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TCN Morning Note

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Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

Chinese scientists achieve breakthrough in reversing aging in primates

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Thanks, John Frahm. 

Gateway Hispanic

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Brian Dunaway wrote:

Next: How About the SPLC!

Arguably worse than the ADL is the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). It’s sickening that anyone listens to these charlatans – it’s bad enough that the entirety of the MSM has been using them as a source for decades, but the law enforcement community!?

From what I can gather, the FBI has used the SPLC as a source for many years but does not hold them in very high regard. Nevertheless, after stating more than once they would no longer consider them a source, the boys in the Bureau can’t seem to kick the habit.

As recently as Oct 2023, US Senators Lankford and Grassley sent a letter to the FBI, asking for them to, at long last, cut all ties. The letter stated that “The SPLC is an extremely biased and unreliable source that classifies organizations as ‘hate groups’ if they promote traditional conservative values. Their website features a ‘hate map’ that shows the location of these hate groups. Users of the website can filter the hate map to single out hate groups. These filters include ‘Christian Identity’ and ‘Radical Traditional Catholicism.’ The FBI should not lend credibility to an organization that labels traditional values as ‘hate.’”

During a Sep 2025 House Judiciary Committee hearing, Patel acknowledged a complaint from Rep. Chip Roy regarding this hate map.

The time has come, Mr. Patel!

The post FBI Cuts All Ties With ADL, Calling It ‘Political Front’ Disguised As A Watchdog appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Reclaim the Net.

The post Duroc Slams France Over “Kafkaesque” Telegram Probe appeared first on LewRockwell.

Intueas keeps repeating himself. Intueas isn’t aware of his audience, and he doesn’t respect their intelligence. He keeps hitting the same nail with a sledgehammer.

Still, the video has some good points. There are energy vampires out there. It is very difficult for me to be in crowds and around people. But I have no intention of going back to the collective to save it or pave the way for it. I can handle people in ones and twos. 

It’s an interesting video. The narrator is right. More and more, especially since the Covid lockdowns, people are retreating from society. Social media is losing its appeal. So are podcasts, and political videos. It’s all a show. A show of mass delusions.

The post Intueas: Why are Spiritually Awakened People Leaving Society? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Rick Rozoff.

RT News

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President Trump is considering “stimulus” checks (again). We should all remember the last time that President Trump sent out “stimulus” checks. It was the “CARES Act,” which ignited the massive inflation that we’re still suffering from today. How can a government that has no money, because it racks up record deficits, be in a position to give out “rebates” anyway? Tariffs (that Americans overwhelmingly pay) don’t put the government books into the black. The government is way in the red. Why tax Americans with tariffs to begin with? When a government (via the Fed) prints money for “stimulus,” it’s yet another tax.

The post Deficits & “Stimulus” Checks = More Inflation & A Huge Bubble That Will Burst appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

The post Erika Kirk An Israeli Honey Trap? appeared first on LewRockwell.

On Tuesday we observed one of the strangest spectacles of our time. President Trump and his “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, called a mandatory meeting of all the top brass in the US military. Some 800+ general officers, admirals, and the like gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia for a doubleheader talk from Hegseth and Trump.

Because such an event is nearly unprecedented – at least in peacetime – the days leading up to the meeting were increasingly filled with speculation and even dread.

Tensions between the US and Russia are soaring over reports that the Trump Administration may provide and assist in the launching of Tomahawk missiles – capable of both hitting Moscow and of carrying nuclear weapons. The Putin Administration pointed out the obvious: such weapons would require the active participation of US intelligence as well as trained US or NATO personnel and should they be used would bring Russia and the US/NATO to a state of war. It is a war that, given both US and Russian nuclear doctrine, could very quickly rise to the level of an exchange of nuclear weapons and total destruction.

Likewise, media reports and observers of the movement of military equipment have been raising a red flag over the past several days on the massive movement of US fighter jets and aerial refueling tankers from the US toward the Middle East. Observers point out the similarity to the days leading up to the US attack on Iran in late June, just over three months ago. With Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu in town earlier this week, has President Trump been talked into again joining Israel in its war on its neighbors?

Additionally, US warships have been gathered off the coast of Venezuela for weeks and at least three speedboats accused of running narcotics have been blown out of the water by the US military. The New York Times reported on stepped up US efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government and install a new leader (as the Trump team attempted and failed in his first term). Media outlets are reporting that the Trump Administration is even considering military strikes deep inside Venezuela, which would of course be unprovoked acts of war.

What to expect of the gathering of the generals? Many of us waited at the edge of our seats.

What we were able to see was a pair of not particularly well-prepared – and less well-received – speeches by Trump and Hegseth on transforming the US military into a “MAGA” force and the evils of late middle-aged rotundity among senior military personnel. The crass treatment of America’s tip military officers – whether some deserved criticism or not – will likely have an effect opposite of what was intended.

The pauses in the pre-prepared speeches meant to allow for applause were met with stony silence.

Fat-shaming and chest-pounding is not the way to go about building esprit de corps in the US military. Especially when such a dressing-down was broadcast to the rest of the country via live video hook-up.

But what if some of our initial sense of dread was not misplaced? In his essential Sonar21 blog, former CIA officer Larry Johnson wonders whether there was a (very) public message delivered to conceal a secret and more dangerous message.

First Johnson quotes Yves Smith of the Naked Capitalist blog:

After Charlie Kirk, perhaps I have become too fond of complicated theories.

But it’s ludicrous to have called so many senior guys in for such a silly agenda. A stern memo and/or video sessions would have done.

So the big stoopid meeting, IMHO was to cover for a smaller gathering that had to be done in person. And where whoever was summoned would be a big tell as to what the focus was.

Johnson then signals his agreement with the speculation:

No, Yves… I think you nailed it. Besides the massive US naval force parked off the coast of Venezuela, we are now hearing that US tanker aircraft are flying to the Middle East via England. We saw the same phenomena in the days preceding the June 24 attack on Iran.

If the Trump administration is planning a coordinated attack on Venezuela and Iran, the commanders of USCENTCOM and USSOUTHCOM would be involved. While the plans for such attacks could have been discussed over a SVTCS (i.e., Secure Video Teleconferences), those sessions usually have dozens of straphangers watching. If you want to keep close hold on such planning, you do it in person. If the CENTCOM and SOUTHCOM commanders had been called to Washington alone, the odds are high that someone would have reported this. With the presence of the US naval force off the coast of Venezuela and the movement of US aircraft towards the Persian Gulf, this likely would have attracted unwanted attention… Well played Ms. Smith!

What Larry Johnson writes here makes a good deal of sense. Even in Trump World, spending millions of dollars to publicly dress-down the US military makes little sense. A memo or video hook-up would have been far more effective and less disruptive.

Was the real purpose of this spectacle to hold a secret side meeting to give orders for an impending, multi-continental war? We’ll know soon…

This article was originally published on The Ron Paul Institute.

The post Generals Gathered in Their Masses… appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: The Federal Reserve recently cut interest rates. What does it signal about the current state of the US economy?

Doug Casey: Let me introduce the subject with a joke.

Einstein dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter greets him effusively and says, “Unfortunately, Mr. Einstein, because we’re a centrally planned economy- for obvious reasons—we have a temporary housing shortage, and have to put you up with three roommates for a while.”

Einstein goes to his new apartment, and the first guy comes up to him and says, “Mr. Einstein, I have an IQ of 130, and I’d love to get to know you better.” Einstein says, “Great. After lunch, let’s bounce around a few concepts of astrophysics that have been on my mind.”

The second guy comes up and says, “Mr. Einstein, I’m not as smart as that first guy. I’ve only got an IQ of 100, but I still want to get to know you better.” Einstein says, “Great. Let me put away my grip, and let’s play a game of chess.”

The third guy comes up and says, “Mr. Einstein, I’m not as smart as those other guys. I’ve only got an IQ of 70, but I still want to get to know you.” Einstein says, “So, where do you think interest rates are headed?”

That says a lot about guessing the direction of interest rates, but they’re actually the most important single indicator in an economy. Rates are the price of capital, the lifeblood of an economy. Interest rates are analogous to blood pressure and pulse readings for a human. When a central bank lowers rates, it’s equivalent to giving a human amphetamines; when they raise them, it’s like a dose of barbiturates. Central bankers are like a quack doctor, poisoning the economy by distorting economic signals.

I understand why Trump wants lower interest rates. They encourage people to buy things, consume, and borrow money. That increases consumption, business earnings, and employment. Amphetamines also give a great artificial high. But low rates discourage saving, and without saving, there’s no capital. The immediate and direct consequences of lowering rates might be an artificial boom. But the indirect and delayed consequences are a very real bust.

Interest rates should not be dictated by politicians and bureaucrats. Borrowers and lenders will arrive at the “correct” level of rates.

International Man: Traditionally, the Fed has two mandates: price stability and maximum employment.

Lately, Stephen Miran—a Trump-appointed Fed governor—has argued for a “third mandate”: moderating long-term interest rates.

What do you make of that?

Doug Casey: Not only shouldn’t the Federal Reserve have mandates—it should be abolished. Unfortunately, it’s become so intertwined with the economy that people now believe it’s part of the cosmic firmament. The Fed determines the amount of money and credit, its cost, and the way the banks operate. It finances the government’s debt, which is especially important since the government is bankrupt. But I hate talking about what “should” happen; “should” only happens in a dream world.

Initially, the Fed only had one mandate: price stability, which was a ridiculous lie. Then, maximum employment became the second “traditional” mandate. And now they’ve taken on a true impossibility: controlling long-term interest rates.

Since the Fed was created, the dollar has lost over 95% of its value. Forget about price stability; the general price level has gone up by a factor of over 20, which is a total and abject failure. The Fed is necessarily an engine of inflation, a means of printing money.

As for the second mandate, maximum employment, the way to create it is laissez-faire. That means low taxes, low regulations, and sound money. They’ve totally failed at that as well.

And now, idiotically, they’re talking about lowering long-term rates. That’s impossible, because the only way the Fed can lower long-term rates is by buying massive amounts—many trillions—of long-term bonds. But they can only do that by creating trillions of new fiat currency. Bond prices will fall to new lows, and interest rates will rise to new highs.

These people don’t have a clue about economics or the way the world works. Trump wants to pack the Fed with puppets who will print money, vainly trying to keep interest rates below the rate of currency debasement. The result will be a catastrophe.

Instead of moving to “Abolish the Fed”, as Ron Paul famously advised, Trump is foolishly expanding its mandate.

International Man: For the average American—someone with a mortgage, some savings, maybe a 401(k)—how do these potential shifts in Fed policy translate into real-life consequences?

Doug Casey: A lower standard of living, class warfare, and eventually chaos. Among many other things, the average American and his leaders don’t understand the relationship between borrowing and savings. Unless there are savings—people producing more than they consume and putting aside the difference—there can’t be borrowing. If there are no savings, there’s nothing to borrow, so they have to liquidate capital saved by past generations, or mortgage their future.

As for what you should do, with 30-year mortgage rates around 6%, should you get a mortgage or not? Let me refer you back to the joke I told a few minutes ago. But if you can get a 30-year 6% mortgage now, I’d do it. Long-term rates are headed up, and the dollars you owe will depreciate.

But in the kind of chaos that’s being created in the world today, on many fronts, your best investment is in yourself. It’s critical that you and your family have as many skills and abilities as possible. No matter how things sort out, you want to be in a position to survive and prosper. I urge you to get my new book, The Preparation. It covers a host of things that most people haven’t even considered. Sorry for the commercial, but I think it’s important.

International Man: Do you think people should be more worried about inflation eroding their savings or about the risks of a market crash?

Doug Casey: This argument has been going on at least since the 1960s. Will the Fed’s creating ever more fiat credit to service past debt and “stimulate” the economy result in runaway inflation? Or will the debt burden and the strains on the economy become so bad that the whole rotten structure collapses in a catastrophic deflation?

We’ve been walking the razor’s edge for the last 70 years, and we’re still on it. Despite monetary stupidity, though, lots of things have gotten better because of two things. One, lots of people produce more than they consume, and save the difference. Two, technology has continued advancing. That’s cause for optimism, but those factors are due to the efforts of only a portion of the population called the middle class. And they’re numbers are in retreat.

Meanwhile, the worlds of finance and economy have become much riskier and more dangerous every year. At this point, I don’t see how they can save the US dollar. It’s a hot potato. But with the stock market and debt levels at all-time highs, the odds of a catastrophic deflation are rising.

Which will it be? Flip a coin. Either is possible, perhaps both in sequence: first a crash and then runaway inflation. Or runaway inflation followed by a crash. The only certainty is increasing levels of chaos.

International Man: What can ordinary people do right now to protect themselves and their savings in this increasingly chaotic environment?

Doug Casey: I’ve recommended that people buy gold and silver forever. Gold is finally at a reasonable level now relative to everything else. But I think it’s going much higher simply because it’s the only financial asset that’s not simultaneously somebody else’s liability. The public still isn’t buying it, however, as shown by the tiny premiums on gold coins. At some point, the public will panic into gold and silver, because—excepting Bitcoin—there’s really no place else to hide.

Having said that, I would direct your attention to the only parts of the stock market that are really cheap right now—and they’re very cheap—namely, mining stocks and oil and gas stocks. We’re in a major bull market for mining stocks, rising from very depressed levels. They’re superb speculations with high potential.

Hydrocarbons are extremely cheap, selling at around the cost of production. Everybody hates them. Producers sport dividends between 5% and 10%. I remain a big fan of coal stocks—which are often yielding up to 15%. Most people are completely unaware of this, as they are of the inevitable uranium bull market.

When you’re buying gold, I think it’s also very important that a portion of it is offshore. As big as your financial risks are in today’s world, your political risks are even greater. Therefore, you should be diversifying your assets internationally. I suggest that you buy your gold and silver either with SWP in the Cayman Islands or with  Perth Mint.

Both are low-cost and convenient, and both make a lot of sense for buying offshore gold and silver.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Fed’s Quiet War Against the Middle Class appeared first on LewRockwell.

Putin can live with Trump’s ‘Janus schizophrenia’ – as Russian forces advance on all key battle fronts.

The second stage to Trump’s ‘hand-off’ of the Ukraine war to the Europeans was clearly set out in his Truth Social post of 23 September. In the first phase of the hand-over, Trump withdrew from being the primary supplier of armaments to Kiev, and indicated that from now on Europe would have to pay for virtually everything – with weapons purchased from U.S. manufacturers.

Of course, Trump knows that Europe is fiscally ‘bust’. It hasn’t the money to fund itself, let alone a major war. He then ‘rubbed salt’ into this fiscal crisis wound by challenging NATO states to be first in line to sanction all Russian fuels. That won’t happen, of course either. It would be madness.

In this latest Truth Social post, Trump takes the Keith Kellogg line to its reductio ad absurdum. “Ukraine, with the support of the EU, can take back the country [Ukraine] to its original form – making Russia look like a ‘paper tiger’… and who knows, maybe go even further that that!”

Sure – Kiev advancing to the doorstep of Moscow? Pull the other leg, Mr Trump. Of course he is trolling Kellogg and the Europeans.

Then, following Trump’s meeting with Zelensky, France, Germany and the UK at the UN, a draft UNSC resolution was proposed echoing the European and Coalition of the Willing’s undiluted demand for Russian capitulation. Trump allowed U.S. officials to participate actively in the Resolution discussion – but then, at the last moment, had the U.S. veto it.

In this convoluted way, Trump thus succeeds – like Janus – to face two directions at once: Facing one way, he is 100% behind Ukraine, extolling Ukraine’s ‘Great Spirit’ and adopting the Kellogg line that Putin is in big trouble. But ‘facing the other way’, Trump contrarily commits to “not restricting the possibility of peace talks, nor having tensions escalate further”.

Putin can live with Trump’s ‘Janus schizophrenia’ – as Russian forces advance on all key battle fronts. The bottom line is that the White House has signalled that it is not interested in war with Russia. That’s obvious. There is anyway a more concerning war brewing inside the U.S.

This war is Israel’s Eighth Front – Netanyahu recently has taken to proclaiming it thus. The Eighth Front is in America. And it is there precisely because America dominates the world media.

The so-called ‘Rules-Based Order’ blueprint (if it ever truly existed beyond narrative) has been ripped up by Israel – very deliberately and cold bloodedly.

Tom Barrack, Trump’s long-standing friend and Envoy to the Middle East – when asked what the U.S. endgame was for the Region – dismissed outright talk of ‘peace’: “When we say peace, it’s an illusion”, Barrack said. “There’s never been peace. [Some] people may say, well, they’re fighting over borders and boundaries. [But that’s] not what they’re fighting over. A border or a boundary is [merely] the currency of a negotiation”. He continued: “The end result is somebody wants dominance, which means somebody has to submit. In that part of the world … there’s no Arabic word for submit. They can’t wrap their head around submit …”.

War without limits; without rules; without law – and without ethical boundaries more particularly – becomes the prerequisite to achieving the utter subjugation of all opposition.

Netanyahu’s former National Security Adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, writing (with Asher Fredman) in Foreign Affairs in September, affirmed that: “Israel no longer adheres to red lines that its neighbours believed that it would never cross. Israel will not grant immunity to any leaders of hostile groups, no matter their political title or location”. When Ben Shabbat writes ‘hostile’, it is a pleasantry for meaning ‘non-compliant’.

This new doctrine is about Israeli ‘dominance’ – and for that, others logically must ‘submit’, Barrack insists. Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister, Ron Dermer, has suggested that a ‘submission’ sufficient to make Israel ‘feel fully safe’ would only emerge through the Muslim-Arab consciousness being seared by an utter ‘de-radicalising’ defeat.

Netanyahu’s ‘Eighth Front’ notion therefore derives from the proposition that full Jewish dominance (such as U.S. Envoy Barrack outlines) requires a certain dominance in America too. Israel cannot accomplish this dominance alone – it needs the unquestioning support from America that keeps the flow of money, armaments and operational support flowing.

Until recently, this unreserved support was attained through ultra-rich Jewish billionaires ‘buying’ American politicians and influencers – and purchasing the mainstream media outright. However, the rise of alternative media as the main source of news for Americans has changed the calculus and sent ripples of fear through the Jewish billionaire community.

The Charlie Kirk assassination came in the wake of multiple pressures on Kirk arising from Jewish billionaires concerned that the key American youth constituency was turning against Israel, as Max Blumenthal has outlined. The conflict with Kirk’s big Jewish donors exposed the wider issue of their dominance across U.S. influencer politics. The ensuing controversy has led to an all-out effort by pro-Israel billionaires to seize control of alternative U.S. media, particularly Tik Tok. (All U.S. social platforms have an algorithmic leaning toward Israel, whereas Tik Tok doesn’t. The pro-Israeli billionaires who are set to buy Tik Tok insist that its algorithm must be ‘retrained’).

“[What Zionists] face”, Blumenthal asserts, “is a political tsunami [of political realignment] in the United States, and they have no way of holding it back. And that’s why, in the wake of Kirk’s death, and in the days before his death, some of these Zionist Money Men have started a full-on takeover campaign of the U.S. Media. It’s like a full court press in the United States. Netanyahu had been waging a Seven Front War in the region, and now the United States has become the 8th Front. And they want to prevent anyone from being able to express themselves anywhere in the digital online ecosystem by just buying it all”.

Few among those billionaire donors who supported Kirk’s organisation, TPU.S.A, have done more than Robert Shillman to make clear the underlying nature to the 8th Front war: “With this pen, and my cheque book, I provide the ammunition!”, the billionaire proclaimed to applause, during a gala of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America (ZoA) in 2021.

“I wield the pen to provide ‘ammunition’ [donations] to those organisations like ZoA on the front lines of this battle confronting enemies of Israel and the Jewish people – defending against Islamists who wish to destroy Israel and radical Leftist Jew-haters who wish to destroy the Jewish people”.

How does this affair read across into pressure on Trump to persist in prosecuting the Ukraine war effort against Russia? What is it that links hugely rich Jewish donors, classic U.S. Russophobes and the European Establishment together in the common cause of pressuring Trump to go hard on Russia? The answer is that donors and U.S. and European pro-Israeli élites all have a shared interest in having Russia preoccupied (and, in their view, weakened) by the conflict in Ukraine. Their particular concern is the prospect of Middle East war. They do not want to see Russia or China engage directly in support of Iran, were it to be attacked militarily. These élites fear for the future of Israel, particularly should Iran be empowered by BRICS allies. They prefer a Russia bogged down and not returning as a Middle East player again – something that could crimp the ambition for Jewish/Israeli supremacy across the Region.

Recall that in 1992, the then-Under Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz, author of the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine, declared that, with the Soviets pushed out from the Middle East, the U.S. had become the unchallenged sole superpower in the region and could pursue its global agenda. Wolfowitz highlighted the exit of Russia as the crucial factor in achieving U.S. hegemony over the Middle East.

Recall too that in the wake of the E3 sanctions ‘Snapback’ invocation on Iran on 28 August, Russia and China jointly signed statements denouncing the E3 procedural vote as “illegal and procedurally flawed”. In one sense, it provides the grounds for China and Russia to ignore any subsequent sanctions imposed on Iran under the snapback provision. It is the first time that Russia and China have directly challenged the UN Security Council and implicitly indicated they will ignore any Snapback sanctions.

However, viewed from a different perspective, the joint denunciation of Snapback could open the door to ‘a return to the region’ by Russia (and China) through providing military support to Iran – were it to be attacked by Israel, the U.S., or both.

With Russia presently fully engaged in Ukraine, it is less likely to want to initiate direct support to Iran in the event of an attack (Russia is acutely alert to the dangers of over-extension). Were the

Ukraine war to be over, then Russia might have fewer scruples about directly intervening in support of Iran. The same would apply for China in the event of the Ukraine conflict having reached some outcome.

The last thing that the triumvirate of Jewish Zionist influencers, the U.S. Russia hawks and the European pro-Israel élites want is Russia ‘back in the Middle East’. That would constitute a nightmare for them.

When U.S. Envoy Tom Barrack was asked if Israel felt the need for another ‘definitive strike’ on Iran, he replied:

“It [does] seem as though they’re marching towards a resolution of the entire problem – which is what Gaza is – right? I would imagine that just getting Gaza under control, and Hezbollah under control and the Houthis under control is not fruitful – if you don’t get the Iran regime under control. I have no information as to what they’re going to do, but I wouldn’t rule that out … We need to cut the heads off of those snakes and chop the flow of funds. That’s the only way you’re going to stop Hezbollah”.

So the out-of-the-blue-shooting of Charlie Kirk has ‘unexpectedly’ occurred at a key juncture in Netanyahu’s regional dominance bid – highlighting the already waning support for Israel amongst a cohort of young Americans.

The Kirk murder inadvertently has unlocked too, the next phase of the long simmering cultural war in the U.S. Kirk’s assassination has already become as significant as any in recent American history.

If Rober Shillman’s words to his Jewish audience advocating “confronting enemies of Israel and the Jewish people – defending against Islamists who wish to destroy Israel and radical Leftist Jew-haters who wish to destroy the Jewish people” was not a clear and broad enough declaration of war, then hear Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, addressing the crowd at the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service – to huge applause from the 100,000 present at the service:

“The Light will defeat the Dark. We will prevail over forces of wickedness and evil. They cannot imagine that which they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that has arisen in all of us. Because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us: What do you have? You have nothing. You are wickedness, envy, hatred. You are nothing. You can produce nothing. We are the ones who build, who create, who lift up humanity”.

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

The post American Juncture as Israel’s Eighth Front Ignites appeared first on LewRockwell.

“The era of the Department of Defense is over… From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting… We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country… You kill people and break things for a living.” — Pete Hegseth

“America is under invasion from within… That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within… We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military… it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”—President Donald Trump in remarks to more than 800 of the country’s top military leaders

Distractions abound. Don’t be distracted.

The American police state under Donald Trump has mastered the art of delivering endless diversions, constant uproar, and wall-to-wall chaos designed to prevent us from focusing on any single issue for long.

This is how psyops work: keep the populace reactive, confused, fearful and pliant while power consolidates.

According to the Trump administration, “we the people” are now the enemy from within.

Over the course of just one week, we’ve been bombarded with headlines about government shutdowns, a presidential directive aimed at blacklisting dissent, threats by Trump to deploy the National Guard into states he considers political opponents, the politicization of the military, tariffs that inflict economic pain on American consumers, and the administration’s unabashed embrace of graft and grift.

In the midst of it all, Pete Hegseth, the newly styled Secretary of War, compelled a sudden gathering of the top military brass for a costly $6 million exercise that amounted to little more than chest-thumping, propaganda and grandstanding.

With Hegseth at the helm of the renamed Department of War, calling for a new “warrior ethos,” the Trump administration is celebrating aggression and blind obedience over peacekeeping, honor and constitutional duty.

Both the rebranding of the War Department and the warrior-ethos pep rally signaled a profound shift in how the Deep State—which has consolidated its powers under Trump—views the role of the military, our constitutional government, and the American people.

It is a shift we cannot afford to ignore.

The name change alone is significant.

After World War II, “War” was deliberately retired from the department’s name to emphasize restraint in the wake of global conflicts that cost humanity dearly in terms of lives, fortunes and peace. That nominal bulwark has now been discarded. And with it, the very idea that America’s military exists for defense rather than conquest.

Reviving the Department of War signals to the bureaucracy, the brass, and the public that aggression—not defense—is the organizing principle.

The Pentagon has been rechristened not as a fortress against foreign threats but as a machine for waging endless war here at home: Democratic cities will become military staging grounds; rules of engagement will be loosened to maximize “lethality”; and militarized police will be given a license to kill their fellow Americans.

This is not the language of defense. It is the language of aggression and occupation.

A standing army on domestic soil was precisely what the Founders feared. They lived under troops quartered in their towns. They knew what happens when government treats its own citizens as a hostile force.

Two centuries later, their fear has become our reality.

For years, federal and state agencies have blurred the line between soldiers and police. Armored vehicles on neighborhood streets. Combat training in American towns. Laws allowing indefinite detention of citizens without trial.

Methodically, a war culture has been transplanted from the battlefield abroad to the homeland.

With armored tanks on our streets, SWAT raids treated as routine, and citizens viewed as combatants rather than neighbors with rights, the results are predictable: abuse, eroded liberties, and the slow death of a constitutional republic.

This is the future we warned was coming: every city a potential conflict zone, every protest a pretext for deployment, every citizen a suspect.

Trump’s reckless call to use “dangerous cities” as military training grounds doesn’t just echo this dystopia—it completes the circle.

Under the banner of “war,” the government is giving itself license to treat the American people as the enemy.

And Trump, buoyed by the power of the presidency and his ability to use taxpayer dollars for his own grandiose plans—building ballrooms, hiring thugs with extravagant bonuses for arrests and roundups, erecting detention centers—is now attempting to bribe the military with over $1 trillion in spending in 2026 if only they will march to a dictator’s drum.

But this is precisely the scenario the Founders sought to guard against. They understood that “the means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

Their warning is clear to everyone but the die-hard devotees of the American police state: a standing army puts the American people squarely in the crosshairs of a tyrannous regime.

A standing army—something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the American people of any vestige of freedom. How can there be liberty when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones overhead?

It was for this reason the Founders vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military regime ruled by force.

They opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution.

That basic civics lesson hasn’t sunk in with Trump, who seems to relish ruling with brute force and using the military to kill with impunity.

Just listen to him brag about bombing Venezuelan fishing boats and killing the occupants without any attempt at due process: he sounds like every power-hungry madman who aspires to become a dictator.

And then there’s Hegseth, who—despite professing devotion to Jesus, the prince of peace—has dismissed pacifism as “naive and dangerous,” insisting: “From this moment forward, the only mission… is warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win.”

But in declaring war as the mission, Hegseth and Trump reveal exactly how far they have strayed from the Constitution.

They are a lesson in how power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely—exactly the danger that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former general in World War II, warned against:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Eisenhower’s words were prophetic, because the rise of misplaced power did not begin with Trump. Trump and his administration didn’t create this quagmire from nothing—the present police state and its tools of terror have been in the works for a long time.

Back in 2008, the U.S. Army War College issued a report urging the military to be prepared to put down civil unrest within the country.

Summarizing the report, journalist Chris Hedges wrote, “The military must be prepared, the document warned, for a ‘violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States,’ which could be provoked by ‘unforeseen economic collapse,’ ‘purposeful domestic resistance,’ ‘pervasive public health emergencies’ or ‘loss of functioning political and legal order.’ The ‘widespread civil violence,’ the document said, ‘would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.’”

In 2009, DHS reports labelled right-wing and left-wing activists and military veterans as extremists, calling on the government to subject such targeted individuals to full-fledged pre-crime surveillance.

Fast forward to the present day, and you have NSPM-7, Trump’s new national security directive, which equates anyone with “anti-Christian” or “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as domestic terrorists.

Add to this: “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” a Pentagon training video created by the Army for U.S. Special Operations Command, which envisions using armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems.

What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as concern for the national security.

The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots.

At three-and-a-half minutes in, the narrator speaks of a need to “drain the swamps.”

That phrase should sound chillingly familiar.

Trump’s supporters know it as a rallying cry against corruption in Washington. But in the Pentagon’s scenario, “drain the swamps” means clearing urban centers of “noncombatants” and engaging adversaries in high-intensity conflict.

But here’s the catch: in the Pentagon’s lexicon, those “noncombatants” are not foreign armies at all. Who are they?

They are, according to the Pentagon, “adversaries.” They are “threats.” They are the “enemy.”

They are civilians. Protesters. The unemployed. The poor. Dissidents. In short: us.

Welcome to Battlefield America.

In the future imagined by the Pentagon, any walls and prisons that are built will be used to protect the societal elite—the haves—from the have-nots.

We are the have-nots. And once you see that division clearly, the rest falls into place.

Suddenly it all begins to make sense: the surveillance systems, the civil unrest drills, fusion centers, the databases of dissidents. The extremism reports, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military.

Meanwhile, the government has been amassing an arsenal of military weapons across government agencies—and equipping them for war against their own citizens. In fact, there are now at least 120,000 armed federal agents carrying such weapons who possess the power to arrest.

Rounding out this profit-driven campaign to turn American citizens into enemy combatants (and America into a battlefield) is a technology sector that has been colluding with the government to build Big Brother into every device we own. Cars, phones, smart homes, loyalty cards, streaming services—they all track us.

All of this has taken place in broad daylight, funded with our dollars.

It’s astounding how convenient we’ve made it for the government to lock down the nation.

So, what exactly is the government preparing for?

By “government,” I don’t mean the two-party bureaucracy of Republicans and Democrats. I mean Government with a capital “G”: the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

This is the hidden face of power: corporatized, militarized, and contemptuous of freedom. And it is not waiting for some distant tomorrow.

The future is here.

By waging endless wars abroad, bringing the instruments of war home, turning police into soldiers, criminalizing dissent, and making peaceful revolution nearly impossible, the government has engineered an environment where domestic violence becomes inevitable.

Be warned: in the future envisioned by the military, we will not be viewed as Republicans or Democrats. Rather, “we the people” will be enemies of the state.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we’re already enemies of the state.

For years, the government has warned of domestic terrorism, erected surveillance, and trained law enforcement to equate anti-government views (that is, exercising your constitutional rights) with extremism. Now that groundwork has paid off.

What the government failed to explain—until Trump—was that the domestic terrorists would be of the government’s own choosing.

“We the people” have become enemy #1.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

The post Battlefield America: Trump’s War on the Enemy Within—the American People appeared first on LewRockwell.

The lines of dominoes being toppled run through every nook and cranny of the economy.

As we all know, the problem with euphoria is the inevitable collision with reality and the resulting disillusionment. But wait–it gets worse.

The new love of your life, your savior who is going to make everything right again, is not just impossibly flawed–they’re a con artist. Now that really hurts. They not only stole your heart, they stole your money.

Which brings us to the AI Boom / Bubble. The euphoria is literally immeasurable, but the disconnect from reality is easily visible and can be broken down into measurable bits:

1. AI revenues are orders of magnitude lighter than the sums being invested (capex, i.e. capital investment). The euphoria is based on the idea that revenues will catch up, but the second date is raising doubts about Prince Charming’s non-flim-flammed revenues and prospects.

This report has raised eyebrows, and the real question is: OK, so let’s say it underestimates revenues by 50%. That means we’re at 3% of revenues needed to justify the capex rather than 2%. Maybe this is why Prince Charming invites his amour to poorly lit bistros–he’s had, um, work done and he’s wary of bright lighting.

$2 trillion in new revenue needed to fund AI’s scaling trend (Bain & Company)

2. AI tools are inherently untrustworthy and lend themselves to generating “going through the motions” slop that gives the superficial appearance of value but actually has negative value as it’s incomplete, misleading and/or incoherent. Sorting the wheat from the chaff actually takes more time because AI is so adept at generating a superficial gloss. In other words, AI generates time sinks rather than productivity.

AI-Generated ‘Workslop’ Is Destroying Productivity (Harvard Business Review)

People Overtrust AI-Generated Medical Advice despite Low Accuracy.

Add in that AI slop looks similar to authentic research and that AI tools have a measurable preference for AI-generated content (i.e. AI slop), and we have a toxic cocktail of untrustworthy output.

3. The rate at which major companies are adopting AI is rolling over. This chart reflects the peak of euphoria has been reached by those with the most resources to figure that out and the real-world utility of AI tools is yet to be determined.

The claim making the rounds is that it’s not Prince Charming’s fault that he’s disappointed his enamored amour; she’s making unrealistic demands on poor PC. In other words, it’s the companies’ fault that AI is underperforming. Is this the great promise of AI, to blame the mark and not the con-artist?

4. AI data centers are competing with other users for electricity, water and capital. The apologists’ claim is that AI data centers are only a tiny little straw sipping on the grid’s total energy, but this overlooks that price is set on the margins and demand for electricity and water by those with unlimited bank accounts will push prices up at rates far above the total additional consumption of AI data centers.

Read the Whole Article

The post Will AI Crash the Economy? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Average Americans are concerned about the command relationship between the US and Israel.  There is a growing awareness of the US funded and armed slaughter in Gaza.  In 1967, over 50 years ago, Israelis created an open air concentration camp on the Strip.  It held 2.3 million people by 2023, that number today reduced to around 1.5 million, with the population of Gaza City now killed or removed. Palestinian survivors are crowded into a tiny militarized area in the south without food, water or shelter.  Most of Israel hopes that a third winter and outbreaks of disease will kill them all.  Bibi Netanyahu and his murderous government are also at war with seven or eight other enemies, pot-shotting and assassinating around the region, and perhaps the world – while claiming full US government support.

The Trump campaign was funded by a number of Jewish Zionists who gambled that a Trump in the hand is worth two neoconservatives in the bush.  We find few neocons in Washington who will compliment Trump these days; most, like Iraq war cheerleaders David Frum and Bill Kristol are openly contemptuous.

Critics of neoconservatives were long labeled anti-Semitic, and today Trump is arguably more neoconservative than the original thinkers and politicians who proudly endorsed Netanyahu’s twenty-five year old plan for Greater Israel, and worked for US boutique wars and regime changes to assist in the implementation of the Likud Party’s “Clean Break.”

Trump may or may not understand the nuances of neoconservatism; he’s more people person than academic.  But he’s got a coach today in Netanyahu, and Bibi’s four personal visits to the White House and numerous phone calls have changed Donald Trump in several noticeable ways.

The first and most obvious shift is that Trump is unable, for reasons of personality or money or blackmail or simple fear of assassination, to assert himself with Bibi.  Notwithstanding this recent image of Netanyahu doing a forced reading of an apology to the Emir of Qatar, the relationship between the leader of 9 million Israelis, and the leader of 340 million Americans is that of coach to player, leader to follower, boss to consigliere.  Trump will on occasion denigrate and threaten to fight, fire, sue or otherwise impoverish other countries, his own staff, Republicans and Democrats in the Congress, mayors and governors, and past presidents.  But he is exceptionally mannerly around Bibi.

The second shift, increasingly evident, is Trump’s obsession with war as much – or more than – peace.  The average American may see war as the absence of peace, or the failure of peace, at best a transitional necessity to get back to peace.  This is to be expected, we haven’t fought a war in our own country since 1861, and given the North won, we don’t often hear about the brutal 1864 burning of the Shenandoah Valley by General Philip Sheridan, or General Sherman’s murderous march from Atlanta to the Sea, both on orders by future president Ulysses Grant.  But the average Israeli sees such war and conflict as normalcy.  For Israel, in practical terms, war is peace.

Trump promised the end of wars, but coached by Bibi, he now openly declares total war on foreign and domestic enemies alike.  In the name of “peace” Trump has continued to arm both Ukraine and Israel in two of the bloodiest and entirely unnecessary wars of the 21st century.  Despite promises to end aid to Ukraine, thus saving Ukrainians from dying and sacrificing their very country for a corrupt, pointless, and broken NATO, he is now hinting at providing Tomahawk intermediate range missiles, and much more, so long as NATO pays. Despite promises to reduce Pentagon waste, he boasts the first trillion dollar “defense” budget, and demands a Department of War.  Whatever Bibi needs in Gaza, Trump provides and delivers, be it weapons or cash or Palestinian-free “peace plans.”

Instead of peace talk, Trump increasingly sounds like a mini-bibi, focusing on enemies inside and outside of borders, warning of an America constantly at risk and constantly at war, surrounded by threats so deadly and irrational they can only be dealt with by overwhelming force.  As he said to the generals, “They spit, we hit.”

The third shift is the most disturbing, and that is Trump’s increasingly evident adoption of Bibi’s contempt for “the other,” be that political enemies, whole religions, entire cultures, and simply those who disagree.  Governors who reject federal control of State Guard units to enforce federal edicts in those states are not just internal enemies, but incompetent, and deserving of prison.  Media outlets, whether independent or state, that criticize or snipe at Trump are stupid, lying and fake.  Illegal immigrants become invading enemy units, governments that disagree with or question Trump’s policies are losers and illegitimate.  More than the name calling, which can be seen as “tough guy” talk, a kind of American machismo, we have increasing dehumanization of the enemy in thought and language.  The language of hate and intolerance – from the left where we see it today most clearly, and also from the right – prefigures wars. Language is the footman of war.  It is both revolting and alarming when these words become the day-to-day language of the President, whose first and only duty is to the Republic and the Constitution that binds it.

Yet, dehumanizing language, arrogant and insulting language, is how Netanyahu, his political cadre, and 80 to 90% of Israelis speak about non-Zionists, even when they are Jewish.  It’s how Netanyahu spoke to the mostly empty UN Assembly last week.  Angry, impotent, sputtering contempt.  Dehumanize and kill violently those who resist your rules, debate your arguments, choose to live differently, those refuse to accommodate your every demand, those who hold fast to their religions as you are losing yours – this seems to be what Bibi is teaching the American President.

Coach Bibi doesn’t control Donald Trump.  It’s far worse than that.  Coach Bibi inspires Trump.  He serves as an example of something Trump wants – not just in terms of the power to wage war, to smite enemies foreign and domestic at will, but as Israeli Prime Minister off and on for 30 years, to be politically “popular,” a “strong leader.”

Most Christian Zionists surrounding Trump are also inspired by Netanyahu, and none of them have gotten as far as Charlie Kirk did, in starting to realize the hard and disturbing truth about the maniacal and criminal state of Israel.  But they will.

An 80 year old man shouldn’t need a morality coach, or a daddy-figure. Four score years of living usually produces a natural shield against this kind of manipulation and suasion.

The “America First” President must end his unhealthy relationship with Netanyahu now, and make amends to all those he has harmed as a result.  Better to be embarrassed or even assassinated by Israel’s goons now than go down in history as the American Netanyahu, the man who ended his own nation through nonsensical war and unwarranted hubris.

The post Coach Bibi Leaves a Mark appeared first on LewRockwell.

Could the massive gathering for Charlie Kirk’s funeral become a turning point for the silent majority? I sure hope so but doubt it very much. Let’s look at the problem without our happy glasses, the ones that only see what pleases us. The 200,000-person crowd at his funeral doesn’t mean a thing to the mainstream media; the latter looks upon them as misguided Christian fools at best, as dumb and ignorant white fascists at worse. The mainstream media sees those who have twice elected Trump president—the second time with a popular-vote win—as a minority fringe group of Christian fanatics and fools. And as Democrats rule all TV networks bar Fox, and late-night talk-show conservatives are as rare as virgins in Las Vegas, I don’t see things changing overnight.

Never mind that America is a moral Christian nation whose majority has absolutely no voice in media or entertainment. The fact that Hollywood and the TV industry totally ignore the majority—and make fun of it and insult it nonstop—has been obvious to many of us on the right, but those who run our screens could not care less. Do you think those five unfunny clowns who appear on the three main channels on late nights would ever make fun of those trans freaks that the Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson was part of? Of course not, but Catholics, nuns, priests, law-abiding Christians, and anyone on the right are legitimate targets for ridicule every night since the Johnny Carson epoch.

“Here are five clowns who make millions per annum kissing the backsides of dumb celebrities who don’t know the difference between Rambo and Rimbaud.”

Here are five clowns who make millions per annum kissing the backsides of dumb celebrities who don’t know the difference between Rambo and Rimbaud. Unlike Johnny Carson, who would raise an eyebrow when one of his celebrity guests would overdo the stupidity, the present clowns just gush. Then they heap abuse on, yes, you guessed it, anything or anyone conservative or even middle-of-the-road. A young father of two is murdered, and what these snide celebrity ass-kissers do is gloat. When a trans shoots and kills two young children in Minneapolis two weeks before Charlie Kirk’s murder, not a word against trans violence is allowed on the airwaves. Here are some facts and figures that Communist Soviet TV would have been proud of: In 2025 alone there were 1,128 jokes against Trump on ABC, 154 against Musk, and 71 against Hegseth. There were also 26 negative jokes against Biden, nine against Bernie Sanders, and five against Gavin Newsom. The same rate goes for the rest of the channels, with the exception of Fox. Only one Republican guest appeared on the Kimmel show in the past three years. Joseph Stalin would have thought that’s one too many. So, what do you think about these numbers? Do they sound as if they were taken in a democracy or a totalitarian state? Just imagine what the left would be saying if things were reversed—if the left had won big in the election, and the mainstream media was mostly right-wing and treated the majority of the country’s citizens as dumb, uneducated nobodies to be ignored. They’d be howling even louder than they are now against Trump.

So, what is to be done, as someone quite infamous once demanded? Focusing on station licenses that are supposed to operate in the public interest has obviously not worked. People in the entertainment business are mostly on the left, and those who are not pretend to be or else. It is a closed shop, hence the Trump administration has to install new rules. I say make it fifty-fifty or lose your license. It is now 97 percent pro-left, and they’re squealing like pregnant penguins because Kimmel was suspended for three nights.

Pro-trans militancy personified by the recent murders is a subject rejected by the mainstream media in Europe as well as in America. Reporters tend to look away when violent pro-trans freaks start shouting. An ABC reporter—half scared to death, I imagine—characterized the killer Robinson’s text messages to his freak boyfriend/girlfriend as “very touching.” Pass the sick bag, as we used to say when someone as ludicrous as that ABC reporter wrote such trash.

It is a sad day indeed when the freaks of this world have the upper hand and force great women like J.K. Rowling into defending themselves for stating the obvious. Sex is biological, and only freaks try to change it. I say to hell with them, and to hell with the cowards of mainstream media who are too scared to write the truth. These are the same people who tell us nightly and daily that those who voted Republican are inherently evil and destructive. Controlling information and media is the one and only step for authoritarian regimes. The left has had it for far too long in the good old US of A. Change is what has to be done.

This article was originally published on Taki’s Magazine.

The post Late-Night Losers appeared first on LewRockwell.

U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing his country into an uncomfortable direction. What might be the reasons for him to do so?

His recent address to a gathering of all military commanders included the demand to fight the ‘enemy’ within the country:

He did, however, speak with great moral clarity about certain classes of Americans whom he views as a grave threat:

• • The American left: “They’re really bad. They’re bad people.” Again, he’s talking about Americans here.
  • His own domestic political opponents: “They’re vicious people that we have to fight, just like you have to fight vicious people. Mine are a different kind of vicious.”
  • American journalists: “sleazebags.”

• • Residents of American inner cities: “animals.”

His Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called on flag officers (Generals) to follow a conservative ideology. He has also announced a reduction of flag officer positions which will give him the chance to weed out those officers who have a more liberal standpoint.

Trump wants the military to use U.S. cities as training grounds (archived):

It was at that moment that the president recounted a conversation with his defense secretary: “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

This seems to be, together with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) raids, a preparation for countering severe domestic unrest.  But there is, so far no reason for any a big unrest to happen. The U.S. society is generally not a rebellious one. Why would Trump perceive that unrest is coming?

On the other side Trump is clearly preparing for a more global war.

Another round of war with Iran is imminent. Air-tankers have been deployed to the Middle East, Israel’s air defenses have been beefed up with more THAAD launchers and a carrier group is entering the Mediterranean.

The increase of forces near Venezuela is also continuing. It is clearly a build up towards a regime change attempt (archived).

Trump has increase intelligence sharing with Ukraine to allow for deep strikes into Russia.

At the same time the U.S. seems to have largely given up on militarily countering the rise of China.

Regime change in Iran and Venezuela could bring a huge amount of additional energy resources under Washington’s control.

When the big stock market crash that everybody is warning (archived) about (archived) will finally happen, the U.S. economy will get severely damaged.

Unrest in the U.S. could then become real.

Having control over additional resource assets would dampen the negative effects for the U.S. dollar and debt position.

Is Trump expecting something like that?

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post Musing About Trump’s Recent Moves appeared first on LewRockwell.

Every year, leaders step down. Some leave their roles quietly, chalking it up to exhaustion or “new opportunities.” Others implode publicly, and their fall becomes a public cautionary tale. From the outside, it’s easy to assume they burned out because of the relentless pace of leadership or the weight of expectations.

But if you study the pattern, you see something deeper.

Most leaders don’t collapse because of what they were doing. They collapse because of what they stopped doing.

They poured into their people, invested in their teams, and fought for results but neglected their own growth. They stopped feeding the very roots that once sustained them.

And when a leader stops growing, their influence will outpace their integrity. Their “job” will outgrow their character.

And eventually, their capacity will run out.

Why Leaders Burn Out

The greatest leadership danger is not always outside pressure. It’s inside neglect.

Burnout rarely begins with a full calendar. It begins with an empty tank.

Leaders pour into others but fail to refill themselves. They keep adding commitments without reinforcing capacity. At first, no one notices. They’re still gifted, still effective, still carrying momentum. But beneath the surface, cracks are forming.

Burnout is not just about workload. It’s about growth load.

If you are not expanding, you are shrinking. If you are not deepening, you are drying up. Leadership requires continual enlargement of our physical, mental, and spiritual health. Without those, you eventually collapse under the very weight you were called to carry.

Paul understood this dynamic when he wrote to his young protege Timothy:

“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
— 1 Timothy 4:16 NIV

Paul makes the connection crystal clear: leadership influence is inseparable from personal growth. A huge part of Timothy’s ability to lead others faithfully depended on his willingness to watch his own life carefully.

Timothy was leading in a hostile environment. The Ephesian church faced opposition from culture, pressure from false teachers, and the challenge of rapid growth. As a young leader, Timothy’s gifting was evident, but Paul knew gifting wasn’t enough.

Charisma can build momentum. Discipline sustains it.

That’s why Paul didn’t just tell Timothy to preach well. He told him to watch his life. He gives him a command to guard his inner world while protecting his growth rhythms. Because a leader’s collapse doesn’t just take them out, it weakens everyone they influence.

Paul tied Timothy’s faithfulness to the salvation of others. If Timothy persevered in growth, both he and his hearers would be saved. In other words, his private health had public consequences.

The same is true for us today. Your leadership stewardship is never just about you. The health of those you lead is tied to the health of your own growth.

The Hidden Cost of Stagnation

Many leaders assume burnout comes from doing too much. But the deeper problem is becoming too little.

When you stop growing, everything feels heavier. Situations that once energized you now drain you and conversations that used to spark creativity now feel routine.

You’re not overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility. You’re underwhelmed by your own development.

This stagnation creates a vicious cycle:

• As your growth slows, your effectiveness diminishes.
• As effectiveness drops, you try to compensate by working harder, not wiser.
• Working harder without renewed growth accelerates exhaustion.
• Exhaustion shrinks perspective and weakens character.

And the people who suffer most? The ones you lead.

Leadership burnout rarely comes from external weight. It comes from internal neglect.

If burnout comes from stagnation, then sustainability comes from growth. The question is: what areas of growth are most essential for leaders to last?

The Three Pillars of Sustainable Leadership

Lasting leadership doesn’t rest on talent or charisma. It rests on three pillars most leaders neglect: spiritual discipline, personal development, and honest feedback. These three work together to keep leaders grounded, expanding, and accountable. Remove one, and the entire structure becomes unstable.

Pillar One: Spiritual Discipline

Every collapse starts privately before it shows publicly. Leaders burn out when they trade intimacy with God for something else.

Prayer becomes a last resort. Scripture becomes optional. Worship becomes a chore. Without realizing it, leaders start trying to give what they no longer possess.

But spiritual discipline isn’t optional. It’s the lifeline.

• Prayer develops patience and the ability to listen while being fully present. When you train your ear to hear God’s voice, you become more attentive to your team, your mission, and God’s protection in the process.
• Scripture builds discernment. Wrestling with the complexity of God’s Word equips you to navigate the complexity of organizational and relational challenges in ways you could never do on your own. The wisdom of God’s word is a secret weapon for leading organizations.
• Worship restores humility and perspective. Regularly remembering God’s sovereignty keeps you from overinflating your role or shrinking under the pressure. It puts things back into a healthy perspective quickly.

Think about Jesus’ own rhythms.

Even when crowds pressed in and miracles were demanded, Luke wrote that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

Jesus had the capacity to do more than anyone, but He modeled the wisdom of stepping back. If the Son of God guarded His spiritual rhythms, how much more should we?

Your public influence will only be as strong as your private devotion.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Silent Leadership Crisis appeared first on LewRockwell.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has deployed—or threatened to deploy—National Guard troops in at least five American cities, including Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. Many of Trump’s supporters have cheered this, claiming that it is the responsibility of the president to send federal troops wherever he determines they are needed.

In some cases, deployments have occurred over the objections of the governments in the states where the troops are deployed. This has led to a complex legal situation, with the governments of California and Oregon suing the administration over the deployments. Judges, pundits, and lawyers will surely continue to argue for some time over the current legality of these deployments—as interpreted by federal judges—in federal court.

The fact that this is a matter of debate at all, however, illustrates how far the United States has come from the American Revolutionaries’ original vision of a federal republic with a greatly limited and decentralized military force. In the founding era, Americans feared the existence of a standing army that could be deployed at the will of federal officials. Moreover, Americans demanded that the states maintain their own, independent militias that could not be subjected to federal control without the cooperation of state officials.

That attitude is now long gone.

Instead, we find that both Left and Right in the United States now generally support more federal control, depending on which political party is in power, or which group is on the receiving end of new federal prerogatives. At the moment, it’s the Right that is in power, and so it is now conservatives who are clamoring for more federal power to deploy troops, expand federal law enforcement, and further bury the last few vestiges of the sovereignty once enjoyed by state governments.

For those who are actually concerned about the further concentration of political power, and who support real limits on the federal government, the president’s habit of sending federal troops to American cities is serious problem.

The Dangers of a Standing Army, and the Creation of a Decentralized Military in America

In the very early years of the United States, American political sentiment was heavily against any standing army under federal control. As summarized by Griffin Bovée at the Journal of the American Revolution:

Few ideas were more widely accepted in early America than that of the danger of peacetime standing armies. This anti-standing army sentiment motivated colonial opposition to post-French and Indian War British policies, intensified after the Boston Massacre, influenced the writings of most founding fathers, and remained politically relevant well after the Revolutionary War ended. This sentiment remained largely unchallenged until the introduction of the U.S. Constitution to the public for ratification. The Constitution’s “army clause,” which allowed the U.S. Congress to raise and support armies with biennial funds, sparked a nation-wide debate that pitted tradition against innovation, precedent against necessity, and federalism against nationalism.

The new federal military powers outlined in the proposed new constitution of 1787 sparked much resistance from the so-called anti-Federalists. Chief among them was Patrick Henry who initially opposed ratification of the new constitution on the grounds that the balance of military power under the new constitution favored the federal government. Henry wanted to ensure that an independent system of state militias would remain in place as a safeguard against centralized federal military power. In a 1788 speech, Henry railed against both the raising of a permanent army, and federal control over state troops: “Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress?”

Back then, it was assumed that the Congress would be the dominant power in the federal government, but if Henry were around today, seeing how the presidency now effectively controls the federal government, he would ask how Americans could resist federal power if the states’ militias were “put into the hands of the President?”

The idea here is that the states must not allow state troops—nowadays called the “National Guard”—to be controlled by the federal government.

For most of the nineteenth century—until the Civil War—the federal standing army was tiny. In effect, the federal government had access to very few troops for federal deployments of any kind. Federal control of state militias was still subject to veto by the state governments, and state governments were also known to use this veto. For example, the state governments refused to comply with federal attempts to take control of state troops in wartime in Connecticut in 1812, and Kentucky in 1861. In peacetime, state governments guarded their prerogatives over the militia even more jealously.

Turning State Militias Into a Federalized Military Force

By the late nineteenth century, however, state troops increasingly came under the control of the federal government, and the beginning of the end came with the Dick Act of 1903. As noted by David Yassky:

Statutes subsequent to the Dick Act have placed the National Guard under ever-greater federal control. Currently, anyone enlisting in a National Guard unit is automatically also enlisted into a “reserve” unit of the U.S. Army (or Air Force), the federal government may use National Guard units for a variety of purposes, and the federal government appoints the commanding officers for these units.1

The Dick Act introduced the use of the phrase “National Guard” in federal statutes. This new legislation also paved the way for the use of National Guard units to be used outside the territory of the United States, with a 1906 amendment specifically creating a provision for the use of militia units “either within or without the territory of the United States.”

This provision was later contested on constitutional grounds, but the Congress responded with the National Defense Act of 1916 which made it even easier for the president to call up state troops for federal purposes.

Over time, the line between state militias and federal troops became increasingly blurred, and today, state National Guard units today do not function independently of the United States government in any meaningful way.

Notably, the Dick Act also played a big part in overturning the idea that the general public constituted the informal militia of the United States. In the nineteenth century, there was a symbiotic relationship between the state militias and private gun ownership. This was due largely to the founding-era conception of the militia. Yassky adds:

 [I]n the Founders’ conceptual framework the militia consisted of the mass of ordinary citizens, trained to arms and available to serve at the call of the state. As George Mason put it: “Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except [for] a few public officers. … When the Second Congress sought to exercise its constitutional authority to “provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia,” it directed “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states [except for persons exempted under state law and certain other exempted classes] … who is … of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years” to enroll in the militia of their states. Or as Patrick Henry declared at the Virginia ratifying convention: “The great object is, that every man be armed.”2

With the invention of the federally controlled “National Guard,” however, the legal concept of an “unorganized militia” was effectively abolished, and with it the perceived value of armed citizens. Even worse is the gradual subversion of the independence of the state militias.

Nonetheless, many modern-day conservative Trump supporters have apparently discovered their love of a federalized militia and the idea that the central government can deploy it at the whims of the central government. Trump has even proposed a permanent nationwide “reaction force” of National Guard troops for deployment to American cities at the president’s discretion. This would be the realization of a standing army specifically designed for use against Americans.

This was exactly what Henry, Mason, and the anti-Federalists feared and argued against. But, for Trump, it seems no amount of federal power is too much so long as it’s in the service of “owning the libs” and targeting political opponents. One would think that those who purport to oppose federal power and support individual liberty would balk at the idea of handing over even more coercive power to the federal government. Alas, if Trump supporters are any indication, this is apparently not the case.

The United States is already so far down the road of centralization and militarization that the average American of the founding era would find this country utterly unrecognizable. Americans of that era were far more realistic and less naïve about how abuses of power are carried out. The preservation of freedom often comes down to balancing one coercive power against another. A country where the central government holds almost all the military power, however, is a country where the central government is effectively free to do whatever it wants to its citizens in a time of emergency, either imagined or real. Those early Americans who sought to prevent the centralization of military power were right. But their words of warning are long forgotten.

—

1 See: David Yassky, “The Second Amendment: Structure, History, and Constitutional Change,” 99 Mich. L. Rev. 588 (2000).

2 Ibid.

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