Lew Rockwell Institute

Was Jesus really a “faithful Jew?” Asserting as much has become a common rhetorical ploy of those—such as Cardinal Dolan and Professor Robert P. George—who wish to exaggerate the continuity between Judaism and Christianity. Like all effective rhetorical ploys, it contains a measure of truth, yet it neglects important distinctions, generating confusion rather than clarity.

In fact, although Jesus was an ethnic Jew initiated into the Mosaic covenant (Luke 2:21), and blameless and just in every regard, He was not a “faithful Jew” in the contemporary religious sense, as the phrase misleadingly implies. To contend otherwise is to do a disservice to Judaism and Christianity by obscuring their respective theological presuppositions and commitments. Worse still, the suggestion that Jesus was a “faithful Jew” subtly cultivates the error that Judaism and Christianity are essentially similar, discouraging evangelization.

Undoubtedly, Jesus was—is!—a Jew according to the flesh, as He is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by way of Judah and, significantly, David (Matthew 1:1-16, Romans 1:3). Indeed, He is in some respects the descendant of the patriarchs: the foretold Seed prophesied to die and rise, crushing the serpent’s head, ushering in universal blessing, and receiving an everlasting kingdom comprehending all men (Galatians 3:16). Thus did our Lord offer Himself to the children of Israel: as the Promised One about whom the Law and the Prophets speak, the Christ, the Son of God (Matthew 13:16-16, Luke 4:16-21, John 5:39).

And while He was born under the Mosaic dispensation (Galatians 4:4), and while He respected its regulations (Matthew 5:17), He nevertheless exhibited a unique relationship to the Law, treating it with a sovereign mastery that startled His audience (Mark 7:19). We might say that He handled the Law not as a lawyer but as a legislator (Matthew 7:28-29). He never disobeyed the Law, surely; yet He elucidated, elevated, and perfected it.

Now this exposes a critical problem with the notion that Jesus was a “faithful Jew.” To be a “faithful Jew” at present—to adhere to the Law of Moses filtered through the exoteric and esoteric rabbinic traditions—necessarily entails the denial that Jesus is the Savior anticipated by Scripture. It is, therefore, to negate what Jesus Himself affirmed.

Moreover, to be a “faithful Jew” in the modern world involves taking offense at our Lord’s treatment of the Law (to say nothing of the treatment of the Law by His apostles). Jesus evidently saw Himself not as the student of Moses but as His superior, and He dealt with the Mosaic prescriptions accordingly, drawing the ire of the Pharisees and their rabbinic successors.

In short, the things by which Christ defined Himself, the things that render Him worthy of worship in the eyes of His followers, are the same things that disturb the sensibilities of the “faithful Jew.” The very deeds and words that mark our Lord as the Lord simultaneously set Him apart from and at odds with Judaism, as normally understood. If Jesus was a “faithful Jew,” then, for example, Maimonides was not, and vice versa.

The same can be said of the ethnically Jewish members of the primitive Church. Following the doctrine of Jesus, and operating in the light of His death, Resurrection, and glorification, they espoused a reading of Scripture sharply disputed within Israel. Consequently, the mode and substance of their worship and teaching radically diverged from that of their kinsmen who spurned Christ, and they were charged with blasphemy and subjected to severe persecution (Acts 6:11, Galatians 1:13-14).

The divergence between Christianity and Judaism only accelerated with the influx of Gentiles into the New Covenant assembly, which diminished certain Jewish cultural characteristics that initially attached thereto, and the destruction of the second temple by the Romans, which fundamentally altered the practice of Judaism. The two religions subsequently developed in parallel, often reacting against the other, such that today they are quite estranged, if not utterly alienated.

But, note well, this separation has its root in none other than Jesus and His message, which many Jews, then and now, dismiss as totally incompatible with Judaism. From the standard Jewish perspective, Jesus was a faithless Jew (Matthew 26:65, John 10:33). The ultimate heretic, arguably!

No one would call a Christian a “faithful Jew.” Why, then, do some—men who should know better—call Jesus, the author of Christianity, a “faithful Jew?” Jesus made claims that the “faithful Jew” (again, in the modern sense) does not receive. He delivered to mankind a religion that the “faithful Jew” does not embrace. (Of course, Jesus was a “faithful Jew” insofar as He realized and completed the true meaning of the Law that distinguishes Judaism, but this does not seem to be the import of the term as used by the likes of Cardinal Dolan and Professor George.)

The idea is just not intellectually serious. At best, it is a well-intentioned but deceptive expression meant to draw attention to the origins of Christianity in the Law and the Prophets. At worst, it is a bit of clever wordplay meant to conceal discrepancies that should be illuminated, lest souls perish—namely, the souls of our Lord’s own brethren according to the flesh, the Jews. God retains a mysterious affection for them (Romans 11:28-32). We honor this affection by dispensing with verbal sleights of hand and preaching to them the Gospel, which has ever been heralded in their midst (Galatians 3:8) and which they will, by God’s grace, eventually heed (Romans 11:25-27).

This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.

The post Jesus Was Not a ‘Faithful Jew’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

In his book Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, the Marxist historian Eric Foner advances a revisionist history of the Reconstruction Era. In his preface, he explains why revisionist history is important:

Revising interpretations of the past is intrinsic to the study of history… Since the early 1960s, a profound alteration of the place of blacks within American society, newly uncovered evidence, and changing definitions of history itself have combined to transform our understanding of race relations, politics, and economic change during Reconstruction.

Murray Rothbard distinguished between revisionism whose aim is to expose the truth about history, and revisionism designed merely to promote the official version of history: “A venerable institution, furthermore, is the official or ‘court’ historian, dedicated to purveying the rulers’ views of their own and their predecessors’ actions.” Foner’s task in revising the history of the Reconstruction Era is, as he sees it, “to produce a coherent new portrait,” one that is more in line with “a profound change in the nation’s politics and racial attitudes.” In this sense, he may be described as a court historian promoting the official vision of racial diversity and integration. The “unfinished revolution” of his title emphasizes the radical transformation in race relations in the South. To further advance the revolution, he set out to displace the historians associated with “William Dunning, John W. Burgess, and their students.” In his book he argues that there is a need “to deal the final blow to the Dunning School.” More recently, he said his intention in writing about the Reconstruction era was to “put the final nail” in the Dunning School,

Reconstruction is one of the most misunderstood periods of American history, and I hoped my work would put the final nail in the Dunning School [a cadre of scholars whose work promoted the idea that Reconstruction ruined the South, and freedmen were incapable of self-government].

The problem with the Dunning School historians, as Foner sees it, is that they interpreted historical facts in a manner that is “racist.” He criticized them for failing to appreciate the contributions made by freedmen to reconstructing the South, and took umbrage at their racially insensitive turn-of-the-century language. They used words like “negro” which are now prohibited by the political-correctness manual. The Dunning School historians were not hugely interested in Foner’s main subject, namely, race relations and socialist revolution. He therefore criticizes them for failing to center blacks in their historical narrative, remarking that “blacks in fact played little role in the [Dunning School] narratives.” According to Foner, by failing to give due accord to the role of black people, the Dunning School fails to align with the eradication of “white supremacy” and, therefore, almost by default, it helps to entrench white supremacy. He therefore blames the Dunning School for racial segregation in the South, forgetting that racial segregation was invented in Connecticut and Massachusetts in the 1830s.

Dunning School historians aimed to document the history of the South at a pivotal time. For example, in Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama, Walter L. Fleming observes that black legislators and voters were easily manipulated by Northern “carpetbaggers” and corrupt officials. Court historians argue that in this way Fleming implies that black people inherently lack the capacity for independent political thought. They see it as racist to observe that black people “were the tools of the Radical leaders” because, in their view, it dehumanizes black people and implies that they are racially inferior. It is “racist” to state that black people in the “carpetbagger” government were self-serving or corrupt, or that they made decisions purely to curry favor or for financial reward. Court historians argue that such interpretations marginalize the agency of black people, portraying them as unfit for political roles. Minimizing the contributions they made to the reconstruction government in turn justifies white supremacy as necessary to restore and maintain law and order. Arguing that blacks made little significant contribution to society and governance during Reconstruction, or even questioning their loyalty or intentions toward the South, is “racist.”

Double Standards

Eric Foner is a favorite of court historians, who have showered him with accolades for displacing the “racist” Dunning School. But the same court historians have a completely different perspective on “racism” in the context of another contested issue of black history, namely, black Confederates. Court historians reject the notion that black people played any important role in the antebellum South—other than their role as unpaid slave labor. In this context, we hear nothing about the need to center black people—unless we are centering them as slaves. The court historians’ exhortation concerning black Confederates is the precise opposite of that advanced concerning Reconstruction—in understanding the Confederate era we must marginalize and even erase the role of black men.

Court historians do not accept that black people could possibly have seen the South as their home. After all, as the New York Times 1619 project reminds us, they were kidnapped from Africa and regarded by Southerners as nothing but slaves. Marxist theories of exploitation teach that slaves were so brutalized that they had no feeling of loyalty and certainly no conceptualization of home and hearth. In relation to black men like Harrison Berry who rejected the abolitionist adventurers of the North, they argue that such men were merely expressing the opinions of their masters. They believe that black people inherently lacked the capacity for independent political thought, and men like Charles Benger or Holt Collier who marched with Confederates were merely the tools of Confederate officers. Black men who expressed devotion to Confederates did so for self-serving reasons—perhaps to curry favor with Confederates or even in hope of financial reward.

These double standards infuse the discourse on black Southerners. Court historians do not worry that their interpretations may dehumanize blacks or imply that blacks are inferior, nor are they concerned that it marginalizes the agency of black people, portrays them as unfit to serve in important roles, and minimizes their contributions to the Southern cause. In this context court historians are noticeably blasé about what might seem “racist.” After all, unlike the Dunning School, court historians are the self-appointed good people so nothing they say could possibly be perceived as racist. They innocently demand strict proof that blacks made any significant contribution to the Southern cause. The emphasis is on the word “significant,” as all evidence that goes against the official narrative can readily be dismissed as trivial.

For example, Foner says there may have been a few black Confederates, but nothing significant: “It’s no surprise that a few did [bear arms and fight], but there is little evidence for the combat role of blacks in the Confederate army,” says he. Any stated loyalty or intentions of black people—which were widely reported in the newspapers of the era—must therefore be met with skepticism and questioned unless there is conclusive corroborative evidence such as photographs and official Confederate government records. Do you have primary source evidence of a Confederate government meeting where the minutes record the Confederate President himself extolling the significance of Holt Collier, the black Confederate cavalryman and sharpshooter? Do you have photographs of Holt Collier on the battlefield, at the front, actively shooting at Yankees?

It so happens that none of the available historical evidence—whether from the Official Records of the war or from other reports of the time, suffices to satisfy the court historians. The presumption that black Confederates made no significant or valuable contribution to the Southern cause, and were of little benefit to the Southern war effort or the broader Southern society, is deemed to be so strong that it is all but impossible to displace. Although Foner acknowledges that “slaves have often taken up arms on the road to citizenship, and it would be foolish to think slaves could not bear arms and fight for their owners’ side”, he insists that “we find more acting as personal servants, cooks, laundresses in Confederate camps, not being armed for battle.” Laundresses? We are to believe black men were only in the army to cook for soldiers and launder their uniforms. Charley Benger—who was described by his captain as “a faithful old soldier and a devoted old friend”—is typically depicted in derisive terms as a man who “claimed” to be a free man who served in the Georgia armies. He “claimed” to be free? It seems he was not capable of being quite certain whether he was free or not, or at any rate we should not take his word for it as to whether he was free.

Benger claimed to be a free African American man who served when the British invaded Darien, Ga. … Benger was well-liked among his comrades and soldiers would roll him around in a wheelbarrow to camp where he was greeted with cheers.

We also learn that Benger “was a side clown show” and should therefore not be memorialized among the “real” soldiers: “Mayor Lester Miller has opted to not authorize the donation of a plaque in honor of a Black Confederate fifer.”

The fact that the Macon Volunteers buried him with full military honors is deemed to be irrelevant, because playing the fife is considered insignificant. The official narrative is that black men who marched with Confederates merely did housekeeping chores and rolled around in wheelbarrows to entertain the troops. That is not worthy of a memorial plaque. Only white men count as “real” soldiers. These are the messages brought to us by court historians who denounce the Dunning School for referring to blacks, as Foner puts it, “as passive victims of white manipulation or as unthinking people.” Yet, it is not racist or white supremacist at all when court historians do precisely that of which they accuse the Dunning School. It seems that double standards are acceptable if they help to advance the establishment narrative.

The post The Double Standards of Court Historians in War and Reconstruction appeared first on LewRockwell.

Former Russian President and top Kremlin national security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that European leaders had failed to outplay Donald Trump, and that it remains unclear just how Ukraine’s Zelensky will prevent the issue of territorial concessions.

White House officials, including Trump himself in prior statements, have made it known that compromise regarding territory is indeed on the table. “The anti-Russian warmongering Coalition of the Willing failed to outplay @POTUS on his turf,” Medvedev said on X. “Europe thanked & sucked up to him.” The below optics certainly don’t contradict Medvedev. One commenter observes that Trump had likely “been waiting for a moment like this his whole life”…

Medvedev said the question remains “what tune” Zelenskyy would play “about guarantees & territories back home, once he’s put on his green military uniform again.”

It is true that far-right elements within his own military and political establishment would react fiercely to any acts of territorial concessions – which would likely result in acts of violence, and possibly even threats on Zelensky’s life.

At the same time, coming off his Alaska summit with Trump, Russia’s President Putin remains firmly in the driver’s seat, amid steady ground advances on the battlefield.

During a break in Monday’s meeting among seven EU officials and Zelensky, German Chancellor Merz revealed during a break in talks, “the American president spoke with the Russian president on the phone and agreed that there would be a meeting between the Russian president and the Ukrainian president within the next two weeks.”

But whether this happens or not will largely depend of what happens in the interim, and Kiev’s attitude and statements on what it’s willing to concede.

The geopolitics source Moon of Alabama highlights the perspective of former MI6 official and diplomat Alastair Crooke in the following:

Alastair Crooke suggests (video) that the peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine will follow the outline of the Istanbul Agreement negotiated in March 2022 between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine, under pressure from the West, had at that time refrained from signing it.

The Istanbul Agreement did include security guarantees (emphasis added):

The agreement assumes:
…
2. Possible guarantor states: Great Britain, China, Russia, the United States, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland, Israel. The free accession of other states to the treaty is proposed, in particular the Russian Federation proposes Belarus.
…
4. Ukraine does not join any military alliances, does not deploy foreign military bases and contingents, and conducts international military exercises only with the consent of the guarantor states. For their part, the guarantor states confirm their intention to promote Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.

5. The guarantor states and Ukraine agree that in the event of aggression, any armed attack on Ukraine or any military operation against Ukraine, each of the Guarantor States, after urgent and immediate consultations between them (which shall be held within no more than three days), in the exercise of the right to individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will provide (in response to and on the basis of an official request from Ukraine) assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack, by immediately taking such individual or joint action as may be necessary, including closing airspace over Ukraine, providing necessary weapons, using armed force in order to restore and subsequently maintain the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state.

Any such armed attack (any military operation) and all measures taken as a result thereof shall be immediately reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall cease when the Security Council takes the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

The mechanism for implementing security guarantees for Ukraine, based on the results of additional consultations between Ukraine and the Guarantor States, will be regulated in the Treaty, taking into account protection from possible provocations.

Again:

… such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.

So yes, the Ukraine can have ‘security guarantees’. But the conditions of those will be set by the main guarantor – which has to be Russia.

Trump seems to have understood that. How long will it take those European ‘leaders’ to get it?

Alastair Crooke speaks to Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Some of the awkward moments, optics, and tensions on display in the White House on Monday are consistent with the above take…

Below are some more Tuesday geopolitical headlines and developments via Newsquawk….

• US and Europe to work immediately on Ukraine security guarantees, via Bloomberg.
• Poland PM Tusk will take part in meeting of the Coalition of the Willing at 11:00BST/06:00EDT, according to a spokesperson.
• Ukraine Foreign Minister says future trilateral leaders meeting can bring a breakthrough on the path to peace.
• US President Trump posted that he had a very good meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky and European leaders, which ended in a further meeting in the Oval Office and during the meeting, they discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, which would be provided by the various European countries with coordination with the US. Trump added everyone is very happy about the possibility of peace for Russia and Ukraine, and at the conclusion of the meetings, he called Russian President Putin and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky. Furthermore, Trump said after that meeting takes place, they will have a trilateral between Trump, Putin and Zelensky, as well as noted that this was a very good, early step for a war that has been going on for almost four years and that VP Vance, Secretary of State Rubio, and Special Envoy Witkoff are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine.
• Russia’s Kremlin said US President Trump and Russian President Putin held a phone call which lasted 40 minutes and they discussed the idea of exploring the possibility of raising the level of Russian and Ukrainian representatives in the negotiations, while Putin warmly thanked Trump for the hospitality and well-organized meeting in Alaska, as well as for progress achieved at the summit. Furthermore, Putin and Trump spoke in favour of the continuation of direct talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations, while they agreed to continue close contact with each other on the Ukrainian crisis and other issues.
• Ukrainian President Zelensky said we need not a pause in the war, but real peace and territorial issues will be decided between Russia and Ukraine. Zelensky said he discussed security guarantees with Trump and European leaders, and received an important signal from the US on being part of security guarantees and help in coordinating it. Furthermore, he said the US offers to have a trilateral meeting as soon as possible and that Ukraine is ready for any format to meet with Putin.
• Ukraine reportedly offered a USD 100bln weapons deal to US President Trump in an effort to win security guarantees, according to the Financial Times citing documents laying out Kyiv’s proposal to Trump at the White House meeting.
• US Secretary of State Rubio told Fox News that they will work with European allies and non-European countries to build security guarantees for Ukraine. Rubio said he was in the room when Trump and Putin spoke, while he added that Trump suggested to Putin that he meet with Zelensky.
• NATO Secretary General Rutte said it was a very successful day in Washington where security guarantees were discussed and more details on security guarantees will be discussed in the coming days, while he added it is a breakthrough that the US will get involved and they are discussing some Article 5-type arrangement.
• European Commission President Von der Leyen said after the White House meeting that they are here as allies and friends for peace in Ukraine and in Europe, while she added this is an important moment as they continue to work on strong security guarantees for Ukraine.
• German Chancellor Merz that he feels these are decisive days for Ukraine and is not sure if Russian President Putin will have the courage to come to a summit with Zelensky present, while he added that expectations were not only met but were exceeded from this meeting. Merz also stated that US President Trump spoke with Russian President Putin and agreed that a Putin-Zelenskiy meeting will happen within two weeks, while the location is yet undecided, and that will be followed by a three-way meeting involving Trump.
• Finland’s President Stubb said they agreed on security guarantees and steps forward, as well as noted that talks were constructive and the Coalition of the Willing has already worked on security guarantees which they will build upon. Stubb also stated there is nothing concrete about US participation in security guarantees and that US President will inform them, with details of security guarantees to be ironed out in the next week or so.
• Debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at an oil refinery and hospital in Russia’s Volgograd, according to the regional administration.
• North Korea leader Kim said joint US-South Korea military drills show willingness for war provocation, while he also stated that the security environment requires North Korea to expand its nuclear armament rapidly.
• “Israeli media: The Chief of Staff will present today to the Minister of Defense the plan to occupy Gaza City”, according to Al Arabiya.

* * *

The next big question and milestone will be whether this series of high-level peace meetings will continue, leading to the big trilateral Putin-Trump-Zelensky meeting that the White House is hoping for.

Reprinted with permission from Zero Hedge.

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The August 15 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump might not be as historic as some want to make it out to be, but it’s certainly a good thing that leaders of the world’s two most prominent military superpowers are talking rather than trading insults or hurling 11,000 thermonuclear warheads at each other. Putin and Trump don’t need to agree on everything, but negotiations are undoubtedly a major development and potentially the first step toward ending the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. However, it seems not everyone is so keen on achieving sustainable peace. On the contrary, the European Union and NATO are determined to ensure the bloodshed continues for as long as possible.

As soon as Trump proposed a three-way summit with Putin and Zelensky, the increasingly irrelevant Brussels, London, Berlin and Paris decided that this is “unfair” and that they’re being “sidelined”. They insist on the so-called “Article 5-style security guarantees”, while expecting Russia to just “admit defeat” despite the fact that its military is not the one losing on the battlefield. The Trump administration itself is also talking about these NATO-like guarantees, but is at least far more realistic, and it doesn’t demand that Moscow simply withdraw and let the Neo-Nazi junta occupy the four oblasts (regions) that joined Russia. American special envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN that “security guarantees offering Ukraine ‘Article 5-like protections’ are the real prize”.

“We didn’t think that we were anywhere close to agreeing to Article 5 protection from the United States in legislative enshrinement within the Russian Federation, not to go after any other territory when the peace deal is codified,” he stated in the aftermath of the Putin-Trump summit, later adding: “We got to an agreement that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee.”

It should be noted that the United States would undoubtedly prefer such an outcome, as it would effectively “steal” a victory from Russia. This is the standard practice used by Washington DC, its vassals and satellite states when their wars aren’t going as planned. Ceasefires are only encouraged when an American proxy is losing, while peace deals are signed only when the outcome is beneficial to the political West. However, in the case of the EU/NATO and the United Kingdom, things are not as simple. Despite showing no sustainable solutions or proposals for a more permanent peace, Brussels and London are determined to keep the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict going for as long as possible and no matter the cost (especially for former Ukraine).

Unsurprisingly, the Neo-Nazi junta is fully onboard with this, opting to not only continue the war, but to also escalate it. Namely, after the FSB and the Russian military neutralized much of the Kiev regime’s “Sapsan” missile program, the latter tried to salvage its remnants to finally start using it on the battlefield. However, the Kremlin put a definite stop to such plans by targeting a large storage housing a large number of “Sapsan” missiles. On August 17, the Russian military launched a long-range strike, destroying the aforementioned storage facility and the advanced weapons stored in it, ensuring that the Neo-Nazi junta forces cannot use them. Moscow is yet to formally release additional information on the strike, but the Kiev regime is undoubtedly furious.

And yet, it would seem this isn’t the end of its ambitions to acquire long-range strike capabilities and jeopardize Russia. Namely, on August 17, numerous media outlets revealed that the Neo-Nazi junta has adopted a new type of long-range cruise missile, named “Flamingo”. According to the Associated Press (AP) photojournalist Efrem Lukatsky, it’s already in serial production. He was given the permission to take photos of the “Flamingo” at an undisclosed location, supposedly a production facility belonging to Fire Point, one of the Kiev regime’s military-industrial enterprises. Lukatsky claims that the cruise missile has a range of 3,000 km. If true, this would put not only all of European Russia within its range, but also parts of Western Siberia.

The Neo-Nazi junta is yet to officially confirm the existence of the missile and its technical specifications, but even if the range is only 50% of the one claimed by Lukatsky, it would constitute a major escalation. On the outside, “Flamingo” looks like a crossover between the Nazi German V-1 flying bomb (effectively an early cruise missile concept) and the Soviet-era Tu-141/143 turbojet-powered drone. Although by no means a revolutionary design that should worry the Russian military, the relatively large size of the warhead compartment suggests it would certainly be a threat to residential areas across Russia’s massive expanse. The Kiev regime is increasingly desperate to fill the “PR quota” that can be used to cover up its atrocious battlefield performance.

Weapons such as “Flamingo” could cause massive casualties if used indiscriminately, which the Neo-Nazi junta is quite prone to. As an added “bonus”, this would also derail any future peace talks, as Moscow would have little to no reason to continue negotiations amid such developments. And it seems this was a long-term plan that the Kiev regime is not ready to abandon. Back in November 2024, its frontman Volodymyr Zelensky announced that “100 missiles have been produced”, without specifying what kind. This statement could’ve actually been a reference to the “Flamingo”. Back in April, he claimed that “over 40% of the weapons used on the front line are now produced in Ukraine, including over 95% of drones used on the battlefield”.

All this suggests that the Neo-Nazi junta is determined to continue the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict no matter what Putin and Trump agree on. In addition, the EU/NATO and the endemically Russophobic United Kingdom are the principal backers of this idea and are willing to circumvent the Trump administration’s efforts to make a deal with Russia. The new US government is trying to focus more on China, because it sees the Asian giant as “the bigger threat”. The increasingly impotent “old continent” is now faced with the prospect of having to face Russia on its own. The historical track record of such confrontations is certainly not on Europe’s side, so it would be wise for Brussels and London to carefully reconsider their policies of constant escalation.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

The post Neo-Nazi Junta’s New Weapons Scream: ‘No Peace Deal!’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Constitutional Court would likely have to rule on this hypothetical scenario due to 2020’s constitutional amendment prohibiting the cession of Russian territory except in certain cases.

RT’s report on Steve Witkoff’s claim that Russia has made “some concessions” on territorial issues, which signal a “significant” shift towards “moderation”, prompted talk about whether Putin can legally stop the special operation without first controlling all the disputed territory that Moscow claims as its own. He himself demanded in June 2024 that the Ukrainian Armed Forces “must be withdrawn from the entire territory of these regions within their administrative borders at the time of their being part of Ukraine.”

Moreover, the agreements under which Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson joined Russia all describe their administrative boundaries as those that existed “on the day of [their] formation”, thus suggesting that the entirety of their regions are indeed legally considered by Russia to be its own. Putin also famously declared during the signing of those treaties in late September 2022 that “the people living [there] have become our citizens, forever” and that “Russia will not betray [their choice to join it]”.

Nevertheless, Putin could still hypothetically “moderate” this demand. Article 67.2.1 of the Russian Constitution, which entered into force after 2020’s constitutional referendum, stipulates that “Actions (except delimitation, demarcation, and re-demarcation of the state border of the Russian Federation with adjacent states) aimed at alienating part of the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as calls for such actions, are not permitted.” “Moderation” could thus hypothetically be an “exception”.

To be absolutely clear, no call is being made within this analysis for Russia to “cede” any territory that it considers to be its own, nor have any Russian officials lent any credence whatsoever to Witkoff’s claim. That said, if Putin concludes for whatever reason that Russia’s national interests are now best served by “moderating” its territorial claims after all that happened since September 2022’s referenda, then any proposed “re-demarcation of the state border” would likely require the Constitutional Court’s approval.

He’s a lawyer by training so it would make sense for him to proactively ask them to rule on the legality of this hypothetical solution to the Ukrainian Conflict. Even if he instead hypothetically proposes retaining his country’s territorial claims but freezing the military phase of the conflict and only advancing those claims through political means, he’d still likely seek their judgement too. They’re the final authority on constitutional issues and these scenarios require their expertise per their connection to Article 67.2.1.

If they hypothetically rule in his favor, the question would then arise about the fate of those living in the Ukrainian-controlled parts of those regions who Putin said “have become our citizens, forever.” They might rule that those who didn’t take part in the referenda, such as the residents of Zaporozhye city, aren’t Russian citizens. Those that did but then fell under Ukrainian control, such as the residents of Kherson city, might be deemed citizens who could move to Russia if Ukraine lets them as part of a deal.

To remind the reader, no Russian officials at the time of this analysis’ publication have lent any credence whatsoever to Witkoff’s claim that Russia made “some concessions” on territorial issues, so it remains solely a hypothetical scenario for now. Even so, Putin might hypothetically conclude that such “moderation” is the best way to advance Russia’s national interests in the current context (such as part of a grand compromise), in which case the Constitutional Court would likely have to rule on its legality.

This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

The post Can Putin Legally Stop the Conflict Without First Controlling All the Disputed Territory? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Nothing changed due to yesterday’s meetings.

Ukraine offers $100bn weapons deal to Trump to win security guarantees (archived) – Financial Times, Aug 19 2025

Ukraine will promise to buy $100bn of American weapons financed by Europe in a bid to obtain US guarantees for its security after a peace settlement with Russia, according to a document seen by the Financial Times.

—

Alexander G. Rubio @AlexanderGRubi2 – 2:22 UTC · Aug 19, 2025

The plan is for the US to sell weapons to the Europeans, who will then provide them to Kiev. However, the US doesn’t have the weapons to sell, the Europeans don’t have the money to buy, and Kiev doesn’t have the soldiers to use them. Other than that it’s a foolproof plan.

—

[Putin] noted that these individuals have “happily carried out any order from the president in Washington under Biden,” but “got confused when Trump suddenly won” the November election.

“They just don’t like Trump, they actively fought him, interfered in political life, in the US election… Trump has different ideas about what is good and what is bad, including in gender policy, in some other issues, and they don’t like it,” Putin said. […]

“I assure you, Trump, with his character and persistence, will restore order quite quickly. And all of them, you’ll see, soon all of them will stand at the master’s feet and gently wag their tails,” Putin argued.

European leaders will ‘wag tails’ for Trump – Putin – RT, Feb 2 2025

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand – 7:48 UTC · Aug 19, 2025

This is beyond parody: not only is the EU doing virtually nothing to escape the protection racket it’s under with the US, it’s now supposed to pay for Ukraine’s…

All the more absurd when one considers that NATO expansion – the institutionalization of this protection racket – was the primary catalyst for this conflict.

Reprinted with permission from Moon  of Alabama.

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Washington’s appetite for power is growing—and the results are dangerous. From unilateral tariffs that punish American families, to endless wars launched without congressional approval, to the steady march toward authoritarian “clean-ups” in D.C., liberty is under assault. In this episode, we break down how economic meddling, foreign entanglements, and unchecked executive power are eroding the Constitution and concentrating authority where it doesn’t belong.

The post Unilateral Tariffs, Endless Wars, and the March Toward Authoritarianism appeared first on LewRockwell.

. . . of the Ludwig von Mises Institute Germany by Professors Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Guido Hulsmann, and Rolf Puster.  

The post Resignations from the Scientific Advisory Board . . . appeared first on LewRockwell.

Aka, FOX News (or Faux News).  In 2014 the CIA/NATO/U.S. government crime family overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine and installed their puppet.  Yesterday on FOX News a panel including a “former” CIA spook pretended to have mystical mind-reading abilities by arguing that Putin’s intention is to overthrow the current “democratically elected government” of Ukraine and install a Russian puppet.  Day is night.  Black is white.  Yes means No.

The post The Pinocchio News Network appeared first on LewRockwell.

This newsletter was created out of a desire to help others, and each day I hear from dozens of readers with thoughtful and pressing questions. For a while I tried my best to answer them, but given the volume and how long writing in-depth articles takes—it’s no longer possible (e.g., I’ve spent the last week learning the nuances of organ donation regulations for an article reviewing the tangible spiritual consequences from non-consensually harvested organs—a surprisingly common issue).

To strike a balance, I’ve started hosting monthly open threads. These serve as a space where readers can share questions—especially follow-ups from still unaddressed topics—and I make a point of answering them. Keeping everything in one thread also makes it easier for others to learn from the discussion.

Each open thread also features a theme; usually a topic I’ve been reflecting on but haven’t yet written about in full. For this month, I want to focus on a frustrating but common issue—constipation.

Note: since there are also many questions about this publication and how its contents can help each reader, I recently revised a page covering all of that here.

Missing Bowel Movements

Over the last year, I’ve received quite a few correspondences from readers asking me to write about constipation. This I believe is reflective of how widespread but rarely discussed constipation is, especially as one becomes older (where it often becomes a primary concern of everyday life). Likewise, the primary diagnosis for constipation is “chronic idiopathic constipation” (CIC). Idiopathic, for reference, means “no one knows why” which is remarkable given that existing studies find between 9-20% of adults (averaging at 14%) have CIC. This figure in turn varies greatly by country:

In tandem, there is no clear consensus on how to treat CIC (e.g., if you review the treatment guidelines, you will see they vary greatly depending on which country they were made in).

Likewise, the majority of patients do not even discuss their condition with their doctors:

Overall, 4,702 participants had experienced constipation (24.0% met the Rome IV CIC criteria). Among all respondents with previous constipation, 37.6% discussed their symptoms with a clinician (primary care provider 87.6%, gastroenterologist 26.0%, and urgent care/emergency room physician 7.7%).

We found that the locus of control—the extent to which individuals believe they can control events that affect them—is associated with constipation healthcare seeking. Namely, those with lower locus of control (i.e., believe symptoms are driven by others, chance, or fate) are more likely to consult with providers regarding their symptoms. However, individuals experiencing this maladaptive cognition may be resistant to both undergoing indicated diagnostic testing and accepting and adhering to treatments, thereby undercutting treatment success and reducing patient satisfaction.

Additionally, many who seek out medical help end up getting colonoscopy, a procedure which carries real risks and has no benefit here:

Among those who sought care, 54% reported previous diagnostic testing. Colonoscopy was the most commonly performed test; 46% of health seekers specifically underwent the procedure to evaluate their constipation. Although we did not ask the respondents about alarm features or have access to their medical records to confirm the “true” indication for the procedure, this suggests potential overuse of endoscopy in the evaluation of constipation. This is an issue because the diagnostic yield of colonoscopy for constipation is limited.

Pepin and Ladabaum noted that in 234 individuals undergoing lower endoscopy solely for constipation, no cancers were found and only 3% had advanced lesions. The American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy states that colonoscopy should not be performed in the initial evaluation of constipated patients without alarm features or suspicion of organic disease. The high usage of endoscopy and other tests seen in our study, in combination with the high prevalence of constipation, further reinforces the significant impact of constipation on population health and healthcare costs and emphasizes that efforts to reduce unnecessary testing are needed.

In short, there is a surprising gap of knowledge in this area, which I believe is best demonstrated by how many times I’ve been asked to admit a patient to a hospital who was essentially just severely constipated.

Note: the current research shows constipation hospitalizes 92,000 Americans each year and results in 1.3 million visits to American emergency rooms, which again illustrates our society’s lack of knowledge in this area, especially as the rate of this is increasing (e.g., from 2006 to 2011, there was a 42 percent rise in ER visits for constipation).

The Effects of Constipation

While it is relatively unlikely one will be hospitalized for constipation, the condition nonetheless has a significant effect on their quality of life as it is stressful to be unable to defecate when you attempt to and often quite uncomfortable once too much has built up inside you. Conversely, after a large bowel movement (especially if they’ve been constipated), individuals often feel much better and clear headed.

Note: I always wondered why the sense of well-being followed passing a large stool (especially a “toxic” one). Presently, I suspect Gerald Pollack’s model provides the answer. In it, he argues that the body is constantly forming a fourth phase of water (H₃O₂) that behaves like a liquid crystal and is formed by eliminating protons from H₂O, and that this fourth phase of water makes much of life possible (e.g., it’s responsible for the structural integrity of the body and generating the flow of fluids through the body). This process however creates a large number of protons the body must excrete to maintain its negative charge, which Pollack argues occurs through the breath, sweat, feces and urine. I, in turn, suspect that the rapid sense of well being individuals feel after certain bowel movements is a result of the electrical charge gradient of the body normalizing, as many of the descriptions I’ve heard match what happens when there is an improvement of the physiologic zeta potential (which likewise comes from increasing the net negative charge of the body).

Furthermore, constipation frequently results in a variety of significant issues. Most commonly, we recognize its connection to the fact the pressure created by strained bowel movements can lead to hemorrhoids, rectal prolapse, and anal fissures (all of which make bowel movements much more challenging).

However, it also can lead to a variety of less appreciated issues. These include:

• Dysbiosis within the gut microbiome (and the variety of complex issues which can accompany it). In many cases, the gut dysbiosis which leads to constipation results from the foods you digest not being fully digested.
Note: one of the most interesting things I learned relating to this is that SIBO (one of the more challenging gut dysbioses) often results from slowed bowel transit time, and in turn, the practitioners who I find are the most successful with treating SIBO focus on increasing peristalsis.

• Fatigue (e.g., consider this study in the elderly), headaches, abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting.

• Chronic constipation being linked to a variety of progressively more severe illnesses including diverticulitis, kidney disease, gastric and colorectal cancer, ischemic colitis, and Parkinson’s disease.

Note: certain chronic illnesses (e.g., multiple sclerosis) can cause constipation (e.g., MS does it by interfering with the normal function of nerves within the body) which is unfortunate as constipation and a dysfunctional microbiome increases one’s risk for these degenerative conditions.

The Causes of Constipation.

Since most constipation is labeled as “idiopathic” treatments to constipation are typically symptom based (which many are happy to do for the rest of their lives given how challenging constipation is to deal with). Unfortunately, while laxatives are relatively benign if used occasionally, over time, they can impair the normal function of the GI tract (e.g., they can alter the gut microbiome) and hence create a situation where one requires chronic laxative use.
Note: Dr. Hazan, an expert in this area, has also seen instances where laxatives destroyed the normal functioning of the colon which then required part of the colon to be surgically removed.

Additionally, we find one of the most commonly used laxatives (MiraLAX) can create issues because a surprising number of people have sensitivities or allergies to polyethylene glycol (e.g., I know people who were unaware they had the allergy and then had anaphylaxis after they took it as preparation for a colonoscopy along with patients who developed neurological complication from it). Furthermore, when individuals have a delayed bowel transit time (e.g., anyone who is constipated), individuals are more likely to systemically absorb MiraLAX and experience toxicity from it.

Note: one of the major concerns with the COVID vaccines was that fact the lipid nanoparticles contained within it had polyethylene glycol (PEG) and hence would affect those within the population who had an undiagnosed allergy to it. Sadly, because the medical field believes “vaccines are 100% safe and effective,” even people I know who had documented anaphylactic PEG allergies predating COVID-19 were not given exemptions from COVID vaccination (and neither were those who had documented anaphylactic reactions to the first shot).

When evaluating constipation, it’s important to consider the presence of a co-existing medical diagnosis. For example, three important conditions to be aware of if you have chronic and unusual constipation (that are easy to test for) are as follows:

• Colon Cancer. When a tumor grows in the colon, it progressively blocks transit through the colon, which in turn leads to the feces which get through becoming narrower and narrower (along with abnormal weight loss, anemia and rectal bleeding). Because of this, if you notice that gradually happening to you, it is worth getting a preliminary test to see if you made have a cancer (there are simple and complex ways to test the stools for colon cancer).
Note: red meat (especially for those who do not eat it frequently) and beet juice (which also reddens the urine) can also make the stools turn red. Because of this, I’ve had numerous panicked people contact me over the years about rectal “bleeding” they thought was a cancer which in reality was due to drinking beet juice.

• Hypothyroidism. One of the common symptoms of hypothyroidism (beyond hair loss, coldness, fatigue, and weight gain) is delayed bowel transit time. As such, if you are constipated, you need to consider if you are hypothyroid.

• Hyperparathyroidism. This is a surprisingly common but unrecognized condition which can make individuals feel quite ill (e.g., it can cause pain throughout the body, cognitive issues, arrhythmias, kidney stones, unexpected fractures and a variety of gastro intestinal issues).

Note: endometriosis can also sometimes cause constipation. Likewise, a variety of neurological disorders can affect the normal motility of the gastrointestinal tract .

In most cases however, the cause of constipation remains unknown (e.g., outside of opioid induced constipation, providers rarely evaluate if a pharmaceutical drug is contributing to it) and typically the advice given is to “eat more fiber,” which while sometimes helpful often is not. Additionally, in some cases, the benefits of fiber are not due to their stool bulking activity but rather than they directly stimulate peristalsis.
Note: conditions like slow intestinal transit or defecation disorders (such as rectocele, internal prolapse, or rectal hyposensitivity) often show limited improvement with fiber alone. Additionally, chronic fiber consumption can bind essential minerals, so it is sometimes necessary to also take an appropriate multivitamin.

• In addition to opioids, many other drugs can cause constipation as well (e.g., antacids, anticholinergics [such as those taken for incontinence] antidepressants, antihistamines, antipsychotics, calcium channel blockers, certain blood pressure medications, and NSAIDs). Because of this, if you develop constipation after starting a new prescription, it is always important to see if that drug is linked to impaired bowel movements. Additionally, iron and calcium supplements can sometimes cause constipation (e.g., iron supplements cause constipation for approximately 10% of users).

Presently, I believe there are a few major contributors to the epidemic of constipation we face that are largely overlooked. They are as follows:

• Dairy consumption (particularly in children)—which has been shown in many studies (e.g., this randomized trial found that 71.4% of children with chronic constipation not responding to laxatives significantly improved within 4 weeks of stopping dairy whereas only 11.4% of the control group, with similar results seen in this blinded crossover trial).

Note: while this is often attributed to food allergies, it may also due to the opioid-like substances in dairy (e.g., beta-casomorphin) as individuals often improve on milk lacking these substances and severe constipation (without opioid use) has been found to be reversed by naloxone (an opioid blocker). Likewise, gluten (another common cause of constipation) contains opioid like peptides (gluten exorphins) which have been shown to slow bowel transit time and cause constipation. Lastly, the variable sensitivity to these compounds (and being predisposed to constipation) may be a result of genetic susceptibility (e.g., OPRM1 A118G polymorphisms have been repeatedly shown to influence sensitivity to opioids).

• Poor diet and food triggers of constipation. Beyond dairy, we find the constipation causing agents often vary person to person (making it necessary to evaluate how each alters your bowel transit time), with the most commonly reported (ordered by the most frequent first) being cow dairy, gluten, goat’s milk, beef (red meat), legumes, eggs, fried foods, rice (white), bananas (unripe), chocolate, caffeine (excess), alcohol (excess), tea (excess).

Note: within Chinese medicine, they have an entire diagnostic model based on looking at the characteristics of one’s stools. While this is largely avoided in our society (due to the disgust it will often illicit), I have often found it to be extremely useful, and I often monitor my own stools to assess how my body is handling my current diet (or how long it takes a food to transit my GI tract). Likewise, I have had many patients who found the Chinese medicine approach to treating constipation quite helpful for them.

• Low stomach acid (which also creates a variety of other digestive issues such as pathogenic bowel colonization, acid reflux, food allergies, and nutritional deficiencies).

• A disrupted gut microbiome (which conversely becomes disrupted by bowel stasis).

• Iron supplementation (as oral iron creates constipation for about 10% of users).

• Mineral deficiencies (primarily magnesium and in some cases potassium).

• Dysfunction within the autonomic nervous system (which amongst other things is a common consequence of many of the constipation triggering drugs I listed previously).

• Chronic dehydration or an impaired zeta potential (e.g., I’ve seen numerous cases of the bowels coming back to life after a patient’s zeta potential was improved).

• Individuals not allowing themselves the time to go to the bathroom when they need to defecate as once they miss this window, they often subsequently cannot.
Note: within Chinese medicine, it is believed that different organs activate at certain times in the day. In that system, the colon activates between 5-7 AM, and I’ve had numerous patients who have found if they do not use that time to have a bowel movement at that time, it’s often quite difficult to for the rest of the day. While the time varies from person to person, I believe it is important to prioritize listening to the defecation signals your body gives you and not putting off going to the toilet.

• Our sedentary lifestyles reducing the inherent motion within the gastrointestinal tract.

• The position we go to the toilet on.

Read the Whole Article

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“Live Not by Lies!” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“He largely fabricated everything” – Natalya Reshetovskaya, first wife of Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“His writings are a mixture of some truth and big lies (as any good propagandist Solzhenitsyn followed closely Dr. Goebbels’ teachings)…The author is treated politely (in the Soviet penitentiary), has bread and bunk, warm clothes. He is not forced into hard physical labor, he reads books and has plenty of time to chat, ramble, gossip and spew out all his hatred for Stalin. He is an informant under the nickname ofVetrov, reporting his prison mates to the most hated NKVD/MGB officers. He plays chess, attends theatrical performances, listens to the radio, reads newspapers. All hisGulag Archipelago and other writings are simply a collection of unsubstantiated gossips and old Goebbels’ fairytales. In the preamble he defines his main book as “literary [fictional] research” — it sold well in the West (as history not historical fiction and that’s how he made a fortune). Horror fiction. Another “Martian War of the Worlds” thriller. Gulagis about 90% factually bullshit, anyone could easily test its veracity: just pull out any chapter and do extensive research (Solzhenitsyn did not use any archives, he in fact wrote a gigantic propagandistic article). – Rachid Masimov, Russian citizen

In 1986 Conquest affirmed that “a science-fiction attitude is a great help in understanding the Soviet Union. It isn’t so much whether they’re good or bad, exactly; they’re not bad or good as we’d be bad or good. It’s far better to look at them as Martians than as people like us.” – Hillier Bevis, English historian, LA Times, Nov. 19, 1986, Robert Conquest Wikipedia, footnote 42.

In 1995, an investigative journalist pointed out that British agent turned-historian Robert Conquest’s numbers in his famous 1968 book The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purges of the 1930’s of twenty million civilian deaths were obtained from the Information Research Department of the British Foreign Office of war propaganda (see Wikipedia and Andrew Defty, Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945-1953 (2004).

Sometimes it is best for an investigative reporter to excerpt quotes from various sources at the start of an article as I have done above so the reader can connect the dots themselves rather than the writer constructing a long, boring article on the topic. I anticipate many readers will disagree with my conclusions about American propaganda unless they can understand how Russian and American historical realities have been constructed. Of course, it is imperative that this reporter not mislead readers, but I am permitted to make a case for a coherent journalistic thesis.

Below is what I have accidentally stumbled into finding about Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous book The Gulag Archipelago as part of research for a prior article “How All Roads Lead to London”. I now regret reading The Gulag in its entirety years ago (2,505 pages). However, this is not to just boringly set the historical record straight.

Pres. Donald Trump’s current attempt is to reveal the RussiaGate scandal as a British Intelligence Psy Op by MI-6 agent Christopher Steele to smear him and bring down his 2020 presidential election. RussiaGate was influenced by the British and American media construction of a Cold War to keep Russia and the U.S. from forming any kind of alliance against the rump British Empire. Alex Krainer, a Croatian commodities trader, has been exposing the extent and importance of the British role in RussiaGate, and the Ukraine and Gaza Wars in a series of podcasts. Every player in RussiaGate except those who were part of the DNC (U.S. Democratic National Committee) has been a British intelligence operative.

How many James Bond action movies by Ian Fleming depicting a British espionage agent fighting a covert war against the Evil Empire did I watch with rapture when I was younger? There were 25 Bond movies from 1962 to 2021. Eon Productions in London holds the rights to the Bond movies. I still enjoy the genre of James Bond theme music sung by the attractive American singer Nancy Sinatra “You Only Live Twice”. Only in this case, it was Alexander Solzhenitsyn who had a double life. But I never thought of such entertainment movies as political propaganda that I had fallen for hook, line and non-thinker.

Solzhenitsyn became popular in America during the anti-communism era of the Cold War (1947’s to end of Soviet Union 1991) but continues today in popular culture and election propaganda. He was the icon of anti-Communism and won the Nobel Prize for his books supposedly revealing Soviet mass crimes. In 1978 Solzhenitsyn gave his famous “A World Split Apart” speech at Harvard University, the high temple of globalism. The Gulag Archipelago became part of the genre of anti-communist literature (see John Fleming, The Anticommunist Manifestos: Four Books that Caused the Cold War – 2009).

The purpose of the Cold War to British intelligence services was to keep the U.S. and Russia from aligning politically against Britain and for the U.S. Deep State of intelligence agencies to justify their bureaucratic existence. Solzhenitsyn portrayed himself a political prisoner of the communist totalitarian rule of Joseph Stalin and touted himself a non-court historian whistle blower. He didn’t need to be a paid intelligence operative, as American commercialism of his book was all that was needed. If the book sold, it must be truth seemed to be the advertising hook.

However, historians who have combed the Russian archives have found no records corroborating Solzhenitsyn’s reports of mass murder and undue oppression of prisoners in Russia’s Gulag prison system. One can retort that Stalin probably ordered the archives neutered of any such records. But the evidence for my thesis is derived from Solzhenitsyn’s wife’s statements in the New York Times, evidence that the Gulag death count came from the propaganda arm of British Intelligence, and massive newer evidence written by many historians, including RussiaGate.

More to the point, Solzhenitsyn’s stories about the mass crimes and genocide have never been validated.  This runs against British (underlined for emphasis) historian Robert Conquest’s famous 1968 book The Great Terror wherein he estimated the total number of deaths from Communist Gulag and purges could not have been less than 13 to 20 million people (see Nikos Mottas, Gulag Archipelago: Exposing the Anticommunist Fabrications of Solzhenitsyn, 2018). Conquest also estimated that Stalin can be blamed for 5 to 7 million deaths due to the Holodomor famine and drought in Ukraine in the 1930’s. The drying up and diversion of water from the Aral Sea followed unsustainable water management practices following British policies (source AI Yahoo.com).

Conquest criticized leftist intellectuals George Bernard Shaw, John-Paul Sartre, Walter Duranty, etc. for doubting his death statistics, accusing them of being “dupes” of Stalin. Conquest taunted his critics that his book should have been titled “I Told You So, You F___ing Fools”. But Conquest was a British Intelligence operative later made into a hero at Stanford University (a long-time recruiting hub for the CIA). May a Shakespearian plague strike both houses of propagandists.

In 1995, an investigative journalist pointed out that Conquest’s numbers were obtained from the Information Research Department of the British Foreign Office of war propaganda (see Wikipedia and Andrew Defty, Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945-1953 (2004). In 1993, American historian J. Arch Getty also disagreed with Conquest on the basis that archive data did not support his figures (see Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence). Getty also challenged Stalin’s own justification of his Great Purge but said Stalin’s rule was “dictatorial but not totalitarian”.

Stalin was also faced with large numbers of foreign Bolshevik Communists in his prisons as well as army defectors who did not want to fight German Nazis. Stalin was not a nice person, but neither were the Bolsheviks, including Stalin’s opponent Trotsky who was a British agent (see Richard Poe, How the British Invented Communism and Blamed it on the Jews, 2024). Conquest’s book was sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

But Getty’s critical research about Conquest also failed to corroborate Zionist and leftist propagandist Hannah Arendt’s book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”. Arendt was a German émigré to the US who married a Communist and wrote the influential book The Origins of Totalitarianism. Before coming to America, she lectured in Britain, Stanford and went to Jerusalem for the Eichmann trial. She was a Zionist who blamed the inaction of the American bourgeoisie and working class for Nazism and the genocide in German camps. America lost over 400,000 soldiers in WWII, mostly working class.

In 2018 Professor Grover Furr of Montclair State University, New Jersey, additionally wrote a series of objective books refuting the anti-communist lies about the Moscow trials in the 1930’s and the lies about Stalin’s Soviet Communism (see Grover Furr, “Stalin…Waiting for the Truth: Exposing the Falsehoods in Stephen Kotkin’s ‘Stalin Waiting for Hitler”, 2019) and “Yezhov vs. Stalin: The Truth About Mass Repressions and the So-Called ‘Great Terror’ in the USSR”, 2018). Kotkin is an historian at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. The Gulag prisoners were mainly not political dissidents thrown into the Gulags without cause; they were mostly WWII military personnel who committed treason during wartime or were foreign Bolshevik or Trotskyite Communists. Solzhenitsyn was a mathematician and commander of an enemy coordinate location battery for artillery bombardment. But he openly wrote letters critical of Stalin and the war. Treason was also a way for Russian soldiers to cowardly dodge having to fight Hitler’s invading army.

It should be noted that the British invented Communism by subsidizing Karl Marx’s propaganda writings in London and then placed blame on the Jews (again see Richard Poe, How the British Invented Communism (and Blamed it on the Jews) 2024.

The amount of correction that an accurate interpretation of Solzhenitsyn’s books would require is almost impossible given decades of brainwashing by the CIA and Hollywood movies which portray Russia as the evil empire and Stalin as one of the evilest rulers. Tony Shaw’s 2007 book “Hollywood’s Cold War” detailed the collaboration between filmmakers and government in the production of anti-Russian propaganda. This was followed by J. Hoberman’s 2012 book “An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War”.

But perhaps the most effective book is Cold War Country: How Nashville’s Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism written by Joseph M. Thompson in 2024. Patriotism became a tool of anti-communist propaganda.  The description of the partnerships between the Pentagon and country music in Thompson’s book sounds more like how the CIA’s MK-Ultra program in the 1970’s created rock and roll music, sexual liberation, rampant drug usage, and encoded films designed to de-moralize youth and create a degenerate (marriage-less/childless) generation (see Joe Atwill, Manufacturing the Deadhead, 2014 and “Gregory Bateson and the Counter Culture”, 2015). MI-6 and the CIA made patriotism into anti-Communism that is prevalent today in America.

This is how effective propaganda works. But no Americans would believe anti-Communism is anti-American propaganda! Americans believe in simple dichotomies of good versus bad and propagandists exploit this to twist patriotism into an anti-Communist propaganda lie such as Solzhenitsyn’s overkill story about the Gulag (called “cognitive dissonance” by social psychologists).

The apparent biggest swallower of Solzhenitsyn’s self-serving Gulag propaganda is conservative, orthodox Christian columnist Rod Dreher, author of the book “Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents” (2020). Ironically, Dreher champions resistance against totalitarianism by psychological manipulation in his book. Dreher admonishes his readers to “protect truth” without any awareness he has been duped by Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag “live not by lies” scam.

To be American and Christian is to be anti-Communist that is ingrained in Americans’ psyches. Evangelical Christians have a similar social psychological dilemma about Zionism. Evangelical Christianity was birthed in Britain in the late 1800’s, incubated in the Azusa Street Revivals in Los Angeles in the early 1900’s, and ended up the prevalent form of religion in the American South (see Sean Durbin, Righteous Gentiles: Religion, Identity and Myth in John Hagee’ Christians United for Israel, 2020). Seventy million American evangelical Christians currently support the Israeli War against Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza, as an apocalyptic “end times” war against Communism prophesied in the books of Revelations, Ezekial and Isaiah.

The Gulag Archipelago has become the “bible” of anti-communists, without apparent awareness that Solzhenitsyn was a phony anti-communist and deserter when it came to fighting greater evil. Hitler was planted by British bankers to bring about the downfall of Germany so that it would not align with Russia against Britain (see Guido Preparada, Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America Made the Third Reich and Destroyed Europe, 2021).

But Dreher, evangelical Zionists and pro-Solzhenitsyn Leftist intellectuals are no worse than the person described earlier in this article (myself) who is a James Bond movie fan. British anti-communist propaganda is embedded everywhere. This is how successful propaganda operates; it becomes an indistinguishable and taken for granted part of the ether. It is not how some British novels like 1984, or A Brave New World describe it as manifestly cruel and totalitarian. In fact, those novels were themselves pseudo-propaganda meant to make you unconscious about real, insidious propaganda.

This article should not be misconstrued as some pro-Communist refutation of anti-Communist criticism against Joseph Stalin. Nor is it a defense of ‘useful idiots’ George Bernard Shaw, John-Paul Sartre and Walter Duranty for being Stalin’s dupes nor Hannah Arendt’s warped resentful anti-totalitarianism that scapegoated the American working class for war crimes. Nor is this a condemnation of Evangelical Christianity carte blanche. To repeat, everyone’s camp of propagandists and unconscious James Bond movie fans has been infected by the English Shakespearian plague of distorted anti-Communism. Truth has been murdered so many times by so many people taking their lines from the anti-Communist script written by British Intelligence that it is like the English Shakespearean play Titus Andronicus where there are fourteen murders as well as cannibalism and mutilations, that one can’t keep track.

In closing, another dot that perhaps needs connected is that the Gulag Archipelago was originally published by the YMCA Press in Paris, France. Sounds innocent, doesn’t it? The Young Men’s Christian Association was founded by George Williams in London in 1844 and the YMCA Press was coincidentally formed in Russia and moved to Paris. All roads lead to London including Solzhenitsyn’s, Robert Conquest’s and Stephen Kotkin’s books and all those Ian Fleming novels and movies. I rest my case.

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During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump made a number of promises related to taxes. He pledged to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security, and make car loan interest tax deductible. After he returned to the White House, Trump continued to say that there will be “no tax on Social Security benefits for seniors.”

In the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that President Trump signed into law on July 4, for tax years 2025 through 2028, qualified tips up to $25,000 are tax deductible, overtime pay (the “half” portion of “time-and-a-half” compensation) up to $12,500 ($25,000 for joint filers) is tax deductible, and interest on car loans up to $10,000 is tax deductible. However, these new tax deductions phase out for taxpayers with higher incomes.

Missing in the OBBBA is the elimination of taxes on Social Security.

Under current tax law, up to 50 percent of Social Security benefits are taxed on income between $25,000 and $34,000 ($32,000 and $44,000 for married filing jointly), and up to 85 percent of Social Security benefits are taxed if one’s income is over $34,000 ($44,000 for married filing jointly). For purposes of Social Security taxation, income is defined as adjusted gross income plus nontaxable interest plus half of Social Security benefits. Congress has never indexed for inflation the threshold at which benefits are subject to taxation.

The taxes on Social Security are all still in place. Yet, the Trump administration is claiming that the OBBBA “delivers on President Trump’s promise of No Tax on Social Security.”

So, how can the Trump administration make that claim? What really happened to no tax on Social Security benefits?

The OBBBA institutes, for tax years 2025 through 2028, “a new bonus deduction of $6,000 for seniors age 65 and older ($12,000 for married seniors).” This deduction “is on top of the standard deduction and the current-law additional deduction for seniors.” The standard deduction for tax year 2025 is $15,000 ($30,000 for married filing jointly) and the senior deduction is $2,000 ($3,200 for married filing jointly). The new senior bonus deduction phases out at a 6 percent rate for taxpayers with modified adjusted gross income over $75,000 ($150,000 for married filing jointly).

According to the Trump administration,

The new $6,000 senior deduction is estimated to benefit 33.9 million seniors, including seniors not claiming Social Security. The deduction yields an average increase in after-tax income of $670 per senior who benefits from it.

51.4 million seniors — 88% of all seniors receiving Social Security income — will pay no tax on their Social Security.

This amounts to the largest tax break in American history for our nation’s seniors.

Since taxes on Social Security are a funding source for the program, the OBBBA, which was a budget reconciliation bill, cannot recommend changes to Social Security.

So, although Trump’s big beautiful bill does not eliminate taxes on Social Security, it does provide a temporary new deduction that will lower the taxable income of seniors and therefore lower their adjusted gross income that their income tax is figured on.

So, what should Congress do? Should taxes on Social Security actually be eliminated? Of course they should, but not because they are taxes on Social Security.

Most Americans who pay taxes are quadruple-taxed on their income in addition to all of the other taxes they have to pay. There is income tax, Social Security tax, Medicare tax, and, in over 40 states, there is state income tax. All of these taxes are on the same income.

High-income taxpayers are hit even harder. For taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes over $200,000 ($250,000 for married filing jointly), there is the additional Medicare tax of .9 percent and the additional 3.8 percent surtax on net investment income. Certain tax deductions and credits begin to be phased-out as one’s income rises, resulting in the payment of higher taxes. There is also the estate tax.

Then there are federal excise taxes on fuel, airline tickets, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, firearms, ammunition, and indoor tanning services. And finally, as explained above, Social Security benefits may be subject to taxation.

So, yes, of course, taxes on Social Security should be eliminated, but only because excise taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes, and income taxes should be eliminated. None of these taxes are necessary for the government to carry out its constitutional functions.

The post What Happened to No Tax on Social Security Benefits? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Hubris & Pride are often used interchangeably, and though they are related concepts, they aren’t precisely the same.

Hubris derives from the ancient Greek word “hybris” (ὕβρις). In ancient Greek, “hybris” is indeed a form of pride. However, as Aristotle defined it, “hybris” is a transgression—such as a sexual crime— performed by the arrogant that causes a feeling of shame.

For example, in the Iliad, proud Agamemnon takes Chryseis, the daughter of the Trojan priest Chryses, as a prize after the sack of Lyrnessus. In his hubris, he gives no consideration to the girl’s feelings or to those of her father. Chryses, a priest of Apollo, tries to ransom the girl, but Agamemnon refuses, which results in Apollo sending a plague upon the Greek army. Agamemnon is thus forced to return Chryseis to end the plague.

The English word pride originates from the Old English word “prȳde,” meaning “bravery” or “pomp.” It’s an interesting association of ideas that brave warriors may ultimately become pompous warlords like Agamemnon who become guilty of hubris.

When the Greek monk (from Asia Minor) Evagrius Ponticus formulated the Seven Deadly Sins, he chose the Greek word ὑπερηφανία (hyperēphania), deriving from the Greek words “hyper” (above or beyond) and “phainomai”(appearance), which translates roughly as “gross overestimation of one’s value and abilities.”

When the Seven Deadly Sins were translated into Latin, the word “superbia” was chosen. Latin scholars considered this the sin of sins—the first and most demonic, and the sin that compelled the angel Lucifer to rebel against God and his creation.

In Christian theology, Lucifer, whose name means “Light Bringer,” was the most beautiful and powerful angel until his pride prompted him to revolt. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, he makes the flippant statement, “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”

In much of our ruling class—from the great IT companies of Silicon Valley to the labs of Cambridge, Massachusetts to the foreign policy “Think Tanks” of Washington, we see innumerable examples of talented and intelligent men and women who have—partly as a result of their undeniable success—gotten into the pernicious habit of grossly overestimating their value and abilities.

In our new book, Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality, we examine the history of the development of synthetic, mRNA and its reckless and hasty misapplication to producing gene therapy shots to immunize against a respiratory viral infection. This took us into a thorough examination of the related concepts of hubris and pride. As we note:

An apt example of the “Scientist Playing God” is the already mentioned Eldon Tyrrell in the 1982 science fiction film, Blade Runner. Risa Peoples, the daughter of screenwriter David Webb Peoples, was studying microbiology and taught her father about DNA replication. Tyrrell, whom the lead android playfully calls “Maker” and “Father,” references this in his explanation of how the lead android, Roy Batty, was created. The code of life consists of the trinity of replication, transcription, and translation. Replication creates identical DNA strands; transcription converts DNA into messenger RNA (mRNA); translation decodes mRNA into amino acids, forming proteins essential for life functions. While this is an endlessly fascinating field, the practical applications of it are still in their infancy. Anyone who claims that all potential outcomes of this experiment were understood is either delusional or lying or both.

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

The post On Hubris & Pride appeared first on LewRockwell.

According to the July Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, prices rose by 2.7 percent over the past year, and by 3.1 percent when the “volatile” food and housing sectors are removed from the calculation.

Markets rose following the release of the CPI since the increase in price inflation was not as high as expected. This led to an increase in expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next month.

Of course, the CPI numbers are manipulated to understate the true rate, and effects, of inflation. One way this is done is by “Chained CPI.” This is where the government does not consider consumers impacted by price increases that make their favorite products unaffordable if there are affordable substitutes available – as if government bureaucrats can determine what is and is not an adequate substitute for a good made unaffordable by the Federal Reserve.

The official government figures do not take into account “shrinkflation.” This is when a business responds to price inflation by reducing product size and otherwise reducing a good’s quality. Shrinkflation makes it appear that consumers are paying the same prices but in fact they are paying more since they are getting less of the product.

Examples of “shrinkflation” include increases in the size of cardboard toilet paper holders by 25 percent. This allows toilet paper companies to reduce the amount of paper per roll while maintaining the same number of rolls per package.

Other examples of shrinkflation include using wider bottles with concave bottoms for liquid soap, thus enabling soap manufacturers to hide the 15 percent reduction in the amount of soap per bottle, substituting cheaper vegetable oil for dairy milk in chocolates, and substituting foam pool noodles with an “angel” hair noodle that contains 40 percent less material. Shrinkflation also exists in the airline industry. Ticket prices may have remained steady, or even declined, but travelers now must pay a fee for many “frills” ‘that used to be included with the ticket, such as baggage check-in, on-flight food and beverage service, and seat selection.

Those looking for evidence of how inflation is affecting Americans might want to stop looking at CPI reports and instead go on Tik-Tok and other popular social media sites. There they will find videos of parents highlighting the burden placed on the family budget by the skyrocketing price of school supplies. A survey by Bankrate found that 29 percent of family budgets were strained by the growing costs of school supplies, while a survey by Intuit Credit Karma found that 44 percent of parents were going into, or increasing, their family’s debt in order to buy their children school supplies. School supplies prices have even risen at big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target. Even Dollar Tree has raised some prices to over a dollar!

The reason so many parents are struggling to afford school supplies is not corporate greed, but the Federal Reserve’s inflationary policies. The best thing Congress can do for America’s families is cut spending, thus reducing the pressure on the Fed to monetize the federal debt thus further weakening the dollar.

Congress should also reform the monetary system by passing the Audit the Fed bill and repealing all laws that discourage the use of competing currencies such as precious metals and cryptocurrencies. Sadly, even Tik-Tok videos of parents struggling to afford school supplies will likely not cause Congress to take these steps. Instead, the videos are more likely to cause Congress to renew efforts to ban Tok-Tok.

The post Another Reason To Ban Tik-Tok? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Some observers in the lead-up to last week’s meeting between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage Alaska hoped that a dialogue might be established where the broader issue of creating a new European security model that would reduce tensions and make it unlikely that a conflict like Russia-Ukraine would be repeated. Both Trump and Putin came away from the three-hour plus meeting with positive remarks though little of substance, at least in terms of what they were prepared to reveal. Trump did indicate that the idea of a ceasefire had been sidelined in favor of further discussions for a comprehensive peace plan to end the war at the next bilateral talks in Moscow, but it has been suggested by critics that he was speaking only for himself personally. If he has come around to the view that a ceasefire will not work in the current context, he is probably correct.

If there is any hope for a peace deal a sine qua non would be territorial transfers demanded by Russia on the part of Ukraine. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly rejected any such arrangement. Predictably, Zelensky and a group of supporting “European leaders” including the Netherlands Mark Rutte, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Finnish President Alexander Stubb are arriving at the White House on Monday to make their case for the continuation of the war. The European delegation is headed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is a near perfect, even enthusiastic, spokesperson for the hawk sentiments prevailing in parts of Europe.

Trump’s actual sentiments continue to be somewhat enigmatic and, as always, poorly articulated. It is widely understood that President Donald Trump is actively seeking to obtain the Nobel Peace Prize, even going so far as to boast falsely that he has already earned it “four or five times.” He has reportedly even called the Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg to ask how the polling regarding his candidacy is going, a grotesque faux pas but characteristic of what comes out of Trump’s head. Trump clearly fails to understand that seeking a peace prize while the United States is simultaneously actively supporting two major avoidable armed conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine while also removing existing restraints on development and deployment of certain weapons that are designed for nuclear war might be viewed by some as contradictory.

Those who are inclined to look to make excuses for Trump’s behavior while in the US presidency might be compelled to argue that Donald Trump doesn’t know any better and is therefore always inclined to act both impulsively and aggressively when in doubt, but the systematic withdrawal from Cold War agreements designed to make nuclear war avoidable during Trump 1 rather suggests that it is now policy de facto to make a catastrophic war easier to engage in to establish and maintain American global military dominance over adversaries like China and Russia. Total US military supremacy maintained by 850 overseas military bases to assert the national will globally is an aspect of the so-called “Wolfowitz Doctrine,” the unofficial name given to the initial version of the Defense Planning Guidance drafted in 1992 under President Bill Clinton for the 1994–1999 fiscal years published by neocons US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy Scooter Libby. The doctrine still dominates White House strategic thinking, particularly as Trump has surrounded himself with neocons and is taking direction from the Israel Lobby both regarding the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Based on the document, US defense strategy aimed to prevent the emergence of a global rival and asserted US primacy and unilateralism. One of it primary instruments to dominate in Europe was the expansion of NATO into the former Eastern European states that made up the Soviet Union, something that US negotiators had promised not to do during negotiations with Moscow during the Soviet collapse in 1991-2. This expansion has been the principal cause behind the current war between Russia and Ukraine as Moscow views Ukraine under NATO as a grave national security threat.

The corresponding dismantling of post-World War 2 agreements that sought to control limits on nuclear developments as well as the nature and distribution of new weapons and potential unmanned delivery systems have unfortunately dramatically increased the possibility of a devastating nuclear war taking place. The number of nuclear armed countries has grown in spite of Nuclear Non-Proliferation policies, with North Korea, China, Pakistan, India and Israel all now having nuclear arsenals. Israel even has a plan to use the nukes if it is seriously threatened called the “Samson Option.” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, located at the Keller Centre of the University of Chicago, monitors the movement of the minute and second hands on the so-called Doomsday Clock. It is now reporting that the second hand is closer to midnight than it has ever been, 89 seconds away, and moving in the “wrong” direction, towards inevitable armed conflict or even natural catastrophe. Reaching Midnight in this context could mean nuclear war, which could plausibly extinguish life on earth.

The United States is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy, which took place against Japan in early August 1945, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing at least 170,000 mostly civilians. My father was at that time an infantry sergeant on a troop ship located offshore of the Japanese mainland, part of a new Army corps, the Eighth Army, which was about to undertake an invasion of Japan’s main island. It promised to be bloody and the word among the troops was that Japan would put up a fierce last stand resistance. The American soldiers were consequently happy to hear that the bombs were used and the war had ended with an immediate Japanese surrender. More recently, however, historians have come around to the view that Japan was about to surrender anyway, which it did six days after the bombings, and it was a bad decision by President Harry Truman to authorize the use of the new and devastating weapon.

After World War 2, the Soviet Union, benefitting from the secrets stolen by the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spies in the United States, also acquired nuclear secrets and used them to become a nuclear armed military power, joining the US and Britain. The deployment of nukes subsequently became part of the tit-for-tat maneuvering that characterized the Cold War. The crisis came when Russia declared its intention to base nuclear capable missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from the US and therefore capable of hitting targets anywhere in the US, as a deterrent of any possible moves by Washington to again invade Cuba. The move was also in response to US basing of nuclear missiles in NATO countries Italy and Turkey. It seemed that some kind of nuclear exchange was imminent when the leadership of the United States and the Soviet Union came to their senses. In 1962 President John F Kennedy and Chairman Nikita Khruschev agreed that playing nuclear risk was just not worth it and the Russians declared that their missiles would not be going to Havana and the US agreed that its Jupiter missiles would also be withdrawn from Turkey.

This led to other agreements to limit the likelihood that nuclear weapons might actually be used in a war. The most important agreement was the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan and Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 but which the US withdrew from in October 2018 during the first Trump Administration. The INF banned both nuclear and conventional land-based missile systems and missile launchers with ranges of 620–3,420 miles (“intermediate-range”) and 310–620 miles (“shorter-range”), meaning that the mobile missile systems could not be developed for deployment and possible use close to a country’s border where they might be capable of a devastating surprise first strike against the “enemy.”

Prior to the US withdrawal, there were claims from both sides that there had been violations by the other side in terms of what the treaty allowed. When Trump ordered the government to withdraw from the INF treaty, it claimed Russia was in violation through its development of a new highly sophisticated ground-launched cruise missile. Russian officials responded that the missile had a maximum range of only 298 miles, making it legal. Russia replied that there was a possible US violation of the INF treaty through its establishing its own Aegis Ashore missile defense systems that were based in NATO members Romania and Poland, close to the Russian border. The US systems use highly mobile Mk-41 vertical launchers, which can accommodate Tomahawk missiles. The US under Trump would not negotiate with Russia and there was some speculation that the reason Washington had withdrawn from the INF treaty was so it would have a free hand to deploy its intermediate-range missiles near China. Russia responded by proposing that the over the limits INF missiles be banned in Europe only, but Washington never discussed and never accepted the compromise offer.

Russia has responded to what it sees as the continuing US provocations, like the development of the new highly mobile missile launcher named the “Typhon.” The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on August 4th which declared that: “With our repeated warnings on that matter having gone ignored and the situation developing towards the de facto deployment of US-made intermediate-and shorter-range ground-based missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian Foreign Ministry has to declare that any conditions for the preservation of a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar arms no longer exist, and it is further authorized to state that the Russian Federation does not consider itself bound by relevant self-restrictions approved earlier.” The Ministry decried how the “formation and buildup of destabilizing missile potentials in regions adjacent to Russia, [is] creating a direct, strategic threat to the security of our country… Russia’s leadership [will respond] based on an interdepartmental analysis of the scale of deployment of US and other Western ground-based INF missiles.”

To avoid a war that might become nuclear with devastating consequences should rightly be a major issue up for discussion at the next bilateral meeting in Moscow and whatever develops thereafter. The Trump Administration’s inept moves in the past to increasing US national security by discarding agreements intended to remove or at least mitigate the threat of large scale or even nuclear war should be considered in its broader context beyond Ukraine and Russia to include the Middle East where Israel is “secretly” nuclear armed. The INF Treaty could be viewed in the same fashion as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement to monitor Iran’s nuclear enrichment program to keep it from becoming a path to the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. Developments since Trump withdrew from the program in 2019 in his first term in office suggest strongly that the subsequent attacks on Iran by both Israel and the US have if anything increased the likelihood that the next Iranian government will seek to weaponize nuclear capabilities through a hidden program, only this time they will not do so while under IAEA inspection status, they will do it in secret. Hardly a good outcome, but when one is considering developments with both Russia and Iran, it is unfortunately true that what has been broken without regard for the consequences can no longer be easily mended. It would nevertheless be a gift to the human race to attempt to do so and if Donald Trump truly wants his Nobel Peace Prize a good place to start would be by ignoring the Europeans and Zelensky in the lead up to the next bilateral meeting in Moscow. Peace in Eastern Europe to include limits of weapons, possibly to establish a model that could be copied in the Middle East, would be the best “deal” that America’s president could ever make.

Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.

The post Will ‘Peace’ In Ukraine Also Bring a New Détente? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Alaska was not only about Ukraine. Alaska was mostly about the world’s top two nuclear powers attempting to rebuild trust and apply the brakes on an out-of-control train in a mad high-speed rail dash towards nuclear confrontation.

There were no assurances, given the volatile character of US President Donald Trump, who conceived the high-visibility meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. But a new paradigm may be in the works nonetheless. Russia has essentially been de facto recognized by the US as a peer power. That implies, at the very least, the return of high-level diplomacy where it is most needed.

Meanwhile, Europe is dispatching a line-up of impotent leaders to Washington to kowtow in front of the Emperor. The EU’s destiny is sealed: into the dustbin of geopolitical irrelevance.

What has been jointly decided by Trump, personally, and Putin, even before Moscow proposed charged-with-meaning Alaska as the summit venue, remains secret. There will be no leaks about the full content.

Yet it’s quite significant that Trump himself rated Alaska as a 10 out of 10.

The key takeaways, relayed by sources in Moscow with direct access to the Russian delegation, all the way to the 3-3 format (it was initially designed to be a 5-5, but other key members, such as Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, did provide their input), emphasize that:

“It was firmly put [by Putin] to stop all direct US weapon deliveries to Ukraine as a vital step towards the solution. Americans accepted the fact that it is necessary to dramatically decrease lethal shipments.”

After that happens, the ball swings to Europe’s court. The sources specify, in detail:

“Out of the $80 billion Ukrainian budget, Ukraine itself provides less than around $20 billion. The National Bank of Ukraine says that they collect $62 billion in taxes alone, which is a hoax; with a population around 20 million, much more than one million of irreversible battlefield losses, a decimated industry and less than 70 percent of pre-Maidan territory under control that is simply impossible.”

So Europe – as in the NATO/EU combo – has a serious dilemma: ‘Either support Ukraine financially, or militarily. But not both at the same time. Otherwise, the EU itself will collapse even faster.’

Now compare all of the above with arguably the key passage in one of Trump’s Truth Social posts: “It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up.”

Add to it the essential sauce provided by former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev:

“The President of Russia personally and in detail presented to the US President our conditions for ending the conflict in Ukraine (…) Most importantly: both sides directly placed responsibility for achieving future results in negotiations on ending hostilities on Kiev and Europe.”

Talk about superpower convergence. The devil, of course, will be in the details.

BRICS on the table in Alaska

In Alaska, Vladimir Putin was representing not only the Russian Federation, but BRICS as a whole. Even before the meeting with his US counterpart was announced to the world, Putin spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. After all, it’s the Russia–China partnership that is writing the geostrategic script of this chapter of the New Great Game.

Moreover, top BRICS leaders have been on a flurry of interconnected phone calls, leading to forge, in Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva’s assessment, a concerted BRICS front to counteract the Trump Tariff Wars. The Empire of Chaos, the Trump 2.0 version, is in a Hybrid War against BRICS, especially the Top Five: Russia, China, India, Brazil, and Iran.

So Putin did achieve a minor victory in Alaska. Trump: “Tariffs on Russian oil buyers not needed for now (…) I may have to think about it in two to three weeks.”

Even considering the predictable volatility, the pursuit of high-level dialogue with the US opens to the Russians a window to directly advance the interests of BRICS peers – including, for instance, Egypt and the UAE, blocked from further economic integration across Eurasia by the sanctions/tariff onslaught and the accompanying rampant Russophobia.

None of the above, unfortunately, applies to Iran: The Zionist axis has an iron grip on every nook and cranny of Washington’s policies vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic.

It’s clear that both Trump and Putin are playing a long game. Trump wants to get rid of the pesky two-bit actor in Kiev – but without applying old school US coup/regime-change tactics. In his mind, the only thing that really registers is future, possible, mega trade deals on Russian mineral wealth and the development of the Arctic.

Putin also needs to manage domestic critics who won’t forgive any concessions. The desperate western media spin that he would offer freezing the front in Zaporozhye and Kherson in exchange for getting all of the Donetsk Republic is nonsense. That would go against the constitution of the Russian Federation.

In addition, Putin needs to manage how US business would be allowed to enter two areas that are at the heart of federal priorities, and a matter of national security: the development of the Arctic and the Russian Far East. All that will be discussed in detail two weeks from now, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.

Once again, follow the money: Both oligarchies – in the US and Russia – want to go back to profitable business, pronto.

Lipstick on a defeated pig 

Putin, bolstered by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – the undisputed Man of the Match, with his CCCP fashion statement – finally had ample time, 150 minutes, to spell out, in detail, the underlying causes of Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) and lay out the rationale for long-term peace: Ukraine neutrality; neo-nazi militias and parties banned and dismantled; no more NATO expansion.

Geopolitically, whatever may evolve from Alaska does not invalidate the fact that Moscow and Washington at least did manage to buy some strategic breathing space. That might yield even a new shot toward respect for both powers’ spheres of influence.

So it’s no wonder the Atlanticist front, from Europe’s old money to the bling bling novices, is freaking out because Ukraine is a giant money laundering mechanism for Eurotrash politicos. The Kafkaesque EU machine has already bankrupted EU member-states and EU taxpayers – but anyway, that’s not Trump’s problem.

Across Global Majority latitudes, Alaska displayed the fraying of Atlanticism in no uncertain terms – revealing that the US seeks a meek Europe subjugated to the strategy of tension, otherwise there’s no EU military surge, buying billions worth of over-priced American weapons with money it doesn’t have.

At the same time, despite covetous US oligarchic private designs on Russian business, what Washington’s puppet masters truly want is to break up Eurasia integration, and by implication every multilateral organization – BRICS, SCO – driven to design a new, multinodal world order.

Of course, a NATO surrender – even as it is being strategically defeated, all across the spectrum – remains anathema. Trump, at best, is applying lipstick on a pig, trying to craft, with trademark fanfare, what could be sold as a Deep State exit strategy, toward the next Forever War.

Putin, the Russian Security Council, BRICS, and the Global Majority, for that matter, harbor no illusions.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

The post What Really Happened in Alaska appeared first on LewRockwell.

The government lies about almost literally everything, except perhaps what time it is – and probably it would lie about that, too, if it served the government’s purposes. So why do most of us believe that inflation – the waning buying power of the money we’re forced to use by the government – is what it says it is?

Here’s what I know and so can attest to:

When I was a high school kid back in the ’80s, I worked part-time at McDonald’s. The minimum wage back them was $3.35, which meant that an eight hours shift put just shy of $27 in my pocket. Actually, less – because that’s gross. Even high school kids earning minimum wage get FICA (Social Security) and other federal taxes “withheld” as the government likes to style seizing some of the money you’ve earned before you even get to hold it in your hand for a moment.

Anyhow, I recall working two weekend shifts as well as a a couple of afternoons after school, so something like 24 hours a week. This grossed me about $80 per week. The interesting thing to me, as I recall those days, is that I was able to buy gas for the Omacar – the name given my rusty but trusty ’78 Camaro and things like a set of Keystone Classic mags and glass pack mufflers for it, too. My friends were able to do similar and we “cruised” on Friday nights, hanging out in the parking lot of the McDonald’s where I worked part-time, after school and weekends.

We could easily afford to eat at McDonald’s, too.

I think about those days and wonder how managed to afford the gas we burned as we cruised around on Friday nights and never mind the mag wheels and glass packs for our V8 powered old cars. The Omacar had a 21 gallon tank, much larger than the tank of the typical late-model anything that isn’t a huge SUV (such as the Chevy Tahoe I recently reviewed) or a big truck. Most new/late-model cars and crossovers carry about 12-15 gallons of gas.

I remember that if I had $10 in my pocket, I could buy half a tank of gas. That half-tank took me about four hours to earn working for the Clown. A week’s worth of working part-time for the Clown earned me enough to keep gas in the Omacar and have enough left over to buy speed parts, such as glasspack mufflers, a set of headers and so on after a few weeks of working and saving up to buy them.

Such teenage affluence seems inconceivable to me today. The minimum wage is now just shy of five times as high, but it doesn’t seem to buy as much as $3.35 per hour did back then. How many teenagers today can afford to spend $60 on a tankful of gas for a V8 hot rod working part-time for the Clown, even if they’re being paid $15 per hour? I have not seen any V8 hot rods owned by teenagers parked at the McDonald’s in let’s just say a long time.

I have written before about my first house, which I bought back in the mid-1990s in Northern Virginia for $155k. Today, that same house would list for more than $600k, according to my realtor friend who sells similar houses in the same neighborhood. Now, here’s a way to more accurately measure what they’re lying to us about.

When I plug what I paid for my first house into the government’s so-called “inflation calculator,” it says that $155k back then is equivalent in cost to just shy of $315 today. Whey then is a house like my old house a $600k house today? What accounts for the nearly $300k difference in cost?

Channeling the Church Lady: Could it be . . . inflation? That is to say, the waning value of what a dollar buys today vs. yesterday?

It sure seems that way.

Eating at McDonald’s has become a kind of near-luxury dining experience that the parents of today’s teens are having a time paying for. How many 17-year-olds can afford a $40 bag of fast food? How many can afford a car, at all? How many adults can afford their first house? If the stats are correct – about the average of first-time home buyers being well into middle aged – then the answer is not many.

Yes, they are lying to us, again.

As Dr. Evil used to say, it’s what they do.

This article was originally published on Eric Peters Autos.

The post Are They Lying to Us About Inflation? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Later today U.S. President Donald Trump will meet the (former) Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski to talk about the results of last week’s summit between Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. As a result of that summit both sides declared that the war in Ukraine must be ended with an all-encompassing peace agreement. That again will require for Ukraine to give up on certain territories and to become a neutral country.

Zelenski will try to induce Trump to return to his previous position. Trump had earlier demanded an immediate ceasefire from Russia at the current frontline. But after trying he had found that he had no way to achieving that. Trump had to agree to Russia positions because there was no other way left to end the war in Ukraine.

Trump is notoriously prone to change his position from one talk to another. This time however I believe that he will stick to his agreement with Putin.

Zelenski will be told to file for peace with Russia under whatever condition Russia will demand from him.

After the talk with Zelenski Trump will have a meet and greet with a bunch of European premiers, chancellors and presidents. They want the war to continue which requires to keep the U.S. involved in it.

Their main talking point and request will be a ‘security guarantee’ for Ukraine which, they say, will require U.S. involvement and backing.

Being asked about it during an interview Trump’s Russia envoy Stephen Witkoff gave a polite response:

“The United States is potentially prepared to be able to give Article 5 security guarantees, but not from NATO — directly from the United States and other European countries,” Witkoff said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview.

The meaning of “is … potentially … prepared … to be able … ” in this context must be translated into “No way that’s gonna happen!”

Two years ago I had already discussed the question of security guarantees for Ukraine:

The Ukraine is now obviously losing the war. It will soon need to sign a capitulation like ceasefire agreement with Russia.

But who or what can guarantee that any such agreement will be held up?

NATO membership is no longer an option.
…
A direct full security guarantee from Washington to Kiev is also impossible. It would create a high likelihood of a direct war between the U.S. and Russia which would soon become nuclear. The U.S. will not want to risk that.
…
Russia’s might makes even an attempt of an Israel like security guarantee for Ukraine too costly for the U.S. and thereby simply impossible.

There is only one country in the world that can guarantee peace in Ukraine and the security of its borders. That country is Russia!

But any such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.

That is simply a fact of life Ukraine has had to, and will have to live with.

Alastair Crooke suggests (video) that the peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine will follow the outline of the Istanbul Agreement negotiated in March 2022 between Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine, under pressure from the West, had at that time refrained from signing it.

The Istanbul Agreement did include security guarantees (emphasis added):

The agreement assumes:
…
2. Possible guarantor states: Great Britain, China, Russia, the United States, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland, Israel. The free accession of other states to the treaty is proposed, in particular the Russian Federation proposes Belarus.
…
4. Ukraine does not join any military alliances, does not deploy foreign military bases and contingents, and conducts international military exercises only with the consent of the guarantor states. For their part, the guarantor states confirm their intention to promote Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.

5. The guarantor states and Ukraine agree that in the event of aggression, any armed attack on Ukraine or any military operation against Ukraine, each of the Guarantor States, after urgent and immediate consultations between them (which shall be held within no more than three days), in the exercise of the right to individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will provide (in response to and on the basis of an official request from Ukraine) assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack, by immediately taking such individual or joint action as may be necessary, including closing airspace over Ukraine, providing necessary weapons, using armed force in order to restore and subsequently maintain the security of Ukraine as a permanently neutral state.

Any such armed attack (any military operation) and all measures taken as a result thereof shall be immediately reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall cease when the Security Council takes the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

The mechanism for implementing security guarantees for Ukraine, based on the results of additional consultations between Ukraine and the Guarantor States, will be regulated in the Treaty, taking into account protection from possible provocations.

Again:

… such guarantee will of course come with conditions attached to it. Either Ukraine will accept those or it will never be secure from outer interference.

So yes, the Ukraine can have ‘security guarantees’. But the conditions of those will be set by the main guarantor – which has to be Russia.

Trump seems to have understood that. How long will it take those European ‘leaders’ to get it?

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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A totally transparent blatant lie has been turned into a truth throughout the Western world.  The lie is that Russia invaded Ukraine.  I will provide the factual history which is easy to verify.

When Washington overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 and installed a puppet, Washington relied on the Banderites to push the government into hostility with the Russian settled areas of Ukraine, areas such as Crimea and Donbas, that originally were part of Russia.  Whether or not the Banderites, followers of Stepan Bandera are neo-Nazis, they are certainly hostile to Russians.  

The conflict in Ukraine began in 2014 with street assaults on Russians in Donbas and government attempts to ban the use of the Russian language and other prohibitions placed on the Russian areas.  These street assaults soon grew into artillery attacks on Donbas towns and occupation of Donbas territory by Ukrainian militias sporting Nazi insignia.  To protect themselves, Donbas formed into two independent republics–Luhansk and Donetsk–and formed paramilitaries to defend themselves. 

In 2014 Donetsk and Luhansk voted overwhelmingly to be reabsorbed into Russia like Crimea, but Putin refused.  Instead, Putin relied on the Minsk Agreement, which Ukraine and the independent republics signed, and which Germany and France were supposed to enforce.  The agreement, sponsored by Russia, kept Donbas in Ukraine but provided some autonomy, such as independent police and courts to protect the rights of the Russian inhabitants. Putin naively relied on the Minsk Agreement, which the chancellor of Germany and president of France later said was used to deceive Putin while the US built and equipped a large Ukrainian army.

By late 2021 this army was prepared to invade Donbas, much of which was already under Ukrainian occupation, and forcibly reincorporate Donbas into Ukraine without any autonomy.  Faced with the abuse and possible slaughter of Russian people, Putin and his foreign minister Lavrov tried during December 2021-February 2022 to obtain a mutual security agreement with the West that would exclude Ukraine from NATO membership and contribute to mutual security by normalizing relations between Russia and the West.  The Biden regime, NATO, and the EU flatly refused.  The conflict followed this refusal.

Seeing the writing on the wall and unable to avoid it, Russia gave official recognization to the Donbas republics.  This allowed Donetsk and Luhansk  to request Russia to come to their aid, which Putin did at the last minute eight years too late.  As Russia was invited into Donbas, Russia did not even invade Donbas, much less Ukraine.

Putin designated the Russian intervention a “special military operation” limited to clearing Ukrainian troops from Russian areas.  Seven months into the military intervention on September 30, 2022, Russia reincorporated the Russian areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson into Russia.  The ground fighting has been limited to clearing Ukrainian troops from territory that is again part of Russia. 

Ask yourselves how and why did the truth get replaced by a lie? The answer is that those who profit from war provide the war propaganda.  

Now ask why does it matter?  The answer is that propaganda is a barrier to understanding and to a peaceful diplomatic solution to a conflict that can easily spin out of control into a wider war.

The propaganda that the evil-dictator-war-criminal-Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the first step in reconstruction the Soviet Empire places restraints on Trump and Putin’s ability to put East-West relations on a less dangerous footing.  Already the Western whore media is screaming that Trump is selling out Ukraine, that Trump is selling out Europe, that Trump is putty in Putin’s hands.  These and other such ignorant slogans will be used by the Zionist neoconservatives and US military/security complex to drive wedges between Trump and his supporters.  Americans have been indoctrinated to think of Russia as the enemy for 75 years.  The belief is institutionalized.  

Progress toward peaceful relations requires truthful reporting and correction of established beliefs that are false.  Can this be achieved when the well-placed neoconservative supporters of US hegemony are defending their interest, and the military/security complex is determined to protect its power and profit? Trump can expect little help from the media.  Naive Russians should not get carried away with their hopes for an accommodation with the West. Powerful barriers are in the way of Russian hopes, and Russians have no means of removing the barriers.  It is doubtful that Trump does.

Now ask yourselves a final question?  Why is it PCR who is making the case for common sense and for truth?  Why isn’t it the US foreign policy community, the Kremlin, the Chinese, the Russian media, the Western media, the German government, the British government, the government of India?  Why aren’t Trump’s supporters making the case?  I am only one voice easily shouted down as a “Putin agent/dupe” by the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, NPR, BBC, MSNBC, NY Times, Wall Street Journal,  The Guardian, and the rest of the whore media and a plethora of internet sites sponsored by war-mongers.  The normalization of relations between the West and Russia will take many voices. Where are those voices?  

Note: The whores at the BBC and the rest of the presstitute media incorrectly report that Russia’s restoration of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to Russian citizenship is illegal.  The restoration of Russian citizenship is completely legal under the international rules of self-determination.  There is no effort on the part of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to return to Ukraine.

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