Lew Rockwell Institute

If “growth” is all that matters, that leads to depending on credit and asset bubbles, which are self-liquidating in ways few see because, well, it’s complicated.

Many people anticipate the demise of fiat currencies, for good reasons. This is the motivation for calls to return to the gold standard–currency backed by the tangible value of gold–or the equivalent use of bitcoin.

What few seem to ask is: why did authorities embrace fiat currencies in the first place? What prompted them to replace a gold-backed monetary system with a fiat currency system?

Were they misled by monetary theories, or delusional, or merely desperate?

Let’s consider the complications of money in a system that demands “growth.” As I noted in my recent post for subscribers, Not What We Expected: Why Our Fixes Will Fail, if banks are allowed to originate loans based on reserves–fractional reserve banking–then most of the “money in circulation” is created not by adding gold or bitcoin to the system but by originating mortgages, commercial credit, etc.

If credit is limited to loaning out a percentage of cash deposits, credit becomes scarce, and everything that depends on abundant, affordable credit–vehicle sales, real estate purchases, college diplomas, consumer credit–all dry up and blow away. This collapse of “growth” is called a depression. Without credit, assets collapse in value, savings are depleted to pay bills as employment shrinks, and so on.

This is why the early American economy was starved for credit: everybody wanted to do something great but they had no access to the money needed to do something great. Banks arose and failed, wiping out savers and borrowers alike, as loans were called and assets were liquidated for pennies on the dollar.

So how do you expand credit without expanding money in circulation? You can’t, as credit-money is money, period. So $1 billion in gold or bitcoin backs the money supply, but what happens when banks issue $10 billion in mortgages and loans, money that is created out of thin air and enters circulation? Every dollar that was backed by X quantity of gold or BTC is now backed by 1/10th of X.

Then there’s foreign trade. If imports and exports don’t zero out–$1 billion in imports is balanced by $1 billion in exports–then the balance is paid in gold. Nations running trade deficits eventually run out of gold.

This was the case for the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the US ran sustained trade deficits with its allies for geopolitical reasons: it was deemed essential to prop up our allies to ward off the threat of the USSR and the appeal of Communism. Let your economy slide into Depression, and the promises of Communism start looking very attractive to people immiserated by impoverishment.

Once a nation runs out of gold, trade deficits are no longer possible. The problem is that sometimes trade deficits make economic or geopolitical sense, and so ending trade deficits is catastrophic for both importer and exporter.

OK, it’s complicated. But it gets more complicated.

There’s an interesting phenomenon we call The Network Effect: the more people that start using a network–for example, an online platform–the more useful and valuable the network becomes to both the users and the owners.

For example, Meta/Facebook. When FB was limited to university students, it was of limited value to users. Once it expanded to a global user base of 3 billion people, it became more valuable to users and its owners, as the data collected from users and sold to advertisers became much more valuable. Meta is now worth $1.9 trillion, larger than the GDP of Spain or South Korea. That’s The Network Effect.

Currencies also manifest The Network Effect: the greater the sum in global circulation, the more valuable the currency becomes. (Note that issuing $1 trillion in a currency isn’t the same as $1 trillion in global circulation: the currency must have some value and utility to be circulating in the global economy.)

The utility of a currency isn’t based solely on the quantity in circulation, of course; a currency’s value is based on trust in the currency as a reliable store of value over the duration of the trade, its status as a commodity of known value that everyone will accept in payment, its liquidity, i.e. the ease of converting it into some other currency or commodity, and the “backing” of the currency: the central bank and national economy that issues it.

Read the Whole Article

The post Money, Credit, Growth and Depression: It’s Complicated appeared first on LewRockwell.

One of the weirdest things happening right now is how Israel’s prime minister keeps going out of his way to make public statements saying that Israel was definitely not behind the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

In a two-minute video uploaded onto his Twitter account on Wednesday, Netanyahu complained that “Somebody has fabricated a monstrous big lie that Israel had something to do with Charlie Kirk’s horrific murder,” saying the allegation “is insane, it is false, it is outrageous,” and that “Charlie loved Israel.”

A few days earlier, Netanyahu appeared on the highly sympathetic Newsmax to spend another couple of minutes ranting about how “insane”, “stupid” and “ridiculous” it is to claim that Israel was behind Kirk’s death, saying he “can’t believe that people are saying that.”

Charlie Kirk was a great man. He deserves honor – not lies. pic.twitter.com/NwEN4B2q7w

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) September 18, 2025

This is like repeatedly going out in public to yell “I did not have a sex dream about my cousin!” so that nobody thinks you had a sex dream about your cousin. People are going to walk away with the strong impression that you probably had a sex dream about your cousin.

At this time I have no position on the emerging theories that Israel was involved in the assassination, but damn dude. Really not quelling the suspicion there.

❖

Israel’s Foreign Ministry is claiming that the Gaza flotilla bringing aid to starving civilians is actually Hamas.

“The so-called ‘Flotilla to Gaza’ is openly backed by jihadi Hamas,” the ministry said in a statement, claiming that “This is a jihadist initiative serving the terror group’s agenda.”

If you’ve been following the Gaza holocaust for a while you start getting real nervous whenever Israel begins saying a new group of civilians are Hamas.

❖

Trump has announced plans to designate Antifa a terrorist organization, which liberals have hastened to point out is a legal absurdity since Antifa is not an actual entity in any meaningful way and has no leadership or organizational structure. But the fact that they’re pushing to apply the “terrorist” label to something so vague and amorphous actually makes this more concerning in some ways, since the shapelessness of the claim will make it easier to slap that label on anyone they’ve got a mind to.

The Trump administration is also reportedly planning to include transgender suspects in the FBI’s newly created domestic threat category of “nihilistic violent extremists” as the American right’s anti-trans feeding frenzy hits fever pitch.

One of the fastest ways to lose my interest and respect is to play along with the anti-trans bullshit, because you’re telling me you’re just another dopey herd-minded NPC thinking whatever thoughts your rulers want you to think.

It’s the most obvious thing in the world that the trans community has been deliberately demonized by the ruling class to keep half the population angry at a convenient target instead of at the people with real power. All the Trumpian pundits and politicians, oligarchs and empire managers have been feeding into this frenzied hate campaign against a marginalized population to keep the populists barking and snarling at ordinary members of the public so the energy of their discontent doesn’t start drifting in revolutionary directions.

They’ve been completely transparent about this. Couldn’t have made it clearer. And people have been clapping along with it like a bunch of drooling toddlers watching a puppet show. It’s pathetic.

Leave trans people alone. Let them be. They are not a threat to you. They’ve got it rough enough as it is. Your rulers want you punching laterally so you don’t start punching up.

❖

Since I began criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive assaults on free speech in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing I’ve had American rightists falling all over themselves in my social media notifications trying to justify government censorship. Yesterday I had multiple Trump supporters try to tell me that it should be illegal to lie, and that anyone who tells lies should be stopped from lying by the government. One of them told me he’s an anarchist.

Some of them argue, “Democrats censored us, so we get to censor the Democrats! Turn about is fair play!”

That only sounds like a cool argument if you believe the two-party puppet show is real. In reality you’re both lining up to give more and more of your power to the empire which remains in power regardless of who won the last election. They surrender some, you surrender some more, repeat.

Obviously American liberals should have known they were opening themselves up to return fire with their support for censorship when they were in power. Obviously they should not have done that, and people like me told them this the entire time. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re handing the nonpartisan oppression machine more power that you will never get back every time you throw your support behind retaliatory acts of speech suppression.

You think you’re hurting the libs, but you’re just hurting yourself. You’re just making your society more tyrannical and dystopian in ways that will inevitably affect you. You’re clapping along with the two-handed puppet show while your real oppressor picks your pockets.

❖

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex is reportedly planning a presidential run, which anyone could see coming from miles away.

Everything about this person is a lab-grown synthetic product designed to rocket to the top of the Beltway swamp as quickly as possible. Every single step of her career has been carefully choreographed. Every statement. Every photo op. All so she can drone bomb middle eastern civilians from the Oval Office.

________________

The best way to make sure you see everything I write is to get on my free mailing list. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

The post Netanyahu Keeps Making Statements Saying Israel Didn’t Kill Charlie Kirk appeared first on LewRockwell.

The Trump administration claims its attacks on civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea are intended to stop drug trafficking. But the amount of firepower the United States has sent to the region suggests something much bigger — possibly even an attempt to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In the last three weeks, the U.S. military, acting under orders from President Donald Trump, has sunk three civilian boats that were traversing the Caribbean after leaving Venezuela. Trump and other administration officials insist that the boats were transporting illegal drugs to the United States and that those killed — 17 by Trump’s reckoning — were therefore deserving of summary execution, Constitution and international law notwithstanding.

However, as The New York Times reported Saturday, neither the president nor any other official has offered any evidence to support these claims, even in congressional briefings.

Interdiction Contradiction

The United States has dispatched far more military assets than necessary for these small operations. According to the Times, “The military so far has deployed eight warships, several Navy P-8 surveillance planes and one attack submarine to the region.” It has also placed F-35 fighter jets in Puerto Rico.

“Several current and former military officials, diplomats and intelligence officers say that while fighting drugs is the pretext for the recent U.S. attacks, the real goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power, one way or another,” wrote the Times.

In fact, the paper pointed out, the deployed forces are in the wrong place “to carry out a major drug interdiction operation.” And while there aren’t enough troops for an invasion, “the clandestine deployment of elite Special Operations forces suggests that strikes or commando raids inside Venezuela itself may be in the works.”

Admiral James Stavridis, a former head of the Pentagon’s Southern Command, told the Times:

The massive naval flotilla off the coast of Venezuela and the movement of fifth-generation F-35 fighters to Puerto Rico has little to do with actual drug interdiction — they represent operational overkill.

Rather, they are a clear signal to Nicolás Maduro that this administration is growing serious about accomplishing either regime or behavioral change from Caracas.

Gunboat diplomacy is back, and it may well work.

The Slower Picker Upper

Trump’s desire to overthrow Maduro goes back to his first term, during which he placed a $15 million bounty on the Venezuelan leader. The Biden administration upped it to $25 million, and Trump doubled it to $50 million in August. The Trump administration also secured an indictment against Maduro in federal court in 2020, charging him with drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, too, has long been on the warpath against Maduro. According to Antiwar.com:

Back in 2019, when the first Trump administration attempted to back a coup against Maduro, [then-Senator] Rubio posted a photo on Twitter of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the moment he was being brutally murdered in an apparent threat to the Venezuelan leader.

Last week, Rubio told Fox News that Maduro, who Washington denies is the legitimate president of Venezuela,

is someone who’s empowered himself of some of the instruments of government and are [sic] using that to operate a drug cartel from Venezuelan territory, much of that drugs aimed at reaching the United States. So we’re not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere.

Maduro, naturally, denies these charges. In a September 6 letter to Trump, he cited “data from the UN and other organizations” showing that only five percent of illegal drugs produced in Colombia, primarily cocaine, “attempt to be transported through Venezuela.” Maduro claimed that only a fraction of this small percentage evades his government’s interdiction efforts.

Moreover, while Trump has also alleged the boats he blasted were carrying fentanyl, the Times reported earlier this month that “Venezuela plays virtually no role in the fentanyl trade” — a point echoed by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in criticizing Trump’s actions.

Now and Forever War

Clearly, Trump has something larger in mind than simply sinking the occasional (allegedly) drug-transporting boat.

Indeed, recent moves in Washington indicate that the president is bent on getting the United States embroiled in the type of “forever war” he campaigned against. In July, noted the Times, Trump “signed a still-secret order directing the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American criminal gangs and drug cartels.” Meanwhile,

draft legislation is circulating at the White House and on Capitol Hill that would give Mr. Trump broad powers to wage war against drug cartels he deems to be “terrorists,” as well as against any country he says has harbored or helped them.

That, of course, is the same kind of open-ended authorization that presidents since George W. Bush have used to justify invasions, regime-change operations, and sundry other unconstitutional foreign interventions.

Then there’s this recent X post from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth:

Narco-terrorists are enemies of the United States — actively bringing death to our shores.

We will stop at nothing to defend our homeland and our citizens.

We will track them, kill them, and dismantle their networks throughout our hemisphere — at the times and places of our choosing.

That, the Times observed, is “the kind of language Pentagon leaders have used for years” to excuse their foreign excursions.

Maduro certainly isn’t blind to the significance of all this, which is why he’s just negotiated a defense pact with one of America’s biggest rivals: Russia.

This article was originally published on The New American.

The post Are U.S. Attacks on ‘Drug Boats’ a Precursor to Regime Change in Venezuela? appeared first on LewRockwell.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation on Monday that will require Texas residents to use public bathrooms and changing facilities according to their sex.

“This is just common sense,” said Abbott upon signing the law, which was passed by the Texas House on a 86-45 vote on August 28. It requires Texans to use restrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, and shower rooms corresponding to their sex in government-owned buildings, including public schools.

I signed a law banning men in women’s restrooms.

It is a common sense public safety issue. pic.twitter.com/fDoHqu0EYd

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 22, 2025

It also directs the state’s Criminal Justice Department to “ensure inmates are housed in a correctional facility” according to their sex and prohibits family violence shelters from offering services to gender-confused men unless they are 17 years old or younger and the child of a woman being served.

Permitting men in women’s facilities, and vice-versa, has been denounced not only for blatantly disregarding reality but for stoking discomfort and fear in females and even encouraging sexual assault.

Numerous sexual assaults (and attempts at such) by men who are supposedly “transgender” have already been documented in women’s facilities, including shelters. For example, in the U.K., an 18-year-old male who went by the name “Katie” preyed on a ten-year-old girl in the women’s bathroom at a supermarket, shoving her into a stall to sexually assault her, before she fought back and got away.

In Toronto, a man posed as a transgender woman (“Jessica”) to sexually assault and criminally harass four women – including a deaf woman and a survivor of domestic violence – at two women’s shelters. Previously, he had preyed on other women and girls whose ages ranged from five to 53.

Those who violate the new Texas law will pay a high price: $25,000 for first offenses and $125,000 for second offenses, according to an amendment passed prior to the bill.

The law will go into effect on December 4.

According to the pro-LGBT Movement Advancement Project, six states besides Texas prohibit people from using bathrooms not corresponding to their sex in all government-owned buildings, and eight other states have a comparable ban for at least some government-owned buildings.

Only Florida and Utah have made it a criminal offense in certain cases for people to use the facilities of the opposite sex.

This article was originally published on LifeSite News.

The post Texas Bans Gender-Confused People From Using Opposite-Sex Facilities in Public Schools, Prisons appeared first on LewRockwell.

Johnny Kramer wrote:

I don’t think that Trump is diabolical enough to have done this specifically to provoke this reaction, but it’s hilarious to imagine that he is. I could see this joke sign becoming a real one in the near future.

ZeroHedge

The post Democrats Protest Trump By Chugging Tylenol appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft told War Room host Steve Bannon nearly one million ballots and signed envelopes from the 2020 election from Detroit have been released as a result of a FOIA request. Remember when Democrats put poster boards up to cover windows to prevent poll watchers from monitoring the vote counting in Detroit? Hoft said discrepancies are already being found proving fraud. A team of volunteer investigators will be reviewing the election materials. Bannon called on the War Room posse, who helped Naomi Wolf gather the data she needed to write her book “The Pfizer Papers”, to volunteer.

The post 2020 Election Ballots and Signed Envelopes Proving Fraud appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Tim McGraw:

The Mel Gibson interview starts at 3:20. Bad leadership ruins everything it touches.

The post Is Hollywood Dead? Mel Gibson Interview: Video appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Bill Madden

Getting us out of the UN, NATO and closing all of the unconstitutional federal agencies and programs are good places to start but we need a total return to the Constitution in order to begin the healing process – if there’s anything left to heal.

The post Tell Congress to Get US Out! of the UN appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Trump’s Ukraine Rant: Crazy Like A Fox…Or Just Crazy? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click here:

Eugyppius

The post Alternative für Deutschland now the strongest party in Germany… appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

John Leake

The post Trump on Climate Change: “The Greatest Con Job Ever” appeared first on LewRockwell.

Talking about fiddling your way to disaster. They should give Jay Powell the booby-prize and be done with it. That’s because the signs of a resurgent inflationary tide are everywhere, yet this mindless money-printer just can’t keep his hands off the interest rate lever, which has already been fiddled way too low for way too long.

The fact is, our trusty 16% trimmed mean CPI has posted at or above 3.0% for 10 of the last 12 months. And, no, the bars shown below are not rearview mirror snapshots tracking the trailing 12 months. To the contrary, they depict the annualized run rate during the current month—with a different set of the highest 8% and lowest 8% of CPI basket items eliminated each month.

So you can’t get a better, smoother instantaneous reading of the inflation trend. Yet each month for the past year this index has been shouting that inflation is not getting better; and that if you stay on the current 3% path you will increase the price level by 35% every decade.

Stated differently, cutting already low real interest rates in the jaws of the inflation trend shown in the graph below is smoking gun evidence–if any is needed—that in the hands of Keynesian academics and politicized apparatchiks the Fed has become an Infernal Inflation Machine.

Monthly Trimmed Mean CPI Increase, Annualized, September 2024 to August 2025

The graph below puts this short-term inflation trend in perspective. Self-evidently, the trend level after the Fed adopted the explicit pro-inflation “goal” of 2.00% has now become a 50% higher de facto level of 3.0%. Needless to say, however, 3% per year is not a sustainable inflation rate—so if you are a central banker even mildly committed to sound money, the last thing you would do at this point is cut the Federal funds rate.

That’s especially the case after the 2021-2023 inflation readings went to 40-year highs in the range of 7-8%. And they did so with no subsequent chance whatsoever for main street households and businesses to recoup even a smattering of the purchasing power lost during the surge shown in the graph below.

Y/Y Inflation Rate, 2012 to 2025

So what we really have is an Eccles Building ukase proclaiming that the American economy can’t stand inflation-adjusted money market rates that are even a tad above the zero bound. Of course, that’s ridiculous as a matter of historic fact and economic logic, but this week’s rate cut allows no other conclusion—not when the inflation-adjusted money market rate is still barely positive after decades of zero or negative real rates. In fact, during the 182 months between March 2008 and May 2023 the Fed funds rate was positive in real terms during only 6 months.

Now for crying out loud. The overarching purpose of the nation’s central bank going way back to its enactment in December 1913 was to preserve a sound currency. Yet there is no economic theory in the known universe that says you can maintain a sound currency when the central bank keeps money market rates below zero in real terms for 97% of the time over 15 years running.

Moreover, it is also empirically evident that the current negligible +1.04% real Fed funds rate as of August is no threat to jobs, growth and main street prosperity. After all, during much of the time between 1985 and 2000, the real Fed funds rate ranged between+2.5% and +5.0%, even as the real GDP growth rate during that period expanded at a robust 3.4% per annum.

So the big rate cuts last fall and now this additional one (with two more promised before year-end) are simply proof in the pudding. The nation’s central bank is rigidly and religiously pro-inflation, and eventually that will bring the ruin of free market prosperity.

Inflation-Adjusted Federal Funds Rate, 1985 to 2025

The obvious problem with Keynesian central banking, of course, is that it is almost exclusively pre-occupied with short run rates of change in inflation and job creation, when what really matters is the longer-term trend. That is to say, a minimal rise in the price level and maximal gains in real economic output, jobs and household incomes over time.

On the inflation front, especially, the short-run rate of change is surely the worst metric imaginable because it basically assumes that the world starts over every month, quarter or even year. Indeed, as the Fed has practiced its 2.00% inflation targeting there is no catch-up from bursts of high inflation or symmetry over time at all.

That is, under a symmetrical application of the 2.00% inflation goal there would logically be a catch-up period of lower inflation after the extended period of 4-8% inflation readings in 2021-2023. That is, a symmetrical annual inflation “goal” would merit at least some period of “under-shooting” of the 2.00% target. That’s because what actually impacts longer-term macro-economic performance and real household living standards is the rise of the price level over three, five and ten year intervals.

Actually, however, the Fed’s asymmetry in practice is far worse. Back before 2020 when the annual inflation rate by some measures was running slightly below the 2.00% target, the Fed heads had no problem talking about “averaging up” via overshooting the annual goal, and even for awhile announced an “average-over-time” definition of the 2.00% target. But now that we are far to the upside of the target number not so much as even a whisper about “averaging down” has emanated from the Eccles Building.

Another problem with the short-term inflation target is that the Fed has cherry-picked an inflation yardstick—the PCE deflator—-that is the shortest ruler available, and which doesn’t even measure price change for a constant basket of goods and services over time. The latter, of course, is the very definition of inflation as a change in the general price level.

What the PCE deflator actually captures is not apples-to-apples price change for a fixed mix of goods and services, but the effects of households and businesses on the free market taking steps to adjust to rising prices. That is to say, the effect of buying chicken not steak at the grocery story; econo-boxes not fully tricked-out sedans at the dealer lots; and going to the Cracker Barrel rather than Ruth’s Chris Steak House when dinning out.

Needless to say, on a one-quarter or one year basis, the differences between the PCE deflator and the 16% trimmed mean CPI are marginal, representing a handful of basis point. But when accumulated over time, the gap between these measures of the general price level systematically widens, and materially so. During just the 13-years since the Fed officially adopted its 2.00% inflation target, the PCE deflator (red line) has risen by 34%, while the 16% trimmed mean CPI (blue line) is up by 44%.

In short, the Fed is targeting mucho inflation—with the 16% trimmed mean CPI up by 2.8% per annum during the period. But it claims to have nearly hit it target because the short-ruler PCE deflator—which is called the Fed’s “preferred” inflation measure for an obvious reason—-rose by only 2.1%during the first decade and one-half of its official inflation targeting policy.

Cumulative Rise In The 16% trimmed mean CPI versus PCE Deflator, 2012 to 2025

Either way, there is simply no economic rationale for that much cumulative rise on the main street price level over the last 13.5 years. And that’s to say nothing of the Wall Street Price level, which relative to GDP is up by 4X from its mid-1980s level.

That’s right. At the peak of the Reagan Boom in 1986, when inflation was running below 2% and real GDP was expanding by upwards of 4% annually there was no reason to believe that the booming stock market at the time was under-valued at about 55% of GDP. Yet after the era of Greenspanian monetary central planning became fully entrenched in the 1990s and especially after the dotcom bust of 2001, the stock market capitalization relative to underlying national income kept ratcheting ever higher and never looked back.

Accordingly, by the 1999 dotcom peak the US stock market capitalization had reached 153% of GDP and after the correction of the Financial Crisis surged to 195% by 2020. And not shown in the chart, the US stock capitalization at Friday’s market close reached $62.8 trillion, which is now equal to209% of national income.

Yet and yet. Is there any reason to believe that the US economy is healthier today or that the national income has higher growth capacity with 3% inflation, 1.5% real GDP growth and $104 trillion of public and private debt equal to 355% of GDP than it had in 1986? Back then the inflation rate was far lower and falling, while real GDP growth was more than double current levels and total debt amounted to only $10 trillion or 210% of GDP.

In short, what we have experienced since 1986 is a vast expansion of stock market valuation multiples relative to national income that has drastically distorted capital markets and resource allocation across the entire warp and woof of the US economy. Not only is this setting up Wall Street for the greatest crash ever, but when combined with a shrinking labor force, swelling Welfare State and $104 trillion of public and private debt it is systematically impairing the stability and growth capacity of the main street economy.

Ratio Of US Stock Market Capitalization To GDP, 1986 to 2020

For want of doubt, here is another measure of the massive inflation in the nation’s financial markets. The NASDAQ capitalization relative to GDP has literally shot the moon. It has risen from 10% of GDP in the late 1980s to 60% of GDP at the dotcom peak, but has now soared into an altogether different universe: Driven by the AI craze the market capitalization of NASDAQ now stands at 120% of GDP.

NASDAQ Market Cap As % Of GDP, 1990 to 2025

Similarly, the broader, tried and true measure of the stock market’s enormous bloat as measured by the so-called Buffett Indicator shows the same pattern. The point is at the time of the famous Netscape IPO breakout in 1995 it stood at 60% of GDP but now weighs in at more than 220% of GDP or 3.7X higher.

Finally, when we look at a broader measure of financial assets including stocks, bonds, money market funds etc. the story is dispositive. Prior to the Greenspan era total financial assets amounted to about3X nominal GDP, but since the late 1980s the ratio has been heading skyward relentlessly, and now exceeds 6X GDP.

Of course, there was no reason for financial asset values to double relative to national income, especially because the national savings rate has collapsed since the 1990s. Well, except that the Fed flooded Wall Street with cheap credit and hideously low inflation-adjusted interest rates. These distortions caused PE multiples to soar and carry trades to fuel financial speculation like never before. And that’s inflation, too, with a capital “I”.

Needless to say, this massive stock market inflation has brought unspeakable paper wealth to the top of the income ladder, where the top 1% of households hold more wealth than the entire middle class, defined as households between the 20th and 80th percentile of income. That compares to a 38% to 10% shares in favor of the middle class as recently as the early 1990s.

Moreover, this vast shift in wealth holdings has also drastically distorted the main street economy. The US debt-entombed economy is unfortunately driven by consumption spending, but that too has shifted to the top of the economic ladder. The top 10% of households, which own approximately 85% of the stock market, now account for nearly 50% of consumption spending, meaning that when the massive financial wealth bubble eventually goes bust the ricochet through the consumption sector will be brutal.

Meanwhile, the fools on the Federal Reserve Board tinker with a “dot plot” guesstimate of where interest rates should be in the next couple of years. But it’s so silly and primitive that that the chart below might as well have come from our eight year-old granddaughter’s art class.

Stated differently, the Federal Reserve is surely a clear and present danger to capitalist prosperity in America, without which the future of personal liberty and democratic governance is dim indeed. Yet the Donald and his MAGA minions are so clueless that they think the route to renewed prosperity is even more dots in the lower reaches of the FOMC’s version of scribble-scrabble below.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

The post Washington’s Infernal Inflation Machine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Joseph Kennedy, Sr. became the youngest bank president in U.S. history, at just twenty five years of age. We have been told he was a scoundrel. A bootlegger. In bed with the mafia. Who cheated on his wife with actress Gloria Swanson. A man who used his fortune to buy his unqualified son the presidency. As always, we are being lied to.

In 1937, a young JFK wrote, “Adolf Hitler is among the greatest of men. The old trust him, and the youth idolize him. It is the veneration of a national hero who has served his country.” In 1945, on the verge of first running for political office, JFK declared, “Hitler will emerge from the hatred currently surrounding him in a few years as one of the most important personalities that ever lived.” JFK also stated that Hitler “had a mystery about him in the way he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him. He had in him the stuff of which legends are made.” That same year, JFK toured Europe with his father’s close friend James Forrestal, who became Truman’s Secretary of Defense, and was later pushed out a window at Bethesda Naval Hospital. By an amazing coincidence, Forrestal happened to be one of the most vocal critics of the newly created state of Israel.

In 1939, twenty two year old John F. Kennedy visited Palestine, which definitely did exist despite the protestations of modern Zionists, and left his impressions in a remarkably insightful letter to his father. I nearly included this letter as an Appendix to my book American Memory Hole. In his opening line, JFK reveals that he and his father have discussed this subject before: “Dear Dad: I thought I would write you my impressions on Palestine while they were still fresh in my mind, though you undoubtedly, if I know the Jews, know the ‘whole’ story. It is worth while looking at it in its entirety.” JFK writes, “On the Jewish side there is the desire for complete domination, with Jerusalem as the capital of their new land of milk and honey, with the right colonize in Trans-Jordan. They feel that given sufficient opportunity they can cultivate the land and develop it as they have done in the Western portion. The Arab answer to this is incidentally, that the Jews have had the benefit of capital, which had the Arabs possessed, equal miracles could have been performed by them.”

Showing a keen awareness and intellectual maturity for someone so young, Kennedy goes on to describe how, “There were 13 bombs set off my last evening there, all in the Jewish quarter and all set off by Jews. The ironical part is that the Jewish terrorists bomb their own telephone lines and electric connections and the next day frantically phone the British to come and fix them up….The sympathy of the people on the spot seems to be with the Arabs. This is not only because the Jews have had, at least some of their leaders, an unfortunately arrogant, uncompromising attitude, but they feel that after all, the country has been Arabic for the last few hundred years…” Old Joe was an unsurprising critic of financing and creating the modern state of Israel. It is impossible to imagine all those legendary dinner conversations with his children without his strong views influencing them.

Old Joe had all the right enemies, from FDR to Winston Churchill. As I revealed in my book American Memory Hole, FDR once tried to humiliate him in the Oval Office by having him remove his trousers for some absurd reason. FDR here sounds like a fledgling screenwriter, in addition to being a corrupt Hall of Fame conspirator. Old Joe’s pride and joy was his oldest son Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., who was alleged to be as openly anti-Jewish as his father was. This information came from one of countless anti-Kennedy books published over the last fifty years, Nigel Hamilton’s Reckless Youth. The elite have succeeded in firmly attaching the word “reckless” to the Kennedys. You think reckless, and you picture JFK. RFK. JFK, Jr. And now RFK, Jr. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. noted in his book American Values, all the negative images of his grandfather originated from either Mafia or CIA sources.

RFK, Jr. described how his grandfather had served on the little known Hoover Commission, appointed by President Truman, to investigate the activities of the CIA. As RFK, Jr. wrote, “Alan Dulles manipulated the law, and did a lot of backroom deals to get these huge secret budgets and began really engaging in all of the mischief. And my grandfather was on a commission that looked at this and saw what they had done. And when they were overthrowing democracies in Guatemala and Iran and all over the world, he (Joe Kennedy, Sr.) said ‘we should dismantle it. We should remove the Plans Division,’ which was the ‘dirty tricks’ division. Alan Dulles never forgave him, or my family for that. And when my Uncle came in, and did the Bay of Pigs, he then fired Dulles.” RFK, Jr. also disclosed that Old Joe was a true antiwar activist, having also opposed our entry into World War I.

Old Joe’s poignant declaration, in a radio address, that “America ought to stay out of the war,” and that our goal should be to establish a “just and lasting peace” foretold his son’s timeless June 1963 American University “peace” speech, which essentially signed his death warrant. Old Joe had a quite a personal stake here, with the lives of his three oldest sons on the line. Tragically, Joe, Jr. would die in a senseless and still unexplained plane crash, after volunteering for a nonsensical mission to bomb a long abandoned German site. His daughter Kathleen would then die, incredibly enough, in another plane crash. Jack nearly died, and became a true war hero by tugging an injured crew member to safety by gripping the rope of his PT109 lifejacket between his teeth, and swimming over three miles to safety. Later, both Jack and Robert would die by assassination. Four of his children dying unnaturally in separate incidents.

Michael Collins Piper, author of the long neglected JFK assassination book Final Judgment, wrote another book before his premature death. Titled Confessions of an Anti-Semite, it includes conversations between then ambassador to England Joseph Kennedy, Sr., and a wealthy Hollywood agent, model, and TV executive named DeWest Hooker, which focused on disproportionate Jewish media and financial clout in America. Piper described Hooker as “an extremely handsome, aristocratic-looking man with broad shoulders and brilliant blue eyes” who had appeared in every national magazine as the model for Hathaway shirts and wore a patch over one eye. He was also the lead male model for Chesterfield cigarettes. One of the most explosive things Old Joe told Hooker was “We (meaning patriotic non-Jews) lost World War Two, and the Jews won.” Throughout 1938, Ambassador Kennedy had attempted to meet with Adolf Hitler, without the approval of the State Department.

Thanks to Piper’s unwanted research, we now know that President Kennedy was engaged in a behind the scenes battle with Israeli President David Ben-Gurion at the time of his assassination. JFK was incensed over the Israelis developing nuclear weapons. It wasn’t until recently that I learned that November 22, 1963 just happened to be the fifty third anniversary of the day the bankers who plotted to create the Federal Reserve system first met in Hoboken, New Jersey. JFK and his brother, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, had infuriated Zionist leaders by supporting an investigation led by Senator William Fulbright (whom Kennedy had unsuccessfully tried to name as Secretary of State) aimed at registering the American Zionist Council as a “foreign agent” subject to the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which would have rendered its lobbying division, the AIPAC, nearly powerless.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Kennedys vs. the Jews appeared first on LewRockwell.

Egalitarians sometimes deny that there is any conflict between equality and the doctrines of individual liberty—free speech, contractual freedom, freedom of conscience and belief, freedom of association, and the right to private property. They argue that egalitarian values—expressed in equal protection laws, civil rights, and the anti-discrimination principle—complement individual liberty by ensuring individual liberty “for all equally.” For example, the Bill of Rights Institute explains that America was founded on the vision of liberty and equality for all, and not for any particular race:

The promise of America in the vision of the Founders was that of liberty and equality in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The natural rights republic [sic] new concept was grounded upon principles that did not change with the passing of time or the changes in culture. This novus ordo seclorum—“new order for the ages”—was not created for a particular race, privileged aristocratic social class, or member of an established religion, but for all equally.

As they see it, liberty and equality are mutually compatible. But it is clear, from cases pitting free speech against equal protection under the civil rights regime, that this is not true. Many examples could be given of cases involving religious beliefs that violate the anti-discrimination principle, but this article will focus on the example of the conflict between equal protection and free speech.

The egalitarian argument is that special measures are needed to extend the equal protection of the law to vulnerable groups who suffer disproportionately from “hate” due to their race, religion, or sex, the argument being that if they are not specially protected from such “hate” they will not benefit from the equal protection available to those who are not subject to the same vulnerability. This is where they situate the appropriate limits of free speech—they argue that any speech which amounts to “hate” against protected groups prevents those groups from enjoying the equal protection of the law. Understood in that way, free speech is clearly not compatible with equal protection. One or the other must yield. Further, there is no precise definition of the threat to equal protection, as “hate” depends in large part on the subjective perception of the victim and also on the “implications” that may be deduced by “hate experts.” For example, a recent UK report from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Hate Studies describes “rural racism” in the English countryside as ethnic minorities feeling unwelcome:

In it, academics claim that ethnic minority communities face “challenges” in the countryside because rural England is “overwhelmingly white.”

This creates a feeling of “discomfort,” the report states, and the “psychological burden” that comes with navigating predominantly white spaces.

The report also raises concerns that traditional pub culture and other “monocultural customs” are exclusionary.

In this context, laws protecting people from “hate” are vague, compounding their corrosive effect on free speech. Speech that seems innocuous becomes “hate” if someone is offended and, if the victim claims to feel distressed or “unsafe,” that magnifies the degree of hate. In their book Beyond All Reason: The Radical Assault on Truth in American Law, Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry argue that a concept or ideology could have “inherently anti-Semitic and racist implications” even if the speakers do not “necessarily have anti-Semitic or racist feelings themselves.” They add that if a theory is perceived as racist or sexist, then “they would attach these labels regardless of whether the holders of the theories had any personal anger toward blacks or women.”

The test is not the speaker’s intention, but the “implications” of their speech, and the impact on the victim is the key standpoint in identifying those implications. Various statutes in the UK prohibit hate speech based on that interpretation, such as the Communications Act under which people are frequently arrested for writing offensive posts on social media. Recently a comedian was arrested for posting that men who invade women’s private spaces should be punched in their anatomy, which he later described as a joke. Under UK law, men who identify as women are protected from discrimination, and are therefore treated by the police as a “protected group”:

In his statement on Wednesday, Sir Mark said the decision to arrest [the comedian] “was made within existing legislation – which dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offence.”

The victim who made the police report in this case argued that “free speech was being used as a ‘euphemism for bullying minorities.’” By treating anti-hate laws as necessary for equal protection, egalitarians have turned the equal protection principle on its head—they argue that in order for everyone to enjoy the equal protection of the laws, vulnerable groups require special protection. Vulnerable groups are, in essence, treated more favorably than other groups in order to equalize them with other groups—treat people unequally in order to treat them equally.

In the US, such attempts to prohibit offensive speech to “protect” vulnerable groups are rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights laws, where the concept of harassment based on race, sex, or religion often involves offensive words. For example, in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986)—a case involving allegations of sexual harassment—the Supreme Court held that, “A claim of ‘hostile environment’ sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that is actionable under Title VII.” It is then argued that “hate speech” is excluded by the civil rights laws from the constitutional protection of free speech, the argument being that “hate speech” is unlawful if it targets protected groups.

This argument continues to enjoy widespread support among liberals, despite the fact that it has been repeatedly struck down for violating the First Amendment. An example is New York’s “Online Hate Speech Law” which purported to regulate “hateful conduct” online. The law defined hateful conduct as, “The use of a social media network to vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” This law was struck down: “Even regulations that seek to regulate speech ‘that insult[s], or provoke[s] violence, on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender’ have been found to run afoul of the First Amendment because they constitute content and viewpoint-based regulation of protected speech.” The principle of free speech encompasses speech that others might deem offensive speech, whether the offended person is a member of a “protected” group or not.

From a Rothbardian perspective, all rights are property rights. The right to free speech, like all other individual liberties, is an emanation of self-ownership. The boundaries of one’s own right to free speech lie at the point where they encroach on the property rights of another person—for example, nobody can be forced (meaning force in the Rothbardian sense, not the conversational sense) to listen to anyone, nor to provide a platform to promote ideas that, for whatever reason, they do not wish to promote. It also goes without saying that property rights do not include the right to aggress against others—there is no right to punish or attack people because one disagrees with or is offended by their speech, much less a right to have them arrested or jailed. Private property entails the right to exclude, and any property owner is at liberty to exclude any person whose speech he considers offensive or indeed for any other reason he might wish—even at a whim if he is so minded. As Murray Rothbard explains in the Ethics of Liberty,

In short, a person does not have a “right to freedom of speech”; what he does have is the right to hire a hall and address the people who enter the premises…the right to write or publish a pamphlet, and to sell that pamphlet to those who are willing to buy it (or to give it away to those who are willing to accept it)…the right of free contract and transfer which form part of such rights of ownership. There is no extra “right of free speech” or free press beyond the property rights that a person may have in any given case.

The corollary of that is also true, that no one has the right not to feel offended by anything he hears.

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

The post How Equal Protection Laws Threaten Free Speech appeared first on LewRockwell.

Charlie Kirk and America’s Long History of Assassinations

Although the September 10th assassination of Charlie Kirk was horrifying, the death of that young conservative activist was merely the latest in a long history of such high-profile killings in our deeply troubled society.

Just a few months earlier, an agitated gunman had shot and killed Melissa Hortman, the former Democratic Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives along with her husband. Earlier this year, an individual outraged over health insurance policies had killed United Healthcare CEO Brian Robert Thompson. Last year, gunmen had twice unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Donald Trump as he campaigned for the White House. Back in 2017, a deranged leftist gunman had seriously injured House Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise and three others, while a half-dozen years earlier, an equally deranged right-wing gunman had critically wounded Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six others.

In 1972 Arthur Bremmer had shot and permanently crippled presidential candidate Gov. George Wallace, in 1975 Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and Sara Jane Moore had separately tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford, while in 1981 John Hinckley Jr. had similarly targeted President Ronald Reagan. In 1978 former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White had killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, while in 1980 Mark David Chapman had shot to death Beatles star John Lennon.

Successful, very high-profile American assassinations had been even more common during the 1960s. President John F. Kennedy and his younger brother Robert both died by assassins’ bullets during those years, as did black leaders Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. The latter’s white racialist counterpart was George Lincoln Rockwell, and he too was assassinated in that same decade.

Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln’s killing in 1865, the list of American political assassinations has been a very long one, filling an entire 12,000 word Wikipedia page despite even omitting some of the cases listed above.

Although assassinations have been quite common throughout American history, the reverberations of Kirk’s death still dominate our media headlines nearly a dozen days after the crime, perhaps partly because the killing of a charismatic 31-year-old seemed like such a terrible, senseless tragedy. I am not aware of any past American political assassination in which the victim had been so young.

Prior to his tragic death, I’d paid very little attention to Kirk so the bare facts I knew about him were minimal. After dropping out of college at the age of 18, he had founded Turning Point USA, then spent the next dozen years building it into one of the largest grassroots political organizations in America. As a result, he’d become a hero to millions of youthful conservatives, many of whom regularly listened to his daily political podcast. His stature in Republican circles was enormous and I was shocked to learn that knowledgeable journalists such as Max Blumenthal expected him to eventually mount a serious campaign for the presidency, perhaps even running as soon as the 2028 election cycle.

But when I considered the long list of high-profile American political assassinations in our national history, I noticed that certain aspects of Kirk’s killing seemed to set it apart from the overwhelming majority of the others. A few days after Kirk’s death, I published an article in which I discussed my conclusions.

Meanwhile, the actual circumstances of Kirk’s killing raised all sorts of questions in my mind.

From media reports I soon discovered that Kirk had received many death threats over the years. Therefore, he had taken steps to ensure that he was extremely well protected against any such attack, surrounding himself with a professional security detail while also wearing body-armor. But none of that availed him against the sniper who killed him with a single, well-placed shot, hitting him in the neck from a distance of around 200 yards.

Over the years and the decades, considerable numbers of prominent Americans had been targeted by an assassin’s bullets but almost none of them had ever been killed in such a classic manner. Instead, a large majority of the victims were shot at close range with simple handguns, and the deranged attackers were often immediately apprehended at the scene.

Consider the case of last year’s killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Robert Thompson by someone angry over health insurance policies, with the corporate executive shot as he entered a midtown Manhattan hotel, totally unprotected against any such attack. Earlier this year, a Minnesota state representative and her husband had both been killed at home by an agitated gunman who merely knocked on their front-door.

Indeed, I would suspect that Kirk was better protected against any lethal attack than well over than 99% of all the American elected officials, senior corporate executives, billionaires, and Hollywood celebrities who constitute the most likely targets. Thus, his killing demonstrated how easily almost any of our public figures could be slain by a determined attacker. Many such influential individuals may certainly take this lesson to heart, perhaps leading them to support severe crackdowns on our civil liberties in order to reduce their personal risks.

Even last year’s two unsuccessful assassination attempts against Trump during his presidential campaign seemed far less professional than Kirk’s killing. In each case, the carelessness and incompetence of the attacker was balanced out by the severe security lapses of Trump’s Secret Service team.

A sniper firing at long range seems the most classic sort of professional political assassination but the last such examples that come to my mind were the 1960s killings of JFK and MLK…Just as with the Kirk assassination, the killing of Kennedy in Dallas also involved a heavily-guarded public figure slain by a sniper who initially escaped…So in many regards, the closest historical parallel to Kirk’s assassination was that of JFK sixty-two years earlier.

When was the last time that an American public figure has been successfully assassinated while wearing body-armor and surrounded by a security detail? It’s been a staple of countless Hollywood films, but I’m not sure it’s ever previously happened in real life. Combine that with the single shot fired and Kirk’s killing might rank as the most professional political assassination in modern American history. That’s a pretty impressive achievement for an agitated 22-year-old pro-tranny activist whose grandmother claims may have never previously fired a gun.

• The Assassination of Charlie Kirk
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review • September 15, 2025 • 6,000 Words

In the week since I wrote that piece, the widespread claims that Kirk was wearing a bullet-proof vest or body-armor turned out to be mistaken, but I think that the rest of my analysis still stands, with the closest match to Kirk’s killing being the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy. But whereas Kirk was killed by a single bullet, at least three shots had been fired at Kennedy, one of which went completely wild, even though the sniper was firing from roughly half the distance.

So all things considered, Kirk’s killing would indeed seem to rank as probably the most professional political assassination in modern American history. Over the decades, I’ve frequently seen examples of very well-protected American VIPs targeted for death by a distant sniper firing a scoped rifle. But all of those scenes had played out in films and television shows, while almost nothing like that had ever happened in real life.

Kirk’s Bitter Rupture with His Pro-Israel Backers

I’d only first begun paying any attention to Kirk two months before his death. A huge national controversy had erupted over Trump’s reversal on his promise to release the government files on Jeffrey Epstein’s blackmail ring, and I’d been greatly impressed by the remarkably courageous speech that Tucker Carlson had made at the national convention of Kirk’s TPUSA organization. As I wrote at the time:

Former FoxNews host Tucker Carlson is probably the biggest figure in today’s fragmented media landscape and a crucial supporter of Donald Trump. But he and many others like him have strongly denounced the administration’s reversal on the release of the Epstein files.

The largest youthful pro-Trump organization is called Turning Point USA, and Carlson happened to give a speech to the huge audience at their annual convention a few days after Trump’s decision. He dramatically declared that that not a single person he knew in DC doubted that Epstein had been running a blackmail operation on behalf of the Israeli Mossad, and despite that controversial statement his speech drew widespread cheers. This suggests that his remarks—and the positive reaction they attracted—may themselves mark “a turning point” in what had been decades of uniformly pro-Israel sentiments among American conservatives. So ideas once marginalized or considered entirely forbidden may now apparently be freely discussed, sometimes even attracting widespread support, and this may be the most important lasting legacy of the current political firestorm over the Epstein files.

Video Link

Indeed, given Carlson’s words only the most willfully blind could fail to connect such Mossad operations with the unwavering levels of support that Israel has long enjoyed from our members of Congress. Over the last couple of years, nearly the entire rest of the world has reviled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as one of modern history’s worst war-criminals, now under indictment by the International Court of Justice for his horrific ongoing massacre of Gaza’s helpless civilians. But when he has visited Congress, the trained barking seals of that political body have provided him endless standing ovations. Obviously the money and media deployed by the Israel Lobby explain most of this behavior, but the powerful role of blackmail has almost certainly supplemented those factors.

The notion that many of our own elected officials are being ruthlessly blackmailed by a foreign power must surely outrage most patriotic Americans, and the increasing circulation of these ideas may eventually have important consequences. Just a few days after Carlson’s remarkable speech, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the fiercest MAGA partisans in Congress, surprisingly joined with Democrats Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, two of her most leftwing colleagues, in voting to cut U.S. funding for Israel. This resolution only attracted a handful of supporters, but small cracks in a dam sometimes presage much larger breaks.

• American Pravda: Jeffrey Epstein, the Franklin Scandal, Pedophilia, and Political Blackmail
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review • July 28, 2025 • 12,300 Words

I’d always regarded Kirk as an absolutely committed supporter of Israel and the Zionist project, much like almost all other American conservatives. Therefore, I had been shocked by Kirk’s willingness to provide Carlson with such a high-profile platform to make a speech taking such a contrary position.

Indeed, a few days ago Carlson revealed that Kirk had strongly encouraged those very controversial remarks.

Tucker Carlson shares the unforgettable backstage moment when Charlie Kirk looked him in the eye and told him to “go all the way” with his raw feelings about Iran and Epstein.

Charlie knew Tucker’s words would upset his donors, but he gave him the green light to speak freely at… pic.twitter.com/SwDAHU3i7O

— Vigilant Fox (@VigilantFox) September 17, 2025

Although I can’t quite remember the details, during the weeks that followed I’d gotten a strong impression that Kirk was becoming much more publicly critical of Israel, perhaps even starting to follow the political trajectory of his longtime friend Candace Owens, who had originally come from a very similar ideological background.

Therefore, when the media suddenly announced that Kirk had been killed in such a highly professional assassination with the sniper cleanly escaping, my thoughts turned in suspicious directions.

Early the next morning, the police announced that they had recovered the rifle used from a nearby wooded area, apparently left behind by the assassin as he fled the scene. The shells had been marked with various leftist slogans, including support for trans-rights, suggesting the apparent motive for killing the young conservative leader. But none of this assuaged my much darker suspicions.

Over the decades, Israel and its Mossad intelligence service had committed an enormous number of political assassinations all around the world, eliminating their real or perceived enemies with unmatched skill and subtlety. In January 2020, I’d published a very long article on that topic that heavily drew upon Rise and Kill First, Ronen Bergman’s highly authoritative 2018 volume, whose contents I summarized in an early paragraph:

The sheer quantity of such foreign assassinations was really quite remarkable, with the knowledgeable reviewer in the New York Times suggesting that the Israeli total over the last half-century or so seemed far greater than that of any other nation. I might even go farther: if we excluded domestic killings, I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel’s body-count greatly exceeded the combined total for that of all other major countries in the world. I think all the lurid revelations of lethal CIA or KGB Cold War assassination plots that I have seen discussed in newspaper articles might fit comfortably into just a chapter or two of Bergman’s extremely long book.

But in the last few years, this campaign of Israeli political assassinations had gone into extreme overdrive, successfully striking down such huge numbers of targets that I published an additional article three months ago.

• Zionist Israel as the Assassination Nation
  Ron Unz • The Unz Review • June 23, 2025 • 11,800 Words

Therefore, a few hours after hearing of Kirk’s death, I decided to very gingerly raise these possibilities with someone well situated in conservative circles who personally knew Kirk, and I was shocked by his response. Although I had never mentioned Israel by name, he unequivocally told me that everyone in Kirk’s circle, even including important Trump Administration officials, suspected that Israel had probably killed the young conservative leader.

While such beliefs might not necessarily be correct, I was astonished that they were apparently so widespread without even any hints reported anywhere in the mainstream or conservative media.

Read the Whole Article

The post Israel, Charlie Kirk, and the 9/11 Attacks appeared first on LewRockwell.

Note: The following interview was published in Poland, in the journal POLONIA CHRISTIANA, in March 2016—over nine years ago. It was conducted by Dr. Michal Krupa of Dr. Boyd D. Cathey. Below is a translation. In March 2016 Donald Trump was set to wrap up the Republican primary season with additional wins, sealing his nomination.  With that in mind the interview ranged over the hopes—and fears—that I felt back then. Some of those goals were achieved, but many were not, as we now know. We are now in President Trump’s second term, so it may be useful to look back at what many of us believed and prayed could happen nine years ago. It seems evident that we—our nation—has much further to go if we are to re-capture, to re-establish the original constitutional liberties and faith that once enabled the Framers to create our nation.

—————————————————————————–

TRANSLATION (in English):

1. You reacted strongly to Pope Francis’s recent critical words, which were clearly directed at Donald Trump. Can you elaborate why you believe the pope’s words were a mistake?

Yes, the problem here appears to reflect a kind of historical and theological amnesia among many post-Vatican II Catholic leaders. Historically, and certainly from a theological perspective grounded in both Natural Law and traditional Catholic teaching, the position that a country, a nation, has the right to control its borders and to regulate who enters, is both legitimate and consistent. Indeed, in many respects such a traditional view is based on the principle that a constituted state is modeled, if you will, on the microcosm of the family. The family is the basic, God-given building block in and of a society. The state reflects that organic and natural composition on a national level. Just as the family has the natural right to regulate who its members are and who becomes a member of it, so, too, does a state. There is absolutely nothing anti-Catholic about this position, and there are numerous popes and theologians who have ratified that position.

Pope Francis has a way of throwing out controversial statements carelessly and informally in the presence of eager news reporters. In too many cases, those statements, while certainly informal and off-the-cuff, do not truly reflect the traditional positions of the church. In the case of Donald Trump and his positions on illegal immigration, or, for that matter, on Muslims coming to the United States, his views in no way contradict Catholic teaching from over the centuries. Indeed, the fact that the Vatican Press Office felt the need to clarify Francis’s initial statement only confirmed that Trump was correct in what he has said, and that, indeed, what he said is consistent with the historical positions of the Church.

2. There are many critics of Donald Trump on both the establishment left and right and in the mainstream conservative movement. How does a traditional Catholic and American patriot, like yourself, explain his support for the GOP frontrunner? What issues has he touched upon that appeal to you?

The major questions for me are, first, the issue of illegal immigration, its effects on my country, and what should be done to address this problem; and, second, the absolute necessity to challenge the increasingly managerial and authoritarian duopoly—that is, the control by political elites over the American nation. Historically, the United States was established as an aristocratic republic, indeed, somewhat like historic Poland. The founders of this nation and the framers of our Constitution understood that pure democracy, with a mass of citizens directly at the mercy of a powerful political establishment and all of its persuasive power, would very likely lead to the kind of oligarchy that we now have in the United States. Most of our founders understood this, and our original Constitution incorporated their insights, leaving to the separate states the ability to largely govern themselves. Indeed, and many people do not know this, most of the original thirteen states in the American union had established churches, most had property qualifications for voting and to hold office. My own state of North Carolina required office holders to be of the Christian faith until 1868. The franchise was limited to those with a real interest in the republic because, as the great observer Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his Democracy in America, the tendency in history is for democracies to be transformed into dictatorships.

For the past half century, and actually since the end of the American War Between the States (1861-1865), the American nation has been on a pathway to increasingly centralized control and the decay and lessening of what we as Catholics would call subsidiarity. Politically, this has meant the rise of just two powerful political parties, which, between them, control the political process and also create the rules that ensure that they continue in power.

This year Donald Trump, for all his rough manners and his checkered career and past unorthodox positions, is the only candidate to stand outside the dominant political dialectic. All the others, in one way or another, are part of it. Many Americans are willing to overlook Trump’s past history if he can succeed in radically upturning the present system, which is so dependent on financially powerful interest groups and on dividing the citizenry into “block votes,” who are in reality bought off by the political class.

As a traditional Catholic, I firmly believe in the traditional social and political teachings of the Church on subsidiarity and distributive justice in society. The most important need today in the American political sphere is to overturn the political apparatus, the control not only politically, but also culturally, by the establishment and its managers who direct our nation diametrically away from our roots in Western Christian tradition.

I have written previously that Donald Trump is no “shining Christian knight on horseback,” but he does perhaps represent a strong necessary medication that could clear away the establishment debris that suffocates us. He might well be an imperfect Samson who could bring down the latter-day Temple of the Philistines, so that future generations may have the opportunity to re-construct a truly Christian Commonwealth. This may well be why so many traditional Catholics are attracted to his candidacy.

3. “National Review”, the once revered flagship of American conservatism, which at one time published such giants as Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver, has strongly come out against Trump, even devoting an entire issue to this theme. From where does this opposition stem from? Is “National Review” still a truly rightist and conservative outlet?

The National Review, founded back in the mid-1950s, was once the unchallenged vehicle for American conservative thought (along with quarterly Modern Age, founded by Dr. Kirk).  But since the late 1970s and early 1980s, not just the National Review, but the history of “movement conservatism” in the United States, has radically diverged from its older positions on many questions. Kirk, whom I knew well for twenty-seven years and for whom I was his assistant for a time, by the time of his death in April 1994 did not recognize the magazine that he once wrote for.

Let me explain. I think useful here to offer some recent history about “movement conservatism” in the United States.

In 1953 Russell Kirk published his path breaking and seminal volume The Conservative Mind, and gave voice to a critical understanding of Anglo-American conservatism, and of the existence of a veritable conservative intellectual tradition in America. And throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, that older conservatism was the most attractive and exciting beacon in American intellectual life, drawing to its banners the most accomplished writers and journalists, in journals like Modern Age and the (old) National Review.

Kirk’s evocation of conservatism included an understanding of the supreme importance of tradition and custom in the existence of a nation.  America, Kirk insisted, was not founded on a democratic, hegemonic ideology, but as an expression and continuation of European traditions and strong localist, familial and religious belief. Undoing or destroying the legacies and heritage of our ancestors would be fatal to the nation.  Conservatives should also celebrate local traditions, customs, and the inherited legacies of other peoples, and not attempt to destroy them. “Conservatism,” as Kirk explained it, encompassed an inherent distrust of liberal democracy, staunch opposition to egalitarianism, and an extreme reluctance to commit the United States to global “crusades” to impose American “values” on “unenlightened” countries around the world.

The United States had no business in trying to impose its system of government or its culture on other nations of the globe. Egalitarianism and democracy were not, he added, conservative principles; and, indeed, the Founders of the American republic understood that egalitarianism and expansive democracy could well lead to the actual loss of liberties. The variety of intermediate social institutions in society—the family, the church, the professional associations, schools and colleges—provided a necessary buffer between individuals and the natural tendency of the central state to enlarge its powers. And religion, in particular Christian religious belief, was an essential cement that bound all generations together, the living and the dead, in an organic whole.

Beginning in the 1970s and into the Reagan years, newer voices—the self-denominated Neoconservatives, or “Neocons”—migrated into the movement, and many of these voices came from the Trotskyite Left, many traumatized by the revelations of unspeakable Soviet brutality. Represented by such luminaries as Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol, at first they were welcomed by the custodians of the Old Right in the struggle against world communism and collectivism. With strong academic connections and financial sources, the Neocons soon took control of most of the older conservative foundations, think tanks, and publications, and they did so with an iron hand, reminiscent of older days, when their Marxism was readily visible. And, more significantly, through this control of most “conservative” institutions, especially those centered in Washington, D. C., they very soon began to provide experts and advisors to the national Republican Party and its candidates. Their dominance manifested itself in organs such as the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and in publications like Commentary, The Public Interest, and National Review (which shed its previous attachments to the older conservatism). The advent of the Rupert Murdoch media empire, with Fox News television, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and the New York Post as its notable voices, cemented this influence, which manifested itself abundantly in post-Reagan GOP policies and prescriptions.

And almost immediately their essential base principles, which remained over on the philosophical Left, clashed with the precepts and principles of the older conservatives.  The principles which so characterized the Old Right were replaced with an ideological zeal for the very opposite of those principles. Older conservative icons such as Southerners John Randolph and John C. Calhoun, included prominently in Kirk’s pantheon of great conservatives, were, due to their opposition to egalitarianism, expelled from the Neoconservative lexicon, to be replaced by Abraham Lincoln, and later figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Lincoln, who was not included in Kirk’s pantheon, became the new and real “Founder” of the American republic, as the editor of the post-William Buckley National Review, Rich Lowry, contends. The civil rights revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, with its far-reaching and radical court decisions, was pronounced to be “conservative,” and, at the same time, Southern conservatives, such as the brilliant Mel Bradford, and anti-egalitarians, such as Dr. Samuel Francis, were purged out of the “movement.” Scholars such as Bradford, Joseph Sobran, and the internationally-recognized political scientist/historian, Paul Gottfried, had their careers attacked, were denied well-deserved professional positions, and were banished from formerly conservative publications and access to the largesse of formerly conservative foundations.

The Neoconservative template bears an uncanny resemblance to its older Marxist/ Progressivist internationalist narrative, which, in effect, has never been fully discarded. Let me cite just one very striking example from writer Stephen Schwartz of the “new” National Review. Pay particular attention to his praise of Marxist internationalism and Trotsky:

“To my last breath, I will defend Trotsky who alone and pursued from country to country and finally laid low in his own blood in a hideously hot house in Mexico City, said no to Soviet coddling to Hitlerism, to the Moscow purges, and to the betrayal of the Spanish Republic, and who had the capacity to admit that he had been wrong about the imposition of a single-party state as well as about the fate of the Jewish people. To my last breath, and without apology. Let the neofascists and Stalinists in their second childhood make of it what they will.” [see Paul Gottfried’s commentary on Takimag.com, April 17, 2007]

In the execution of their policies, the Neocons and their Republican mouthpieces have led the American republic into unwinnable and extremely unwise wars everywhere, in the name of international crusades for democracy. They have scorned the older conservatism that rejects egalitarian nostrums, liberal democracy, feminism, and all the hoary stream of aberrations that have come from those barbarities.  They zealously, with near religious desire, seek to remake this nation, with “amnesty” and accepting millions of illegals who will transform and radically alter our culture (which is already under severe attack). They have enacted global trade and commercial deals that have destroyed native American manufacturing and eliminated millions of American jobs, shipping them overseas. Even more, these very same Neocons (and their GOP camp followers) have warmed to and even endorsed same sex marriage, transgenderism,  and “moderate” feminism (i.e., in the National Review, The Wall Street Journal, and from their pulpits at Fox News, etc.), views which were once considered anathema to historic conservatism

4. Trump is looking stronger and stronger with each passing day. If he wins the majority of states on Super Tuesday, he will most likely seal the nomination. Do you expect the Republican establishment to try and manipulate the convention process in order to knock out the Donald?

I will not be surprised if such a maneuver is attempted by some in the Republican establishment who believe they deserve a certain noblesse oblige and deference from those of us out in the country who do not belong to the Inside-the-Washington–Beltway elite. However, if Trump does appear headed to the nomination, I also expect a number of these Republican elites and political bosses to attempt to cozy up to him, that is, to attempt to at the least limit the kind of damage to them that he might well inflict. It will very interesting to watch this process. Trump is self-funding his campaign, and he owes nothing to the establishment, so I suspect that financial allures will not affect him. He has promised to place successful businessmen (like himself) in high positions, and has a way of rebuffing the kind of sycophantic approaches that most of our politicians are susceptible to.

5. In Poland recently there has been a revival of interest in the late Russell Kirk, for whom you worked as an assistant. What aspects of Kirk’s thought in your opinion deserve universal recognition in the countries and societies of former Christendom?

Kirk’s interpretation and exposition of Anglo-American conservatism owes very much to his understanding that true conservatism must incorporate and incarnate essentially Western Christian tradition. In The Conservative Mind (most especially in the early editions) he sums up several fundamental principles that characterize American conservatism, and these can be seen equally in the traditions and heritage of most historically Christian European peoples and nations. Fundamentally, a country is an historically organic continuum, in which its customs and traditions, its race and language, its laws, and its religion, over centuries secure not only civic order and justice, but also a rich and nourishing culture. In Europe, and also in the United States, the living inheritance of our faith is the central element that has created our culture, and it is, to paraphrase the great Spanish Catholic Marcellino Menendez y Pelayo, the only culture we have. We discard, or pervert, or destroy this inheritance at severe risk. Kirk reminds us that once a noble and ennobling tradition is destroyed, it is extremely difficult to reconstruct it. Yet, he also reminds us, with the poet Robert Frost,

“For, dear me, why abandon a belief

Merely because it ceases to be true.

Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt

It will turn true again, for so it goes.

Most of the change we think we see in life

Is due to truths being in and out of favour.”  [from the poem, “The Black Cottage”]

If there is to be a rebirth of Europe, indeed, a rebirth of the Faith, then the words of Russell Kirk, his understanding of the critical role of our religious heritage, of our historic social and familial institutions, and of our inherited legacy, could play an instructive and valuable role. Such a rebirth would not be easy by any means, but our faith teaches us that miracles and miraculous events do happen in history. As most of your readers know well, it was King Jan Sobieski and his small army (including those noble Winged Hussars) at Vienna in 1683 who literally saved Europe from being overrun by the Islamic hordes of Kara Mustafa. By many standards the annihilation of the Muslim invaders was miraculous. And who is to say that the petitions of the faithful will not again be answered?

The post Trump – Is He a Remedy for the Establishment? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Following in the shameful footsteps of both Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney continues pledging support and money (which Canadians desperately need) to Ukraine, to prolong the proxy war against Russia.

Carney chose Ukrainian Independence Day to voice the Canadian government’s continued pledge to support Ukraine. As he landed in Kiev on August 24, Carney posted on X, “On this Ukrainian Independence Day, and at this critical moment in their nation’s history, Canada is stepping up our support and our efforts towards a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.”

Later in the day he posted, “After three years at war, Ukrainians urgently need more military equipment. Canada is answering that call, providing $2 billion for drones, armoured vehicles, and other critical resources.” This latest pledge brings Canada’s expenditure on Ukraine since February 2022 to nearly $22 billion.

Further, he pledged to potentially send Canadian or allied soldiers, stating, “I would not exclude the presence of troops.”

Pause for a moment to examine the utter lack of logic behind these statements: For “peace” for Ukraine, Canada will support further war to ensure more Ukrainian men are ripped off the streets and forced to the front lines, where they will inevitably die in a battle they didn’t sign up for.

Like his European counterparts, Carney’s insistence on prolonging the war is in contrast to Russia’s position of finding a resolution.

I recently spoke with former Ambassador Charles Freeman, an American career diplomat for 30 years. Speaking of how the Trump administration, “began in office by perpetuating the blindness and deafness of the Biden administration to what the Russian side in this conflict has said from the very beginning,” he outlined the terms that Russia made clear in December 2021, “and from which it has basically not wavered.”

These include: “neutrality and no NATO membership for Ukraine; protections for the Russian speaking minorities in the former territories of Ukraine; and some broader discussion of European security architecture that reassures Russia that it will not be attacked by the West, and the West that it will not be attacked by Russia.”

It’s worth keeping in mind that Canada has been one of the main belligerents in Ukraine, funding and training Ukrainian troops for many years before the 2022 start of Russia’s military operation.

Canada’s training of Ukrainian troops included members of the notorious neo-Nazi terrorists of the Azov regiment. Former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland proudly waved a Banderite flag in 2022. She was also proud of her dear grandfather, who was a chief Nazi propagandist.

In 2023, the Trudeau administration brought to speak in the Canadian parliament a Ukrainian Nazi, Yaroslav Hunka, who had been a voluntary member of the 1st Galician Division of the Waffen SS – well known for their mass slaughter of civilians.

Carney, in light of this, is merely keeping with the tradition of Ottawa’s support of extremism – including Nazism – in Ukraine (and in Canada). This support is not at all about protecting Ukrainian civilians.

Supporting Ukrainian war crimes

Canada’s continued support to Ukraine makes it complicit in the atrocities Ukraine commits.  I myself have documented just some of Ukrainian war crimes in the Donbass, in 2019 and heavily throughout 2022.

These include deliberately shelling civilian areas (including with heavy-duty NATO weapons), slaughtering civilians in their homes, in markets, in the streets, in buses; peppering Donbass civilian areas with internationally prohibited PFM-1 “Petal” mines (since 2022, 184 civilians have been maimed by these, three of whom died of their injuries); and deliberately targeting medics and other emergency service rescuers.

Ukraine has also heavily shelled Belgorod and Kursk, targeting civilians, as well sending drones into Russian cities, killing civilians and destroying infrastructure.

Less detailed are Ukraine’s crimes against civilians in areas under Ukrainian control. These crimes – including rape, torture and point-blank assassination – come to light with the testimonies of terrorized civilians in regions liberated by Russia.

Bring the government spending home

The social media fervor of Ukrainian hashtags and flags has died down considerably since 2022. Now, you see more and more Canadians demanding their government stop fueling war and start spending money to take care of Canadians.

Carney’s campaign pledges included easing the cost of living in Canada, yet he has taken no concrete actions to do so. In the many understandably angry replies to Carney’s latest tweets about supporting Ukraine, Canadians are demanding accountability.

“Mark Carney stop pretending you’re fighting for “freedom and sovereignty.” You just signed off on $2 BILLION of Canadian money for Ukraine while Canadians can’t even afford rent, food, or heating,” reads one of numerous such replies. “Veterans are abandoned, fentanyl floods our streets, and families collapse under inflation. You stand on foreign soil preaching about democracy while selling out the very people you’re supposed to serve. That’s not leadership that’s betrayal. Canadians never voted for this. You don’t speak for us.”

Scroll through replies to Carney’s Kiev stunt and you’ll find Canadians opposed to the wasting of still more money needed in their home country.

The most glaring hypocrisy is that while Carney wrings his hands over Ukraine, he utterly ignores the ongoing Israeli starvation and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, supported by the Canadian government.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

The post Canada Keeps Bankrolling Ukraine’s War Crimes appeared first on LewRockwell.

It looks like our liberal friends wanted to use the firing of Jimmy Kimmel as a narrative to neuter the Charlie Kirk assassination. That was then. But now, after the speech by Charlie’s widow, Erika Kirk, who cares?

Up until the morning of September 21, 2025, our liberal friends demanded to define the Narrative, whether it was the glorious success of the New Deal, the horrible lies of Joseph McCarthy, the death of JFK as right-wing hate, the racism of Barry Goldwater, the guilt of Richard Nixon in Watergate, the dunce-ness of Ronald Reagan, the greedy bankers of 2008, the innocence of George Floyd, the collusion of Trump with Russia, the armed insurrection of January 6, the helplessness of transgenders.

But now Erika Kirk has spoken.

Before today we were taught to believe the Mass Media Narrative on anything.

And so, we were to be taught, the firing of Jimmy Kimmel counts as a “frenzy of right-wing cancel culture.”

Really? A word from the chairman of the FCC equals wall-to-wall right-wing cancel culture?

I guess I live in an ideological bubble. I had no idea that right-wing cancel culture was a thing. Is it currently sweeping Hollywood, the universities, public education, the NGO Industrial Complex? Or what?

But now that Erika Kirk has spoken, who cares?

Here is what the “frenzy of right-wing cancel culture” means. It means that our liberal friends are in a frenzy of fear that they won’t dominate the Narrative, as they have for the last century.

This is the great question at the present moment. Will the liberal Narrative prevail, once more, or have we reached the end of an age?

But now that Erika Kirk has spoken, who cares?

As the liberal narrative fails to define the present moment, a new age in America dawns.

And up until this moment, our liberal friends had no idea. Read this piece reporting on the Slack channel for NYTimesies:

@Newsroom: Hey all, does anyone know or have access to someone who goes to church and/or knows something in re churchgoing/god etc. for the piece we’re working on about the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder?

Really? You NYT experts don’t have your IC-adjacent embedded contacts reporting regularly from the far-right churched insurrection sector so you can cancel it?

Reply: I think my son knows someone who has a friend who has a cousin who has a roommate in Bed-Stuy who (I think) went to Alabama State.

Three degrees of separation, just to be safe from those TPUSAers.

Here’s a suggestion for you NYTimesies. Think about what it means that the memorial for Charlie Kirk filled a sports stadium with hundreds of thousands outside, and that everyone who is anyone attended, from Elon Musk to Donald Trump.

What does it mean?

It means that the energetic young TPUSAers that spoke at the Charlie Kirk memorial are about a standard deviation smarter than you NYTimesies.

And their words were nothing, compared to the words of Erika Kirk.

So you can understand what is happening, I’d like to suggest that you NYTimesies ponder the meaning of the three most recent media ages, suggested by Martin Gurri in The Revolt of the Public.

First, there was the Age of Gutenberg, when intellectuals could read and write and publish printed books. The intellectuals dominated the world in the Age of Revolution.

Second, there was the Age of One-Way Mass Media, in which we humans saw the bloodiest wars and regimes in world history. That’s the thing about mass media — like the New York Times. The educated class gussies up the Narrative, the Mass Media blasts it out, and off the Doughboys and GIs go to war.

Third, we are now in the Age of Two-Way Media, in which the one-way world of one-way propaganda is living on life support, and an energetic organization like TPUSA can create its own narratives and ideas and communicate with the world out of the range of the New York Times Slack channel.

And a guy like Charlie Kirk, son of an architect who never went to college, can create a national movement in ten years and the NYTimesies on the New York Times Slack channel still know next to nothing about it.

We are At the End of an Age according to John Lukacs, the end of the Modern Age that began five hundred years ago.

Twenty years ago, Lukacs wrote that the Modern Age at its height was the Age of the Bourgeois, for its minds and creators were mostly of bourgeois origins and status that replaced the nobles of the Middle Ages.

I say that the new age will be an age of the ordinary. The future will belong to energetic youngsters like the TPUSAers we saw and heard at the Charlie Kirk memorial. And his widow, Erika Kirk.

It’s okay, NYTimesies. We forgive you.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

The post It’s the End of the Age, NYTimesies appeared first on LewRockwell.

In today’s world we need to be vigilant and prepared for sudden changes in our environment which may be brought on by Mother Nature or Political Activities. We all want to protect our family from harm, and preparedness for disaster emergencies should be one of our top priorities. I’m not advocating that you pack up your family and move to some isolated location to hide from the world, but I am offering simple preparations for ice storms, floods, hurricanes, or terrorist activities will make your existence much more palatable during the disaster.

1. Be prepared – Yes, the first thing on the list is to use the list to be prepared. It is one thing to take a glance at the list, but unless you actually put this list into a workable plan for your family, then reading this is just wasted time on your part. Just making the preparations will give you a sense of calm when faced with the disaster.

This sense of calm will work in your favor because you will be less likely to be one of the hordes of people acting in a reactionary, fear driven, panic when the reality of the disaster is recognized (usually when the news anchors start saying things like “This is going to be bad.”… or… “We can’t stress enough the dangerous nature of this storm.”… or… “Here is video of people fighting over the last of the bread at this grocery store.”… or… “The police have lost control of this area of town.” While the crowds are rushing to the grocery store and emptying the aisles of bread and milk, you will be safely at home making last minute preparations to keep yourself and your family safe.

Because I realize that there is a definite cost factor in making these preparations, I will try to prioritize the items on the list as to which are absolutely necessary and which ones can be added as funds are available. Any item with an * next to it is a priority item and needs to be included from the beginning. To my Prepper Friends, I do realize that this list will not satisfy your need to prepare for any and all situations and it is only a short term duration solution, so don’t pounce on me with a long list of items that you think I have left off. It is intentionally a short, condensed list which is meant to help an average family through a short term disaster situation, not a nuclear holocaust. I also have not addressed any need for firearms or ammunition.

A big part of the preparation is being organized. There will be enough things to be concerned with when the situation presents itself, trying to remember where all of your supplies might be stored should not be one of them. Buy one of the following. We will be storing everything possible in them, so your preparedness items will be readily available to you when you need them.

a. Storage Locker* – Find a well built, heavy plastic storage locker that is large enough to hold a lot of gear, but still small enough to fit in the trunk of your car or the bed of your truck. This is not one of those plastic storage bins that people use to store winter clothes in during the summer, this thing needs to be a bit more durable than that. Find one with handles to make it easier to move into and out of your vehicle. Most stores like Academy will have them starting at about $20.

b. Backpack* – This is not a child’s school backpack. Go to the camping section and find one that is well made, durable, and large enough to hold lots of stuff. Don’t worry about it being too big, we are not going to have to backpack across the Grand Canyon with it, and my experience is that you ALWAYS need more space to store stuff. The starting price for a good one will be around $39, but if you can only afford a back-to-school type backpack, go ahead and get it, we can always upgrade later.

2. Shelter from the weather – Unexpected disasters will likely subject you to the elements. This could be due to a fast developing situation where you are caught away from home when the disaster strikes, or it could result from a storm that has caused widespread power outages, broken windows in your home, or taken off a portion of your roof. Exposure to the weather is not just annoying, it can be dangerous. The combination of being wet and cold is deadly.

a. Polyethylene tarp – These come in a variety of sizes and are quite inexpensive. (a 6×8 tarp is only about $5 if you check some camping supply stores). These are great for keeping out the weather if windows are broken during a storm. They can also be used for a makeshift tent if you happen to be caught out of your home when the disaster strikes. They will be great for keeping you dry and holding off the wind. Get 3-4 of them. Put them in your storage locker.

b. Plastic rain poncho* – One for every member of your family, plus a few extra (they are cheap (as little as $1) and will get torn when being worn for any length of time). Get the kind that fold up into a small pouch. Put into your backpack.

c. Quart – ½ Gallon sized plastic zip-lock bags* – These will be used to store some of the items on this list as well as storage of food and medicines. These are important, but cheap. Put in the storage locker.

d. Wool, Cotton, Fleece pullover or Hoodie – One for every member of the family. My preference would be wool, but anything is better than nothing. They are about $12 each for Haynes brand at most stores. If the power goes out, or if you are caught away from home, the cooler temps at night are deceptively dangerous. One main goal is to stay dry and warm. Roll up and place into a zip-lock bag and then put in your backpack.

e. Extra wool or cotton socks* – Two or three pair for every member of the family. Style is not important here, regular white tube socks are just fine (about $8 for a pack of 3). Cheap, but a fresh change of socks can do wonders, and will help keep your feet more healthy and comfortable during the disaster situation and can act as emergency mittens if needed. I can’t say enough about taking care of your feet. I know it sounds trivial, but it is not. Put unopened packs into zip-lock bags and then into your backpack (keeping them dry is key).

f. Change of clothes* – A complete change of clothes for each member of the family. This is not time for a fashion statement, we are after durability and function here. Long pants (blue jeans) and a long sleeve shirt. Don’t forget a change of underwear. Also include a pair of shoes that you would be comfortable wearing for long periods of time. An old pair of tennis shoes might be the answer. Really no costs here, we are going to use clothes we already have in the closet, but probably don’t wear because it has a stain on it, or it is not a color we wear often. Put in the storage locker.

g. Sleeping Bag – One for each member of the family. In this case, I am recommending a specific product, SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag* (do a Google search for stores selling it). Sells for about $17 each but packs up very small and will save your life. Much smaller than a standard sleeping bag (starting price, around $20). If you have the room for a sleeping bag for each person, by all means get them. Store the SOL Emergency Bivvy Bag in your backpack, and the Sleeping bags in a single location near where you will store the backpack and storage locker.

3. Safety and Security – There are several items that you will need to make sure that you and your family remain healthy and safe.

a. Medical Kit – You should get two kits.

I. The first is a small, compact first aid kit* that can easily be stored in a zip-lock bag and placed in your backpack and are designed to take care of minor medial issues like blisters, splinters, sprains, etc. They sell for less than $20.

ii. The next is a more complete kit, sometimes called a trauma kit. It contains more supplies and tools and is usually marketed as a Sportsman’s First Aid Kit, or an Outdoors Adventure Medical Kit (starting price is about $49). Store this in your storage locker.

b. CPR Training* – At least one person in your family needs to be CPR certified. The Red Cross and American Heart Association offer classes on a regular basis, but usually charge for the certification class ($70-$110). Most fire departments also offer classes but these classes do not provide a certification needed to fulfill any job requirements (usually free).

c. Know your evacuation routes* – Think about where you could go if you had to quickly leave your home due to the disaster. Keep in mind the destinations that would be appropriate for the situation (going to stay with your Uncle on the coast may work well if your home is threatened by a fire, but is not a good idea if you are fleeing a hurricane). Get an old fashioned paper map ($5-$10) and learn how to read it, don’t rely on your navigation app to get you anywhere, the system could be down due to the disaster. Have more than one route mapped out for each destination, roads may be impassable and you may need to find a secondary route. Keep the map in your vehicle.

d. Make a list of contacts* – Everyone in the family should have a list of important contacts they carry with them. Make sure you include numbers for your office, your partner’s office, your children’s schools, day care, doctors, and close family members. Include the numbers of your health and home owner’s insurance companies, as well as your policy numbers. On this list include information of any medical condition and medications needed for all family members (for young children, also include the date of birth). Also designate a family member or friend that will serve as the point-of-contact if your family is separated. Choosing someone out of town is a good idea because they may be less likely to be experiencing the same issues in their area as you are experiencing in yours. Put this list inside of a zip-lock bag and place in your backpack (and an emergency contact list in your child’s school backpack).

e. Money – In disaster situations, ATM’s, credit cards and debit cards may not work or may not be accepted by merchants. Have a stash of emergency funds available in cash. It doesn’t need to be lots of money, but make sure that you have both small bills and some change (probably quarters) already packed in your backpack. The amount that you choose is up to you, but I suggest that it is enough to get a tank of gas, a few meals for the family while on the road, or buy some last minute item needed for the situation at hand.

4. Food and Water – It is a good idea to have a minimum of three days’ emergency supply of food* on hand at all times. My preference would be two weeks. Keep in mind that this does not mean regular full blown meals, these are meals during emergency situations. If you are remaining at home and the power is gone, here are some guidelines to follow:

a. First, use perishable goods from the pantry (apples, bananas, oranges, potatoes, hard packaged salamis, sausages, pepperoni, etc.) and food items in the refrigerator. Do not open the freezer!

b. Second, use the items stored in your freezer. Limit the number of times the freezer door is opened. Foods stored in a well-stocked freezer will still have ice crystals in the center even after two days of no power and will be safe to eat. Place zip-lock bags ¾ filled with water into the freezer so that you will have ice bags already in the freezer if the power goes off. These bags will fit into the spaces between items and will help keep them frozen and safe for longer periods of time after the power is out.

c. Third, use non-perishable items from the pantry. If you don’t already have them on hand, these are also the things you want to stock up on if you have a warning that a storm is headed your way. Don’t worry about bread and milk. The following items should be a part of your emergency supply because will last a long time and will be a perfect supplement for your family’s nutrition: Peanut butter, nuts, canned meats, canned vegetable soups, canned fruits and vegetables, dried fruits, instant cereals that only require water, white rice, hard candy and canned nuts, crackers, trail mix, granola bars, power bars, sports drinks.

d. Water is essential for life. It is also needed for cleaning utensils, cooking, bathing, and brushing teeth. Maintaining personal hygiene is a top priority in a disaster situation. Not only does it keep you physically healthy, but it gives you a morale boost as well. Store your water near the storage locker so that you know exactly where it is when the disaster strikes.

I. A minimum of one gallon of water per family member per day. This will supply the needs of each person for personal hygiene. This water can be stored in plastic containers and filled when making last minute preparations for the disaster (time permitting). I suggest getting several 5-gallon collapsible containers* from the camping supply store (about $7). When not in use, they take up very little space. While water supplies are usually not totally disrupted during storms, the water supply may become contaminated. If these containers are filled at the beginning of the storm or disaster preparation, the water will be good for personal hygiene or for drinking (if needed) for several months.

ii. Bottled water for drinking packaged in small containers is great for almost any situation. They can be included in a backpack, carried in your pocket, or loose in the vehicle for use at any time. A case of bottled water can be as little as $2 at the grocery store and has a relatively long shelf life.

5. Tools – There are certain things that you need to have on hand to be prepared for a disaster situation. Place these in the storage locker.

a. Flashlight – Having working flashlights is a must. Do not make the mistake of buying flashlights for your disaster kit and then using them around the house. If you do, then you will inevitably find them with dead batteries when they are needed most. Get several LED flashlights with a minimum brightness of 15-20 lumens*. If you have children, get a multi-pack of LED flashlights. This will give them something to keep them from being scared of the dark and a light that they can play with and will keep them from playing with your flashlights. Both single flashlights and small multi-pack flashlights can be found for as little as $5 each.

b. Extra Batteries – In many flashlights, the batteries are good for about 12-16 hours of use. Get enough spare batteries to replace the batteries in your flashlights 5 times.

c. Manual Can Opener – If the power goes out, you need to have a way to open the cans in your pantry.

d. Moist Towelettes – These are useful for all kinds of personal hygiene and cleaning household surfaces.

e. Garbage Bags* – Tall kitchen bags are probably the best size to use. You do not want any garbage to build up in your home.

f. Dust Masks – In the aftermath of a disaster gas explosion, earthquake, hurricane, volcano, tornado, tsunami, winter storm, terrorist attack, flood, fire, accident or other emergency, contaminants may be released into the air. It is important to have an air filtration mechanism such as a dust mask or particulate air filter.

g. Pry Bar – In an emergency situation, the basic reason for having a pry-bar is to open a door or window. If water, or heat from a fire, causes wood to swell, or an earthquake causes a door to jam, or a file cabinet or book case keeps the door closed, and we must get through it, having a pry-bar is the only way to go. The flat bar type, 18″ – 24″ in length is just fine and should cost $10-$15 for a quality one.

h. Fire Extinguisher* – Get a small to medium sized ABC extinguisher, available for $15 – $20.

I. Channel Lock Style Pliers – A quality channel lock pliers of at least 10″ length is a must for your disaster tool box. Do not buy a cheap one, it will not work properly and will slip when you need it most. They are available for as little as $15 at most hardware supply stores (Home Depot, Lowes, etc).

j. Adjustable Wrench – You need to have a quality adjustable wrench in your disaster tool box, and it needs to be at least 10″ in length to be able to have the leverage that you might need. They are available from the hardware supply stores for about $12 each.

k. Screwdriver Set – Get a basic screw driver set that has various sizes and both flat and Philips style tips. Again, a quality set is important, because a cheap set will not hold up at all. A basic 10 piece set will cost approximately $20 at any hardware supply store.

l. Claw Hammer – This tool is one of those multi-purpose tools that you will find quite useful. Available from $10 everywhere.

m. Camping Style Cookware – If the power goes out you may find the need to cook on a camp fire or in your fireplace. You will not be able to use your everyday cookware for this, and something as simple as a hot cup of coffee in the morning can make a huge difference in your day.

I. Dutch Oven – a Dutch oven will provide you with a great meal that you can cook right on an open flame, such as your fireplace.

ii. Coffee Pot – Get an enamel coffee pot, you will be glad you did. You will be able to make coffee, tea, or even just boil water for use in cooking.

n. Multi-tool – A Leatherman style Multi-tool will be the solution for a multitude of situations and is available for around $15 at most camping or hardware supply stores.

o. Folding Knife – There is no need to buy a giant knife like the one Crocodile Dundee used in the movies. A folding knife with a blade length of 4 inches is just fine. Make sure that the blade locks open so that you can use it more safely. Starting at $15 at most camping supply stores.

This is a good starting point for your family disaster preparedness. It is only a starting point, there is so much more that you can do to be prepared. However, if you do nothing more than the things on this list, you will be far ahead of many others who will be floundering around when the time for action comes.

This article was originally published on Ultimate-Survival.

The post First Things You Need To Do Right Now To Be Prepared for a Natural or Man-Made Disaster appeared first on LewRockwell.

It refuses to end. Synoding, that is. That clever term is George Weigel’s and captures the whimsical inanity of the Bergoglian invention of synodality. In a recent essay of Mr. Weigel’s in that estimable journal First Things, he was rather irenic about the past aims of synodality. To me, he was straining a bit too far for my theological tastes. But bending over backward seems to have become a signature métier for Mr. Weigel. But a man of his intellectual stature should know that the problem with bending over backward is that you soon find yourself unable to stand straight again.

O yes, synoding. Restrain your laughter (or fear) as I present an enticing morsel from the official Pathways for the Implementation of the Present Phase of the Synod 2025-2028:

We recall that the purpose of the Synod is not to produce documents, but to plant dreams, draw forth prophecies and visions, allow hope to flourish, inspire trust, bind up wounds, weave together relationships, awaken a dawn of hope, learn from one another and create a bright resourcefulness that will enlighten minds, warm hearts, give strength to our hands.

This bears as much resemblance to Catholicism as a seven-year-old’s birthday party. More woefully, it has as much to do with religion as astrology has to do with astronomy.

But synodality is the most recent in a long line of embarrassing experiments of the past half century. It seems as though the Church’s leaders have one rule: if an experiment has failed because of its absurdity, the next one must be made more absurd.

An older generation of Catholics can bear this out. They must admit an embarrassing familiarity with such lovelies as: Call to Action, Nuns on the Bus, The Archdiocese of Los Angeles Religious Education Congress (still enduring with all the risibility of an octogenarian wheelchair race), Confessional Rooms, Lenten Rice Bowls, The St. Louis Jesuits, Liberation Theology, Seamless Garment and multi-colored clerical shirts. But that is only a sampling. Others have mercifully been forgotten or should be.

The net effect of these experiments is empty pews, shuttered churches, desolate seminaries, and the almost entire collapse of religious orders. A more dramatic case in point is the decades-old détente the European bishops conducted with Islam. It has resulted in wrenching violence, the burning of churches, and the near disappearance of any Catholic presence.

Only yesterday the once papabile Cardinal Parolin warned Catholics to not tip over into intolerance due to the murder of Charlie Kirk. Imagine him preaching that about blacks garroted by the Ku Klux Klan, or homosexuals thrown from the tops of buildings by Muslim jihadists. In reality’s piercing light, the benighted cardinal’s words are shown for the oratorical litter they are.

To this failed cardinal we have the words of venerable Fulton Sheen:

America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance—it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broad minded.

Imagine, most Catholic priests spoke with that kind of crystalline Catholic logic 70 years ago. Now they babble in the accommodating Parolin patois.

All this endless assembly line of synodal novelties betrays nothing less than a tiring of God. He is a consuming fire, and this crowd has turned Him into an afterglow of fading embers. The Church’s mission is entirely supernatural, and the language of the supernatural is uttered with the crackling tongues of fire given to her at Pentecost. She also wields the supernatural tools in her sacred traditions as she has for millennia. These tried-and-true weapons have been successful in bringing the liberating Gospel of Our Lord to every continent.

Now, she trades that divine proclamation for the junk language of synodality.

The synodalist eschews those weapons given to us by a triumphant conquering Christ, in exchange for the shiny new baubles of the zeitgeist.

The cringeworthy march of synodality epitomizes a parlous weariness with God. The incongruities could not be more conspicuous.

How does “planting dreams” accord with, “But God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). Or can anyone explain how “planting dreams, and drawing forth prophecies and visions” is consonant with, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32).

How will the hyper-psychologized purring of “inspire trust, bind up wounds, weave together relationships, awaken a dawn of hope” possibly accord with the summoning words of Christ: “All power is given me unto heaven and on earth.  Go ye therefore and teach all nations…. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20). How does the synodolist reconcile himself to Christ’s jolting words, “Think not that I am come to bring peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

Read the Whole Article

The post Tiring of God appeared first on LewRockwell.