or company is dealing with a governmental entity that wields the power of committing state-sponsored assassinations and the expertise to engage in cover-up, one must obviously proceed with caution when deciding whether to take on that entity.

Consider the people who Johnson appointed to the Warren Commission — a former director of the CIA, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, members of Congress, and a former member of the World Bank. What are the chances that any of those prominent mainstream people would ever target and accuse the military establishment and the CIA of the assassination? None! There was never any chance of that happening at all.

Moreover, to prove guilt would have required a fierce, no-holds-barred investigation of the military and the CIA, both of which would not hesitate to falsely deny and lie about their actions. What are the chances that those particular mainstream members of the Warren Commission would engage in such a fierce investigation of the military-intelligence establishment — and at the height of the Cold War? None! No chance at all.

Wouldn’t you think that some mainstream media outlet would recognize that and make a point about it? Nope. It was all considered to be “normal.”

In the 1970s, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reopened the investigation of the assassination. It brought in a fierce and honest prosecutor from Philadelphia named Richard Sprague. He made it clear that he was going to target and investigate the CIA. Within a very short period of time, he was run out town on a rail and replaced by an attorney named Robert Blakey, who showed the proper deference to the CIA.

How could any self-respecting newspaper not see that something was wrong with this official picture, even with Johnson out of the presidency in 1968? Fear. It just wasn’t worth it to them to take on the most powerful branch of the federal government — the national-security branch — the branch that wields the power of state-sponsored assassination and cover-up — and to which the other three branches dutifully defer.

After the HSCA proceedings, a group of enlisted men, who had been released from vows of official military silence, began coming forward and telling a remarkable and shocking story about one aspect of the autopsy that the military conducted on Kennedy’s body on the very night of the assassination. They were stating that they carried the president’s body into the Bethesda military morgue almost an hour-and-a-half before the official entry time of 8 p.m. They said that the body was in a cheap shipping casket rather than the expensive casket into which the body had been placed in Dallas. Later, in the 1990s, the ARRB discovered the existence of a written report by Marine Sgt. Roger Boyajian stating that the earlier casket delivery had taken place at 6:35 p.m.

Why would the mainstream press fail to investigate that? If what these men were saying was true, wouldn’t that be something so dark, auspicious, and suspicious that the mainstream press would deem it worth investigating? Why wouldn’t they be curious about why the president’s body was sneaked into the morgue early? What was done to the body in that hour-and-a-half? Why would military officials have covered that up and lied about it? Why would high military officials have required those enlisted men to sign secrecy oaths about what they had witnessed and also threatened them with court martial or criminal prosecution if they ever talked?

Even if mainstream editors and reporters  believed that those enlisted men were lying, wouldn’t that be a story in and of itself? After all, why would they lie about that? Indeed, if they were lying, wouldn’t high military officials accuse them publicly of being liars? Why instead adopt a policy of silence in the face of what these men were claiming? Wouldn’t you think all this would be something worth investigating?

Fear. Fear paralyzes people. It causes them to become submissive, compliant, and obedient. It causes them to fall into line, accept whatever they are told, and not ask questions. In my opinion, that’s what happened — and continues to happen — to the mainstream press in the Kennedy assassination.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

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Trump’s original plan was to quickly get rid of foreign wars in order to focus on his presidential campaign’s domestic agenda to Make America Great Again.

Trump has discovered that Democrat “judges” and some RINO ones can block and distract him from removing illegal aliens who have no right to remain in the US, and from exercising his legitimate powers as president to reform the corrupt and ideological US civil service.  The civil service is responsible to the executive branch, not to the judiciary, but the judiciary, always seeking to expand its power, is seeking to establish control over the Office of the President.

On the domestic front the frustrations and delays of an over-reaching judicial system have shifted Trump’s focus abroad as an alternative way of Making America Great Again.

In a recent press conference with Genocide King Netanyahu, President Trump declared America’s possession of Gaza.  Questioned by media, Netanyahu seemed to agree, at least for the sake of avoiding conflict with Israel’s American sponsor.

Trump has begun to describe a new Middle East.  It is no longer one that Washington was creating for Greater Israel.  Israel  had Washington destroy  opposing Arab countries–Iraq, Libya, and Syria–disguised as a “war on terror.”  The New Middle East is to be Washington’s colonial empire, in which Washington achieves control over oil flows in a new way.

Unlike the old colonialism in which the British and French exploited the region, sending the profits home, Trump is offering Saudi Arabia, the last standing Arab country, a junior partnership. The junior partnership is also being offered to the Iranians. The Saudias and Iranians are tempted to accept junior partnerships as it saves them from US/Israeli attacks.

Gaza, Trump suggests, will be the highly developed anchor for making all of the Middle East rich.  The new American colonialism, unlike the old, is a profit-sharing empire.  And it puts an end to Israeli/Arab wars.

It is difficult not to see this as a brilliant settlement.  But the world never expected anything of this sort.  Perhaps the American Ruling Establishment sat down with Trump and explained the situation to him.

In place of the American neoconservative unipolar world of American hegemony there will be the division of the world between the three powers–Washington, Russia, and China.  Will the Zionist neoconservative American policymakers accept this or will they continue their pursuit of hegemony?

The path ahead is not clear.  President Putin is not interested in merely a negotiated end of the conflict in Ukraine.  Putin wants a Great Power Agreement that ends the West’s conflict with Russia.  Putin’s agenda goes far beyond merely ending the conflict with Ukraine.

Can Trump and Putin renew the effort of Reagan and Gorbachev and end the revival of the Cold War that the neoconservatives launched?

If not, war will be upon us.

The post On the Trump Front — a Change in the Agenda? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Okay, sports fans, here it is, straight from the horse’s mouth: The year was 1957 or 1958 or perhaps even later. Those were the days of starched shirts, good manners, white rather than yellow tennis balls, and wooden rackets. The tournament was in New York City, and I was playing against Yale No. 1 Richard Raskind. He had a big left-handed serve that he used to come up to the net with, and an even bigger left-handed forehand. The match was on a fast cement court that favored his aggressive net play. I remember thinking that Raskind would have been putty in my hands were we playing on slow European clay, my best surface. Dick Raskind won that day, and as we shook hands at the net he looked the depressed loser. I remember almost commenting on that but did not. I found him unfriendly, almost unpleasant. Many years later I think I understood why. Raskind was obviously suffering from what today is known as “gender dysphoria,” although that particular definition did not exist back then.

Many years later Raskind surfaced yet again on the tennis tour, this time playing as a woman called Renée Richards. My first thought back then was that I had lost to a female. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean. While on tour for many years my favorite hitting partner was Althea Gibson, the first black woman to win Wimbledon, in 1957. Althea and I obviously played many sets against each other, and we were about even. But she was No. 1 in the world, whereas I was way down the rankings back in those halcyon pseudo-amateur days. Which brings me to the point I wish to make: Even in a nonviolent sport like tennis, men have an enormous advantage—speed, strength, endurance, you name it, we’ve got it.

“Many years later Raskind surfaced yet again on the tennis tour, this time playing as a woman called Renée Richards.”

By the time Raskind declared himself a female he was already fending off Father Time. As a woman, Renée Richards won a tournament but became far better known for transitioning than hitting a tennis ball. He/she was also a very good ophthalmologist and is still with us at 90. I turned her transition into a joke by telling all my tennis buddies that I had lost to a woman while at my peak.

This was long ago, and now, finally, the U.S. has acknowledged the truth: Sex change treatment endangers children. The Department of Health and Human Services issued the world’s most comprehensive report on the topic—something I knew from day one, and I am someone who has trouble putting on a Band-Aid. Over in that crowded rainy place called Britain, transgender women will be barred from playing for women’s soccer teams after the Brit Supreme Court ruled that Britain’s equality laws were based on biological sex and that trans women did not fall within the legal definition of women. Again, I could have told them this, and I don’t know how to read a legal brief about a parking ticket.

The irony is that I don’t even know what these terms are—transgender, agender, nonbinary—but what I do know is what nonsense is. Nonsense is wasting our precious and finite energies on trivial issues such as “What is a woman?” Maybe we should allow this issue to collapse under its own absurdity. This nonsense, as few of us call it, counts a lot only where sport is concerned. Let’s begin with women entering men’s sporting competitions: There are none and never will be. Enough said. The men entering women’s competitions are cheaters when posing as women. The entire fiasco is based on lies and opportunistic cheaters. You cannot change sex.

So, how should a parent feel seeing their daughter get knocked out almost immediately in an Olympic boxing competition by a trans woman who hits like the proverbial mule and looks very much a man? Or watching their daughter left half a swimming pool behind by someone who until recently was swimming for the men’s team? I know what I would do. I would enter the ring and try to stop the match. Or jump into the pool and get in the way of the cheater. But the Olympic Committee is as cowardly as they come, as are universities, with coaches too scared of the trans lobby to throw the cheaters out and keep the girls competing against girls.

Perhaps now these cowards who have allowed these outrages to take place will finally react and ban the cheaters. But the incessantly complaining, self-pitying trans lobby is well funded and supported by Hollywood types like that awful trio of Eddie Redmayne, Emma Watson, and Daniel Radcliffe, all three trying to cash in while advancing injustice against female athletes. But leave it to The New York Times to devote a very long and incredibly boring article on the trials and tribulations of a San Jose State University volleyball player, a trans, and how she was eventually “outed” as an ex-man by some magazine.

Never mind. Trans women should compete against other trans women in sport, but not biological women. In the meantime, I have joined the victims of trans women competing in women’s sport by outing myself as having lost to Renée Richards. I lost to Dick Raskind, but unknown enemies say I lost to Renée.

This article was originally published on Taki’s Magazine.

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The concept of an impending apocalypse has been a source of fascination, fear, and speculation throughout human history. From ancient texts to modern science fiction, the notion that our civilization could come to an end has sparked countless theories and warnings. While some may dismiss these ideas as mere fantasy or superstition, there are observable trends and events that suggest the potential for catastrophic changes in our world. In this article, we will explore eight warning signs that could indicate an impending apocalypse.

1. Environmental Degradation

One of the most pressing indicators of an impending apocalypse is the rapid degradation of our environment. Climate change, deforestation, pollution, and loss of biodiversity are all symptoms of a planet in distress.

The rise in global temperatures, largely attributed to human activities such as burning fossil fuels and industrial practices, has led to more extreme weather events—hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and flooding are becoming increasingly common. The accelerating melting of polar ice caps poses a direct threat to coastal communities worldwide. As ecosystems collapse and species go extinct at an unprecedented rate, the foundational elements that sustain life on Earth are unraveling.

This degradation does not only impact natural systems; it also poses significant risks to food security, water supply, and human health. As resources become scarcer and competition for them intensifies, social unrest and conflict may follow—potentially setting the stage for a more significant apocalyptic scenario.

2. Geopolitical Tensions

In an increasingly interconnected world, geopolitical tensions can escalate into larger conflicts with global ramifications. The rise of nationalism, authoritarianism, and territorial disputes has created a volatile international landscape. The possibility of nuclear confrontation remains a critical concern; nations possessing such weapons often find themselves in standoffs that could quickly spiral out of control.

Recent events highlight how fragile peace can be in certain regions. Disputes over resources like water and energy can inflame existing rivalries between nations, leading to potential warfare that could destabilize entire regions and lead to widespread chaos. Furthermore, cyber warfare has emerged as a new battlefield where digital attacks can disrupt critical infrastructure, sowing discord and fear among populations.

The combination of economic instability—often exacerbated by pandemics or climate disasters—can create perfect conditions for civil unrest. History has shown us that desperate times can lead to desperate measures: when people feel cornered or threatened, they may resort to extreme actions that could lead to societal collapse.

3. Economic Instability

Economic systems are inherently complex and interconnected; when one piece falters, the repercussions can be felt globally. Warning signs such as rising debt levels, stock market volatility, and increasing income inequality often precede major economic downturns.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how quickly economies can unravel due to unforeseen circumstances. Supply chain disruptions led to shortages of essential goods while unemployment rates soared in many countries. These factors combined with inflation have raised concerns about economic stability as governments struggle to provide support to their citizens.

As more people fall into poverty or see their standard of living decline, social cohesion may erode. Economic desperation can lead individuals or groups to act irrationally or violently in pursuit of survival. In a worst-case scenario, prolonged economic instability could trigger revolutions or regime changes—events that may serve as precursors to larger apocalyptic scenarios.

4. Pandemics and Global Health Crises

The world has witnessed how quickly a virus can spread across borders and disrupt daily life. The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder of this reality—not only did it claim millions of lives but it also exposed weaknesses in global health systems.

As human populations continue to encroach upon wildlife habitats through urbanization and agriculture, the potential for zoonotic diseases (those transmitted from animals to humans) increases dramatically. Climate change also plays a role by shifting habitats and influencing disease patterns.

Emerging infectious diseases pose not only health risks but also social and economic challenges. Overwhelmed healthcare systems may struggle to cope with outbreaks; misinformation can spread rapidly online, leading communities into panic or denial rather than informed action. If unchecked, these global health crises could become more severe over time—potentially contributing to societal breakdowns reminiscent of apocalyptic narratives.

5. Technological Dependence

Our growing reliance on technology presents both remarkable advancements and substantial vulnerabilities. As societies become increasingly digitalized—from smart cities powered by AI algorithms to decentralized finance—the risks associated with technological failures become paramount.

Cybersecurity threats can undermine infrastructures essential for day-to-day life—from power grids to healthcare systems. A coordinated cyberattack could cripple vital services within hours; ransomware attacks have already demonstrated their capacity to disrupt businesses across various sectors.

Moreover, technological advancements bring ethical dilemmas that society struggles to address—questions surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), surveillance states, data privacy rights—creating divisions among populations struggling with these uncertainties. If mishandled or mismanaged, technology might contribute to more significant societal schisms or even lead us down dystopian paths akin to science fiction depictions of apocalypse scenarios.

6. Natural Disasters

The frequency and intensity of natural disasters have increased substantially over recent decades—a trend often linked back again towards climate change influences like rising sea levels or changing weather patterns leading towards more extreme events). Earthquakes , tsunamis , hurricanes , floods , wildfires all pose threats capable enough if left unchecked or poorly managed resulting into devastating consequences especially for vulnerable communities unprepared for such calamities hitting them unexpectedly .

Natural disasters not only inflict immediate destruction but also create long-term challenges—displaced populations struggle with access displacement issues; humanitarian aid becomes necessary yet often insufficient given lack capacity/resources . When multiple disasters strike simultaneously (as seen recently during hurricane seasons), overwhelmed responders may contribute towards exacerbating crises turning normalcy upside-down leaving behind chaos instead .

7. Resource Scarcity

Human civilizations have thrived due largely success utilizing available resources . However unsustainable consumption practices coupled increased population pressure threaten disrupt traditional resource management methods leading potential shortages essential food , clean water , energy supplies needed sustain daily life .

Water scarcity is currently emerging as one pressing issue affecting millions people worldwide . In many regions groundwater supplies depleting due over-extraction coupled climate change-induced droughts resulting dire circumstances requiring urgent interventions if we hope avert conflicts arise from competition limited resources .

Food production faces similar challenges ; yield decreases associated unpredictable weather patterns coupled growing demand require innovative solutions beyond current agricultural framework . As resource scarcity escalates – whether through natural disasters , systemic failures – societies face heightened tensions marked desperation when people fight limited supplies eventually leading breakdown order altogether .

8. Societal Division

Lastly another critical sign indicating impending apocalypse lies within societal divisions arising from ideological polarization . With social media platforms amplifying extreme views fostering hostile environments becoming increasingly common phenomenon seen all around the globe today .

Erosion trust institutions erodes ability communities work together solve collective problems whether climate change pandemics crime rates issues impacting society across board – divisions only deepen resulting gridlock progress making utopian visions seem further away than ever before .

When empathy wanes conflict arises individuals resort turn against each other rather than seeking collaborative solutions foster resilience required navigate potential apocalyptic realities ahead .

Conclusion

While predicting an apocalypse is fraught with uncertainty , recognizing these warning signs can help us prepare mitigate possible outcomes should worst-case scenarios unfold . Environmental degradation , geopolitical tensions , economic instability , pandemics technological dependence natural disasters resource scarcity societal division all interlinked creating web vulnerability facing humanity today .

Our best chance at survival lies within our willingness confront these issues holistically rather than remaining complacent believing everything remain status quo forever . By working together across borders towards sustainable practices equitable policies emphasizing empathy compassion humanity’s better nature—we cultivate resilience needed navigate uncertain times ahead while striving build brighter future generations yet come.

This article was originally published on MadgeWaggy.blogspot.com.

The post Warning Signs of an Impending Apocalypse to Watch for appeared first on LewRockwell.

In this article, I write about the trend of Celebrity Priests. So, I should define terms before continuing. When I refer to a Celebrity Priest, I do not mean a priest who happens to be well-known because of his virtues. Instead, I am referring to a trend of famous priests who are well-known not just because they have something good to say but because they are marketable as influencers and media figures because of good looks, youthfulness, and other attributes that facilitate viral media content.

Like most moderns, I spend more time than I should scrolling through various social media. For me, that means looking for videos to watch or listen to on YouTube and things to read on Twitter—I still can’t naturally call it . Now, I don’t want to go to Hell, so I stay away from TikTok and other more absurdly flashy and epilepsy-inducing social platforms. Also, I am under the age of 40 and not a woman, so I don’t use Facebook.

Much of what I watch or read has to do with the Catholic Faith; and because of that, the “algorithm” recommends things to me that fall under the umbrella of “Catholic content.” Among the most popular Catholic content is a stream of media that I can only refer to as “Celebrity Priest” media. More and more, I am seeing on my feeds videos of priests “reacting,” “responding,” or “reviewing” a host of things from the secular culture, whether that be movies, social media influencer videos, or stuff coming from the pope, among other things.

In addition, it is becoming more common to see priests recording videos of themselves in the same ways that Zoomers and undignified millennials do. Forgive me, but I am a bit of a Luddite when it comes to social media trends—and I truly despise almost everything that every pop-culture influencer does—so I don’t know what to call the videos. All I know is that I see priests doing stuff with selfies and jump cuts in their videos, basically trying to “Catholicize” the same garbage that people consume to waste their time.

The trend of priests acting in this way is bad enough, but there is more to be concerned about. In addition to the proliferation of these priest influencers—many of whom have become strikingly famous—it is clear that various media teams are behind the priests to help them promote their content.

While I personally stay in my lane and merely produce podcasts and written material, I do know a bit about how marketing and graphic design work when it comes to content production. It is clear that professional teams are producing the thumbnails, filming the videos, and generating the scripts and topics based on viral trend predictors for these priests. What is most disturbing, however, is that, in many cases, there is a clear intention by the producers to market the priest in a way that makes him look more handsome or attractive.

Of course, some priests are objectively handsome, and there is surely nothing wrong with this. However, there is a difference between Fr. So-and-So being handsome and marketing Fr. So-and-So in a way that accentuates his good looks. What is the point of this other than to attract women to watch the videos? Marketing teams and social-media graphics creators are well aware that in a sea of thumbnails, an attractive image will garner more clicks than a not attractive image. And, they are well aware that an attractive image of an attractive man will bring in clicks from women sucked in by the attraction.

I cannot for the life of me see how that could not be sinful.

In addition, it is not uncommon to see the most well-known of these priests in workout settings or even posting images of themselves flexing in gyms. Personally, I don’t think anyone should post an image of himself flexing, and a priest certainly should not do so; it is vainglorious, sensual, prideful, and seemingly gay.

Now, besides the most egregious offenders of the Celebrity Priest class who do things like showing off their muscles as if they are advertising on a dating app, the fact that they are becoming or have become bona fide “influencers” in the most secular sense of the term is troubling.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Disturbing Celebrity Priest Phenomenon appeared first on LewRockwell.

Deepest gratitude to our beloved Lew Rockwell, and to my good friend, Dr. Tom DiLorenzo, for inviting me here. I’m thrilled to be with you.

My topic is The Real Israel Versus Hasbara History. Hopefully some of you know what Hasbara is. When America’s regime historians reflect on history’s tragedies and travesties, they always praise Pax Americana. That is the idea that American empire, hegemony, brought peace to the world. Conveniently, they leave out the horrors of it.

Naturally, regime historians, the ones we are here to counter, speak a lot about Hitler. They hardly ever mention Hiroshima. Likewise, has Israel shaped its past, mixing some history with myth to render a myth history. The propaganda sustaining Israel’s counterfeit history is called Hasbara, which means explanation in Hebrew. Hasbara constructs serve to coat Israel’s real crimes against humanity with ideological respectability, to give them some purity of purpose.

Think of Hasbara as the steady supply of bogus artificial constructs to rape reality. Undeniably, compared to Hasbara, American foreign policy has a certain narrative talent. The injustices of imperial power notwithstanding, people are persuaded by the strut of it. Less obvious is the appeal of Israeli Hasbara and the Jewish supremacy that goes with it, and has seduced so many Christians into ignoring Christ’s teachings. Christ commands care, not for the oppressor and the predator, but for the poor and the oppressed.

Hasbara and official myth history aside, because of Gaza, you don’t have to know much history at all to arrive at the truth about Israel. Reality is truth. The reality of genocide gives rise to irrefutable truths. Because of Gazans, the living and the martyred, the truth about Israel is now ahistoric.

Shortly after October 7, with the commencement in Gaza of Israel’s Operation Swords of Iron, certain self-evident truths became crystal clear. By late October, Israel’s actions within and without Gaza had shown the world the absolute depravity of Israel, state and civil society.

One such emerged reality is that Palestinians, not Israeli Jews, as Hasbara teaches, are the most imperiled people in the world. Israelis, the most perilous. Another is that Israel, with overwhelming support from the Jewish Israeli public, has gleefully engaged in methodical, indiscriminate, industrial-scale murder and ethnic cleansing ongoing.

The Israel Defense Forces, IDF, were allowed to obliterate the fundamentals of physical, national, and economic life in Gaza, turning it into an uninhabitable post-apocalyptic wasteland. The strip has been reduced to its subsoil particulate elements only badly soiled. Gaza is now a mass grave along a small stretch of the Mediterranean Sea where living ghosts wander. Gaza’s soil is soaked through with a mix of millions of tons of building debris, the decaying bodies of tens of thousands of human beings, their pets, livestock, fauna and flora, all gone. An inferno of garbage, open sewage, and the byproducts and contaminants of munitions, like unexploded ordnance.

Said a scholar of the architecture of occupation: “Israel has stolen from Gaza’s Palestinians the very ability to produce food, or receive it, or use means of exchange to get it.” Banking was dismantled. Believe it or not, but under years of medieval blockade, Gaza’s farmers had, before October 7, fed a third of their people.

Indeed, Israel has systemized the mass murder and displacement of innocent Palestinian civilians, targeting them and their habitat for total warfare. Since war against civilians is a war on civilization, Israel, by extension, is the enemy of civilization.

Our ally Israel is a country in which genocide, snuff films, extrajudicial assassinations, rape, robbery, torture, and starvation of Palestinians are de facto legal. Israel is thus a criminal entity and a threat to the comity of nations. The indictment against Israel ought to have been hermetically sealed.

Israel’s ethnocide and genocide in Gaza is in violation of most systems of ethics known to man over intellectual history. It is in violation of God’s law, the Ten Commandments. These command not to covet, steal, or murder. It is in violation of libertarian law, the axiom of non-aggression. It is in violation of natural justice, the laws of war, although genocide is not war, as well as humanitarian law. And it is in violation of the systems of law within which the above is subsumed, the natural and the positive law.

Right and wrong are universal, not relative. The Sixth Commandment is neither opinion nor optional. Thou shalt not murder or mass murder is called a commandment for a reason. There is no tribal privilege clause attached to it. Like gentiles, Jews are enjoined against wanton murder. Yet Israelis now flout the Sixth Commandment with ugly audacity.

Over the months, I have closely observed Israel as it pulverizes population centers across the Levant. I’ve listened in Hebrew to Israeli Jewish public and political discourse. In Hebrew, the Jewish Israeli public personalities and the public express an impatient, snarling contempt for accusations of genocide, offering an unbroken stream of genocide justification Hasbara. It’s like Israeli Jews are yawning, waiting on the world to wake up to the fact that their lives do matter more, and that any aberrant action taken to make them feel safe must be allowed.

And it is allowed. Israel has played its genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza to a packed house, to the world. Israeli Jews don’t lack for facts, but most appear without the analytical and ethical faculties to examine their actions. They lead the unexamined lives of self-anointed superior beings. Societally, majorities appear to project the sense that their sectarian supremacy transcends the universal moral order to which international law, the natural law, and the Decalogue give expression.

The natural law is a system of ethics knowable through reason, revelation, and experience, whichever floats your boat. Because it’s anchored in the very existential nature of man and reality, the natural law is the highest law known to man and is therefore deductively true and just. An example is the libertarian non-aggression axiom. For reasons obvious, there should be no difference between how classical liberals or anarchists understand the non-aggression axiom, which is the organizing principle of libertarianism. Minarchist, anarchist, or statist, genocide is forbidden.

The positive law, on the other hand, is the creation of the state. Legal positivism equates justice with the law of the state. In teasing out right from wrong, we discriminate between acts that are criminal because the state has criminalized them as opposed to acts which are universally criminal. Most civilizing systems of ethics stipulate that no one has a right to kill a single innocent human being, let alone hundreds of thousands of members of a group. There again, Israel’s sacking of Gaza is universally evil.

Lest I be accused of arguing in circles around the definition of genocide, I’ll briefly mention genocide in the context of international versus the natural law. Israel has aced the genocide bar, namely the prohibitions in Article II of the Genocide Convention on destroying a group in whole or in part and/or making life unbearable for that group. Mens rea, intent in Western jurisprudence and judicial philosophy is a component of genocide.

If Palestinians were accorded equality before the law, any law, national or international, then by 2023’s end, logically and perhaps legally Israelis would have been seen as having both spoken their guilty minds and acted out their genocidal intent on the ground. Mass murder is never unintentional when you know it is inevitable and incidental to your mission. If you know in advance that your actions will cause the deaths of thousands upon thousands of innocents, attached to your criminal actions is a guilty mind, mens rea.

America shares in Israel’s genocidal guilty mind. The U.S. regime has been a worshipful partner in Israel’s vice. It has supplied munitions for mass murder. It has provided diplomatic cover. It has issued seven vetoes and abstentions in the UN Security Council to enable Israel’s continued atrocities. America has menaced countries, legal organs, and American residents for wanting to expel, arrest, protest, or boycott Israelis.

America’s helped Israeli Hasbara in asserting self-defense to justify collective punishment, and America has helped Israel to frame state terrorism as self-defense, normalizing the structural violence that is the state of Israel. The genocide of Gazans was happily and willingly underwritten by the United States government, the American political class, and its Julius Streicher media, which even mid-murder, describe Israelis as victims.

On the matter of industrial-scale mass murder, international law is not at odds with the natural law or the libertarian law. Such is the case of Article Two of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It articulates mostly a set of negative rights. Their enforcement imposes no burden on anybody but the sadistic, sociopathic serial killers under discussion.

Most libertarians would concede that the state now acts extrajudicially, and that any remnants of the natural law once embedded in the US Constitution have long since been buried beneath the rubble of legislation and statute. Let us say then that to the extent that law, local, international, tribal, upholds no more than natural rights, law is okay. To the extent that law violates the rights to life, liberty, and property, law is bad. To the extent state law agrees with the natural law, to that extent it’s inoffensive. By extension, it matters not who upholds the rights of Palestinians to life and land, just so long as someone does. It matters not which state, which federal official, or international organization, or which platoon, Hezbollah or the Houthis, just so long as someone does.

In America, federalism means divided sovereignty, which if we are to take James Madison seriously, should make it difficult for states to begin executing their residents. Why would it be a matter of respect for a country’s sovereignty to allow Israel to systematically occupy and subjugate a population on the off-chance that they eliminate some terrorists, whom by now most consider resistance fighters? Most should.

Make no mistake, in human rights law, there is a responsibility to protect a community that is being evicted and eradicated. There’s a right to resist, under the Hague regulations on belligerent occupation. Neither offends the natural law. Resistance fighters argue that they are heeding this calling, the responsibility to protect. Israel ought to have been forcibly stopped, its innocent victims protected. You don’t placate a John Wayne Gacy and a Jeffrey Dahmer. You stop them, but not as the axis of genocide sees it.

The Arab societies are non-woke societies. The fact that Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Yemen were and are largely traditional societies, not co-opted woke societies, has certainly helped the West justify their mistreatment. You see, the woke masters of the Western universe consider non-woke societies as without the natural right of resistance. Their resistance we call terrorism.

Given that nobody has effectively upheld the legal responsibility to protect Palestinians, all but the spirit of Gaza is gone.

Consider the great Palestinian return to Northern Gaza in January of 2025. The erasure of over 2,000 Gazan bloodlines, family trees gone. An epic event took place despite that erasure. Processions of Palestinians in their thousands returned to their ruined homes in Northern Gaza. You see, the land is central to Palestinian identity. What greater proof is there of the ancestral homesteader claims that Palestinians have to Palestine than this devotion, this resilience?

Contrast this Palestinian rootedness and resilience with Israel’s squirrelly northern and southern sett- settler populations. Israeli Jews have not returned to towns in Israel’s north or south. Rather, their love of the land is predicated on its ethnic cleansing. Only if their army obliterates even the slightest danger posed by their indigenous neighbors would Israeli settlers return.

For yet more of a contrast, look too at the repulsive levels of Israeli environmental destruction in Gaza. This speaks among many other things to Israel’s profound alienation from an ecosystem it shares and claims to care about. Israeli Jews have a greed for the land, not a love of it.

Back to our nemesis, the state.

What about the moral authority of a democratic state? Surely our ally Israel shares our democratic values, or so we are lectured. Well, murder with majority approval is still murder, whomever the perpetrator. Whether it is committed by the decree of the one dictator or the will of the many, by actors within or without the state, by the designated good guys or by the bad guys, murder of innocents is always murder.

You would be correct to conclude, however, that this 21st century holocaust is popular.

Thumping majorities across Israel’s public and private sectors have throughout justified, finessed, and fibbed about their army’s AI high-tech-driven depopulation and extermination orgy in Gaza. Eager to write the Palestinian obituary as late in the genocide as February of 2025, 80% of Jewish Israelis signaled their support for Trump’s plan for Gaza. Only 3% thought it immoral.

Trump’s plan is an extension and completion of Joe Biden’s genocide, which included the internal displacement, depopulation, and large-scale extermination of the Strip and its people. First, Donald Trump has proposed to cover up Israel’s crime of genocide, removing the pitiful exhibits from the scene of the crime. Next, he planned to conclude Joe’s genocide by scattering the survivors across the Middle East. Israel will have been rescued. Gazans would have ceased to exist as a nation. The liquidation and extermination campaign in the Gaza ghetto would have been completed.

Debating and committing genocidal violence, forcibly displacing millions, starving a subjugated population, all this many of Trump backers called out-of-the-box thinking. Who said crime doesn’t pay? When the superpower inverts the moral order of the universe, the crime of all crime pays and then some.

In any case, genocide has won a plebiscite in Israel. No surprise. Remember, the IDF is Israel. It’s a citizen army in which every Israeli must serve. It’s the voice of the Jewish Israeli commonwealth. Israel’s sons and daughters are the stars in the country’s genocide constellation. We’ve watched them level Gaza, vaporize young men picking their way through rubble as though in a video game, mock the victims, snipe their kids, rape their men, rob their businesses, rummage through the intimate effects of people dead and dispossessed, invade and explode entire residential buildings. True, all Israeli Jews are conscripted and must enlist in this army. However, the military draft does not compel a conscript to commit, chronicle, and crow over what is institutionalized, legalized serial-killer-type crime. The pride and joy seen, recorded, and then transmitted to the world from thousands of IDF mobile phones over months has been voluntary, spontaneous, and organic to Israeli society’s tenor and project.

So please let us hear no Nuremberg defense. “I was only following orders” must not be tolerated in mitigation of the IDF. The evidence is conclusive, idea of shoot, loot, and bomb for fun. No doubt the Israeli state is genocidal, but by the numbers and by their statements, Israeli society is as sociopathic. From janitor to general, from soldiers to Supreme Court justices. As uncomfortable as this is for us, for the libertarian individualist, the facts are clear. On the matter of the genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza, Israeli Jews, Israeli Jewish society does not stand apart from the Jewish state.

Throughout, polled opinion in Israel was not split between Jewish Israelis for mass murder versus Israelis against mass murder and ethnic cleansing. No. The division in Israeli society has been between Jewish Israelis for current levels of violence against Gazans versus those for greater or lesser industry in what were already industrial levels and methods of murder.

By the polls, nothing outside their self-righteous and self-obsessed selves mattered to a preponderance of Jewish Israelis. Israeli Jews, by and large, have become a sorority of Jewish supremacists, and Palestinians have paid a terrible price for Israel’s systemic societal sociopathy.

Ask Israelis about Palestinian babies shredded to bits, real beheadings, and they’ll dish Hasbara. “It’s all in self-defense, and it’s all the doing of a third party.” Guess who made them do the genocide? Hamas. “It’s not me,” says the criminal. “Hamas ate my homework.” “I mean my… I mean my conscience.” This is Israel’s third-party theory of culpability. Israel vomits it up, the West laps it up.

The Hamas made me mass murder non sequitur exposes Israel’s Hasbara for its irrationality. Since when do you blame a third party for your ongoing crimes in real time?

Put it this way, the state in which you live has no right to evict you from your home and bomb your neighborhood because its agents believe outlaws hide in your neighborhood. The crime of passion defense is bad enough. The third-party theory of culpability must never bolster it. The crime of passion defense we associate with a single event, not with sadistic serial killer… Serial killers loosed for months on end on millions of innocents across the Via Dolorosa that is Gaza.

Yes, Israel has an historic passion, all right, but for methodical mass murder. See, the idea of… It’s not a fighting force, it’s an air force. Judged from its actions over time, this air force’s objectives are not to defeat a regular army, but to pound population centers into submission in Gaza, across the Levant, and beyond. What other country has not only had killer practices codified in law, but also named… The Dahiya Doctrine is named after the southern suburbs of Beirut, upon whose Shia civilians the Israeli Air Force has perfected its predation. Mowing the lawn. That’s the term used across Israel to signal murder sprees periodical against Palestinian civilians to keep populations subdued.

Fans of true crime TV, me, will remember the Highway I-5 serial killer. Imagine his killer craft being dubbed the I-5 Doctrine, and Wikipedia describing this infamous serial killer murderer of women as an originator of the I-5 Doctrine.

Without a doubt, public protest too in Israel has followed a strictly “me, me” solipsistic self-interest. There was little transcendent humanity whatsoever in Israeli hostage protests. Remember this. By the numbers and by their own words, most Israeli Jews were simply demanding a return of their hostages. Said one Israeli pundit, “Israeli wants… want… Israelis want their hostages back. They don’t want Gaza back.”

If the Israeli state is a criminal entity, what then can be said about the US? Israel’s war on Gaza, the West Bank, and the Greater Levant is America’s war. Like it or not, Gaza is a genocide. We hear disinterested mumblings about the national interest, uh, “Don’t talk to me about Gaza. It’s of no national interest to the United States of America.” I’m afraid it’s too late for the national interest dodge. The US is an interventionist hegemon. It has aided, abetted, and partaken in via reconnaissance an extermination campaign in Gaza.

Besides often being immoral, the national interest argument is a form of statism. The premise of national interest political pragmatism leads to this perverse logic. If enabling the slaughter of Gazans and Iraqis happen to be in the American national interest, then those endeavors would have been justified in accordance with the national interest standards. In other words, if the US government considered genocide in the national interest, then genocide it is. America should act as the divine… on the… as… on its divine rights as global judge, jury, and executioner. No, genocide is not a foreign policy matter, it is a moral matter.

And the United States’ energetic support for the Gaza holocaust is a defining event in the annals of American foreign policy aberrations, and in the national life. While American foreign policy is a museum of horrors, Gaza is now the main exhibit.

Why is Gaza qualitatively different from foreign policy deformities that went before? Here’s why, in my opinion. So far, America’s foreign policy has been largely focused on regime change program where collateral damage is largely concealed but framed as incidental to a political program. Again and again, the American masters of the universe have gone to war to make the world woke. Namely, make it over in America’s image, as well as make the world safe for Israel, of course. Mass murder within the American foreign policy framework has generally been secondary to a program of warring to make the world work. Crudely put, “Be like us or we’ll kill you.”

In Gaza, however, America’s participated in mass murder for the sake of murder. In Gaza, Uncle Sam has finally achieved an official or formal inversion of all universal values.

What the US has approved and assisted in Gaza is a primetime 21st-century holocaust. In a sense, Israel has affected a radical ethical inversion in America. Sects of Christianity can no longer distinguish Satan from God, mutually exclusive categories. They favor apex edicts over the commandment of the prince of peace. But you are what you do. The Israeli state is genocidal, not by virtue of its actions and the declared intent accompanying these actions, not because it has been denounced as genocidal by so-called anti-Semites and terrorist sympathizers. Said Jesus, “Therefore, by their fruits, you will know them.”

Another of Hasbarah’s aims is to frame IDF’s ongoing extermination campaign against the population of cornered civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as byproducts of war, as incidental to a just war prosecuted by brave fighters.

If it’s portrayed as a war crime, genocide can be dismissed as no more than a case of, “Oops, bad things happen in the butcher shop of war.” In Gaza, however, Israel has waged genocide, not war. Dressing up a canned hunt as a war is pure Hasbarah. Genocide is not a war. The genocide-as-war-crime conceptualization provides cover and lends authority to criminals and criminality. You mitigate and minimize genocide when you call it a war crime. You see, genocide is not a war crime to which a set of mitigating and explanatory legal defenses can attach. Genocide is a standalone, indefensible crime of all crimes for which there are no legal or moral defenses. There are no extenuating circumstances, historical, legal, or other, for genocide.

True, Israel’s genocide has been disrupted by asymmetric warfare from non-state Palestinian resistance fighters, but there is an enormous power differential between occupier and occupied.

That the serial killers encounter organized regional resistance does not make genocide a war.

So far, I’ve anatomized what Israel state and society has done to the Gaza Strip and its people since October 7, but what have Gazans, the living and the martyred, accomplished? A great deal.

Outwardly captives, Palestinians are truly liberated from the liberal political propaganda that grips the West. They have made us see Israel as an irreparably corrupt force, morally and militarily. The genocide of Gaza has very plainly invalidated Israel and validated the Palestinian cause.

A moral, sentient human being need know nothing much about the history of the region to arrive at this conclusion. Here’s why. You’ve seen Israel for the contradiction it is. Israel astonishingly has engaged in the mother of all performative contradictions, denying genocide while publicly committing genocide, effectively asserting a birthright to do genocide. Israel demands to exist as a privileged protected aberration, carrying out satanic deeds with universal blessings and absolution. Think about it. Caught in the protracted planful act of committing genocide, the guilty party, Israel, persist in claiming for itself the right to kill and deceive without being considered and treated as a killer and con artist. The chutzpah.

To no avail, human action, as Mises taught us, is the undeniable key to man-made reality. Israel and the US have acted. They’ve been exposed. Ethnocide, depopulation, and domicide are never justified and can never be exculpated. To assert that you are just and justified as you carry out that which cannot be just or justified, this is to embody the most grotesque contradiction and to be less than human, less than coherent. At minimum, Israel deserves the revulsion and isolation reserved for entities whose existence is a confidence trick and a fraud upon us all.

The same ahistoric Hoppean argumentation, God bless Hoppe, applied to invalidate Israel will serve here to validate the Palestinians’ reality as they have been telling it over decades. Israel’s televised genocide has corroborated the reality of the Palestinians, their reason for rage, and their rights to resistance and recompense.

Palestinians have been telling us for decades that they have been set upon by murderers and thieves. Palestinians have told us they are being killed and robbed as a matter of course. Their reality has been irrefutably affirmed since October 7. Now, if supporters of Israel’s genocide in Gaza deny this, they too would be fraudsters living a lie. The liar’s life of lies we expose by compelling the denier of the Palestinian holocaust to live his own lie.

Deniers of the Palestinian reality, Ben Shapiro, Bari Weiss, Biden, Bibi, Blinken, Douglas Murray, Dennis Prager, would be parachuted into occupied Gaza. Genocide would become their lived reality, not their rhetorical reality.

Running here and there as tanks advance on the denier, ducking and diving bombardments from above, as if you can escape the death radius of American-made 2,500-pound bombs. These Holocaust deniers would be recorded scratching for scraps, carrying jerricans of contaminated drinking water back to nylon dwellings, climbing over kilometers of decaying structures through ruins and twisted metal. Our camera will find these Holocaust deniers queuing with thousands to use a single functioning toilet, plumbing having been destroyed by the Israelis. The denier of the Palestinian holocaust would be filmed up close, suffering dysentery, sepsis, and starvation, intubated, amputated, or C-sectioned without narcotics. Twisting on a hospital floor smeared by blood and waste. Listening to the incessant whirring above of Israel’s quadcopter killer drones. The Holocaust denier will therefore live this absolute truth, the ontological truth of Israel’s final solution to its Palestinian problem.

The nature of Palestinian reality is, as they’ve been telling it, QED proposition proven.

In conclusion, books are now being written more about Israeli and Jewish anguish than about the victims. Being Jewish after Gaza is one.

Israel’s theocracy, Israel’s moral and military degeneration, Israel’s looming collapse. When did it begin? Right wing, left wing? Why? Why? Why? Everyone is beating on breast about Israel.

An apt response are the words of a character from Southern literature, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

And neither should you worry about the perpetrators of genocide only to the extent that punishment is exacted upon Israel for what it has done to the Palestinians, that reparations and restitution are extracted from Israel in perpetuity for the Palestinians. Thank you.

The post The Real Israel vs. Hasbara History appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Tim McGraw:

This is a good show. It shows what it’s like to fly these old WWII cargo planes in the NW Territories of Canada. Working on the planes is unforgiving. Everyone has to pitch in. I’ve never cleaned snow off the wings of a plane. At Chelan Airways, Nick, the owner/pilot, did it. I didn’t volunteer. To fall off the wing into an ice-cold Lake Chelan would not be a pleasant experience.

I’ve worked on a DC-3 (double engine change in St.Thomas, Virgin Islands), and have toured a DC-4 (Salmon & Cocaine Airways), but I’ve never worked on or been in a C-46. There was a C-46 parked on the tarmac near Cruzeiro Air at Belem International Airport when I was there. It never moved. 

As usual, the show is always about the pilots, even the secretary/cargo organizer, but rarely about the aircraft mechanics. Typical. 

The post Ice Pilots appeared first on LewRockwell.

The first few weeks of the second Trump Administration were exciting and hopeful. Elon Musk, along with the support of a large majority of Americans, was going to dive into the Swamp in order free the American citizens. It actually looked as though it were going to happen. The pentagon would be audited, Ft. Knox would be visited, the Fed would be audited, and TRILLIONS would be cut from the budget! But alas, even the richest man in the world (armed with public opinion) would be stopped cold. None of the above would come. Government spending and debt are expected to skyrocket even further!

The post Neocon GOP Strikes Again! DOGE Is Out … Deficits & Debts Are Still In appeared first on LewRockwell.