Lew Rockwell Institute

“Santa Claus is a very strange figure when you think about it.  Where does he come from and why does he fly through the sky handing out presents at night? This episode traces the connection with an old Norse god and an Anatolian bishop from the 3rd century, and explores the gritty reality of life in the Roman empire for ordinary people.  You will never look at old Saint Nick the same way again.”

“Uncover the surprising origins of Santa Claus, tracing their evolution from ancient Germanic traditions to the modern icon. Explore the historical figure of St. Nicholas and their acts of charity. Journey through centuries of evolving legends and cultural interpretations.”

The post The History of Santa Claus appeared first on LewRockwell.

In this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan and Josh Mawhorter talk about how Thomas Hobbes, even nearly 400 years later, remains a popular spokesman for almost limitless state power. In fact, by Hobbes’s logic, the world should by ruled by a single global dictatorship.

The post Why We Hate Thomas Hobbes appeared first on LewRockwell.

In this episode of Radio Rothbard, Ryan and Josh Mawhorter talk about how Thomas Hobbes, even nearly 400 years later, remains a popular spokesman for almost limitless state power. In fact, by Hobbes’s logic, the world should by ruled by a single global dictatorship.

The post Why We Hate Thomas Hobbes appeared first on LewRockwell.

Full Jeffrey Epstein super stream this week, started as a readthrough and annotation of the New York Times investigation into Epstein, and evolved into finally cracking the origins of how Jeffrey Epstein got the exact clients from the exact places with the exact backgrounds he did, and how he did it so quickly. Skip to 4:05:18 if you just want that part.

The post Mike Benz — Epstein Origins Finally Solved appeared first on LewRockwell.

Despite sitting on an $8 billion endowment, Brown University apparently can’t afford even one security camera in or outside the engineering school building where two students studying for a final exam were murdered and nine others shot last week.

The post The Brown University Fundraising/Hedge Fund Racket appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Tucker Carlson Claims Trump Will Declare A New War Against Venezuela In His Address This Evening appeared first on LewRockwell.

The amazing Mark Groubert (aka Lordbuckly) is one of the most interesting men in the world! This legendary raconteur has known virtually everyone and been everywhere in his epic lifetime and eclectic careers in media, writing and editing, in magazines, tabloids, newspapers, television and radio, books, feature film and documentary screenwriter and producer. He is one of the great freelance journalists and survivors in the disparate competitive literary and artistic cultures of the late 20th century and early 21st centuries.

In this special edition podcast of Wassup With Lordbuckly? he addresses the brutal murder of mega-Hollywood star Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Singer Reiner on last Sunday, December 14, 2025. Groubert, with his exceptional background and connections to the Hollywood elite, provides a unique insider’s prospective and revealing insights on this unfolding tragedy only he could elucidate. His breaking reporting of LAPD anomalies in the investigation is phenomenal!

The post The Murder of Rob Reiner appeared first on LewRockwell.

The amazing Mark Groubert (aka Lordbuckly) is one of the most interesting men in the world! This legendary raconteur has known virtually everyone and been everywhere in his epic lifetime and eclectic careers in media, writing and editing, in magazines, tabloids, newspapers, television and radio, books, feature film and documentary screenwriter and producer. He is one of the great freelance journalists and survivors in the disparate competitive literary and artistic cultures of the late 20th century and early 21st centuries.

In this special edition podcast of Wassup With Lordbuckly? he addresses the brutal murder of mega-Hollywood star Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Singer Reiner on last Sunday, December 14, 2025. Groubert, with his exceptional background and connections to the Hollywood elite, provides a unique insider’s prospective and revealing insights on this unfolding tragedy only he could elucidate. His breaking reporting of LAPD anomalies in the investigation is phenomenal!

The post The Murder of Rob Reiner appeared first on LewRockwell.

Typical politician.  When government fails, it’s all the more evidence that we need much more of it.

The post Australian PM: After Bondi Beach Massacre, We Need Tougher Gun Laws! appeared first on LewRockwell.

In early 1975, I took an in-depth special course on the Middle East at the University of Tulsa by one of my favorite political science professors. It proved to be one of the most impactful intellectual experiences of my life, with ongoing consequences for decades.

The professor was Joseph R. Rudolph Jr.

I was, like most students I was acquainted with, as well as most other persons in my community, someone profoundly ignorant and unaware of the actual situation in the Middle East beyond the headlines and the propaganda from the establishment regime media.

Most of the other students in the course were from the region, particularly Saudis and one Israeli. It dramatically opened my eyes and mind to the historic and geopolitical reality and background to the century’s old conflicts in the area.

Simultaneous, something else in 1975 was happening at the UN.

The United Nations resolution that declared Zionism a form of racism was General Assembly Resolution 3379, passed in 1975, which stated, “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. However, this controversial resolution was revoked in 1991 by General Assembly Resolution 46/86, with a vote of 111-25, effectively nullifying its original declaration.

Key Details:

Resolution 3379 (1975): Adopted by the UN General Assembly, it equated Zionism (the Jewish people’s national liberation movement) with racism and racial discrimination, influenced by Arab states, communist nations, and some developing countries.

Revocation in 1991: Following the end of the Cold War and shifting global politics, the UN General Assembly voted to repeal Resolution 3379, demonstrating a significant change in international consensus.

In essence, while the resolution existed and labeled Zionism as racism, it is no longer an active UN stance, having been officially rescinded.

It is truly time to end the ignorance, obfuscation and hypocrisy on the Middle East.

Both sides in the Middle East conflagration were founded and fueled by vicious terrorist entities who waged unspeakable violence on innocent populations.

There is blood on the hands of both the Zionists behind the State of Israel and the Arab and Muslim terrorists in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Terror Out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, LEHI, and the Palestine Underground, 1929-1949

Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam — Book by Robert Dreyfus

.pdf format of this volume.

“The most clear and engaging history of the deadly, historic partnership between Western powers and political Islam.”—Salon.com

Devil’s Game is the first comprehensive account of America’s misguided efforts, stretching across decades, to dominate the strategically vital Middle East by courting and cultivating Islamic fundamentalism.

Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews with dozens of policy makers and CIA, Pentagon, and foreign service officials, Robert Dreyfuss follows the trail of American collusion from support for the Muslim Brotherhood in 1950s Egypt, to links with Khomeini and Afghani jihadists, to longstanding ties between radical Islamists and the leading banks of the West. The result is as tragic as it is paradoxical: originally deployed as pawns to foil nationalism and communism, extremist mullahs and ayatollahs now dominate the landscape, thundering against freedom of thought, science, women’s rights, secularism—and their former patron.

Chronicling a history of double-dealing, cynical exploitation, and humiliating embarrassment that continues to this day, Devil’s Game reveals a pattern that, far from furthering democracy or security, ensures a future of blunders and blowback.

The Time for Ignorance, Obfuscation and Hypocrisy on the Middle East is Over.

The post It is Time to End the Ignorance, Obfuscation and Hypocrisy on the Middle East appeared first on LewRockwell.

In early 1975, I took an in-depth special course on the Middle East at the University of Tulsa by one of my favorite political science professors. It proved to be one of the most impactful intellectual experiences of my life, with ongoing consequences for decades.

The professor was Joseph R. Rudolph Jr.

I was, like most students I was acquainted with, as well as most other persons in my community, someone profoundly ignorant and unaware of the actual situation in the Middle East beyond the headlines and the propaganda from the establishment regime media.

Most of the other students in the course were from the region, particularly Saudis and one Israeli. It dramatically opened my eyes and mind to the historic and geopolitical reality and background to the century’s old conflicts in the area.

Simultaneous, something else in 1975 was happening at the UN.

The United Nations resolution that declared Zionism a form of racism was General Assembly Resolution 3379, passed in 1975, which stated, “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”. However, this controversial resolution was revoked in 1991 by General Assembly Resolution 46/86, with a vote of 111-25, effectively nullifying its original declaration.

Key Details:

Resolution 3379 (1975): Adopted by the UN General Assembly, it equated Zionism (the Jewish people’s national liberation movement) with racism and racial discrimination, influenced by Arab states, communist nations, and some developing countries.

Revocation in 1991: Following the end of the Cold War and shifting global politics, the UN General Assembly voted to repeal Resolution 3379, demonstrating a significant change in international consensus.

In essence, while the resolution existed and labeled Zionism as racism, it is no longer an active UN stance, having been officially rescinded.

It is truly time to end the obfuscation and hypocrisy.

Both sides in the Middle East conflagration were founded and fueled by vicious terrorist entities who waged unspeakable violence on innocent populations.

There is blood on the hands of both the Zionists behind the State of Israel and the Arab and Muslim terrorists in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Terror Out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, LEHI, and the Palestine Underground, 1929-1949

Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam — Book by Robert Dreyfus

.pdf format of this volume.

“The most clear and engaging history of the deadly, historic partnership between Western powers and political Islam.”—Salon.com

Devil’s Game is the first comprehensive account of America’s misguided efforts, stretching across decades, to dominate the strategically vital Middle East by courting and cultivating Islamic fundamentalism.

Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews with dozens of policy makers and CIA, Pentagon, and foreign service officials, Robert Dreyfuss follows the trail of American collusion from support for the Muslim Brotherhood in 1950s Egypt, to links with Khomeini and Afghani jihadists, to longstanding ties between radical Islamists and the leading banks of the West. The result is as tragic as it is paradoxical: originally deployed as pawns to foil nationalism and communism, extremist mullahs and ayatollahs now dominate the landscape, thundering against freedom of thought, science, women’s rights, secularism—and their former patron.

Chronicling a history of double-dealing, cynical exploitation, and humiliating embarrassment that continues to this day, Devil’s Game reveals a pattern that, far from furthering democracy or security, ensures a future of blunders and blowback.

The Time for Ignorance, Obfuscation and Hypocrisy on the Middle East is Over.

The post It is Time to End the Obfuscation and Hypocrisy on the Middle East appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Here Comes The $12 Billion Farm Aid Bill – Is There A Better Way? appeared first on LewRockwell.

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Zero Hedge

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Eugyppius

The post Chancellor Friedrich Merz has filed more speech crime charges against detractors than anyone else in the history of the Federal Republic appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Bill Madde:

I keep thinking of the look of anguish on Candidate Trump’s face when he promised to end our war with Russia in Ukraine and the Israeli slaughter of the Palestinians in Gaza prior to the 11/25 elections.  He really feigned sympathy for those being killed with our financial and military support.  Now, however, President Trump is a totally different person.  Killing is fine as long as he thinks that he’s selling the murder to the masses with B.S. justifications. 

Maybe a good presidential ticket for 2028 would include either or both Congressman Massie and Congresswoman Greene although our controllers would probably take extreme action to guarantee that it never happens.  Our controllers, the financial benefactors of most of our Washington politicians and the major owners of Corporate America, lose control and profits when America First, pro-Constitution politicians gain influence.  And, after all, it is all about money and power.

The post Trump’s Henchmen Keep Calling Their War Slut President A Peacemaker appeared first on LewRockwell.

Comprehensive, chronological record of the Pearl Harbor event and the major historical and geopolitical consequences outlined and described in the form of numerous authoritative articles, essays, books, documentaries, presentations, both primary and secondary sourced.

The post President Franklin D. Roosevelt Declares War on Japan appeared first on LewRockwell.

During the past few weeks, the Trump Administration has engaged in an illegal and immoral war against Venezuela. The war violates both United States law and international law. Even more important, it violates the principles of just war set forward by Murray Rothbard.

Wars almost always bring atrocities with them, and unfortunately, Trump’s war on Venezuela is no exception. According to an account published by the Washington Post on November 28, “As two men clung to a stricken, burning ship targeted by SEAL Team 6, the Joint Special Operations commander followed the defense secretary’s order to leave no survivors. The longer the U.S. surveillance aircraft followed the boat, the more confident intelligence analysts watching from command centers became that the 11 people on board were ferrying drugs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody,’ one of them said. A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. Hegseth’s order, which has not been previously reported, adds another dimension to the campaign against suspected drug traffickers.”

People were aghast at this barbarous display, and in response, the Trump Administration put out a transparently lame excuse. It tried to shift the blame to the admiral in charge of the operation. “President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he would not have wanted a second strike on the boat and said Hegseth denied giving such an order. But White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Hegseth had authorized Admiral Frank Bradley to conduct the strikes on September 2. ‘Secretary Hegseth authorized Admiral Bradley to conduct these kinetic strikes. Admiral Bradley worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,’ Leavitt said. Leavitt said the strike was conducted in ‘self defense’ to protect U.S. interests, took place in international waters and was in line with the law of armed conflict. ‘This administration has designated these narco- terrorists as foreign terrorist organizations,’ Leavitt said. Starting in September, the U.S. military has carried out at least 19 strikes against suspected drug vessels in the Caribbean and off the Pacific coasts of Latin America, killing at least 76 people.”

Trump’s alleged “concern” for so-called “narco-terrorism” is hypocritical. Trump pardoned a former president of Honduras who was serving a long prison term for bringing an enormous amount of cocaine into the U.S. Somehow, that doesn’t qualify as “narco-terrorism.” Trump’s South America policy is getting more ridiculous by the day. As ‘Moon of Alabama’ reports, “Yesterday he announced a pardon for the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who is serving a 45-year sentence for partnering with drug traffickers who had allegedly shipped 400 tons of cocaine to the United States. He also endorsed a right-wing candidate Nasry ‘Tito’ Asfura for Sunday’s election in Honduras. Asfura belongs to the same party as Hernández.”

It transpires that Venezuela is not a major supplier of drugs to the U.S., despite all the hoopla from Trump. As Finian Cunningham reports, “Venezuela’s role in narcotics trafficking to the United States is not significant compared with other Latin American countries, according to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime. Colombia and Peru are more important as cocaine sources. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has denoted Mexico as the biggest source of illicit fentanyl, which is responsible for most American overdose deaths.

I said earlier that Trump’s war on “narco-terrorism” violates international law, and Cunningham offers a succinct summary of the relevant points: “The United Nations Charter explicitly outlaws every aspect of Trump’s conduct towards Venezuela. Article 2:3 mandates that all disputes must be settled through peaceful means. Article 2:4 prohibits the use or threat of military force.”

I also said that Trump’s policy violates American law. As law professor Michael Ramsey notes, “The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 specifically lists as a power of Congress the power ‘to declare War,’ which unquestionably gives the legislature the power to initiate hostilities. . . Most people agree, at minimum, that the Declare War Clause grants Congress an exclusive power. That is, Presidents cannot, on their own authority, declare war.”

Now, let’s look at what I said was the most important thing we need to consider in assessing Trump’s aggressive and illegal war: Murray Rothbard’s account of just war. Here is what he says: “Much of ‘classical international law’ theory, developed by the Catholic Scholastics, notably the 16th-century Spanish Scholastics such as Vitoria and Suarez, and then the Dutch Protestant Scholastic Grotius and by 18th- and 19th-century jurists, was an explanation of the criteria for a just war. For war, as a grave act of killing, needs to be justified. My own view of war can be put simply: a just war exists when a people try to ward off the threat of coercive domination by another people, or to overthrow an already-existing domination. A war is unjust, on the other hand, when a people try to impose domination on another people, or try to retain an already existing coercive rule over them.

“During my lifetime, my ideological and political activism has focused on opposition to America’s wars, first because I have believed our waging them to be unjust, and, second, because war, in the penetrating phrase of the libertarian Randolph Bourne in World War I, has always been ‘the health of the State,’ an instrument for the aggrandizement of State power over the health, the lives, and the prosperity, of their subject citizens and social institutions. Even a just war cannot be entered into lightly; an unjust one must therefore be anathema.

“I would like to mention a few vital features of the treatment of war by the classical international natural lawyers, The classical international lawyers from the 16th through the 19th centuries were trying to cope with the implications of the rise and dominance of the modern nation-state. They did not seek to ‘abolish war,’ the very notion of which they would have considered absurd and utopian. Wars will always exist among groups, peoples, nations; the desideratum, in addition to trying to persuade them to stay within the compass of ‘just wars,’ was to curb and limit the impact of existing wars as much as possible. Not to try to ‘abolish war,’ but to constrain war with limitations imposed by civilization.

“Specifically, the classical international lawyers developed two ideas, which they were broadly successful in getting nations to adopt: Above all, don’t target civilians. If you must fight, let the rulers and their loyal or hired retainers slug it out, but keep civilians on both sides out of it, as much as possible. The growth of democracy, the identification of citizens with the State, conscription, and the idea of a ‘nation in arms,’ all whittled away this excellent tenet of international law. Preserve the rights of neutral states and nations. In the modern corruption of international law that has prevailed since 1914, neutrality’ has been treated as somehow deeply immoral. Nowadays, if countries A and B get into a fight, it becomes every nation’s moral obligation to figure out, quickly, which country is the ‘bad guy,’ and then if, say, A is condemned as the bad guy, to rush in and pummel A in defense of the alleged good guy B.”

In sum, what Murray is saying is that a just war must be defensive; a nation must be trying to stop an invasion. And even in a defensive war, you must follow certain restraints. You cannot attack non-combatants. Shipping narcotics to the U.S. is not waging war, however much we might oppose attempts to do this.

Moreover, blowing up people who are clinging to a boat so that they won’t drown is cowardly and dastardly. Only those utterly without a conscience could do such a thing. Let’s do everything we can to oppose Trump’s unjust war against Venezuela!

The post Trump’s War on Venezuela appeared first on LewRockwell.

Sorry, but most of you are guilty of Ignorance and Apathy when you voted for a lying, charismatic Democrat, Communist, or Republican in Congress. None of these politicians give a damn about the people; they are only concerned about reelection and how much they can steal. Democrats and Communists are mean and ruthless, the Republicans are mealy-mouthed and weak.

You voted for your own destruction. So your only hope is to 1. vote every incumbent out of office and replace him/her with America-First Patriots, 2. replace the corrupt FBI with honest law enforcement who will jail every corrupt government official and employee, or 3. most importantly, demand that Congress obey the Enumerated Powers in the Constitution.

The Enumerated Powers specify exactly what the Federal Government can do; all other functions are reserved for the States and the People.The corrupt Traitors in government ignore the Enumerated Powers and usurp whatever functions they please, which is Treason and is impoverishing the people.

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC UNLESS ENUMERATED POWERS ARE FOLLOWED. OTHERWISE, MOST OF GOVERNMENT IS BUT A CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE WITH NO LEGAL BASIS FOR EXISTENCE AND SUBJECT TO REVOLUTION!

I have no fear of contradiction when I say that if government follows the Enumerated Powers that we would be living in extreme luxury. Therefore, we must do everything possible to force government to comply with the Enumerated Powers.

It goes without saying that every Democrat, Communist, and Republican hates President Trump because he is responsible for reducing their take from bribes and kickbacks. Of course, the Republicans don’t admit that they, too, hate Trump.

The prostitutes you elected will continue to impoverish you until the Economic Collapse that is hanging over our heads takes over and we lose everything. Responsible Economists know how dire our situation is, but the Elites and their subservient Politicians don’t give a damn.

If you limit the government to only its Enumerated Powers, you eliminate a majority of Government Expenses that are being spent, unlawfully funding a Criminal Enterprise, Welfare, and Communism that is rightfully a responsibility of the states to determine. Defunding the unconstitutional government functions would result in an almost instant and fantastic prosperity for those who work. Those who can work…and don’t…will starve.

The following is a quote from Publius Huldah and a copy from her blog (https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/). She is an expert on Constitutional Law. I recommend that you save this powerful information: “Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 1, US Constitution, grants to Congress the authority to spend money on whatever THEY think is a good idea is a false interpretation which has been used to evade the constitutional limits on the federal gov’s power.  The only lawful powers Congress has over the Country at large are the enumerated powers…

WE delegated to Congress the following Enumerated Powers over the Country at Large:

Article I, § 8, clauses 1-16 :

(1) To lay certain taxes;

(2) To pay the debts of the United States;

(3) To declare war and make rules of warfare, to raise and

support armies and a navy and to make rules governing the

military forces; to call forth the militia for certain purposes,

and to make rules governing the militia;

(4) To regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among

the States, and with the Indian Tribes;

(5) To establish uniform Rules of Naturalization;

(6) To establish uniform Laws on Bankruptcies;

(7) To coin money and regulate the value thereof;

(8) To fix the standard of Weights and Measures;

(9) To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting;

(10) To establish post offices and post roads;

(11) To issue patents and copyrights;

(12) To create courts inferior to the supreme court; and

(13) To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on

the high seas, and offenses against the Laws of Nations.

Other provisions of Our Constitution delegate to

Congress powers over the Country at Large to make

laws regarding:

(14) An enumeration of the population for purposes of

apportionment of Representatives and direct taxes (Art. I, § 2, 3);

(15) Elections of Senators & Representatives (Art. I, §4, cl. 1)

and their pay (Art. I, § 6);

(16) After 1808, to prohibit importation of slaves (Art. I, § 9, 1); 2

(17) After 1808, to restrict migration (immigration) to these

United States (Art. I, §9, cl. 1);

(18) A restricted power to suspend Writs of Habeas Corpus

(Art. I, §9, cl. 2);

(19) To revise and control imposts or duties on imports or

exports which may be laid by States (Art. I, § 10, cl. 2 &3)

(20) A restricted power to declare the punishment of Treason

(Art. III, §3, cl. 2);

(21) Implementation of the Full Faith and Credit clause (Art.

IV, §1); and,

(22) Procedures for amendments to The Constitution (Art. V).”

( end of copy from her Blog )

It is impossible to have a Constitutional Republic unless the Enumerated Powers are complied with by the federal government… and they are not. The only way to have unlimited prosperity is to follow the Constitution; the alternative is to continue as we are, taking us into a total Economic Collapse and probably a civil war. It is up to citizens to force government to comply with the law. I think President Trump and Congress will have a hell of a time freeing themselves from control by the Zionist Jewish Lobby and the Parasitic Super-Rich Ruling Class. But I must admit that Trump saved us from a civil war and has done many great things with a corrupt government that hated him and the people

The post Enumerated Powers are Ignored so You Can’t Pay for your Home, Car, or Vacation appeared first on LewRockwell.

There is always something new and exciting coming out of Washington. Last week’s big story centered on the presumed prerogative of the United States to kill people anywhere in the world without necessarily having to make the legal or moral case that they deserved death. Inevitably, the impulse to do just that derives from the very top of the government system with President Donald J Trump having on a number of occasions verbalized his national security policy, such as it is, by explicitly stating that whenever his administration encounters “enemies” of the US, the newly renamed Secretary of War would exercise the right to “kill them.” Trump claims that as president he can “do whatever he wants,” suggesting that he has never read the US Constitution.

Admittedly the brain-addled Trump is not the first US president to adopt such a de facto policy of L’État, c’est moi, though he may be the first to openly admit it. George W Bush “legalized” torture through his embrace of the “global war on terror” with him in the role of the “new sheriff in town.” He was succeeded by Barack Obama, who held weekly meetings in the White House to draw up lists of American citizens and others overseas who would be assassinated by drones. He notably killed the two al-Awlakis, a father and son from Arizona residing in Yemen, in that fashion. Joe Biden went one step further, by proxy, providing Israel with the arms and political support to carry out the genocide deaths of a minimum of 100,000 Gazans. When privately challenged by his staff on the policy, he responded “I am a Zionist” and refused to consider pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to moderate his actions.

But when it comes to Trump, one has to give him credit for his ability to turn multiple deaths into an ongoing comic routine complete with making up funny but demeaning names for the women journalists who question him during press conferences. In the past few weeks, Trump’s insults, tantrums, and threats have exploded. To Nancy Cordes, CBS’s White House correspondent he whined: “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person? You’re just asking questions because you’re a stupid person.” And he complained that the New York Times’ correspondent Katie Rogers was “third rate … ugly, both inside and out.” But the most extreme put-down went to White House correspondent Catherine Lucey: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” But even worse went to Democratic lawmakers who told military members to defy illegal orders: they were described as guilty of “sedition … punishable by DEATH.”

As a man obsessed by himself, Trump has, in his own mind, elevated every slaughter into a narrative that demonstrates his own genius and political savvy. Last week Trump hosted two major events that demonstrated how low the leadership of the United States of America will go to promote nonsense. The first was a gathering at the United States Institute of Peace where what was ostensibly designated the site for the signing of a peace agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo turned out to be all about Trump, both literally and figuratively.

Earlier in the year, when the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk policy was in bloom stripping jobs and work from the government payrolls, the Institute of Peace was more-or-less seized and shut down by White House intervention, which included Trump’s describing the Institute as a “bloated, useless entity.” It was a move that is now being disputed in court as the Institute is largely government funded and was created by a law passed by Congress, but it is not under the control of the Executive Branch.

Currently, however, the Institute has been rebranded and the front of its building on Connecticut Avenue in the District of Columbia now bears large bronze letters above its own name spelling out “Donald J Trump,” a clear allusion to the president’s purported expertise as a peace maker. The State Department announced on Monday that the institute had been renamed “The Donald J Trump Institute of Peace” to honor and “reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history”. Trump claims having brought peace to eight international conflicts, though that assertion has been widely debunked and even ridiculed. Trump’s adding his name to the building facade appears to be a continuation of his effort to portray himself as a great diplomatic deal-maker as he campaigns for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2026, a distinction that he appears to greatly covet.

And the new inscription was not all. Trump was the self-anointed prime speaker at the event held there last week which enabled him to talk about himself. He referred to another meeting on Friday to draw up the final line-up for next year’s US-Canada-Mexico FIFA soccer world cup. The meeting was to be held at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, but Trump made a deliberate slip of the tongue in referring to it as the “Trump Kennedy Center.”

Trump has already loaded the Kennedy Center’s board with his supporters and has been pushing to rename the opera house after his wife and the building itself after himself. This impending takeover has reportedly resulted in many performers canceling out and also a dramatic decline in attendance by the public. At the Friday FIFA gathering itself, Trump was perhaps predictably awarded a special first time ever issued “peace prize” by the soccer association organizers! FIFA President Gianni Infantino presented the award saying “You definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize for your action, for what you have obtained in your way, but you obtained it in an incredible way. And you can always count, Mr. President, on my support, on the support of the entire … soccer community to help you make peace and make the world prosper.” Trump called receiving the award “one of the great honors” of his life. It might be noted that FIFA is concerned lest Trump disrupt the World Cup games that will be played in the US, which he has already somewhat threatened to do, if he is not allowed to benefit from the publicity and name recognition! Some reports suggest that the whole performance was cringeworthy with Trump placing the medal around his own neck!

And, as is always the case with Trump, there has been still more. There was a discussion by Trump last week regarding the Dulles International Airport in nearby Virginia, with the White House pushing for it to be “improved.” He made an actual inspection stop at the facility and afterwards described the current airport as “…not a good airport. It should be a great airport, and it’s not a good airport.” He described the main terminal building as “incorrectly designed” and added: “We’re going to turn that around and we’re going to make Dulles airport – serving Washington and Virginia, Maryland, etc – we’re gonna make that into something really spectacular. We have an amazing plan for it.” The improvement would apparently feature renaming it for guess-whom.

And let’s not forget the “large” triumphal arch or is it a Trump-Full arch that might be coming on the Potomac shore outside the Arlington National Cemetery and the bill in Congress to add Trump’s large head to the Mount Rushmore Memorial in South Dakota. At least Washington DC has not yet been scheduled for renaming to honor Trump, but that will perhaps be coming next. But don’t despair, as Trump had yet another opportunity to shine last week when he issued a proclamation on Tuesday commemorating the December second two-hundred-thirty-second anniversary of the United States’ declaration of the Monroe Doctrine. It included: “Today, my Administration proudly reaffirms this promise under a new ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine: That the American people—not foreign nations nor globalist institutions—will always control their own destiny in our hemisphere… Reinvigorated by my Trump Corollary, the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well—and American leadership is coming roaring back stronger than ever before.”

Like the invention of the “Trump Corollary,” Trump never fails to take advantage of any opportunity to praise himself by name and will use all the power that he has assumed to be incumbent on his office to do so. The sad part is that the self-praise is largely an illusion, as Trump the peacemaker is more accurately a warmaker in terms of what he has done vis-à-vis his supine groveling before Netanyahu and Jewish billionaire money. Gaza under the “Trump Peace Plan” is an atrocity that has now devolved into a hand-off for Israel to kill more Palestinians thanks to Trump. Likewise for the ceasefire in Lebanon, which is a ticket for Netanyahu to murder Lebanese, and likewise for the settlement in Syria. And what about bombing Iran? And Somalia, whose people were described last week by Trump as “garbage”?

And speaking of Somalis and other nations that are considered too disgusting to entertain the entry of their citizens into the land of the free and the home of the brave, Trump has now said he wants to “permanently” end migration from third-world countries while “expediting mass deportations” of citizens of those countries who are already in the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wants to add at least eleven more countries to President Trump’s 19 country travel ban, reporting on X how she met with Trump this week and recommended “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies. WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.”

Interestingly, the ban could, if applied strictly as described by Noem, be used to block Israelis’ entry into the US as a plausible case can easily be made by citing their demonstrated behavior vis-à-vis their neighbors and in Israel itself that they are “killers, leeches and entitlement junkies.” That would certainly be good news, particularly if Israel falls apart as one might hope for and many of them would want to be coming over here to the US where they would apply their skills in corrupting our government and buying and suborning the media.

In another move that I have no doubt that both the Trump White House and the Israel Lobby will be watching closely, an Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Moreno has introduced a bill to establish that citizens of the United States “must have sole and exclusive allegiance to the US.” He said “Being an American citizen is an honor and a privilege — and if you want to be an American, it’s all or nothing. It’s time to end dual citizenship for good.”

The “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025” means that no one may be a citizen or national of the US while simultaneously having any foreign citizenship. And a US citizen who voluntarily acquires foreign citizenship would have to relinquish their US citizenship after the date of enactment. And those who have dual citizenship would have to submit a written renunciation of the foreign citizenship to the secretary of State or a written renunciation of US citizenship to the secretary of Homeland Security no later than one year after the enactment of the act. An individual who doesn’t comply will be deemed to have voluntarily relinquished United States citizenship for purposes of section 349(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Any individual deemed to have relinquished citizenship is “appropriately recorded in Federal systems and treated as an alien for purposes of the immigration laws.”

The initiative is interesting and the policy is similar to that which is in place in many foreign countries. Here in America, the Israel Lobby and some particular members of Congress and on the White House staff will be working hard to stop it! It was, in fact predictably an Israeli, whose Supreme Court case Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), led to the current determination that a US citizen cannot automatically lose his or her citizenship unless he or she willingly surrenders it. Though specific numbers cannot be confirmed, approximately 200,000 to 600,000 US citizens with Israeli citizenship currently live in Israel. In the US, the estimated number of Israeli-Americans is approximately 191,000.

It is difficult to discern how popular the bill to end dual citizenship might be, but one suspects that many Americans are getting very tired of hearing about the atrocities being committed on the West Bank by all those dual national “Israeli” settlers from Brooklyn! And then there is the all-powerful Israel Lobby, with all those dual national Jewish billionaires and Hollywood types asserting how they are victims of “antisemitism” and need special benefits and laws written to protect them. Trump’s top campaign donor is, for example, Israeli Miriam Adelson, who has contributed more than $100 million to the Republicans while also demanding policies beneficial to Israel, including promotion of the Gaza genocide. Trump has taken her money and complied with her every wish. Time to end all that!

Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.

The post Donald Trump on a Roll All Week appeared first on LewRockwell.

Today’s number is 41X, representing the change in the public debt since early 1981, when Ronald Reagan’s first fiscal challenge, ironically, was the unavoidable need to raise the ceiling on the public debt. That is, right out of the starting blocks he had been compelled to embrace the very bloated ogre he had campaigned against for more than two decades.

As it had happened, the Gipper inherited $930 billion of public debt as of December 1980, which in part represented the substantial additions during the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter years to which he had properly objected, and strenuously so. Still, the excesses of those years had not altered the post-war fiscal path, which was one of a continuously shrinking public debt burden on the national income (GDP).

In fact, when the GOP-Dixiecrat coalition put an end to the New Deal in 1938, the public debt stood at 52% of GDP – before the exigencies of WWII sent the ratio soaring to a peak of 120% of GDP in 1946.

Yet financing this enormous war debt had not been a complete financial disaster because wartime rationing and economic regimentation had caused the private savings rate to soar, thereby enabling much of Washington’s wartime borrowings to be financed by the public’s real money savings, not the fiat credits flowing from the printing presses at the Federal Reserve.

Thereafter, of course, the 12-million-man US military was totally demobilized, causing defense spending to plummet and Uncle Sam’s red ink to turn into nearly balanced budgets and actually intermittent surpluses. Accordingly, a growing economy returned to civilian control, coupled with the near absence of material budget deficits, triggered a 34-year march of the public debt ratio steadily downhill.

Indeed, after eight years of fiscal rectitude under President Eisenhower, the public debt ratio had already returned to the 1938 level at 52% of GDP. Moreover, even the subsequent excesses of the Great Society, Nixon’s “we are all Keynesians now” fiscal policies, and Jimmy Carter’s attempted purchase of his 1980 re-election with goodies for the teachers unions, the energy industries, farmers, and other Dem constituencies, did not stop the march back toward national solvency. By 1980, the debt ratio was just 31.8% of GDP.

But that’s all she wrote.

As we will amplify below, during the Reagan era four crucial developments caused the nation’s return to its historic fiscal prudence to be abruptly abandoned. Taken together, they have transmuted the once and former paragon of fiscal prudence on the banks of the Potomac—exemplified by 48 surplus budgets during the 65 years between 1866 and 1930—into an infernal debt and inflation machine in the years since 1980.

These history-bending developments include:

• The takeover of Washington by a bipartisan neocon coalition that has spent massively and needlessly on a bloated Warfare State and Empire abroad.
• The GOP’s stinging defeat on Social Security reform in May 1981, which led to its going AWOL on its appointed role as nemesis of the Welfare State.
• The embrace by mainstream GOP politicians of the doctrine that tax cuts are a magic economic elixir that can generate a “growth” solution to chronic deficits.
• The takeover of the nation’s central bank by Alan Greenspan and his heir and assigns, who installed Keynesian monetary central planning at the Fed. The consequent massive monetization of the public debt further euthanized the nation’s elected politicians with respect to the folly of chronic and massive Federal deficits.

The chart below summarizes the results, and firmly reminds that the $38 trillion public debt level crossed recently is not just a case of big numbers vertigo. In fact, in Q4 1980, the GDP was about $3 trillion, meaning that today’s $30 trillion GDP represents only a 10X gain in the nation’s economic capacity to carry the public debt.

Needless to say, that’s why the 41X number for the public debt gain during the same 45-year period is so salient. Self-evidently, you cannot grow the numerator of the debt-to-income ratio four times faster than the denominator for decades on end and expect an eventual outcome that is anything short of catastrophic.

Yet that’s the sum and substance of America’s fiscal path since 1980. In the graph below, both variables are indexed to the levels of Q4 1980—so the ever-widening gap between the public debt (red line) and the US economy’s capacity (blue line) to carry it is unmistakable.

The thing is, however, the GOP of 1980 would have never dreamed of embracing the graph below. Yet the recently passed and endlessly ballyhooed OBBBA, which might better be called the MOABB (“mother of all budget busters”), will actually accelerate the current built-in trend.

For want of doubt, here is the debt ratio trend since 1980. It embodies a fiscal path that is the absolute inverse of the 1946 to 1980 trend shown above. In fact, during the 45 years since 1980 the debt ratio has tracked all the way back to its WWII peak. Alas, the US economy was drowning in private savings to absorb the debt back then, while today the private savings rate has shrunk to nearly the vanishing point.

Needless to say, this condition puts enormous pressure on the Fed to find an excuse to revert once again to massive debt monetization. Yet with inflation rates trending at +3% and heading higher, the Fed’s printing press has been forced into idleness and may stay there for some time to come.

And that’s notwithstanding the phony “interest rate cuts” being administered from the Eccles Building, which are the result of paying massive levels of interest payments to banks and money market funds to keep their liquid reserves parked at the Fed at the central bank’s pegged interest rate target.

To be sure, if the retaking of the WWII peak debt ratio shown below for 2025 were the end of the story, the future outlook would be bad enough—with either a massive, economy-killing interest rate crunch, if the rising Federal debts were financed the honest way in the bond pits, or another even worse inflationary blow-off, if the Fed’s printing presses are again put into over-drive.

But that’s not the half of it.

The built-in baseline deficits, which would have continued to track the rising path shown below, and would have actually broken into new territory relative to GDP, even had the MOABB been snuffed out on Capitol Hill, as it should have been. Instead, of course, trillions of new debts were layered on top of the inherited baseline, such that the debt ratio will soar to 166% of GDP by 2054.

In round terms, therefore, the built-in public debt barely 30 years down the road will reach $185 trillion!

And that’s not a case of big numbers vertigo, either. The CBO projection of GDP for 2054 now stands at $85 trillion, meaning that the gap between the public debt burden and the national income will continue to widen, and actually accelerate, along the path shown above. That is to say, by mid-century the GDP will be 28X larger than it was in 1980, but the public debt will be up by 185X.

Needless to say, the financial market will buckle and cause the US economy to collapse long before we reach the currently built-in public debt level of $185 trillion by 2054. If for no other reason, there is precious little savings available to honestly finance the UniParty debts, and, as will be evident in the years ahead, the Fed is essentially out of dry powder when it comes to massive monetization. The bond vigilantes have come out of their decades-long slumber.

So how do you finance the built-in 6% to 10% of GDP deficits year after year when net national savings have already vanished?

You can’t. American politics are locked on a path toward fiscal calamity because we now have two pro-government parties. That includes the Warfare State spenders of both parties, and the Welfare State demagogues and cowards, respectively, of what passes for contemporary Democrat and Republican parties.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

The post The Triumph of the UniParty: Debt, Decay, and Imminent Fiscal Breakdown appeared first on LewRockwell.