Lew Rockwell Institute

It was entirely predictable and at times almost humorous to see the sour, partisan reaction by Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, and some in the national media to President Trump’s inaugural address last week.

It was obvious that Biden, Harris and Mrs. Clinton are still bitter over Trump’s two victories and it seemed very painful for them to have to listen to him advocate so many things that are so popular with the majority of the American people.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said the speech was “the darkest inaugural address ever” but to most people, there was nothing dark about Trump saying his administration would be “colorblind and merit-based.”

Chris Hayes of MSNBC said the speech showed that Trump is like a “cult leader predicting different dates for the end of the world.”

But the overwhelming majority of the people want a leader who will enforce our immigration laws and stop the flood of millions coming across our border illegally.

Jen Psaki, President Biden’s former press secretary, said unlike previous inaugural addresses, Trump’s was very “politicized.”

But the overwhelming majority of the American people, I believe, were happy to hear how Trump will end the electric vehicle mandate and not force everyone to buy expensive, unreliable electric cars and trucks like Democrat politicians wanted.

And while Biden and Harris wanted to keep pouring billions of dollars down the rat hole in Ukraine, most Americans agreed with Trump when he said the government cannot manage even a simple domestic crisis “while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad.”

And the great majority especially agreed with Trump when he added: “We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders, or more importantly, its own people.”

When Trump criticized former House members Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) in a second speech at the Capitol, Kinzinger said the president was “childish.” All that did was show that Kinzinger can dish out criticism (as he often has toward Trump), but he can’t take any in return.

Kinzinger is still bitter because the Republican Party in his congressional district condemned him for joining Nancy Pelosi’s kangaroo court Jan.  6th Committee, and he blames Trump.

Almost every former Republican official who appears regularly on CNN or MSNBC is doing it for money and/or is mad at the Party because of some slight or for being turned down for some position.

Trump followed his speeches by signing many executive orders on his first day back in the White House. Executive orders, through most of our history, were mostly done to handle non-controversial, administrative matters. They were not supposed to be used to bypass Congress.

However, President Biden, or the power-mad people around him, used them on his first day to do all sorts of controversial and left-wing actions. So, many of Trump’s new executive orders were to undo things Biden had done.

The executive order that I was most pleased about was Trump issuing pardons to over 1,500 J6 defendants, as they are called, and commute the sentences of about 14 others to time served.

Almost all these defendants were patriotic Americans who simply walked around the Capitol that day after going through doors held open for them by Capitol Police.

The Democratic J6 Committee covered up most of the films taken that day and refused to release them. It was only after Kevin McCarthy became speaker of the House and ordered the release of the films that the true story came out. People could then see how peaceful most of these people were and how the Democrats had so greatly exaggerated the events of that day for partisan political purposes.

The few who destroyed property or actually assaulted police should have been punished. But most were given very excessive sentences solely due to hatred for President Trump, and many were held in jail without trials longer than is usual even for people who have committed far more serious crimes.

Probably my strongest support group throughout my career has been by local law enforcement, and I liked all the Capitol Police. But the truth is that they had about the safest law enforcement jobs there were, and 99% of the time were just very nice, highly-paid tour guides.

President Trump will get strong pushback on everything he wants to do, but almost all items that were mentioned in his address are things the great majority want done.

This originally appeared on Knoxville Focus.

The post President Trump Gave a Positive, Hopeful Inaugural Address appeared first on LewRockwell.

Megyn Kelly has been en feugo of late and i think she’s shedding light on an interesting angle of the current trans crisis that has perhaps been too widely ignored. you do not see this sort of sudden spike in gender issues with children absent provocation. it was not some nascent trend being suppressed for centuries and suddenly allowed to find expression.

This is being done to them and the machine that does it has become a captured thing that works in ways inimical to care or caring. it’s a monster of circular affirmation structures devoid of all safety or brakes and it’s doing untold, permanent damage to a lot of vulnerable children .

You speak the “magic words” because you are afraid or ill or seek status and attention and the system that has emerged pulls you into a riptide where no one can pull you out or is even allowed to try.

The medical boards require that doctors and psychiatrists “affirm.” you say you’re a boy or a girl or a 20 gendered space dragon and it’s “yes indeed little 10 year old! of course you are! we the medical profession are here to whisk you away to your new life!” those who would say “uh, no, this child was raped and is autistic and has a panoply of other issues that are simply manifesting as what is currently trendy and the issue lies between their ears and not their legs” are barred from discussion. say that and you lose your license and board certification.

And that, my friends, is madness.

Worse, it’s a conveyor belt to child destruction and the sterilization and wreckage of young gay and neurodivergent children, a whirlpool designed to drown any whose swim-strokes falter. in many places, laws will even take kids away from parents who fail to “affirm” and hand them over to doctors and surrogates who are required to. franz kafka would have looked at this story line and said “jeez, that’s a bit much…”

Have a listen.

Megyn Kelly stuns the Bill Maher audience by laying out the facts about transitioning. After they recoil in disgust, Bill Maher corroborates Megyn Kelly ‘We are definitely doing that’:
Megyn Kelly: “What we’re doing to our children with this trans insanity. We are chopping off… pic.twitter.com/3ZIVKPFkim

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) October 26, 2024

Sounds overblown and impossible, right?

It’s not.

Cases like this where mentally ill and “neurodivergent” children get railroaded into “affirming care” and no one is allowed to speak against it pervade. stop and really think about this. this 12 year old girl whose family has a history of mental illness was:

• sexually abused
• depressed
• autistic
• seems to have traits of PTSD, bipolarism, and anxiety
• and ultimately exhibited psychosis including audio and visual hallucinations

And somehow “let’s make you a boy!” jumped to the top of the pile and the rest got ignored? how is this not raising immense questions about consent and capacity?

Well, it’s because they are not being asked.

They are often not allowed to be.

but surely such august experts would exercise due care before recommending such radical and irreversible treatment, right? apparently not.

Hormone blockers, testosterone, and gender surgery are not going to help any of what was wrong here. pretty much any actual physician or psychiatrist would tell you so. but if the law says they need not be asked or perhaps could not even counsel against this if they wanted to, you get this kind of railroading.

None of the above was discussed or explained in Clementine’s case. In fact, the opposite occurred. Defendants obscured and concealed important information and failed to disclose the significant health risks associated with a female taking high doses of harmful male hormone drugs and puberty blockers.

Even worse, Defendants made numerous material misrepresentations in order to convince Clementine’s parents to agree to puberty blockers, such as assuring them that puberty blockers are “completely reversible,” and cross-sex hormones, including asserting that Clementine would commit suicide if she did not begin taking testosterone.

This is enabling a group of people whose views are not even nonsense but literal assault to be protected as “the only ones speaking.”

Read the Whole Article

The post Munchausen by Medical Board appeared first on LewRockwell.

Much of the debate over so-called “birthright citizenship” is over interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US constitution. Most of the people currently in power claim that the text means every baby born to every foreign national on American soil is an automatic US citizen. Others—like myself—believe that this interpretation is dubious and has always been a matter of debate.

In commentary on this topic, however, one often encounters assertions to the effect that rulings by the US Supreme Court provide the “definitive” or “final” interpretation. Or, put another way, there is an idea that once SCOTUS makes a ruling on something, then the ruling is “settled law.” Even worse, some people think that once the Supreme Court has ruled on something, there is no point discussing it or challenging the currently popular interpretation of the law.

In truth, there is no such thing as settled law and the US Supreme court’s interpretations are hardly definitive. In politics nothing is ever settled or permanent. No cause is ever won or lost permanently. Beyond the short term, everything is up for grabs.

This is true in the courts as everywhere else. At any given time, the court’s rulings reflect modern ideologies and political realities. As these change, so do the court’s rulings. Indeed, court’s often “discover” that the rulings of past courts were somehow completely wrong, and the court then moves in a nearly opposite direction. The back-and-forth on Roe v. Wade is just one example.

So much for “settled” law.

The Mythology of the Supreme Court

These misconceptions about the Supreme Court’s “definitive” rulings often stem from the idea that the US Supreme Court’s bases its rulings on an apolitical deliberative process independent of political pressures and ideologies.

This has never been true. Like all institutions of the US government, whether we’re talking about Congress, or the Federal Reserve, or the Supreme Court, the SCOTUS is a thoroughly political institution overseen by a group of political appointees who are biased by specific political ideologies.

For more on this mythology of the Supreme Court, see here.

How is it that a new crop of judges can come to entirely new and different conclusions that are virtually the opposite of the rulings that preceded them? The answer is simple. Judges fashion their rulings to reflect modern political sensibilities. Political ideologies and realities change, and thus federal judges will turn past court rulings on their head in order to reflect new views.

There are many such examples, but let’s start with one of the court’s most notorious rulings: Korematsu v. the United States. 

In that ruling, the Supreme Court manufactured an unwritten power contained, they said, in the US Constitution: the power to round up American citizens of a particular race and put them in concentration camps.

The idea that the Federal government possessed such powers would have struck the average nineteenth-century American—including the federal judges—as outlandish. Yet, the nation’s “greatest” legal minds of the Supreme Court in 1944 miraculously discovered a new power that just happened to align exactly with the US’s war effort at the time.

To get an idea of the allegedly deep legal thinking behind the Korematsu decision, we need look no further than Justice Hugo Black who joined the majority vote on the court’s support for the concentration camps. When asked about his ruling years later, Black remained unrepentant and simply stated that “Japs” were scary, so therefore ought to be rounded up: “[p]eople were rightfully fearful of the Japanese in Los Angeles. . . . They all look alike to a person not a Jap.” Of course, Black and his colleagues in the court’s majority covered up this simple-minded thinking with pages and pages of “jurisprudential” writing disguised to make their anti-Japanese edict look like it was born out of principled legal theory. The fact is that Franklin Roosevelt wanted to lock up all the “Japs,” and the Supreme Court was going to do whatever it took to invent a rationale for the plan.

In 2018, the Supreme Court again decided that the “definitive” legal ruling of 1944 was wrong, and the opposite was true. Chief Justice Roberts wrote in Trump v. Hawaii that Korematsu was undefendable and “The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority.”

The Court has never existed independent of the ideological, historical, and political context that surrounds it. How could it? It is not a coincidence that the court almost never hands down rulings that run contrary to virtually everyone else in Washington, and which are therefore likely to be ignored. The court is careful to not sacrifice its prestige, so it only makes rulings that can count on support from at least some important pressure groups and power bases in the country. This is why we shouldn’t be surprised that the Hugo court essentially deferred to the administration in 1944.

To do the opposite is to diminish the power of the court. For an example of what happens when the court does fully go against the zeitgeist we need look no further than the case of Worcester v. Georgia. In that case, the court handed down a decision saying, in effect, that white Georgians and the State of Georgia had no right to move onto Cherokee lands or intervene in their local sovereignty. It was a court ruling that went overwhelmingly against public opinion and neither Congress nor the White House were willing to intervene and rein in the Georgians against the hated Indians.

Many Americans know this as the case which prompted Andrew Jackson to say—probably apocryphally—”[Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” What Jackson did say was this: “the decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born, and they find that they cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate.” Jackson was right. The ruling was stillborn, and the court made itself irrelevant on the matter.

Modern judges don’t like to be irrelevant or be ignored by presidents. Most of these judges have enormous egos. So, we find that the Court just happens to make rulings that are likely to garner public support and be enforced. The court knows what the political landscape is, and is careful to rule in ways that protect the court’s power and keep the court “respectable.”

But, political ideologies and realities change, and therefore the courts will change.

There are many examples, one of which, of course, is the Korematsu ruling. Another is how SCOTUS has ruled on abortion over the decades. In 1973, it was totally uncontroversial to regard abortion as a state and local matter, regardless of one’s position on the morality of it. Then, in 1973, the Warren Court decided that SCOTUS had been reading the Constitution wrong for more than 180 years, and it turns out the abortion is a “right” guaranteed by the constitution. Then, fifty years after that the SCOTUS re-read the Constitution and suddenly realized that abortion is not a federally-protected right after all.

Which ruling is the “definitive” ruling that establishes “settled law”? The answer is: none of the above.

Another such case is Lochner v. New York (1905). In Lochner, SCOTUS made a very good ruling in which it decided that private contracts between private parties are to be respected, and the federal government ought not to interfere in contracts with interventions such as minimum wage laws. That was the allegedly definitive ruling for several decades before the rulings of the Lochner era were essentially thrown in the dumpster by the SCOTUS in the 1930s.

But, public ideologies had changed. To stay “relevant” and “current” the SCOTUS changed with the times.

So, if the US Supreme Court soon hands down a new ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment and birthright citizenship, it will reflect only modern political realities, and whatever the court’s majority thinks it can get away with considering the political context of today. No matter how the court rules, it certainly won’t be the “last word” on the matter, and nothing is decided beyond the short term.

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

The post There Is No Such Thing as ‘Settled Law’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: In 2011, Ross Ulbricht founded the website Silk Road.

It was a cleverly designed online marketplace that leveraged decentralized technologies like Tor and Bitcoin to establish an anonymous and completely free market without government interference.

Much to the chagrin of politicians like Chuck Schumer, the Silk Road operated openly and successfully for about two and a half years.

Eventually, the government managed to identify Ross, arrest him, and shut down the Silk Road.

What’s your perspective on the concept of the Silk Road and the government’s response to it?

Doug Casey: This is a question that touches a lot of bases. It has roots in the drug war.

My view is that drugs should generally be avoided because they typically cloud your mind and obscure your understanding of reality. But it’s entirely up to the individual, a matter of personal responsibility and personal preference. It’s certainly not the business of the notoriously corrupt DEA, which should be abolished.

The government and its employees have learned absolutely nothing from their prohibition of alcohol from 1919 to 1933. Prohibition turned drinking from a social custom where some individuals overindulged into a “crime” that destroyed tens of thousands of businesses and millions of lives and tore a hole in the fabric of society. It fostered wholesale violence and serious police corruption while supplying the Mafia and other criminal organizations with a huge and consistent source of funds.

Today’s illegal drugs are exactly analogous to the Prohibition of alcohol 100 years ago. Making drugs illegal causes vastly more damage than any possible good.

In a free society, you should be able to buy and sell whatever you’d like freely. That includes not just drugs but weapons, literature, plants, animals, or what-have-you. We all understand that some things are dangerous, including matches and kitchen knives. If you damage another person or his property, you’re liable. That’s the only practical and moral way to encourage people to be competent and responsible—end of story. We can talk about the myriads of straw man arguments against that view another time.

I was all for Silk Road when it existed. It was an Amazon for things that were illegal or that various busybodies considered socially objectionable. Silk Road was a good thing, enabling peaceful commerce between consenting adults. Violence—which is always an element when the DEA or similar government agencies are involved—was never an issue with Silk Road.

International Man: The government charged Ross with participating in a continuing criminal enterprise, a narcotics conspiracy, and a conspiracy to commit money laundering, among other offenses.

Despite being a non-violent, first-time offender, Ross was convicted and handed a double life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Judge Katherine Forrest implied that Ross’ alleged “privilege” influenced her decision to impose a much harsher sentence than she might have given to a “drug dealer from the Bronx.”

What are your thoughts on Ross’ sentence?

Doug Casey: First, we ought to define the word “crime”. A crime is best defined as the use of force or fraud against another person or his property. By that definition, Ross was in no way guilty of a crime.

He was only guilty of violating an arbitrary political law. As Harvey Silverglate pointed out in his excellent 2011 book “Three Felonies a Day,” it’s almost impossible to live in the US today without violating lots of laws, unknowingly.

It’s said—stupidly—that ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. That was once true when laws were largely modest extrapolations of Maybury’s two great laws: “Do all that you say you’ll do” and “Don’t infringe on another’s person or property.” But we increasingly live in a world like that of Lavrenti Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, who once assured Comrade Stalin: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

Silk Road epitomized the paradoxical term “victimless crime.” Nobody was hurt by what they were doing. In a free society, victimless crimes would not exist. And the sentence for committing real crimes, such as murder or theft, would start with making the victim whole—not arbitrarily punishing the offender. Offenders should first restore (to the greatest degree possible) the damage they did, with interest and the cost of his capture. Prison sentences would largely be for the ultra-violent. For a full explication of this line of thought, I urge you to download a superb short book, “The Market for Liberty” (link). It crystallized my thinking, as well as that of Javier Milei, who’s transforming Argentina.

The whole criminal system today is corrupt and inept. In a just free market society, things would be quite different for someone accused of a crime. Instead of being tried by some judge under arbitrary laws, both sides would mutually agree on an arbitration panel. Arbitrators necessarily have to compete on their fairness and low cost, unlike politically installed judges, including the vicious woman who sentenced Ross.

International Man: After exhausting every avenue of appeal, Ross’ only chance of leaving prison alive was a presidential pardon.

During a speech last year at the Libertarian National Convention, Trump promised to pardon Ross if he became president.

What do you make of Trump courting libertarians?

Doug Casey: As I’ve said many times before, Trump has no philosophical center, no real personal philosophy. He flies by the seat of his pants. But many of his instincts are quite good, especially now, after he’s suffered at the hands of the Jacobin State. He’s light on principles, but he’s a cultural conservative who wants to keep most of what made America unique. I think he’s righteously angry, and intends to clean house. And he won’t take any prisoners.

This episode with Ross brought him into contact with lots of libertarians. I think it’s had an effect on him and made him aware of libertarian values because he, too, was unjustly convicted. I suspect he’s become libertarian-adjacent in a number of ways. Not just because libertarians and Austrians gave him moral and practical arguments for low taxes, deregulation, and free speech. But because Argentina’s Javier Milei, an avowed anarcho-capitalist, has become a close ally. It’s bound to influence his thinking and those around him.

Trump is far from a libertarian, but the horrible injustice that Ross suffered may yet prove to be a cloud with a silver lining.

International Man: After Trump was elected and sworn in as President, he fulfilled his promise by granting Ross a full and unconditional pardon.

Trump issued the following statement after granting the pardon:

What are your thoughts on Trump following through on his promise and this statement?

Doug Casey: This is a fantastic and wonderful statement on Trump’s part. I would specially draw the reader’s attention to the words “scum,” “lunatics,” and “ridiculous.” These are keywords. It shows that Trump truly hates the Jacobins who’ve controlled the government for so long, and he hates them on a visceral level.

One of Trump’s virtues is that he’s loyal and likes to support people who support him. The other side of that coin is that he will definitely seek retribution against his enemies.

Now, in the case of the Jacobins, who have committed so many crimes, like incarcerating Ross, I feel reasonably confident he’s going to try to root them out. That’s excellent. Sometimes imposing justice can also be retribution. We see it all the time in Western movies, and it’s one reason we love them.

But there’s a serious problem. He’ll essentially be ruling by executive order because, as concrete-bound and dysfunctional as Congress is, it’s about the only way he can break the back of Wokism. He’s a man on a mission.

Unfortunately, the Constitution has long been just a chimera and a dead letter. We’re seeing a replay of the collapse of the Roman Republic, followed by the institution of the Principate. After the death of Julius Caesar and a civil war, Augustus kept the trappings and appearances of the old Republic, but the reality was a veritable dictatorship.

And, again, unfortunately, the sword cuts both ways. My view is that after the financial markets and the economy collapse in the next four years, the public will likely blame it on Trump’s reforms. They’re fickle and will look for a savior. That’ll be some leftist who will promise to kiss it all and make it better. Perhaps by offering three hots, a cot, and free internet for the “unhoused.”

My guess is we’ll get a left-wing general since the military is the last government institution that still has some trust from the public. The shoe will then be on the other foot and, courtesy of Trump, ruling by executive order will have become a kind of SOP. Morning in America, as mornings do, will only have lasted 6 hours.

Although many things Trump is doing are excellent and necessary, the way he’s doing it is very dangerous. As ancient Rome devolved from a republic to a dictatorship, it became worse and worse over time. The same thing is happening in the US, with the extensive use of executive orders.

I genuinely hope I’m wrong, though. A real renaissance is always possible. However unlikely.

International Man: What does Ross Ulbricht’s story reveal about the future of freedom in the US?

Doug Casey: I’d like to think that the eviction of the Jacobins means that we’ve turned over a new leaf and that it’s morning in America. But I think it’s more likely that this is just an uptick in a long-established downtrend.

As far as Ross is concerned, I met his mother, Lynn, at a FreedomFest in Las Vegas. She’s genuinely heroic. The calls I made to various political people I knew in Washington, DC, were, predictably, completely futile. All anybody could do was sign a petition. The bright side is that 600,000 people did.

The dark side is that it is only two-tenths of one percent of Americans. Proof of how degraded what’s left of the Republic has become.

Ross’s case appeared hopeless. It shows that if you’re seriously caught up in “the system,” you might as well repeat the words inscribed at the entrance to hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Relinquish all hope ye who enter here.”

The fact that Ross is a decent person and that the laws were unjust meant absolutely nothing. We’re just lucky the criminal Jacobin Party lost and Trump was actually inaugurated. But it ain’t over till it’s over… It will likely evolve like one of those horror movies with Freddie Kruger or Jason.

The Babylon Bee was right when they joked that although Ross has been released from prison, he’s been sentenced to doing hundreds of podcasts for the next 20 years. I expect he’ll be on the one Matt Smith and I do soon.

Reprinted with permission from International Man,

The post Ross Ulbricht: Implications for the Future of Freedom in America appeared first on LewRockwell.

On the table, a geopolitical banquet – served by some of the best independent analytical minds from Bursa to Diyarbakir.

ISTANBUL – The scene is a Circassian restaurant off fabled Istiklal street in historic Beyoglu. On the table, a geopolitical banquet – served by some of the best independent analytical minds from Bursa to Diyarbakir. The menu, apart from a meze feast, is simple: only two broad questions about Sultan Erdogan’s approach to BRICS and to Syria.

Here’s a concise synopsis of our dinner – more relevant than a torrent of Western-manufactured word salads. Enjoy it with a hefty dose of the best arak. And let the table have the first – and last – word.

On BRICS: “Türkiye feels itself as part of the West. If we look at our political party leaderships and Turkish elites, right-wing or left-wing, there’s no difference. Maybe a little bit part of the East… Ankara is using its membership in BRICS as a bargaining chip against the West.”

Türkiye simultaneously could be a member of BRICS and NATO?

“Erdogan has no clear future plans. After Erdogan there’s no clear answer for the future of the AKP party. They could not establish a normal, permanent system. We have a governmental system just for Erdogan. We are receiving gas from Russia. We buy materials from China, assembling them in Turkish factories and selling them to Europe and the U.S. We have advantages in foreign trade compared to the EU, according to statistics published by the Turkish government. The biggest trade deficit is against Russia – and then China. This is our special position – and explains why Ankara does not want to lose the Eastern option. And at the same time we depend on the West to defend ourselves. All that explains our unique foreign policy behavior.”

So there’s no guarantee Ankara will agree to become a BRICS partner?

“No. But Ankara will not completely close the door to BRICS. Türkiye knows the West is losing its power. There are new dynamics, rising powers, but at the same time we are not a completely independent power.”

On the three pillars of Turkish society: “You can’t think about geopolitics without ideology. Erdogan and the AKP decided that it’s only possible to integrate Türkiye with a liberal-Islamist project. Almost two generations have grown with them – and they don’t know what happened before. They are neo-Ottomans, Islamists, pro-Arabization guys. In Türkiye, if someone openly supports Islamism, he is Arabized, ideologically. Here we have three pillars. The first one is a nationalist view – we have right Kemalism and left Kemalism. The other one is a Western perspective. And the third one is Islamist, also divided in two factions; one is nationalist and the other is liberal Islamist, integrated with Western institutions, NGOs and capital. That’s why we can say that wokeism and Islamism are different sides of the same coin. These guys are using the Turkish state to maneuver in the broader Middle Eastern geography – but in fact they are focused on Western-minded neoliberal economy, politics, society.”

Neo-Ottomanism, revived: “The West planned Syria together with them – the neo-Ottomans. During the Gaza war they kept sending oil to Israel, it was a P.R. thing for Erdogan, he needs to give this message to the grassroots anti-imperialist, Islamist part of Turkish society. The problem for Erdogan is that Türkiye is different from Arab countries, while Turkish capital is connected to the West, some of it connected with Russia, and Türkiye is dependent as much as 40% on Russian energy. Ankara needs to act in a balanced way, but that does not change the whole picture: Capital that supports Erdogan, and benefits from Erdogan, including 40% of the Turkish exports going to Europe. When it comes to BRICS, they can try to manage the relationship but they will never agree to join the BRICS directly.”

The Sultan never sleeps: “Erdogan is a pragmatist. Ideological. He can sell out the Palestinians – easily. He may be very powerful, and grasp how the state system works, but he does not enjoy total obedience from society to rule. That’s why he’s always aiming for some sort of balance.”

Can we say that with Greater Idlibistan under the control of Türkiye’s MIT – with Jolani as one of their main assets, if not the top asset – the MIT knew about the capabilities of HTS, and they knew this would stop in Aleppo?

“Not all the way to Damascus. That was the original plan. The aim of the operation was attacking the regime, The aim was not the conquest of Damascus. This was the best unexpected result of the attack. The military leadership of HTS said, “we lost our best warriors in the first moments of the operation”. But then came the collapse of the Syrian Army.”

So what does Erdogan really want? Rule over Aleppo or over the whole of Western Syria?

“Syria was part of the Ottoman empire. In his dreams, this is still the Ottoman empire. But he knows Türkiye’s limits in trying to rule over Syria – and the Arab world, enraged, could align against Türkiye. It’s possible – partly – to have a proxy government in Damascus. This is what Erdogan wanted from the Assad government only six months ago. Erdogan was begging to Assad, ‘please come to the table’. It turned out that he was actually sincere. Jolani said “we were really anxious that Assad would accept the offer by Erdogan’. This was the Assad government’s big mistake. Assad had already lost the ability to rule the country. Ankara never wanted the sudden collapse of the Assad government. To rule this chaos is not easy. And Türkiye does not have the military capacity to do it. HTS also does not. And without Türkiye HTS cannot survive.”

So Syria as a province of neo-Ottomanism is not gonna happen?

“This is not just Türkiye’s strategy. This is American and Israeli strategy – to cantonize Syria. So they achieved something, but it’s not finished. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. Remember before October 7, geopolitically no one could foresee what happened in Gaza. In Turkey’s case, this was a joint project. It began in 2011. The main goal was so obvious, to integrate Syria into the Western world. That failed, but the Americans stayed there, because they created a brand called ‘ISIS’, American investment in the Kurds, and in the end Türkiye, what they got was Idlib; it was necessary at the time, because Syria, Russia, Iran, they are not like the Americans or American-connected Islamists, they are not a destructive power. Step by step they wanted to “earn” Türkiye, with the Astana process. Türkiye in the end stuck with the American policy, they waited and waited and waited, and now they have something other than what they wanted. And that’s an alarming situation for Türkiye – because they don’t want Syria to be partitioned. It’s not even certain that the Americans will let Türkiye train the new Syrian army. The West now has total economic leverage.”

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

The post What Sultan Erdogan Is Really Up To appeared first on LewRockwell.

As the geopolitical order is being rapidly reshaped to better serve Elite interests, most analysts writing on the subject are being suckered into perceiving the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa recently expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) as some sort of ‘alternative’.

See, for example:

Ben Norton’s claim that ‘BRICS… will change the world’ in ‘BRICS expands with 9 new partner countries. Now it’s half of world population, 41% of global economy’.

Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs’ claim that ‘BRICS is… a potential opening for a far more peaceful and secure world order…. [and] can be a boon for all countries’ in ‘The BRICS Summit Should Mark the End of Neocon Delusions’.

And Abayomi Azikiwe’s claim that ‘BRICS represents a historical pattern of efforts to build alternatives to the existing world capitalist system…. BRICS Plus Summit is a manifestation of the international movement towards ending the domination of the world’s peoples by international finance capital.’ in ‘BRICS Declaration Reinforces Call for Multipolarity: Kazan summit rejects unilateralism advanced by the West’.

Of course, more astute analysts are clearly seeing through the facade and exposing how the BRICS countries are simply implementing the same technocratic program as countries outside the BRICS. See, for example, Riley Waggaman’s ‘Would you like to know what BRICS just declared?’

The point is simple: Beneath any superficial differences between what BRICS countries (sometimes now referred to as BRICS+ given the recent accession of another five members) might be doing that appears to be reshaping planetary geopolitics into a multipolar world order that will somehow supersede the US-led unipolar world order, lies a deeper and darker truth.

This truth is that the Global Elite is rapidly and progressively transforming the entire world into a planetary technocracy populated by transhuman slaves. This means that perceptions that are limited to longstanding worldviews that see the world as statist and/or capitalist/socialist, for example, miss or misperceive the profound changes that are taking place.

No government, including those of the BRICS countries, is resisting these profound changes. No government, including those of the BRICS countries, will resist these profound changes.

The geopolitical world does not revolve around sovereign nation-states because no nation is sovereign. That is, no government of a nation-state is able to exercise independent and ultimate authority over all of its (internal and external) affairs.

Of course, this has long been the case as explained by preeminent historian Professor Carroll Quigley in his classic work published in 1966. See Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. pp.5-6.

‘[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations…

‘It must not be felt that these heads of the world’s chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather, they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The substantive financial powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers (also called ‘international’ or ‘merchant’ bankers) who remained largely behind the scenes in their own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation and national dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks.’

Apart from Quigley’s extensive and invaluable book, you can read a reasonable summary of how Elite power – politically, economically, socially and militarily – was gained and is being exercised in Historical Analysis of the Global Elite: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing.’

Of course, in the case of ‘democratic’ countries at least, you are meant to believe that ‘your’ government is, indeed, free to make decisions governing your security and well-being and that you have certain rights, including voting rights, to have a say in determining the government of the country in which you live.

To conceal the reality that no nation is sovereign, governments have long been empowered to make decisions about minor matters (which may still have critical impact on some populations) that have no bearing on the fundamental Elite program while any significant ‘decisions’ made by governments are confined to endorsing Elite directives and mobilizing the relevant agents in government, bureaucracies, the media, the military and elsewhere to implement the latest components of the Elite program.

So until you recognize that governments at all levels – and the international institutions with which you are most familiar, starting with the United Nations and the World Health Organization – are merely window-dressing or ‘shadow puppets’ that are designed to distract you from the real bases of power in the world system, then you will continue to misunderstand what is happening, who is driving it and how it is being done. And any effort you make to resist the rampant violence and injustice inherent in what is happening, will fail.

And that is precisely what the Elite intends.

After all, the most effective way to thwart opposition to any program is to make sure that any potential opponents do not understand the rules of the game (including, in this case, who exercises effective power in the world system) while making sure that these potential opponents are given a lot of noisy and colorful distractions (such as regular elections and other party-political processes, not to mention art and sport in various forms) to keep the bulk of them occupied at the same time.

The recent US presidential election has been a perfect example of this distraction, with a vast range of commentary on a wide range of superficial changes and only the rarest analyst even noting the number and range of wealthy technocrats appointed by Donald Trump to play key roles in his new administration let alone explaining the significance of this.

In essence, it is better for the Elite to have you putting all your passion and energy into fighting on a field of battle that is utterly irrelevant and to keep you unaware of where the real battlefield lies.

What better way to neutralize all opposition than to have it focused on the wrong ‘game’?

The Rapidly Advancing Planetary Technocracy

While many authors have been discussing the rapid advance of the planetary technocracy in recent years, and specialists such as Patrick Wood have been warning us for much longer – see ‘Technocracy News & Trends’ – there is no doubt it remains a topic that is incredibly poorly understood.

Possible scenario of smart and sustainable mobility (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

This means that the threat posed by the changes being imposed on us go largely unrecognized. These invasive technologies include digital identity (to which will be attached your ‘social credit score’), Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), geofenced imprisonment in a ‘smart city’, 24-hour surveillance using three-dimensional facial recognition cameras (which capture your unique ‘face print’), spying on us through a vast network of ‘smart’ devices (computers, televisions, refrigerators… as well as social media platforms, smart street poles and lights) connected via 5G/6G and the Internet of Things, and controlling our movements through a parallel range of technologies including geofencing, driverless cars, vehicle kill switches, drones (used as aerial police), robots (including as a ‘deadly force option’) as well as autonomous and electromagnetic weapons. Beyond these threats, ‘vaccines’, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, geoengineering and other technologies are being used to reshape planetary life profoundly, to your detriment.

But if you do not already have a clear grasp of the historical origin and development of the technocratic dangers that are now rapidly undermining human life, identity, privacy, freedom and security you can get an excellent understanding from Patrick Wood’s most recent book on the subject The Evil Twins of Technocracy and Transhumanism or fine overviews in this recent article by Joshua Stylman ‘The Technocratic Blueprint: A Century in the Making’ or this two-part series by Jesse Smith:

‘Technocracy Ascending – Part 1: Why It’s Crucial to Understand the End Game’ and

‘Technocracy Ascending – Part 2: Trust Me, I’m a Technocrat’.

And if you still do not believe that BRICS and all other countries are implementing the Elite’s technocratic program, you can read more in articles such as these, starting with the recent BRICS summit declaration in October 2024:

BRICS Summit 2024 ‘Kazan Declaration: Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security’.

If you cannot immediately perceive the commitment of BRICS countries to the Elite’s technocracy, Riley Waggaman spells it out. See ‘Would you like to know what BRICS just declared?’

But Waggaman has also previously explained in some detail how the Russian government is busy imposing the Elite’s technocracy on Russians. See ‘Is Putin in cahoots with the globalists?’

As for China, in the words of Iain Davis, China is the world’s ‘first technate’. In fact, this has been systematically facilitated by the West following the rise to power of Deng Xiaoping after Mao’s death in 1976. China was effectively infiltrated by US members of the Trilateral Commission (known as ‘Trilateralists’) to influence the development path in China and, for example, since 1979 ‘The Israeli government and Israeli defence contractors have consistently acted as facilitators for the transfer of the most sensitive Western defence and surveillance technology to China.’ See ‘China: The World’s First Technate – Part 2’.

So if Russia and China are already advanced technocratic states, what about other BRICS countries?

Well, even if we consider just three of the most critical foundational components necessary to build a technocratic state – deployment of 5G, digital identity and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) – it turns out that the other BRICS countries are all well advanced.

Despite the well-documented electromagnetic dangers of 5G, the technology has already been extensively rolled out in these countries: ‘5G Progress Report: Brazil’, ‘5G rollout in India fastest in the world, officials say’ and ‘5G rocking in South Africa’.

Digital identity is also well advanced: ‘Digital version of Brazil’s new national identity card now available in some states’, ‘On biometric IDs, India is a “laboratory for the rest of the world”’ and ‘New digital ID system for South Africans – here’s what to expect’.

In relation to CBDCs, Brazil, India and South Africa all have advanced pilot programs or are in the process of implementation. See ‘Central Bank of Brazil Confirms It Will Run a Pilot Test for Its CBDC This Year’, ‘Government announces Digital Rupee: What is it and more’ and ‘South Africa Reserve Bank Commences Retail CBDC Feasibility Study’.

If you wonder about the most recent members of the BRICS, a quick search will confirm their heavy involvement in imposing the Elite’s technocracy, starting with the three foundational components nominated above. In relation to Iran, for example, deployment of 5G, digital identity and CBDCs is well advanced. See ‘4,000 sites to provide 5G internet in Iran by March 2025’, ‘Smart Government National Portal’ and ‘Iran central bank to launch digital currency on pilot basis’.

In summary, all national governments along with their relevant corporate allies are involved in the process of building the technocratic infrastructure that will, one day soon, enslave those of us left alive in a ‘smart city’ prison.

If you want further evidence, just do an internet search specifying a country and a technology (5G, digital ID, CBDCs, facial recognition, geofencing…) and/or check out the progress of your nearest city in its transformation into a ‘smart city’.

Defending Ourselves Against the Advancing Technocracy

It is going to take enormous effort to defend ourselves against the political, economic, social, technological and other changes which are now being rapidly imposed upon us.

This is because ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’, and virtually all humans are utterly submissive as an outcome of the violence they each suffered during childhood.

See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

And whether or not you act in response to other Elite projects being carried out in other parts of the world, resisting the advancing technocracy is crucial for your own future:

‘Fighting for Our Humanity, Fighting for Our Future’.

‘We Are Human We Are Free’ identifies the strategic action necessary to defend yourself from this technocracy (with critical actions explained,

most simply, on the ‘We Are Human We Are Free’ one-page flyer, available in 23 languages).

Conclusion

No government is free of Elite control. Governments are simply Elite agents doing what they are told by various Elite agents in banking, foreign policy, technology and other contexts.

Fundamentally, the Elite program is killing off the bulk of the human population and using a range of technologies to technocratically enslave those transhumans left alive in a ‘smart city’ prison.

This program advances rapidly while our ignorance and fear means that most people fail to perceive the true nature of the threats, who is driving them and what is necessary to resist them effectively.

This means that even those people who claim to be aware are usually trapped taking some powerless action (such as signing a petition to a government, changing their vote at the next election, demonstrating in the street) rather than acting powerfully to defend themselves against the Elite by resisting its imperatives.

The reality is that you can defend yourself quite effectively by taking the actions nominated in ‘We Are Human We Are Free’ but we need enough people taking these actions to defeat the entire program or the Elite will simply use its transhuman and robot agents to hunt us down once those who readily complied are already dead or imprisoned.

Our fight is with the Global Elite. Not your government, an international organization or anyone else.

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post The Geopolitics of Elite Insanity appeared first on LewRockwell.

Who would have thought the perfect answer to a question that has long eluded the experts and thought leaders among us would come from so unlikely a source as the newly-inaugurated 47th President of the United States? Or that of all the applause lines in a speech that garnered so many, his answer would prove to be the loudest and longest of all?

And yet, there you have it—Donald J. Trump, pronouncing definitively on the subject before an audience of millions. Was the world held spellbound, I wonder, when he told them that, really, there are only two genders? Did they exclaim, “Oh, what a concept you’ve given us, Mr. President! How positively revolutionary!”

All this, of course, was followed the very next day with an Executive Order officially putting an end to the toxic idiocy that there can be no limit placed on the number of genders people choose. End of story.

How wonderfully biblical our new president has become! What a lot of nerve he has shown, too, in returning the question to the Book of Genesis where it rightly belongs. Informing us that not only are we made in God’s image but that, in the clearest and most binary way, God chose to create us either male or female.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

There is no third way. The forced march in that direction has ended, triumphantly it would appear, in a ditch on the side of a road that goes nowhere. Thus has the door definitively closed on the idea of an ever-expanding field of gender fluidity. The illusion, so comforting to the dysphoric few, that gender is somehow a performative act, a mere social construct we build on our own dime, without reference to the sheer givenness of a reality that comes ready-made from the hand of God, has at last been shown the door. The conceit, so utterly absurd on the face of it, that gender is simply what we do and not what we are, has finally been put to rest.

There is a reality, in other words, and it exists even before we are moved to recognize and give it a name. We may not be reducible to our bodies, but we are surely rooted in them. And they remain, quite ineluctably, either male or female.

Thus, the whole meaning of being on which we depend, the very ground on which we stand—because it comes from God, even as it is mediated by and through the physical union of one man and one woman—is always a gift we receive. Indeed, it is a gift so precious and rare that we can never give it to ourselves.

We are not self-generated, in other words, and our contingent status under God cannot be co-opted by gender theorists, whose hatred of what they call “essentialism” has so consumed them that they are determined to supplant God Himself and the entire order of the universe He inscribed in our bodies. We cannot do as we please with our bodies, trading in one sex for another simply because we happen to prefer a different model. That way lies madness; and now, thanks to its repudiation from the highest elected official in the land, we can relax a bit, knowing the arrangement put in place by God has once again been upheld.

Yes, that madman Nietzsche was right when he told us that “Something came along and wiped away the horizon.” But it has done quite enough damage for now. The time has come to put away that eraser and begin to restore the horizon to where it belongs. And I, for one, do not mind thanking Trump for helping make it happen.

Read the Whole Article

The post How Many Genders Have We Got? appeared first on LewRockwell.

“If one company or small group of people manages to develop godlike digital superintelligence, they could take over the world. At least when there’s an evil dictator, that human is going to die. But for an AI, there would be no death. It would live forever. And then you’d have an immortal dictator from which we can never escape.”—Elon Musk (2018)

The Deep State is about to go turbocharged.

While the news media fixates on the extent to which Project 2025 may be the Trump Administration’s playbook for locking down the nation, there is a more subversive power play taking place under cover of Trump’s unique brand of circus politics.

Take a closer look at what’s unfolding, and you will find that all appearances to the contrary, Trump isn’t planning to do away with the Deep State. Rather, he was hired by the Deep State to usher in the golden age of AI.

Get ready for Surveillance State 2.0.

To achieve this turbocharged surveillance state, the government is turning to its most powerful weapon yet: artificial intelligence. AI, with its ability to learn, adapt, and operate at speeds unimaginable to humans, is poised to become the engine of this new world order.

Over the course of 70 years, the technology has developed so rapidly that it has gone from early computers exhibiting a primitive form of artificial intelligence to machine learning (AI systems that learn from historic data) to deep learning (machine learning that mimics the human brain) to generative AI, which can create original content, i.e., it appears able to think for itself.

What we are approaching is the point of no return.

In tech speak, this point of no return is more aptly termed “singularity,” the point at which AI eclipses its human handlers and becomes all-powerful. Elon Musk has predicted that singularity could happen by 2026. AI scientist Ray Kurzweil imagines it happening it closer to 2045.

While the scientific community has a lot to say about the world-altering impact of artificial intelligence on every aspect of our lives, little has been said about its growing role in government and its oppressive effect on our freedoms, especially “the core democratic principles of privacy, autonomy, equality, the political process, and the rule of law.”

According to a report from Accenture, it is estimated that across both the public and private sectors, generative AI has the potential to automate a significant portion of jobs across various sectors.

Here’s a thought: what if Trump’s pledge to cut the federal work force isn’t really about eliminating government bureaucracy but outsourcing it to the AI tech sector?

Certainly, Trump has made no secret of his plans to make AI a priority. Indeed, Trump signed the first-ever Executive Order on AI in 2019. More recently, Trump issued an executive order giving the technology sector a green light to develop and deploy AI without any guardrails in place to limit the risks it might pose to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety.

President Biden was no better, mind you. His executive order, which Trump repealed, merely instructed the tech sector to share the results of AI safety tests with the U.S. government.

Yet following much the same pattern that we saw with the rollout of drones, while the government has been quick to avail itself of AI technology, it has done little to nothing to ensure that rights of the American people are protected.

Indeed, we are altogether lacking any guardrails for transparency, accountability and adherence to the rule of law when it comes to the government’s use of AI.

As Karl Manheim and Lyric Kaplan point out in a chilling article in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology about the risks to privacy and democracy posed by AI, “[a]rtificial intelligence is the most disruptive technology of the modern era… Its impact is likely to dwarf even the development of the internet as it enters every corner of our lives… Advances in AI herald not just a new age in computing, but also present new dangers to social values and constitutional rights. The threat to privacy from social media algorithms and the Internet of Things is well known. What is less appreciated is the even greater threat that AI poses to democracy itself.”

Cue the rise of “digital authoritarianism” or “algocracy—rule by algorithm.”

In an algocracy, “Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, CEOs of Facebook and Google, have more control over Americans’ lives and futures than do the representatives we elect.”

Digital authoritarianism, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies cautions, involves the use of information technology to surveil, repress, and manipulate the populace, endangering human rights and civil liberties, and co-opting and corrupting the foundational principles of democratic and open societies, “including freedom of movement, the right to speak freely and express political dissent, and the right to personal privacy, online and off.”

How do we protect our privacy against the growing menace of overreach and abuse by a technological sector working with the government?

The ability to do so may already be out of our hands.

In 2024, at least 37 federal government agencies ranging from the Departments of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to Health and Human Services reported more than 1700 uses of AI in carrying out their work, double from the year before. That does not even begin to touch on agencies that did not report their usage, or usage at the state and local levels.

Of those 1700 cases at the federal level, 227 were labeled rights- or safety-impacting.

A particularly disturbing example of how AI is being used by government agencies in rights- and safety-impacting scenarios comes from an investigative report by The Washington Post on how law enforcement agencies across the nation are using “artificial intelligence tools in a way they were never intended to be used: as a shortcut to finding and arresting suspects without other evidence.”

This is what is referred to within tech circles as “automation bias,” a tendency to blindly trust decisions made by powerful software, ignorant to its risks and limitations. In one particular case, police used AI-powered facial recognition technology to arrest and jail a 29-year-old man for brutally assaulting a security guard. It would take Christopher Gatlin two years to clear his name.

Gatlin is one of at least eight known cases nationwide in which police reliance on AI facial recognition software has resulted in resulted in wrongful arrests arising from an utter disregard for basic police work (such as checking alibis, collecting evidence, corroborating DNA and fingerprint evidence, ignoring suspects’ physical characteristics) and the need to meet constitutional standards of due process and probable cause. According to The Washington Post, “Asian and Black people were up to 100 times as likely to be misidentified by some software as White men.”

The numbers of cases in which AI is contributed to false arrests and questionable police work is likely much higher, given the extent to which police agencies across the country are adopting the technology and will only rise in the wake of the Trump Administration’s intent to shut down law enforcement oversight and policing reforms.

“How do I beat a machine?” asked one man who was wrongly arrested by police for assaulting a bus driver based on an incorrect AI match.

It is becoming all but impossible to beat the AI machine.

When used by agents of the police state, it leaves “we the people” even more vulnerable.

So where do we go from here?

For the Trump Administration, it appears to be full steam ahead, starting with Stargate, a $500 billion AI infrastructure venture aimed at building massive data centers. Initial reports suggest that the AI data centers could be tied to digital health records and used to develop a cancer vaccine. Of course, massive health data centers for use by AI will mean that one’s health records are fair game for any and all sorts of identification, tracking and flagging.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The surveillance state, combined with AI, is creating a world in which there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. We’re all presumed guilty until proven innocent now.

Thanks to the 24/7 surveillance being carried out by the government’s sprawling spy network of fusion centers, we are all just sitting ducks, waiting to be tagged, flagged, targeted, monitored, manipulated, investigated, interrogated, heckled and generally harassed by agents of the American police state.

Without having ever knowingly committed a crime or been convicted of one, you and your fellow citizens have likely been assessed for behaviors the government might consider devious, dangerous or concerning; assigned a threat score based on your associations, activities and viewpoints; and catalogued in a government database according to how you should be approached by police and other government agencies based on your particular threat level.

Before long, every household in America will be flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score.

It’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence.

It’s a setup ripe for abuse.

Writing for the Yale Journal, Manheim and Kaplan conclude that “[h]umans may not be at risk as a species, but we are surely at risk in terms of our democratic institutions and values.”

Privacy­—Manheim and Kaplan succinctly describe it as “the right to make personal decisions for oneself, the right to keep one’s personal information confidential, and the right to be left alone are all ingredients of the fundamental right of privacy”— is especially at risk.

Indeed, with every new AI surveillance technology that is adopted and deployed without any regard for privacy, Fourth Amendment rights and due process, the rights of the citizenry are being marginalized, undermined and eviscerated.

We teeter on the cusp of a cultural, technological and societal revolution the likes of which have never been seen before.

AI surveillance is already re-orienting our world into one in which freedom is almost unrecognizable by doing what the police state lacks the manpower and resources to do efficiently or effectively: be everywhere, watch everyone and everything, monitor, identify, catalogue, cross-check, cross-reference, and collude.

As Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO remarked, “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about… Your digital identity will live forever… because there’s no delete button.”

The ramifications of any government wielding such unregulated, unaccountable power are chilling, as AI surveillance provides the ultimate means of repression and control for tyrants and benevolent dictators alike.

Indeed, China’s social credit system, where citizens are assigned scores based on their behavior and compliance, offers a glimpse into this dystopian future.

This is not a battle against technology itself, but against its misuse. It’s a fight to retain our humanity, our dignity, and our freedom in the face of unprecedented technological power. It’s a struggle to ensure that AI serves us, not the other way around.

Faced with this looming threat, the time to act is now, before the lines between citizen and subject, between freedom and control, become irrevocably blurred.

The future of freedom depends on it.

So demand transparency. Demand accountability.

Demand an Electronic Bill of Rights that protects “we the people” from the encroaching surveillance state.

We need safeguards in place to ensure the right to data ownership and control (the right to know what data is being collected about them, how it’s being used, who has access to it, and the right to be “forgotten”); the right to algorithmic transparency (to understand how algorithms that affect them make decisions, particularly in areas like loan applications, job hiring, and criminal justice) and due process accountability; the right to privacy and data security, including restrictions on government and corporate use of AI-powered surveillance technologies, particularly facial recognition and predictive policing; the right to digital self-determination (freedom from automated discrimination based on algorithmic profiling) and the ability to manage and control one’s online identity and reputation; and effective mechanisms to seek redress for harms caused by AI systems.

AI deployed without any safeguards in place to protect against overreach and abuse, especially within government agencies, has the potential to become what Elon Musk described as an “immortal dictator,” one that lives forever and from which there is no escape.

Whatever you choose to call it—the police state, the Deep State, the surveillance state—this “immortal dictator” will be the future face of the government unless we rein it in now.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, next year could be too late.

This originally appeared on The Rutherford Institute.

The post The Rise of the Immortal Dictator: What Will AI Mean for Freedom and Government? appeared first on LewRockwell.

It’s the second of five New Years here on the Far Side, and yet another national holiday. I’ve changed the bed linens, trimmed my hair and nails, put on my new red shirt, stuffed ang pao (red envelopes) full of cash for the youngsters, baked bread and brownies, put up the paper lanterns, and helped with Mrs. FarSide’s spring cleaning (stayed out of the way).

Welcome to the year 4723, or the Year of the Yin Green Wood Snake. If Chinese astrology has anything to say about it, this will be an exciting year. As you will see in a moment, it’s no mistake that China has announced DeepSeek and sustained fusion at this particular moment.

The Lunar New Year is something to behold. I say “lunar,” because it is based on a lunar calendar, and also because it is not limited to China. Most if not all of the Orient celebrate this event in some form or another.

Chinese astrology is a very complex thing. While the West has an annual cycle of 12 signs representing the zodiacal constellations, the East has 12 animal characters (Earthly Stems) each representing one lunar year, or a cycle of 12 years. The animal symbols have unique characteristics based on the 10 Heavenly Stems of Eastern cosmology. It appears the 12-year cycle may be based on the orbit of Jupiter, which is 12 years long.

But that’s not all!

Each 12-year cycle falls under one of the five elements: fire, water, wood, metal, and earth, with each element having a yin and yang polarity (10 Heavenly Stems). We are currently in the wood cycle, representing growth, vitality and renewal. This pattern results in a longer 60-year Ganzhi Cycle, as each element gets its own 12-year cycle. Each element also has its own color, with wood being green, that figures into the mix.

Just to make things more fun, each day is divided into 12 segments ruled by one of the signs, and each month is dominated by one of the signs similar to the Western system.

Furthermore, each year is polarized as either yin (feminine) or yang (masculine). Yin represents the Moon, passivity, darkness, intuition, coolness, rest and inward focus. Yin symbolizes the nurturing, receptive, and yielding aspects of life.

All of these influences are taken into account when scheduling meetings and events, special occasions and even choice of mate. The Chinese are an especially superstitious lot, and I’ve had to amend plans to accommodate the stars when setting meetings, negotiating contracts, and launching projects. Knowing all this can be a useful tool when doing business particularly in China.

How all this affects the individual depends on one’s compatibility with the Snake and Wood. For example, I am a Metal Ox. Metal controls (cuts) Wood, and Wood refines Metal. The Ox and Snake are compatible signs. Thus, this year should be beneficial to me, with balanced energy and focus.

Chinese mundane horoscopes reveal trends, benefits and challenges on a global and societal scale.

On the plus side, the Wood element represents growth, flexibility, and renewal. It encourages creativity, strategic thinking, and opportunities for collective development. However, as a Yin year, this growth is more gradual, introspective, and methodical rather than fast-paced or forceful (Trump take note).

The Snake is associated with intelligence, adaptability, and secrecy. This could mean a year of careful planning, thoughtful actions, and subtle shifts rather than bold moves. People may need to rely on intuition and strategic foresight to navigate challenges.

The color green, tied to Wood, symbolizes harmony, renewal, and healing. It may also bring an environmental focus, encouraging natural practices and nurturing relationships.

On the minus side, the Snake’s shadow nature involves hidden motives and potential manipulations. There may be an atmosphere of intrigue or secrecy, requiring vigilance in personal and professional relationships.

Yin Wood energy is flexible, but can also be overly passive or indecisive. It may take effort to avoid stagnation or missed opportunities.

The Western mundane horoscope highlights technological innovation via the trine of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto; Uranus retrograde in Taurus suggests financial reform; the North Node transit into Pisces highlights a collective move toward spiritual growth and cultural renewal.

Notice that in both systems, the themes of growth and renewal are key aspects for the year. How do two wildly different systems arrive at the same conclusions? Curiouser and curiouser.

So, what we can glean from all this is the Chinese view 2025 as a year for strategic planning and subtlety. Whatever you think of astrology, I guarantee this system is influencing Chinese national and individual actions and decisions. Folks doing business in or with Chinese entities can use this information to guide interactions toward successful outcomes.

Regardless of what you think about all this, and my own views are rather complex, it is embedded in the culture. To some extent, these ancient concepts sit at the core of our collective thinking and behavior.

An interesting line of inquiry in this regard is whether astrology prompts us to see non-existent patterns, or is there actual influence via electro-magnetic forces on individuals and societies? There are compelling arguments either way.

In any case, there is advantage in knowing what guides an opponent.

恭喜发财 (gong xi fa cai)!

This originally appeared on Radio Far Side.

The post Enter the Snake appeared first on LewRockwell.

That’s the sound of a swamp being drained. And much fetid water is still backed up over the 68.3 square miles that comprise the District of Columbia. You might be just realizing that the “Joe Biden” regime was not a government at all, but rather, a colossal racketeering operation. And let’s be clear and precise: racketeering is making money dishonestly. Thus: the grubby Biden Family itself at the top of that putrid food-chain, and their smalltime harvesting of mere table-scraps. Where trillions got creamed off by the big gators, the Bidens risked all for a measly few million, like newts gorging on gnats in a drainage ditch.

Are you so cynical— as the Marxians are in their so-called “critique” of capitalism — that you think all human transactions of making-and-doing are dishonest? That is yet another misreading of reality, which the recent years of nonstop official propaganda and gaslight have catastrophically aggravated to the degree that half of America can no longer think at all.

Capitalism is not a political ideology despite the “ism” incorrectly attached to it, like the tail pinned on a donkey. Capitalism is simply the management of surplus wealth. The catch is, in a hyper-complex society, the management itself becomes complex to an extreme. And that can easily lead to mismanagement, which will deform and pervert the very mechanisms that superintend wealth, sometimes so badly that the wealth disappears altogether.

These are the dynamics faced by the newborn Trump command. Both political parties, per se, have fallen into a dismal habit of racketeering in this sclerotic state-of-empire. But now Mr. Trump has seized control of the Republican apparatus, at least, and the Party’s entrenched ol’ crocs and pythons descry that under DJT the regular feeding frenzy is over. Hence: the hand-wringing over Pete Hegseth setting foot in the Pentagon, as he will sometime this dawning day. The dollars pounded down that rat-hole in this century could have funded start-ups of several empires, but instead the swag just landed in the index funds of countless board members parasitically lodged in a dark cosmos of G.I. procurement circle-jerks. A lot of that can and will be stopped. And the ones who just won’t quit are liable to be found out.

Now, the Democratic Party faces more perplexing quandaries. It, too, is constructed as a gigantic grift machine. But if you subtract the employees of the multitudinous NGOs and non-profit orgs set up in recent years to receive government largess — which have spawned like smelts in the San Joaquin delta — you would eliminate much of the party’s rank-and-file. (The rest are apparently embedded in government itself and the teachers’ union.) A whole lot of activists would lose their platforms for activism in the process.

These crypto-bureaucracies have become the places where the Democratic Party stashes the “elite over-production” of Woked-up Marxian semi-morons from America’s diploma mills — in which orgs they are lavishly paid to conduct the aforementioned propaganda and gaslighting operations that wrecked so many American minds. The funding spigot to many of those is getting shut down. It will result in an employment crunch for a large cohort of professional crybabies. They could possibly adapt to their new circumstances by ceasing to be crybabies, and finding other, more useful things to do. That would portend some very significant cultural shiftings, which might include the death of the Democratic Party as we’ve known it. Or, they could all just join Antifa (if they’re not already in it) and go make trouble in the streets.

The first seven days of Mr. Trump have been sheer razzle-dazzle. He and the people around him have torn through the zeitgeist like front-end-loaders through a homeless encampment. He has yet to meet a crisis. Some of the obvious traps are avoidable. For instance: seeking further injury to Russia as a way of ending the stupid Ukraine war — started by us in 2014, thanks a lot Victoria Nuland & Company — since both the US and Russia are just about unconditionally desirous of stopping the damn thing as soon as possible. It’s had no benefit for anybody but the Raytheon war lobby and the Zelensky regime’s legion of grifters. Mr. Trump’s recent tough talk has been entirely for show, just a mass of rhetorical lube to un-stick the lingering “Joe Biden” stasis in that sad-sack corner of the world.

If crisis awaits, it’s probably lurking in the financial realm, where the operations of debt have put nearly every country on Gawd’s Green Earth behind the eight-ball. There is just too much of it that everybody knows can’t possibly be paid back — or soon even serviced — and the grand managers of these matters are finally out of tricks for pretending things can go on. Nor, here in America, can Mr. Trump cut spending fast enough to rebalance accounts. And if he somehow could, government employment has become such a big piece of the total economy that we would land post-haste in a new great depression That predicament is yet-to-be faced, but hold your breath because it is hard upon us.

Meanwhile, this is the week when the most hardcore of Mr. Trump’s cabinet warriors go ‘splainin’ before committees in the US Senate: Bobby Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel. Prepare for some heat and light. And then, the deluge.

Reprinted with permission from JamesHowardKunstler.com.

The post Glug Glug. . . . appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Archbishop Elizabeth Warren Delivers the Sacramental Benediction at RFK Jr. Confirmation Hearing appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Child rape gang plunged to depths of human depravity, says judge.

The post “Not Asians, not Muslims, not immigrants “sick people are in every race, religion, national origin.Child rape gang plunged to depths of human depravity, says judge appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Chris Sullivan. 

The post China’s DeepSeek Disrupts AI Industry & The Future of Tech appeared first on LewRockwell.

The first week of President Trump’s second term has been a whirlwind – a marked contrast of when he first took office in 2017. What has he achieved? Is there more than hype and spin? Are expectations too high? Can he fulfill his promises?

The post Week One, Trump 2.0: How’d He Do? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Swiss official who jailed journalist Ali Abunimah is fanatical pro-Israel activist.

The Grayzone

The post Swiss official who jailed journalist Ali Abunimah is fanatical pro-Israel activist appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Lindsey Graham: Senate needs to investigate Trump decision to pull John Bolton’s security.

The post “One war monger worries about another war monger” appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

The Kennedy Beacon

The post Farmers Unite Behind Kennedy to Lead HHS appeared first on LewRockwell.

In the beginning, there was the photograph, and the photograph was still and without life. And the people lined up for portraits saying, “Behold, these photographs are flat and lifeless. We want three realistic dimensions!”

And so two photographs of the same scene from slightly different angles were caused to be placed in a diaphanoscope, and lo! objects looked real and the images had depth. But the people were not satisfied and cried out as one for motion in their pictures.

Then stacks of slightly different photographs were arranged and flipped to create the illusion of motion, and the nickelodeon was given unto the people. The people were sorely amazed and demanded feature-length versions that told stories.

And so images were lined up on celluloid strips and run through a special lantern that projected the images on the wall, and they appeared to move as unto real life. But alas, there was no sound, and the people were vexed and despondent, and they spaketh a curse unto the wizards.

Until one day, a box came into the world that magically carried sound from distant lands and reproduced it in the people’s homes. The masses were dazzled and gathered round the boxes, listening to stories and news of far-off lands. “Behold!” they cried. “We can be transported to false worlds, and false worlds can invade our minds!”

But lo, the people were still not satisfied and demanded that the sounds have pictures, and the pictures have sounds that are synced together and can kill two hours on a Saturday afternoon.

And so the wizards gathered in their sacred labs and fiddled and puttered with lanterns and boxes until one day, a miracle occurred. A troubadour called Al of Jolson appeared at a cinema near you. He sangth jazz and his voice was heard to sync with his lips, and the people fell down and bought popcorn unlike any concession sales ever before.

But soon the people tired of synced sound and pictures. They went unto the wizards and demanded that realistic color be added unto the magic projections. And so the wizards toiled night and day until they produced Becky Sharp, that combined motion film with radio boxes using color that was Techni. The people cheered and spent money like unto drunken sailors. The wizards took their loot and bought wands of wood that were holly, and maketh feature films about themselves that the people cherished and adored.

But it was not enough, never enough. “Verily,” the people cried out, “we love the content, but we want it in the comfort of our homes, like unto radio boxes, where we may partake of frozen dinners and gather the clan before flickering Light of Entrancement.”

The wizards were sorely amazed. “We give these people lights, sounds and color, yet they demand more and better. Their thirst cannot be slaken but that we transmit our wizardry into their very homes on multiple channels night and day!”

Whereupon a mighty wizard called Philo of the tribe of Farnsworth came forth and said, “Behold! I have found The Way. I have merged the cinema and the radio box, to transmit color, sound and lights through the aether! I shall call it vision of the tele.”

The wizards were astounded and gave Philo grants, investments and cigars, and the new boxes were shipped as fast as they could be assembled.

And the people cried out as one, “Lo! Thou hast done it, you old dog you!” And they flocked in great numbers to stores of departments, and bought the magic boxes by the truckloads. Soon there were dramas and sitcoms and variety shows on regular schedules, and the Guide of TV became their new sacred text, and the money poured into the wizards’ treasuries like manna from heaven.

The people were hypnotized for a time, and placated they were. But soon they tired of reruns and were not content to sit passively upon the sofa, with their operas interrupted by commercials for soap.

And so the wizards gathered again. “Hark, the people stir and are bored with our tricks. They gather at our doors with pitch forks and torches demanding the power to interact with the magic boxes.”

And so the wizards laboured around the clock until one day they gathered before the cameras of video and held aloft The Pong. “Verily we say unto you, we have created games of video. Now you can interact with your magic box for hours at a time, and your children and their children shall gain pounds of flesh and become pale and sickly staring at our mighty creation!”

And the people sat slack-jawed upon their sofas, only their thumbs were seen to move.

And so this dynamic interaction went on until the magic boxes got smaller, and portable, with higher resolution and faster frame rates until the people had forgotten the days with ears of rabbits. And the boxes merged with telephones and calendars and mail of the electronic kind. The wizards created networks that the people may carry their magic boxes on commuter trains and in public spaces, and annoy each other with unwanted distractions.

Then one day the Great Convergence happened, with virtual signs and wonders in the heavens. The wizards, sorely beleaguered by press releases and upgrades, created magic glass that could be worn upon the eyes. The glass projected hyperimages of glorious supersaturated color and 7.1 Surround Sound in the Golden Ratio of 16 cubits by 9 cubits directly into the eyes and ears. These bits of glass could be worn anywhere, at any time, and the content choices were without end.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Wellspring of Eternity appeared first on LewRockwell.

The eminent Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus in a biography of his illustrious father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agrippa famously wrote “Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.” Which translates in the Loeb Classical Library edition as “To plunder, butcher, steal, these things they misname empire: they make a desolation and they call it peace.” Lord Byron, in his poem the Bride of Abydos, rendered the Tacitus Latin as “Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease! He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace.” Per Tacitus’ no doubt second hand account , the words were originally spoken by the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus who was addressing his assembled warriors concerning Rome’s insatiable appetite for conquest and plunder. The chieftain’s sentiment can be contrasted to pax in terra “peace on earth” which was sometimes inscribed on Roman medals (phalera) awarded to soldiers returning from the imperial wars.

Tacitus’ description of the First Century Roman Empire using a metaphor should strike a chord for modern American observers of the carnage taking place in the Middle East. The only question would be whether the description better fits Israel or the United States. Or, perhaps, does it apply to both since the two nations have lately in practice been governed out of Tel Aviv? Israel is an ethno-religious state that aspires to regional dominance to create what is referred to as Eretz Israel, Greater Israel, a nation state based on the apartheid view that only Jews, as being chosen by God, can rule and have full rights in the area that they control. The modern vision of what that would include as imagined by extremist advocates of the Jewish state’s expansion would stretch from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq, together with South Lebanon to the Litani River. Nations like Jordan and Syria would be absorbed in the process an there would be no Palestinians.

Some observers are supporting the theory that Donald Trump, who subordinated actual US interests to those of Israel during his first term in office, will now play hard ball with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if only to maintain his self-proclaimed reputation as a champion of world peace, solving international conflicts through making “deals” rather than by fighting. Brokering a deal on Israel-Palestine would be an achievement that has proven to be beyond the reach of every previous administration and it would surely earn him the Nobel Peace Prize. His initial position in 2016 was precisely that, to make a deal that would be acceptable to both sides, until the Israel Lobby punished him for it and forced him to back down.

Indeed, Trump is now pulling one of his characteristic one step forward two steps back with his proposal that Gaza should be made free of Gazans who should be conveniently moved to Jordan and Egypt “to clean out the whole thing.” That would be something like a perfect solution for Benjamin Netanyahu but the proposal has not been well received in either Amman or Cairo. Nevertheless, Trump certainly deserves a great deal of credit for what he has achieved. His supporters point to the recently initiated ceasefire with Gaza which came about due to Trump’s pressure on Netanyahu delivered in an impromptu visit by special emissary Steve Witkoff, succeeding in a objective that the clueless and genocide enabling Biden administration failed at for 15 months. While it is true that Witkoff induced a reluctant Netanyahu to accept a temporary ceasefire, possible off the table concessions to Israel that made the deal work have not been revealed. Israel’s special seat at the American Foreign Policy table remains in place evidently, with a recent Trump initiative to suspend all foreign aid for ninety days included Ukraine but exempted Israel. Indeed, the working level of Trump’s administration is measurably more rabidly pro-Zionist than were their counterparts under Joe Biden. The new Ambassador to Israel Ziocon Mike Huckabee denies that Palestinians even exist and sounds a lot like a settler leader which makes one wonder whether he will defend American interests at all. If push comes to shove the new men and women who have taken over will not only support the annexation of some or all of West Bank but also do nothing to stop or mitigate the restarting of the Gaza genocide.

At the same time, there are several incentives for Trump to want to avoid returning to the Biden-era genocide. Surrounding himself with pro-Israel fanatics won’t help, but two other factors may still play into the decision making, most notably US public opinion, which continues to shift toward Palestine and away from Israel and the possibility that Trump will get into a direct personal conflict with Netanyahu, who has been able to publicly ignore and even humiliate the White House for the last four years without any consequences. Given the respective egos, any disagreement between the two could easily escalate into a real rupture. Trump is not a career politician with decades of subservience to powerful lobbies and he also can’t run again for office. Global and national opinion is rapidly shifting against Israel, including among his MAGA base, with figures like Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens calling out Israel firsters as promoting policies that are antithetical to their values. If Israel continues its assault on all Palestine and the whole region with massive US financial and military support, it could hurt Trump’s popularity and legacy. Of course, Mossad provided videos or photos of him with a minor on Epstein Island or similar, if they exist, might be enough to keep him in line but that could well be the only thing that would constitute an off switch.

Against all of that, Netanyahu has told his supporters and political allies that the United States will support Israel if it opts to suspend the unpopular ceasefire and resume the onslaught due to “Hamas violations,” which will almost certainly be contrived or even cunningly false flagged. In fact, Netanyahu is already doing just that to inhibit the return of the north Gazans to their ruined homes. Hamas will be careful to avoid falling further into Bibi’s trap, but Israel’s propaganda mill is far more effective at reaching a global audience than is that of the Palestinians and the narrative will surely be muddied. Israel is also covering all based by maintaining its occupation of southern Lebanon, which was supposed to end on Sunday January 26th, in a ceasefire and truce that was set up and guaranteed by Washington, without a peep coming out of the Trump administration even though the Israeli Army has been shooting and killing Lebanese trying to return to their homes. Israel has also expanded its occupation of the Golan and Mount Hermon areas in neighboring Syria. However most significantly, Netanyahu has stepped-up pressure on Palestinian areas in the West Bank as a preparation for full annexation within the next year. Israeli snipers and army units have been killing Palestinians in Jenin and surrounding districts and have also stormed the center of the town using tanks and airstrikes, essentially shifting the slaughter in Gaza to a massacre on the West Bank while the ceasefire holds.

Again, there has not been one harsh word out of Washington over the Jenin killings and the White House has even lifted the sanctions on extremist settler groups on the West Bank that have made Palestinian lives so miserable as to encourage them to emigrate. Jews-only Israeli roads cris-cross the West Bank with armed soldiers and police manning check points and I have recently learned that Palestinians are not even allowed to collect rainwater to water their crops! The water belongs to Israel! And beyond that, the new administration has apparently rewarded Netanyahu by lifting a ban on the supplying of certain categories of weapons that the Biden administration had blocked, including 1800 of the devastating MK-84 2,000 pound bombs that have so effectively destroyed Gaza.

Iran, which is the ultimate target of Israel and possibly of the United States as well judging from “discussions” that have apparently taken place, is very much aware of what is going on and is making preparations for war by concealing and going deep underground with its vital military and energy related sites. Interestingly, however, the principal claim being made by both Israel and US government hawks like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that Tehran might develop a nuclear weapon within a week if it chooses to do so has been denied by the outgoing CIA Director William Burns, who claims that the Iranians have no nukes and have no capability to quickly produce them, nor do they have any desire to acquire a nuclear weapon.

The upside to the ceasefire in Gaza is that some Palestinians apart from those who are being blocked have been able to return to their homes, 92% of which have been destroyed or badly damaged, to dig up the bodies of the families and neighbors. Food trucks, under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, are indeed beginning to arrive in much larger numbers for the starving Gazan population that remains. But if Israel renews its assault on Gaza it would be able to stop the humanitarian aid literally overnight, as it has done in the past.

So what could happen? If Israel continues to go carry out its plans of ethnic cleansing, genocide, territorial expansion and foreign aggression with unconditional US support, this may motivate other countries and some international institutions to continue turning against Israel, particularly as US power and influence are in rapid decline due to the rise of China and BRICS. All these trends are already underway: the questions is how fast they will develop into policies. But a renewed Israeli attack on an already devastated Gaza fueled by billions of US dollars could result in more and wider popular protest in the US in spite of government efforts to suppress pro-Palestinian protesters. It will also mean that the new phase of conflict will become Trump’s war, not Biden’s or Harris’ meaning that Democrats who stayed silent so as not to hurt the new administration will suddenly have a powerful incentive to criticize it. Alternatively, Trump is in a unique position to have “Nixon-goes-to-China moment,” which would have tremendous upsides for him politically and personally. Of course, Israel and its supporters would rise up in anger (they’ve killed people for less), but changing US and global public opinion could make the difference this time around if there is anyone in the White House who is listening.

Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.

The post What Comes Next on the Greater Israel Agenda? appeared first on LewRockwell.

On Tuesday, Peter went live with analysis of this week’s major events. Most notably, he comments on Joe Biden’s controversial final acts as president and on Trump’s return to the Oval Office. He also analyzes the prospects for Trump’s second term and bashes the newly-inaugurated president for promoting a new cryptocurrency bearing his name.

Peter slams Biden’s mass pardons, which constitute a blatant abuse of presidential powers:

The problematic aspect of these pardons is people are not being pardoned of a crime that they’ve been convicted of, or even a crime that they’ve been charged with. People are being pardoned who have never been charged with anything. Basically what Biden is saying is if any of these individuals did anything wrong at any point over the last 11 years, I pardon them for whatever they might have done that I don’t even know that they did, that somebody might discover that they did, which I think is a real abuse of the whole system of a pardon to just preemptively pardon people. 

Not to be outdone in the controversy department, Peter explained why he considers Trump’s creation of a “meme coin” both unseemly and unwise:

But it’s not just former President Biden, I think, that was acting inappropriately in the days leading up to the inauguration. Donald Trump also, I think, was very inappropriate in the launching of his meme coin, the Trump coin, which came out on Friday evening. And just as inappropriate, the Melania coin, which I think came out the following day, was it Saturday or Sunday, I forget, but over the weekend, both these coins came out. And I really think it is shameless. I think it diminishes the office of the president for Donald Trump to be profiting in this way off of his presidential win.

Some argue it’s just harmless hype, but Peter warns that many Trump supporters will be duped by this coin:

Some people have already made a tremendous amount of money. The people that got in really early that were prepared for it and knew about it, bought them and flipped them and made millions and millions of dollars. But whatever money is made equals the money that’s lost by a lot of other people. The people that voted for Trump, the people that Donald Trump supposedly cares about, a lot of them are going to lose money.

Shifting gears, Peter noted how tech giants are swarming to the White House and forming new ventures under the president’s watch. To him, this cozy relationship may signal genuine investment or simply a hedge against an unpredictable economy:

You’ve got all these CEOs that are cozying up to Donald Trump and at first blush, you would think, oh, this is great. This is a pro-business president and so it’s good that all these businessmen want to be so tight with the president. Well, I don’t necessarily look at it that way. You got to see the other side of the coin. One of the reasons that a lot of businessmen want to get into the president’s good favor is because they’re afraid of him. On the other hand, he could do something that will help them, because I think Donald Trump intends to try to micromanage parts of the economy from the Oval Office to try to pick winners and losers, his own version of central planning.

Next, he touches on the newly-repealed ban on liquified natural gas (LNG) exports, a hot-button issue in energy policy, underscoring how shifts in regulation can impact inflation and supply dynamics:

It’s a good thing that they reversed it, but it does mean higher natural gas prices because one of the reasons that I think the Biden administration wanted to prevent us from exporting our natural gas is to keep more of it here. And that would reduce the price because we’d have greater supply. But if we’re allowed to export that supply to Europe, then that’s less domestic supply. And that means higher prices. 

Finally, Peter runs through some of Trump’s more eye-catching executive orders, which have stirred the economic pot in the US. He especially notes the national emergency at the southern border and the folly of renaming geographical landmarks:

He did declare a national emergency on the southern border. This is separate from the drugs– just to keep the immigrants from coming in. I guess they’re going to try to step up the efforts on the border. … The Gulf of America could mean South America too. It doesn’t necessarily mean the United States. It could have called it the Gulf of the United States. I don’t know the significance of that stuff, but again, this is form over substance. We have real serious problems in this country, and they’re not going to be solved by renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

This originally appeared on SchiffGold.com.

The post Will Trump Achieve a Golden Age? appeared first on LewRockwell.