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Gail Appel wrote:

Hi Lew,

A remarkable article published in 2013 by Walid Shoebat, an Egyptian Coptic Christian eviscerating John McCain. It predates the emergence of ISIS, which was a spin off of the “Arab Spring Freedom Fighters”, aka Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas/Al Qaeda. Other articles show McCain pictured with “rebels”, including Al Baghdadi.. who was armed courtesy of Obama,Biden, Killery,Clapper,Brennan,Power,Abedin,Lindsey Graham, Corker,Flake,Warner,Menendez,Cardin,Durbin and the monster, McCain.

Note that every coup,invasion and regime change during the Obama and Biden occupation targeted sovereign Arab and African nations that had banned the Muslim Brotherhood and its tentacles-Hamas,Hezbollah,Houthis,Al-Qaeda,Al Nusra..which were now.

See here.

The post When did John McC(Pet)ain become a Traitor appeared first on LewRockwell.

This is one of those essays I dread writing. It’s about a movement I cherish and about people whom I generally greatly admire.

Headline: MAHA leadership is risking a derailment; it risks losing President Trump and the Republicans the midterms.

The cause of this danger is an oddly adolescent, somewhat cult-y, and far too personalized approach to the challenges and rigors of national politics. I write this essay out of love and support for the MAGA/MAHA alliance, in the hope that MAHA can course-correct quickly. (MAGA, in my view, is doing more than fine).

I need to paint the picture in snapshots. As you know from my last post, I was the coauthor and signatory, along with my colleague commentator Shannon Joy of The Shannon Joy Show; analyst Sasha Latypova of Due Diligence and Art; and physician Dr Mary Talley Bowden of AmerciansforHealthFreedom.org, of an open letter criticizing HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s misleading announcements about having revised the CDC recommendations for the mRNA injection.

Though the announcement purported to be a step in the right direction, and was being welcomed rapturously by MAHA-aligned influencers as a removal of the mRNA shot from the CDC recommendations, we pointed out that it was still targeted against sick kids, and against all pregnant women. Our letter also took issue with the fact that HHS has not pulled the mRNA platform from the market, and is failing to deliver on various key MAHA policy goals, which we itemized.

The response to this letter has been extremely supportive, with signatures from many grassroots citizens and health freedom activists. It generated a good deal of press, including stories in Yahoo.com, coverage in podcasts such as Dr Drew, and so on.

Some seemingly positive MAHA deliverables were set in motion the following week. Sec Kennedy fired the corrupt ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) committee, for instance, and appointed 8 replacements. These included the science/ freedom hero, Great Barrington Declaration signatory Dr Martin Kulldorff. The well-known critic of lockdown excesses Dr Retsef Levi of MIT was also appointed (a slightly baffling choice upon deeper scrutiny, as his field is food security, not vaccines. He also spent 12 years in the Israel Defense Forces’ Intelligence Wing, but no matter). Self-described inventor of the mRNA platform, Dr Robert Malone, was a pick as well.

So this dramatic gesture of Sec Kennedy’s turns out not to be black and white. Shannon Joy rightly pointed out, for instance, that eight replacements are just short of a majority.

There will surely be more MAHA “victories” to come, and more questions to be raised about those “victories,” step by step by step. In other words, HHS had a positive-to-messy week, following high-profile pressure from an outside group, along with other internal and external pressures of all kinds, no doubt.

My point is this: this is how politics works.

“Principals”, meaning people situated as Sec Kennedy or President Trump are, try to weave, every day, through the thicket of competing agendas that surrounds them, and to draw down from the opposition all around them, the least amount of damage. Everyone is trying to avoid rousing unnecessarily the ire of the biggest investors in both parties’ campaigns: in this case, Big Pharma. There are belligerent watchdogs over Sec Kennedy on the inside — reportedly, Sen Bill Cassidy has placed a rigid gatekeeper in the mix — advisor Calley Means is also tasked with keeping too much real MAHA momentum from taking place, it appears — and the whole operation is overseen by another stern gatekeeper, President Trump’s Chief of Staff, former lobbyist Susie Wiles.

In all of this complexity, the base yells and screams about its own issues. Some accommodation is made, for a compromise that is no one’s ideal. And things move haltingly forward.

Everyone who has ever done politics at a national level, understands this chaotic, tug-of-war dynamic; and knows that this is the reality of power, all day, every day. Grownup, experienced national politicians and their chiefs of staff know that it is very useful for them when their base yells and screams about an issue, especially publicly, because it gives them cover to deliver outcomes that their voters want, but that lobbyists and special interests do not want the voters to receive.

MAHA leadership and insiders really have to learn about and understand this dynamic.

I remember Vice President Al Gore, who is quite a decent person, explaining this dynamic to me. He said that citizens don’t usually have a seat at the table, and that this can be very frustrating for decent “principals”, since special interests do always have a seat at the table. The best message he could give to citizens who wanted a specific outcome from him was for them not simply to complain about what he was not delivering, but rather, as he put it, to “Make me.” That is to say, citizens needed to organize and create formal pressure groups, and publicly press on the Principal and his or her team.

The example the Vice President gave was AARP — the American Association of Retired Persons. Before this pressure group existed, the elderly had little power or voice; but after it was organized, no President or Congressperson on the right or left wanted to infuriate American elders’ numerically powerful public advocacy group.

I took that lesson to heart.

But it appears that many MAHA insiders, and certainly many among the satellites of (sorry, I have to say it) men who are now informally surrounding Sec Kennedy, really don’t seem to understand this, or to get, in general, how to play grown-up politics.

MAHA insiders and the satellite spokespeople and “Bobby” “helpers” seem to be resorting to middle-school mean-girl tactics, rather than waging serious adult national politics on behalf of Secretary Kennedy.

These men are resorting, for example, to adolescent personal attacks at the least provocation.

When I raised questions on social media about Calley Means’ company TrueMed’s biometrics harvesting business model, the HHS advisor called me “unhinged.” He declined to debate me or publicly to discuss the issue. I later wrote an essay revealing that his sister, Surgeon General nominee and Levels cofounder Casey Means, had a company with nearly flat growth and with problems with the visitor base, but with a valuation of $313 million dollars.

A grownup HHS press office would have made sure that Sec Kennedy appeared with Dr Means in multiple venues, and would have booked her a round of TV, print, radio and podcast interviews, in which such questions, and those from others, could have been addressed. Or, if it turned out that Dr Means was unready for such appearances and that the problems I and others raised were insurmountable, grownup politicos would cut bait, release a lovely statement about Dr Means having other projects to pursue, and move on to another nominee.

But that is not what happened. Dr Means has been kept in some off grid location somewhere (I am joking. I mean that she vanished from sight).

Instead of our witnessing a grownup media strategy, I received a call from a close advisor to RFK Jr and colleague now of Calley Means’. The caller told me to be nicer about the Means siblings, if I wished to “support” RFK Jr, and not to be “divisive” to the MAHA movement in criticizing the Means siblings.

That wasn’t the end of my punishment from the kids at the coolest lunchroom table. I later discovered that it was Calley Means who was gatekeeper for the seating at Sen Ron Johnson’s hearing based on my Pfizer Papers team’s uncredited work – a hearing that we were told was “too full” for us to attend.

Darn it all — Stacy didn’t invite me to her prom afterparty.

A week or two later, Shannon Joy, Sasha Latypova, Dr Mary Talley Bowden, and I ran our open letter critical of the deployment of the mRNA injection recommendations targeting sick kids and pregnant women.

After that, MAHA middle school got really weird and punitive. Over by the lockers, rumors were rampant that there would be a fight by the bleachers during lunch period.

Dr Robert Malone called our group of signatories, publicly, a “hate group.” He wrote on social media that the critics of MAHA, clearly referencing our letter and Nicole Shanahan’s recent, separate critiques, had nefarious motivations: “There is a clique of historically liberal women influencers, mostly from California or the Northeast” who are “actively seeking to divide the MAHA movement.”

Dr Malone’s whole comment on Nicole Shanahan’s criticisms of HHS and MAHA for not delivering on campaign agendas, is worth reproducing:

“It is no question in my mind that the two movements [MAHA and MAGA], although they have overlap, come from very different, ideological roots, political roots. And you can see that in— Well, Nicole Shanahan kind of embodies that. Nicole Shanahan is basically a Bay Area, Silicon Valley type attorney […]Who met, you know, met one of the founders of Google at Burning Man. You know, that’s just the way it is. And they became married, had a child, and then separated, because the child had, let’s say, I don’t want to put words in her mouth, let’s say developmental disabilities, that plausibly could have been associated with the pediatric vaccine schedule, that led to a very contentious, divorce, major settlement for Ms. Shanahan. And she now lives a life of luxury, with a new significant other, this challenged child, and has decided to become not just politically active, but potential candidate for governor of California. And has apparently made a significant commitment to let’s say becoming an influencer and to some extent a media celebrity. … Her words that she used recently on X, are very consistent with someone who is seeking attention as a media celebrity. …Now, that position that she’s taken has a pretty dark component to it in that what she’s functionally saying…When a donor to a political campaign seeks to gain promises from a political candidate in exchange for their contribution, this is commonly referred to as influence peddling or in more severe cases as a form of political corruption or bribery. When a powerful person withholds support from a candidate to extract specific promises, this is also influence peddling. If powerful people are doing this to kill or support MAHA or MAGA goals or objectives, it is still influence peddling… So, not politically astute, kind of, comes across as angry, unnecessarily.”

Dr Malone here depicted Ms Shanahan, without whose advocacy and funding Sec Kennedy and President Trump would not now be in power, as being motivated by a desire for attention, hungry for celebrity, and “angry” — all of these being sexist stereotypes traditionally used to undermine strong women leaders.

He also tried subtly to smear Shanahan, noting that she met her husband-to-be “at Burning Man. You know, that’s just the way it is.” Men may miss the dog-whistle here, but every woman who reads this, understands what “You know, that’s just the way it is” and “Burning Man” mean, when used together within the lexicon of slut-shaming.

Finally he threateningly invoked a sometimes illegal act when describing the expectations that every major donor has, that his or her agenda will get serious consideration from the candidate whom he or she supported. “Influence-peddling” can be illegal, and is an offense close to bribery or coercion. The threat that Dr Malone made here, that Ms Shanahan’s expectations as a donor that her agenda be considered, could be recast by the Trump team as an illegal activity, is a serious threat.

Dr Malone also told an audience at Freedom Fest that he and I — “Naomi”, as he called me, though I always refer to him as “Dr Malone” — got into a “Twitter Twat”, a conflict that was spun up by “chaos agents.” In other words, he implied to this audience, one made up of my own community, that I was too stupid to figure out my own opposition to some of his views, and that my mind was being manipulated by some mysterious outside force.

As far as what a “Twitter Twat” is — I have no idea, but I want the T-shirt.

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Now beating their battle drums, Washington’s war hawks currently posture as divine crusaders, insisting that America’s sacred mission is to shield the State of Israel lest “God may quit us.” They thunder on that America’s refusal to wipe out Iran—and its roughly 91 million people—is the equivalent to blasphemy.

But who truly shoulders the cost when they let slip the dogs of war to defend a state born in 1948, well after the biblical prophecies bolstering the bloodthirst of today’s Christian Zionists had already faded to footnotes?

This is a fight for survival, they insist. Yet this current fracas in the Middle East isn’t about defending holy writ—it is about preserving the wallets and lives of working-class patriots on the home front.

Dispensationalist theology is famous for cherry-picking scripture, claiming that the Bible earmarked modern Israel for divine favor, and that Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones and the miraculous births predicted by Isaiah foretold a sovereign Jewish state. But those chapters describe restoration centuries before the Church and Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming of John the Baptist and the virgin birth of Jesus Christ—not 20th-century geopolitics.

The State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948—just yesterday by prophetic standards. While age doesn’t disqualify prophecy, if sacred texts spoke so clearly of this nation-state, why did earlier political theologians spend their energies opposing European regimes rather than mapping out modern Zion?

Dispensationalism offers a systematic vision of biblical history, but it faces meaningful challenges from the ancient and traditional theological traditions. It erects literalist scaffolding where symbolism reigned, divorcing the Church from the Kingdom promised by Christ. It misreads sacred poetry as political warrants.

These attempts by end-times evangelicals to bind American policy with theological fantasy serves global financiers and neoconservative think tanks more than Main Street America.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church stands as the true Kingdom of Israel, founded by Jesus Christ, the Messiah, in spiritual continuity with Old Testament saints.

Its bishops succeed the apostles. Its sacraments echo Sinai. The mission of the Catholic Church surpasses land grants and political borders. To claim otherwise is to ignore two millennia of ecclesial tradition and reduce divine covenant to real-estate speculation.

What of the Jewish people of today? Genealogical studies confirm that many modern Jews trace mixed ancestries, not unbroken lines to first-century Judea, and—taken as a whole—are not a “scattered people returning to their ancestral land.” Furthermore, those who rejected Christ at Pentecost became, by definition, enemies of the true Israel.

Faith transcends genetics.

America’s alliances should rest on shared values, not on the grievances of fringe ideologues—whether messianic rabbis or dispensationalist “Christians” with their crystal charts and rapture timetables.

The State of Israel exists in large part to accommodate the ideological caprices of zealots and political insiders. It is a sovereign nation, yes—but one no more divine than any other republic born of revolution or realpolitik.

Nevertheless, Iran’s regime is malignant. The theocratic terror of the ayatollahs threatens millions. Yet, America has no business wading into sectarian strife halfway around the globe. For every son and daughter Uncle Sam deploys, it feeds the dogs of war at home, fracturing families and draining the work force even further.

Should those bugling for bombs to drop in Asia not heed the counsel of John Quincy Adams? For it was over two centuries ago that the Secretary of State and future president said of America’s role in the world that, “She goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”

What, then, does America stand to gain in this latest escapade? Global prestige? Oil pipelines? Or the empty assurance that a supernatural guarantor will smile upon our ledgers?

This is not merely wrong, but dangerous. Remember the Cold War—when David Ben-Gurion’s new state balanced between superpowers while America paid homage to the promise of democracy, not dispensationalist dogma. That prudence earned the Marshall Plan, not wars of faith.

The reflexive pro-Israel crowd brands dissent as betrayal, yet true patriotism demands asking hard questions. Who are the economic patriots served by foreign bloodshed? Who profits when the American treasury writes blank checks to warmongers? Who suffers when American factories sit idle and our highways crumble under tax burdens for distant battlefields?

At hand is an existential choice: Bow to theological tribalism or defend the values that built Western civilization—family, faith, personal responsibility, respect for authority.

America first means America’s families, first. Let us reject the pious posturing of overseas secular crusades, raise our voices for the forgotten Americans, and close the ledger on messianic foreign policy.

President Trump must not unleash the dogs of war again for causes that endanger American liberty.

It is time to stand down the war cries, dismantle dispensationalist delusions, and rediscover moral clarity grounded in peace, not in adventurism.

The true Kingdom of God does not rest on sand. It endures in the Church that Christ bequeathed to us and in communities that honor tradition and uplift the common man.

Let us choose wisely—before the next howl of battle dims the lights of our own cities.

This article was originally published on The O’Leary Review.

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“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”—President Dwight D. Eisenhower (April 16, 1953)

Seventy years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the cost of a military-industrial complex, America is still stealing from its own people to fund a global empire.

In 2025 alone, the U.S. has launched airstrikes in Yemen (Operation Rough Rider), bombed Houthi-controlled ports and radar installations (killing scores of civilians), deployed greater numbers of troops and multiple aircraft carriers to the Middle East, and edged closer to direct war with Iran in support of Israel’s escalating conflict.

Each of these “new” fronts has been sold to the public as national defense. In truth, they are the latest outposts in a decades-long campaign of empire maintenance—one that lines the pockets of defense contractors while schools crumble, bridges collapse, and veterans sleep on the streets at home.

This isn’t about national defense. This is empire maintenance.

It’s about preserving a military-industrial complex that profits from endless war, global policing, and foreign occupations—while the nation’s infrastructure rots and its people are neglected.

The United States has spent much of the past half-century policing the globe, occupying other countries, and waging endless wars.

What most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with propping up a military-industrial complex that has its sights set on world domination.

War has become a huge money-making venture, and the U.S. government, with its vast military empire, is one of its best buyers and sellers.

America’s role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict has already cost taxpayers more than $112 billion.

And now, the price of empire is rising again.

Clearly, it’s time for the U.S. government to stop policing the globe.

The U.S. military reportedly has more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty, with more than 200,000 of them stationed overseas in nearly every country in the world.

American troops are stationed in Somalia, Iraq and Syria. In Germany, South Korea and Japan. In Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Oman. In Niger, Chad and Mali. In Turkey, the Philippines, and northern Australia.

Those numbers are likely significantly higher in keeping with the Pentagon’s policy of not fully disclosing where and how many troops are deployed for the sake of “operational security and denying the enemy any advantage.” As investigative journalist David Vine explains, “Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history.”

Incredibly, America’s military forces aren’t being deployed abroad to protect our freedoms here at home. Rather, they’re being used to guard oil fields, build foreign infrastructure and protect the financial interests of the corporate elite. In fact, the United States military spends about $81 billion a year just to protect oil supplies around the world.

America’s military empire spans nearly 800 bases in 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”

This is how a military empire occupies the globe.

For 20 years, the U.S. war machine propped up Afghanistan to the tune of trillions of dollars and thousands of lives lost. When troops left Afghanistan, the military-industrial complex simply shifted theaters—turning Yemen, Iran, and the Red Sea into new frontlines.

Each new conflict is marketed as national defense. In reality, it’s business as usual for the Pentagon’s global footprint, with American soldiers used as pawns in the government’s endless quest to control global markets, prop up foreign regimes, and secure oil, data, and strategic ports—all while being told it’s for liberty.

This is how the military-industrial complex, aided and abetted by the likes of Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and others, continues to get rich at taxpayer expense.

Yet while the rationale may keep changing for why American military forces are policing the globe, these wars abroad aren’t making America—or the rest of the world—any safer, are certainly not making America great again, and are undeniably digging the U.S. deeper into debt.

War spending is bankrupting America.

Although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 50% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined.

In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.

The American military-industrial complex has erected an empire unsurpassed in history in its breadth and scope, one dedicated to conducting perpetual warfare throughout the earth.

Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $10 trillion waging its endless wars, much of it borrowed, much of it wasted, all of it paid for in blood and taxpayer dollars.

Add Yemen and the Middle East escalations of 2025, and the final bill for future wars and military exercises waged around the globe will total in the tens of trillions.

Co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $32 million per hour.

In fact, the U.S. government spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earns in a year.

Talk about fiscally irresponsible: the U.S. government is spending money it doesn’t have on a military empire it can’t afford.

Even if we ended the government’s military meddling today and brought all of the troops home, it would take decades to pay down the price of these wars and get the government’s creditors off our backs.

As investigative journalist Uri Friedman puts it, for more than 15 years now, the United States has been fighting terrorism with a credit card, “essentially bankrolling the wars with debt, in the form of purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds by U.S.-based entities like pension funds and state and local governments, and by countries like China and Japan.”

War is not cheap, but it becomes outrageously costly when you factor in government incompetence, fraud, and greedy contractors. Indeed, a leading accounting firm concluded that one of the Pentagon’s largest agencies “can’t account for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of spending.”

Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better for the spending that can be tracked.

A government audit found that defense contractor Boeing has been massively overcharging taxpayers for mundane parts, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in overspending. As the report noted, the American taxpayer paid:

$71 for a metal pin that should cost just 4 cents; $644.75 for a small gear smaller than a dime that sells for $12.51: more than a 5,100 percent increase in price. $1,678.61 for another tiny part, also smaller than a dime, that could have been bought within DoD for $7.71: a 21,000 percent increase. $71.01 for a straight, thin metal pin that DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, for 4 cents: an increase of over 177,000 percent.

The fact that such price gouging has become an accepted form of corruption within the American military empire is a sad statement on how little control “we the people” have over our runaway government.

Mind you, this isn’t just corrupt behavior. It’s deadly, downright immoral behavior.

Americans have thus far allowed themselves to be spoon-fed a steady diet of pro-war propaganda that keeps them content to wave flags with patriotic fervor and less inclined to look too closely at the mounting body counts, the ruined lives, the ravaged countries, the blowback arising from ill-advised targeted-drone killings and bombing campaigns in foreign lands, or the transformation of our own homeland into a warzone.

The bombing of Yemen’s Ras Isa port by U.S. forces—killing more than 80 civilians—is just the latest example of war crimes justified as national interest.

That needs to change.

The U.S. government is not making the world any safer. It’s making the world more dangerous. It is estimated that the U.S. military drops a bomb somewhere in the world every 12 minutes. Since 9/11, the United States government has directly contributed to the deaths of around 500,000 human beings. Every one of those deaths was paid for with taxpayer funds.

With the 2025 escalation, those numbers will only rise.

The U.S. government is not making America any safer. It’s exposing American citizens to alarming levels of blowback, a CIA term referring to the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s international activities. Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, repeatedly warned that America’s use of its military to gain power over the global economy would result in devastating blowback.

The 9/11 attacks were blowback. The Boston Marathon Bombing was blowback. The attempted Times Square bomber was blowback. The Fort Hood shooter, a major in the U.S. Army, was blowback.

The U.S. military’s ongoing drone strikes will, I fear, spur yet more blowback against the American people.

The war hawks’ militarization of America—bringing home the spoils of war (the military tanks, grenade launchers, Kevlar helmets, assault rifles, gas masks, ammunition, battering rams, night vision binoculars, etc.) and handing them over to local police, thereby turning America into a battlefield—is also blowback.

James Madison was right: “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” As Madison explained, “Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”

We are seeing this play out before our eyes.

The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.

The nation’s infrastructure is in shambles. Public schools are underfunded. Mental health care is collapsing. Basic needs like housing, transportation, and clean water go unmet. Meanwhile, government contractors drop bombs on third-world villages and call it strategy.

This isn’t just bad budgeting. It’s moral bankruptcy. A country that can’t care for its own people has no business policing the rest of the world.

Bridges collapse, water systems fail, students drown in debt, and veterans sleep on the streets—while the Pentagon builds runways in the desert and funds proxy wars no one can explain.

Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of overhauling.

We are funding our own collapse. The roads rot while military convoys roll. The power grid fails while the drones fly. Our national strength is being siphoned off to feed a war machine that produces nothing but death, debt, and dysfunction.

We don’t need another war. We need a resurrection of the republic.

It’s time to stop policing the world. Bring the troops home. Shut down the military bases. End the covert wars. Slash the Pentagon’s budget. The path to peace begins with a full retreat from empire.

At the height of its power, even the mighty Roman Empire could not stare down a collapsing economy and a burgeoning military. Prolonged periods of war and false economic prosperity largely led to its demise. As historian Chalmers Johnson predicts:

The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

This is the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” that President Dwight Eisenhower warned us not to let endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

Eisenhower, who served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, was alarmed by the rise of the profit-driven war machine that emerged following the war—one that, in order to perpetuate itself, would have to keep waging war.

We failed to heed his warning.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, war is the enemy of freedom.

As long as America’s politicians continue to involve us in wars that bankrupt the nation, jeopardize our servicemen and women, increase the chances of terrorism and blowback domestically, and push the nation that much closer to eventual collapse, “we the people” will find ourselves in a perpetual state of tyranny.

In the end, it’s not just the empire that falls. It’s the republic it hollowed out along the way.

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I’ve noted how often we’ve been told, by mainstream and alt media sources alike, that we are on the brink of WWIII. Never closer, as Alex Jones would say. That’s been at least three to four years now. It’s nonstop fear porn, which the COVID psyop taught us works really, really well. But is it real this time? Are you ready for a World War?

Israel’s attack on Iran recently, in the middle of peace negotiations, changed the equation. Trumpenstein at first appeared flustered. He had been at least saying he wanted to avoid war, something that no diehard Zionist has ever said. Iran has been the primary target of Zionists for decades now. They know they can’t drudge up any more alleged Nazi war criminals, and give them a Kafkaesque show trial like Eichmann. So Iran has been branded as the “state sponsor of terrorism,” whatever that means. According to the man who really runs U.S. foreign policy, Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran has been on the verge of developing nuclear weapons since 1979. As Bugs Bunny might have said, that last step is a doozy. Trumpenstein has ranted that as long as he’s president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. But Trump says lots of contradictory things, as we all know. He also continues to want to broker a “deal.” Alex Jones and others claim the decision has been made; we are going to war.

Now, it takes some real nerve to blame the Iranians for being bombed first. The Yiddish word for it is chutzpah. The mantra has always been that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” In this case, from what? A possible peace? One of those big, beautiful “deals” that Trumpenstein is renowned for? It will take all the powers of the state controlled press and subservient political “representatives” to portray Israel as the aggrieved party here. Why, exactly, is Israel so mad at the Iranians? For supposedly developing nuclear weapons? Which Israel was working on over sixty years ago, greatly angering President Kennedy. Right before he was assassinated. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Why isn’t the world concerned about that? Don’t they prefer to defecate in the sand at beaches? Who trusts people who do that with nuclear weapons? And, of course, our beloved United States is still the only nation in history to use nuclear power on another country. Why would Iran trust us?

And why would Iran trust Israel? They are a rogue state, inserted onto land occupied by other people, with the backing of the world’s greatest military powers. In their early years, they featured the Irgun Gang, a group which included future Israeli leader Menachem Begin. I don’t know, they sure seem to have been terrorists. They blew up the King David Hotel, killing a whole lot of civilians. I don’t think the court historians can provide a discernable difference between the Irgun Gang, and the PLO. Or Al Qaeda. Or Hamas. Or Hezbollah. The Taliban. Isis. The list is pretty long. As someone once said, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. If we had lost our War for Independence, they probably could have called the Minute Men “terrorists.” They were camoflauged while firing at the proud and arrogant British troops. When the communists did that later, they called it guerilla warfare. Who’s the “terrorist,” the Palestinian kid throwing rocks, or the IDF soldier bulldozing his former home?

Many prominent Trump backers have turned on him. This is a bombed bridge too far for them. Tucker Carlson. Steve Bannon. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Even Alex Jones was kind of critical, but as always he held back and made sure to say he agrees with 95 percent of what Trump is doing. Trumpenstein retaliated by calling Tucker “kooky.” When it was reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had concluded Iran had no nuclear weapons, Trumpenstein scoffed, “I don’t care what she said.” Somehow, I don’t think Tulsi is long for this administration. To the degree that anything he does is sincere and unscripted, Trump appears to believe that his MAGA base is as committed to Israel as he and everyone else in Washington, D.C. is. Not all the MAGA faithful are waiting for the Rapture, or believe that going against Israel is going against God. Most see it for what it is; the antithesis of an America First policy.

The MAGA movement is reeling, with the primary point of contention being Israel. “America First,” which Trump used before the less scintillating “Make America Great Again,” is not compatible with unswerving support for another nation. The Christian Zionists and the millions who were thrilled by Trump’s oft cited disdain for the “forever wars” aren’t compatible, either. There is a huge difference between the Mark Levins and Ben Shapiros and the Candace Owens’s and the Tucker Carlsons. An America First foreign policy was a nonnegotiable issue with most MAGA supporters. If Trump puts Americans in harm’s way over Israel’s squabbles, then he is no different that Bush, Clinton, Obama, or Biden. Probably 100 million Americans are fed up with the two party duopoly, and want something that represents their interests. Going to war with Iran obviously doesn’t fall into that category.

There really hasn’t been much criticism of Israel from anyone in Washington, D.C. since November 22, 1963. An otherwise nondescript Republican, Rep. Paul Findley, had the audacity to buck AIPAC, and it ended his political career. He wrote the best seller, They Dare to Speak Out, but it changed nothing. Very few have dared to speak out against our “greatest ally.” Another Republican, Pete McCloskey, talked about how the ADL uses bullying tactics, and declared, “There is a strong Jewish lobby….I do not understand why the Jewish community should resent it being labeled as such.” McCloskey’s political career, too, was ended by these kinds of comments. James Trafficant was one of the last great Democrats in Congress. His criticism of Israel, and courageous defense of embattled Cleveland autoworker John Demjanjuk, resulted in him being expelled from Congress, and sentenced to seven years in prison.

As I wrote about in an earlier Substack, Rep. Thomas Massie gave a remarkable interview last year to Tucker Carlson, in which he spoke of AIPAC having a “babysitter” for every politician, and how he threw them out of his office. Shortly thereafter, his healthy wife suddenly died, after a vacation with their grandkids. I still haven’t read anything on what the cause was. She wasn’t vaccinated, so it wasn’t a case of “doctors baffled.” Maybe all these things are coincidences, and opposing Israel has no impact on one’s life or political career. We’ll see how many members in Congress join Marjorie Taylor Greene and Massie in opposing any U.S. involvement in the mess between Israel and Iran. Massie has introduced a bill about this, demanding that Congress hold a debate, and vote on any declaration of war, which is their role under the Constitution. But Congress hasn’t declared war since WWII. Needless to say, we have been at war somewhere almost continuously since then.

Iran has never done anything to us, other than the hostage situation just before the 1980 election, which ended with a real “October Surprise.” Perhaps Iran had had enough of our meddling in their affairs. After all, the CIA overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. It’s a “democracy” thing, you wouldn’t understand. The Shah was an American puppet. Remember that whole “consent of the governed” thing that we fought a revolution about. Now, Abraham Lincoln crushed that notion forever, but it’s still a timeless and profound concept. In more recent years, the U.S. backed Iraq, led by CIA asset to become foreign hobgoblin Saddam Hussein, during their war with Iran, poison gas and all. One of the few things Trumpenstein did the first time around was assassinate Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, supposedly the most dangerous “terrorist” in the world at the time, although no American had heard of him before.

Now, we backed Iraq because Israel wanted us to. Trump assassinated Soleimani because Israel ordered him to, just like he bombed Syria twice at their behest. Barack Obama murdered an entire wedding party in Yemen, certainly an impeachable offense if ever there was one, but it is unknown if Israel personally requested it. The Gulf War, our senseless years in Afghanistan- all of it was because it was in Israel’s interest, not ours. What has Afghanistan, let alone Yemen, ever done to us? Donald Trump pulling out and holding a chair for Bibi Netanyahu was about as symbolic a gesture as could be imagined. Maybe Bibi asked him to. You don’t turn down Bibi. And you don’t make fun of a less than masculine nickname like that. Bibi apparently wants to kill the latest Ayatollah. That’s how out of step I am; I didn’t know there were multiple Ayatollahs. Trump allegedly stopped Bibi from doing that. I’m not sure that’s believable.

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International Man: President Trump has ordered the Treasury to stop minting pennies after 232 years, citing the fact that each one costs more than two cents to produce—calling it a waste of taxpayer money.

What’s your take on this move?

Doug Casey: It may seem odd that we’re talking about something as trivial as the disappearance of the penny while we may be staring World War 3 in the face any day now. We can visit that next week since the situation is so fluid.

But let’s turn our attention from a potentially traumatic war to a gradually degrading coinage, starting with a fun fact. People have forgotten that the US used to have a half-penny coin, which circulated from 1793 until 1857; it was pure copper and only slightly smaller than our current quarter. The debasement of coinage is a long-standing trend in the United States.

Now, the US is abolishing the penny. As usual, Trump is understating the negative, just as he always overstates the positive. It doesn’t cost two cents to produce a penny. It costs 3.7 cents. He mentioned that it’s uneconomic to mint them, but he should explain that it’s only because the currency itself is being destroyed. However, I’m uncertain that he understands the cause and effect of the matter.

It’s necessary to get rid of the penny because they cost the Treasury about $60 million a year to mint, even though nobody uses them. People don’t even bother picking them up off the street anymore. It’s estimated there are about 250 billion of the things pointlessly saved in mason jars. They’re a total waste of metal.

A bit of history is in order: When the first US penny was minted in 1793, it was pure copper and weighed 208 grains (13.48 grams), larger and heavier than the current half dollar. It was reduced to 168 grains (11 grams) in 1795. In 1856, it was further reduced to 72 grains (5 grams).

In 1864, it was reduced to 48 grains (3 grams) and was no longer pure copper but an admixture of 5% tin and zinc. This version of the penny lasted until 1982 when the government perpetrated a genuine fraud by replacing all the copper with zinc, disguised by a copper coating. Boobus americanus never noticed. Zinc usually trades at about a quarter of the value of copper. The weight of the penny also dropped to 38.6 grains (2.5 grams).

The trend of reducing the penny’s intrinsic value has been steady from the beginning. Now, the penny is being eliminated entirely. Gold went away in 1933, silver in 1964, copper in 1982. Soon, all coins will be gone, then the paper currency.

In 2006, the US government imposed a fine of up to $10,000 and/or five years imprisonment on anyone who melts or exports pennies or nickels for profit because people were doing just that—for the metal content. That’s something you’d expect in a Third World country.

International Man: What does the evolution of US coin designs tell us about the cultural and political transformation of America?

Doug Casey: Just as important as the degradation of the coins themselves is the symbolic significance of what is on the coins.

Up until 1909, US coinage always displayed a symbol of Liberty or something traditional like an Indian or an eagle—but not the portrait of a dead president. This changed starting with the Lincoln penny. The same thing happened in Rome when it transitioned from a republic to an empire. Before the time of Caesar, Roman coins bore ideals, noble concepts, perhaps a god. After Caesar, the money became instruments of propaganda, sporting portraits of the emperors while its silver content gradually went to zero. The same thing is true of the US. As a degenerate bankrupt empire, we’re following in Rome’s footsteps.

In 1909, the noble Indian on the penny was replaced with Lincoln. In 1938, the Buffalo on the Nickel was replaced with Jefferson. In 1932, Liberty on the Quarter was replaced with George Washington. This happened under Franklin Roosevelt, a statist who overturned many traditions that made America unique. But at least Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln were semi-mythical figures from our distant past. An even more disturbing change unfolded after Roosevelt died. The winged Mercury featured the dime was replaced with Roosevelt’s portrait in 1946. That was highly inappropriate for a free republic. Not as bad as putting a living person on the coins, but using a recently dead politician is symptomatic of the degradation and politicization of the currency.

That signaled a new trend. Benjamin Franklin replaced Liberty in 1946, and JFK replaced him in 1964. Eisenhower was put on a large faux silver dollar from 1971 to 1978, only to be replaced by a quarter-sized token commemorating Susan B. Anthony, basically a community organizer who agitated for women’s suffrage. She graced the coin from 1979 to 1981, when it simply went out of circulation.

Many other frauds have been perpetrated on the coinage. The biggest was in 1964, the last year there was silver in dimes, quarters, and half dollars. Since then, they’ve been made of copper with a wash that makes them look like silver—which is exactly what the Roman Empire did towards its end. Technically speaking, they’re not even coins. They’re tokens. Coins have value.

Lots of things have changed over the years. The first motto on our coins, right after the country’s founding, was “Mind your business.” A great motto. But starting in 1864, “In God We Trust” was used. I’d say it’s questionable insofar as it mixes a religious concept with the nation’s currency. Perhaps “Allahu Akbar” will replace it someday…

International Man: With the nickel now costing nearly 14 cents to produce, is it next on the chopping block?

Doug Casey: Yes, it’s going out of circulation for the same reason the penny did. Let me point out that a nickel is 25% nickel and 75% copper. Nickel now trades for about twice what copper does. That’s quite cheap historically. Nickels will soon be history.

In fact, all US coinage is on the way out because it’s basically worthless. Quarters are the only denomination that still see some use, although they’re nearly worthless. You can’t even buy an arcade game with a quarter anymore.

It’s a pity. Kids used to collect coins, pulling them out of day-to-day circulation. That inculcated the value of money and saving. But they haven’t been worth collecting for years, because the coins are now just slugs without any intrinsic value. Soon we won’t have any coins at all, because they’re simply too worthless. Too bad. How will cool uncles amuse the kids with coin tricks?

International Man: The US has kept the $100 bill as its highest denomination since 1969—even though it now holds only about 10% of its purchasing power back then.

Why is the government so reluctant to issue higher-denomination bills even after decades of inflation?

Doug Casey: We saw this phenomenon in Argentina, where the government didn’t want to admit that inflation was that bad. For a while—before Milei took over—if you wanted to pay cash, you needed a briefcase to transport the inconvenient bills. The biggest ones were worth only $1 a piece.

We used to have $500 bills, even $10,000 bills, circulating in the US. But the government really wants to get rid of all paper currency—which is to say, all monetary privacy. We’re clearly heading toward a digital currency, which will be an utter and complete disaster. With paper currency, at least you had something physical that you could move and transport privately. But when we go to a digital currency, you’ll be completely under the thumb of the Authorities. Your account will be debited or credited at the will of the central bank.

International Man: What are the broader investment implications of eliminating the penny—and what does it reveal about the future of the dollar, inflation, and trust in fiat money?

Doug Casey: The dollar is going to suffer the fate of every other fiat currency from time immemorial. It’s being inflated out of existence as we speak. Or we could say digitized out of existence.

The government is running a two trillion-dollar deficit. That will soon be three, then four, then more. Almost all of it will be monetized since nobody sane will buy government debt at some point. Currency inflation will reach extremely high levels.

People are going to lose all faith in the dollar, both internationally and within the US. When that happens, we’re looking at a multilevel catastrophe.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

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One of the more interesting aspects of the expanding war between Israel and Iran is the way the media and the crowd of “experts” have avoided any discussion of the possible, or perhaps even likely, upcoming decision of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dig deep into his secret nuclear weapons arsenal to enable the total destruction of Iran’s prime targets. Such targets are likely to include Iran’s own apparently civilian use nuclear develop program, which is protected deep underground in Natanz and elsewhere. Iran’s surviving military and civilian leaders are also now believed to be well protected underground after the recent debacle which saw the Israeli first strike kill a number of generals and other top officials. Netanyahu would like to finish the job by making a leaderless Iran unable to defend itself and maintain sovereignty as an independent nation.

The day-to-day back and forth of missile and drone strikes continues, and, given the first day’s success, Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have now also spoken of totally destroying the Iranian capital Tehran, a city of 18 million which would not be turned to Gaza-like rubble using conventional weapons. Should anyone doubt that the insane Netanyahu would do such a thing, initiating the first battlefield use of such weapons since 1945, they should examine the Prime Minister’s record on reckless behavior, in which he has no rival among national leaders. He would unhesitatingly “defend his country and his leadership” by initiating an escalation that could have devastating consequences if other nuclear powers like Pakistan get involved in support of the Iranians.

And then there is the role of President Donald Trump, whose tone deafness on any issue that might require a minimum of a few seconds of contemplation is well established. The Trumpster has already contradicted himself several times over whether he knew in advance about Israel’s somewhat of a surprise attack on Iran and whether the US was involved. He is now saying he “doesn’t want to talk about Iran” but is repeating the Israeli call for Tehran to be evacuated, adding that something “very bad” is coming if Iran does not comply with all of Washington’s demands. Those demands include the total ending of any and all uranium enrichment, even if is for medical or scientific purposes and even if it is fully and regularly inspected by the United Nations and other international bodies.

The irony of all of this is that Israel is being treated as the victim, as usual, even though it has a secret nuclear weapons arsenal consisting of around 200 warheads and Tel Aviv is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) that mandates regular inspections. As noted above, Iran is a signatory and has accepted the inspection routine. Furthermore, both US and Israeli intelligence have confirmed that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, so the country, which has not attacked either Israel or the US, constitutes no threat to either nation yet it is itself being attacked as if it is the aggressor. That reality has not stopped Netanyahu’s declaring that the threat of Iranian nukes was his casus belli before starting his war, which it appears Trump and his war machine, recently observered parading on Constitution Avenue in Washington, might soon be joining. Trump’s fractured and often contradictory way of expressing himself on issues suggest that war is coming and that it is, by default, all about Iranian enrichment of uranium.

Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most knowledgeable observers of what has been developing. In a recent article he asked “What Do We Do When President Trump Is in the Pocket of Mass Murderer Netanyahu?” He answers his own question with “Trump says he KNOWS that Iran is ‘very close to having nuclear weapons.’ How does Trump KNOW this? Netanyahu told him… [But] what did the US intelligence community tell Trump? American intelligence told Trump that US intelligence believes that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003. But Trump doesn’t care what the US Director of National Intelligence tells him is the assessment of US intelligence [saying] ‘I do not care what she [Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard] said,’ Trump declared. Netanyahu knows better. So Trump supports Israeli acts of aggression against Iran and informs Iran that if they respond to acts of war the US will help Israel destroy Iran.”

In the latest wrinkle on Trump’s role in going after the Iranians on behalf of Israel, the US president has now threatened to “eliminate” the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, if Iran does not submit to unconditional surrender. He claims to know the “secret location” where Ali Khamenei is hiding, “but we won’t kill you yet.” In light of that and other comments from Trump, Roberts makes a very important point, that “This is the behavior of a crazy person. Trump is a massive failure as president. He has allowed a genocidal monster to take over the foreign policy of the United States. Trump has permitted Netanyahu to drag America to the threshold of war with Iran. Trump has permitted the genocide of the Palestinians so that Gaza can be turned into a resort. But I would go beyond all that as Trump is also giving Netanyahu a green light to start a nuclear war… Netanyahu has started a war that Israel Cannot Win and he Has Passed the War on to Trump.”

The sleeping dog United States Congress even seems to have finally waken to some awareness of just how dangerous the situation is. It is hurriedly drafting legislation that will block US involvement in any warfare authorized unilaterally by Trump to support military actions conducted by Israel against the Iranians. That would include providing any weaponry to Israel to conduct its war or money or even political cover to protect it when it, inevitably, commits war crimes. Trump would require consent and authorization from Congress in compliance with the War Powers Resolution of 1973. The bill is being promoted by Senator Time Kaine of Virginia, who explained, “I am deeply concerned that the recent escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran could quickly pull the United States into another endless conflict.” The legislation will meet strong opposition from MAGA, Neocon and National Conservative promoters, as well as from the Jewish dominated national media and from Trump himself, all of whom consider it Gospel, if one might accept that phrasing, to support everything Israel does, including mass murder. The gutless wonder Zionist lackey Speaker of the House of Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana, “Bible-belt Mike,” has just postponed a trip to Jerusalem in Israel to address the Knesset, where one might have expected to witness his kissing Netanyahu’s butt with a passion seldom seen. To cite Paul Craig Roberts yet again, “Israel’s hold on the US government makes it impossible for Washington to represent American interests. In the entire US Congress there is only one member who is not in Israel’s pocket.” That one person would be Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, whom the Israel Lobby has vowed to defeat in the next election “no matter how much money it takes to do it.”

Trump appears to be so excited at the prospect of moving ahead with destroying Iran that he left early from a G-7 meeting, where his presence might actually have been useful on trade issues, presuming that he is actually briefed on the US interests and aware of what he would be saying. Easier to get involved in a war, perhaps, than worry about who owns what and is trading with whom. It might even be easier to get involved in a nuclear war if that is what Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu want. They only have to ask the Trumpster nicely!

Reprinted with permission from The Unz Review.

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