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Bubbles Pop Everywhere

Mar, 25/11/2025 - 05:01

On Wednesday’s episode of the Peter Schiff Show, Peter returns to his show to walk listeners through what he sees as multiple asset bubbles and why those bubbles matter beyond headline market moves. He calls out the AI stock mania, a fragile housing market propped up by policy, and the crypto circus — all potential bubbles inflated by easy money.

He opens by framing the broader problem: we don’t just have one overheating market, we have many, and policy choices make their unwinding more dangerous:

The bigger question is not just whether or not this is a precursor for other bubbles to pop because there are a lot of bubbles. We have a bubble in AI stocks and I’ll talk about that too. On this podcast, we got Nvidia earnings out after the close today, but we have the AI bubble. There’s a bubble in housing, which, you know, the government is really trying to prevent from deflating, which of course they need to allow it to deflate, but they’re afraid of what might happen.

Peter is careful to separate hype from technological promise — he believes AI could genuinely reshape productivity and living standards — but warns that enthusiasm is fueling speculative excess rather than sober investment:

When I talk about an AI bubble, I am not saying that there isn’t potential in artificial intelligence. In fact, I think there’s tremendous potential. I think there’s probably more potential there than in anything I’ve seen, which would include the internet, which had a lot of potential. I think that AI could be the most transformative invention as far as lifting the standard of living of all of humanity.

Shifting from tech to crypto, Peter points to recent price action as evidence that much of the Bitcoin story is built on air — a sharp drawdown is “a pretty big bear market in nothing,” and he prefers measuring crypto’s value relative to gold rather than dollars:

Earlier this afternoon, Bitcoin traded below 88,500. Now, of course, that’s still a ridiculously high price to pay for nothing, but it’s about 30% below what you had to pay for nothing a couple of months ago. All right. So that is a pretty big bear market in nothing; Bitcoin down 30%. In terms of gold, which again is a better way to measure the price of Bitcoin, because after all Bitcoin is marketed as being digital gold, as being an alternative to gold that is going to replace gold because it’s better than gold.

Ironically, Peter says, the one real constructive outcome from the crypto craze could be greater utility for actual money: tokenized gold. If blockchain tech makes gold more liquid and transferable, that can strengthen gold’s role rather than replace it — because tokens are only as meaningful as the asset backing them:

Ironically, the one thing that might come out of the whole crypto bubble is tokenized gold. Gold may be the only real winner. Rather than killing gold, blockchain may have just given it a new lease on life by making gold even more efficient than it’s ever been as a means of exchange, making it more liquid, making it more divisible, making it more portable. All the characteristics that people think Bitcoin has that are better than gold are worthless without the underlying value of gold.

Finally, Peter reads the Fed’s recent comments as dangerously complacent. He notes that members of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) appeared to downplay inflation risks tied to tariffs, suggesting any price increases from trade barriers may be temporary — even as tariff policy changes are being used politically to try to cool prices:

I thought what was significant, and it should have produced a bigger reaction, but it did not, was that the FOMC members seem to believe that the inflation threat that they thought may have come from tariffs isn’t there. And to the extent that prices are higher, that it’s not, you know, a permanent thing, that it’s like a one and done situation. And of course, Trump has been rolling back more tariffs recently, a lot of items. 

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

The post Bubbles Pop Everywhere appeared first on LewRockwell.

War With Venezuela Won’t Solve America’s Economic Woes

Mar, 25/11/2025 - 05:01

In April 1939, American unemployment reached 20.7 percent. For Henry Morgenthau Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury, this was bad news. In a private meeting he confessed to two senior congressmen: “We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work… After eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And an enormous debt to boot.”

Today, Americans know how the Great Depression ended. It ended with the onset of war in Europe. FDR truly believed that, if Britain and France went to war with Germany, the quagmire would make the British and French Governments heavily dependent on access to U.S. credit markets and resources, thereby ending America’s economic Depression. FDR welcomed the stimulus that war provided.

In 1939, Joseph Stalin hoped war in the West would be a quagmire fatally weakening Germany and its opponents. Stalin believed this development would open the door to a massive Soviet invasion from the East that would supplant Nazism with Communism. Thus, Stalin eagerly supplied the German war machine with the oil, iron, aluminum, grain, rubber, and other mineral resources Berlin needed to launch its war against Britain, France, and the Low Countries.

Ultimately, both FDR and Stalin miscalculated just how costly and risky the new conflict in Europe would be. War broke out in 1939, and in 1940 German military power rapidly defeated Western allies, though Britain fought on. The next year Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Today, the Trump administration faces some conditions that FDR would recognize. Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, confronts a national sovereign debt of approximately $38 trillion. Liquidity strains also persist in parts of the financial system, and the dollar’s long-term reserve status is under significant pressure and scrutiny.

Among the ideas under discussion by Bessent is a more enthusiastic official embrace of stablecoins—cryptocurrencies deliberately engineered to remain boringly pegged one-for-one to the dollar by holding equivalent reserves of cash or high-quality cash-equivalents in regulated accounts. In plain language: digital dollars that promise never to fluctuate like Bitcoin but can circle the globe in seconds without ever touching a traditional bank.

Bessent publicly argues that well-regulated stablecoins will also extend the dollar’s dominance into the blockchain era. Trump appears sympathetic; there is, after all, not enough gold on the planet to return to a metallic standard, and simply printing more fiat currency will further debase the dollar. Wall Street, ever helpful, is delighted to assist in kicking the can a little further—ideally down a blockchain-paved road.

Meanwhile, the Trump White House is charting a new course to war, this time in the direction of Venezuela. Has the administration concluded that the rapid conquest of Venezuela could induce the kind of economic stimulus that rescued FDR’s failed policies and restore economic prosperity inside the United States?

Compared with the Russian or Iranian armed forces, Venezuela’s military is almost Lilliputian. Nicolás Maduro presides over a hard-left, bitterly anti-American regime that is bankrupt, internationally isolated (save for Havana, Moscow, and Tehran), and yet sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves—303 billion barrels, according to OPEC’s latest assessment.

In addition, Cuba still depends on Venezuela for the overwhelming majority of its subsidized oil imports. A post-Maduro government amenable to Washington could, in theory, sever that lifeline and simultaneously open the spigots to international operators able to produce without the chronic interruptions that have reduced output from over 3 million barrels a day to less than 1 million.

Read the Whole Article

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What Ever Became of Usury?

Mar, 25/11/2025 - 05:01

Banks with credit card businesses are currently charging an annual interest rate of 19.24 percent on purchases. If you use their card for cash advances, the interest rate you pay is 29.99 percent.  If I remember my medieval history, 30% is higher than the usury Jews charged that led to pogroms and is higher than the percentage of serf labor to which feudal lords had claim..

I got to wondering what percentage of banks’s profits came from credit card interest and bank fees.  In other words, does it pay banks to finance new investment in plant and equipment when they can get 20% or 30% from lending to hard pressed Americans living on their credit card?

I did a search, and there is not the information you would suspect.  I did learn that credit card companies make more money from interest on unpaid accounts than from transaction fees on purchases.  Interest charges on outstanding balances are paid by the card user.  Transaction fees on purchasers were formerly paid by merchants.  However, today many merchants have shifted these charges to their customers. When you use your credit card today, you, not the merchant, face the transaction charges.

I learned that although credit cards only account for 4.5% of banks’ total balance sheets, they generated 16.6% of banks’ interest income during 2010-2023.

In 2022 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported that credit card companies charged consumers more than $25 billion in fees, especially for late payment, and that these fees represent 16% of aggregate profit of the credit card businesses.

So, the former paradigm of a bank receiving deposits from depositors, for which it paid interest, then lending the deposits to corporations at a higher interest is no longer the paradigm.  Today the paradigm is that banks rip off consumers and no not lend for the expansion of productive capacity. 

The collapse caused by the massive loans involved with subprime derivatives that brought the collapse of 2008 now threatens a repeat with what seems to be an AI bubble that is unsustainable, if Michael Burry of The Great Short is again correct while no one listens. See this.

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11 Countries That Will Likely to Collapse by 2040

Mar, 25/11/2025 - 05:01

“This article was created for educational purposes”

Predicting outright state collapse is inherently uncertain, but by 2040 several countries face materially elevated risk of severe state failure or collapse of central authority—meaning loss of effective governance over significant territory, large-scale internal conflict, or fragmentation. The following list identifies countries widely judged vulnerable by analysts, with the dominant factors driving risk for each. This is a probabilistic assessment (not a deterministic forecast); risks arise from combinations of governance failure, economic stress, demography, external interference, and climate and resource shocks.

High-risk (elevated probability of major failure or fragmentation by 2040)

  • Sudan
    • Key drivers: persistent civil war since 2023 between military and multiple paramilitary factions; fractured elites; collapsed economy; humanitarian catastrophe; regional proxy interventions; armed militias controlling territory. Absent a credible peace process and restoration of basic services, continued fragmentation and local warlord rule remain likely.
  • Libya
    • Key drivers: enduring rival governments and militias since 2011; localized war economies centered on oil; weak institutions; foreign military involvement from regional powers; fragmented security forces. Elections and stabilization have repeatedly failed; continuation of de facto partition or recurring armed confrontations is plausible.
  • Somalia
    • Key drivers: decades of weak central institutions; resilient Islamist insurgency (al-Shabaab); clan fragmentation; recurring drought and food crises; limited revenue base and heavy external dependence. Federal government holds territory intermittently; risk centers on further territorial losses to non-state actors and de facto regional autonomy.
  • Yemen
    • Key drivers: prolonged civil war (Houthi vs. internationally recognized government and southern movements), foreign intervention (Saudi/UAE, Iran-backed dynamics), collapsed public services, famine risk, and multiple competing authorities in north and south. A negotiated nationwide settlement before 2040 is possible but not assured; continued partition or frozen conflict is likely without major shifts.

Significant-concern (substantial vulnerability, where collapse is a realistic tail outcome under adverse shocks)

  • Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
    • Key drivers: vast territory with weak state reach, numerous armed groups in the east, fragile institutions, resource-driven local conflicts, poor infrastructure, and refugee flows. A regional conflagration or intensified localized state retreat could yield large-scale governance collapse in parts of the country.
  • Haiti
    • Key drivers: chronic political instability, powerful gangs controlling large urban areas (Port-au-Prince), weak security forces, economic collapse, natural disasters, and limited institutional capacity. Without decisive security reform and economic stabilization, de facto governance vacuums and quasi-failed-state dynamics will likely persist or worsen.
  • Afghanistan
    • Key drivers: the Taliban’s hold since 2021 has not produced unified, durable governance across ethnic lines; economic collapse, international isolation, insurgent pockets, factionalism, and climate-driven shocks. The risk is not classic internationalized collapse but fragmentation, governance breakdown in provinces, and potential return of competing armed groups.
  • South Sudan
    • Key drivers: weak institutions since independence, ethnicized politics, recurrent violence, dependence on oil revenues, poor service delivery, and climate stress on pastoralist livelihoods. Recurrent localized breakdowns remain likely; a full reversion to widespread civil war is a significant tail risk.

Medium-concern (fragility that could tip under severe economic, political, or climate shocks)

  • Lebanon
    • Key drivers: economic meltdown, currency collapse, sectarian/political paralysis, refugee burden, and state delegitimization. Collapse into prolonged governance paralysis and localized militias is possible if economic conditions and patronage networks deteriorate further.
  • Pakistan
    • Key drivers: economic crisis, political-military friction, extremist insurgency pockets, water scarcity, and institutional fragility. Full state collapse is low-probability, but severe governance crises, localized breakdowns, or loss of state capacity in border regions could occur under large shocks.
  • Nigeria
    • Key drivers: insurgency in the northeast (Boko Haram/IS affiliate), banditry and farmer–herder conflict in the middle belt, separatist pressures in the southeast, weak logistics and constrained fiscal space. Collapse of the whole state is unlikely, but protracted fragmentation or long-term erosion of state authority in large regions is a material risk.

Read the Whole Article

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Lies as a Weapon of Government

Mar, 25/11/2025 - 05:01

The French authorities commemorated the November 13, 2015 attacks. President François Hollande and his associates did everything in their power to conceal the truth from their people. In doing so, while they may have succeeded in evading their own mistakes, by depriving their fellow citizens of the truth, they deprived them of the opportunity to rebuild their lives.

France is a very strange country. To lull its population to sleep, it likes to celebrate its misfortunes. On November 13, 2025, France therefore celebrated the tenth anniversary of its defeat of November 13, 2015, when terrorists massacred 133 people and injured 413 in six attacks at the Stade de France (Saint-Denis), on the terraces of cafes, and at the Bataclan.

In his address, President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed, “This haunting question: why? We would like to find meaning in what happened… No, there is no meaning, no justification for your pain. There never will be.”

It is a terrible lie that prevents all those who experienced these attacks in their flesh from finding peace: Yes, these attacks had a meaning, but our leaders chose to hide it from us so as not to have to acknowledge their mistakes.

To understand what happened that day, we must first examine the context of the events. In February 2011, France, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, sought to involve Turkey in the Western war against Libya, despite Libya being its second-largest trading partner. France secured Ankara’s commitment to mobilize the Misrata tribe, heirs to the Ottoman army, against Muammar Gaddafi. In exchange, Turkey pledged to shift the Turkish problem away from its Kurdish minority. A secret treaty was signed between the two foreign ministers, Alain Juppé and Ahmet Davutoğlu. It stipulated the creation of a Kurdish state outside of Turkey, in Syria, where many Turkish Kurds had sought refuge in the 1980s. This plan is unknown in France, but was published at the time by the Algerian press under the code name “Plan Bleu” (Blue Plan).

While President Sarkozy had committed France to the Western operation against Libya, and then against Syria, he changed his mind in February 2012 when he realized the river of blood he was fueling. His “American friends” therefore ensured his failure to be re-elected and replaced him with François Hollande. Hollande immediately reignited the war, convening the third meeting of the “Friends of the Syrian People Group” in Paris with Hillary Clinton on July 6, 2012.

On October 31, 2014, during the official visit of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then Turkish Prime Minister, to Paris, President François Hollande held a secret meeting at the Élysée Palace with Salih Muslim, co-president of the Syrian Kurds. The two men agreed to implement the Juppé-Davutoğlu plan at the expense of the Syrians.

However, the United States supported the PKK (renamed YPG in Syria) during the Battle of Kobani. Loyal to his “American friends,” President Hollande then received Asya Abdullah, co-president of the Syrian Kurds (loyal to Abdullah Öcalan), and Commander Nesrin Abdullah, in her leopard-print uniform, at the Élysée Palace on February 8, 2015. Salih Muslim, the other co-president of the Syrian Kurds and the only Kurdish leader in favor of the transfer of a Kurdish state to Syria, was not invited.

On July 20, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reacted by ordering his ISIS operatives to carry out an attack against Kurds during a demonstration in Suruç, Anatolia.
On November 13, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave the order to attack France.

It is important to understand that France was wrong the first time to commit to transferring Kurdistan to Syria and then again to abandon its promise. Turkey, true to form, reacted by first carrying out an attack against Turkish Kurds (34 dead and 104 wounded), and then against the French (113 dead and 413 wounded).

The story doesn’t end there.

French police managed to identify and locate some of the “terrorists” they arrested in Saint-Denis. They prevented an attack in La Défense. But the team reformed, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered a second wave in Brussels.

This time, he made no secret of it. During the commemorations of the Battle of Gallipoli on March 18, he threatened the European Union Commission, which had welcomed the branch of the Kurds loyal to Abdullah Öcalan, declaring: “I appeal to the states that welcome them [the PKK] with open arms, which, directly or indirectly, support terrorist organizations. You are feeding a snake in your bed. And that snake you are feeding can bite you at any moment.”  [ 1 ] Four days later, on March 22, the same team that carried out the attacks in Saint-Denis and Paris perpetrated the attacks in Zaventem and Brussels (35 dead and 340 wounded).

You should know that one of the terrorists who participated in the attacks in France and Belgium, Mohammed Abrini, known as “the man in the hat,” was an informant for MI6  [ 2 ] . He warned London (which, on principle, supported Turkey), but neither Paris nor Brussels.

There was no third wave because, once France had created “Rojava” (the Syrian region seized by Kurdish mercenaries) in Syria, the United States intervened and stipulated that it should not be an independent state, but an “autonomous region.” The Turks were satisfied to no longer have the PKK Kurds within their borders, and the French could claim to have more or less fulfilled their promise.

A massive trial was held in Paris, lasting ten months in 2021-2022. François Hollande testified but never once mentioned his political responsibility in these tragedies. None of the judges asked him any questions on the matter.

Our leaders are not accountable to the Nation.

A museum in Paris will be dedicated to terrorism. It is doomed to failure. Indeed, according to its manifesto, its purpose is to “give meaning to the suffering endured by the victims by offering keys to understanding an ongoing history.” That is to say, everything that our irresponsible politicians are obstructing.

Moreover, terrorism, whether perpetrated by isolated individuals, groups or states, is not a fact in itself, but a method of combat that can be practiced by all military organizations without exception, including regular armies.

In 2001, after the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, George W. Bush, President of the United States, declared a “war on terror.” To achieve this, the world’s largest army transformed itself into a band of criminals practicing torture on a vast scale.

Every time we use the word “terrorism,” we risk reacting emotionally and failing to understand what is at stake.

1 ]  “  Erdoğan threatens the European Union  ”, by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Voltaire Network , March 18, 2016.

2 ]  “ First Isis supergrass helps UK terror police ”, Tom Harper, The Times , June 26th, 2016. “  Terror suspect dubbed ‘the man in the hat’ after Paris and Brussels attacks becomes British police’s first ISIS Supergrass  ”, Anthony Joseph, Daily Mail , June 26th, 2016.

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Families Are the Key To Building Alternatives to the State

Mar, 25/11/2025 - 05:01

Libertarians talk a lot about the need to weaken—and even to abolish—the state. And rightly so. But a necessary part of opposing the state is building up other institutions that can challenge state power and offer alternatives to the state. That is, if we are to meaningfully undermine the state, it is necessary to encourage, grow, and sustain robust non-state institutions such as churches, families, and private markets. These are the institutions of what the old classical liberals called “civil society.”

Perhaps the most important of these institutions is the family. Among all human institutions, the family is, by far, the most “natural” in the sense that it has existed always and everywhere that humans exist. It is fundamental to the human experience in a way that the state never has been, and never can be.

The state, after all, is neither natural nor necessary, and has only existed in certain times and places. Nonetheless, when and where the state does exist it seeks to weaken and replace all other institutions. During the rise of the modern state in Europe, this has certainly been true as state agents have worked to take control of churches, supplant the nobility, and abolish the independence of municipal and regional polities.

Similarly, the state has sought to supersede the family. This it has done with a myriad of strategies including government schooling, the military draft, the welfare state, and inheritance taxes. Families have always been a threat to state power because families often attract the loyalty of individuals away from state institutions, and families can be critical in offering individuals economic and social stability.

In this endeavor to destroy the family, the state has been increasingly successful in recent centuries. Although the family still exists today, it does so in a greatly weakened state.

This has implications for all other institutions of civil society, as well. Research in recent decades has shown that married couples with children—i.e., intact families—are foundational to the sustainability of religious institutions, charitable organizations, volunteerism, neighborhood stability, and for local social institutions that build the fabric of stable communities. The decline of the family—which has been precipitous since the 1960s—has been a key factor in the decline of these other institutions as well.

In other words, family demographics have been a critical factor. As marriage rates and birth rates have declined, civil society has declined and state power has grown.

Indeed, from the perspective of the state, the ideal demographic makeup of society is likely one composed of single parents raising a small number of children in irreligious households. These types of weakened families are shown to be less engaged civically, more fragile, more mobile, less economically prosperous, and less engaged with religious institutions. All of this this helps ensure weak social bonds coupled with perennial dependence on the state.

Families Are More Active in Building Civil Society 

Civil society has always been much more than the market institutions that exist within it. A functioning society is comprised of countless informal social networks among institutions, within neighborhoods, and within families themselves. Without this, there can be no “high-trust” societies and the result is higher levels of social isolation, crime, and poverty. Moreover, the social skills and loyalties central to the preservation of civil society must also be passed down to future participants.

For many years, some social scientists pushed the theory that members of stable families are less social and less inclined toward civic engagement. Evidence to the contrary continues to pile up, however, and popular books like Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone shows what has long been obvious to many: that the abandonment of earlier marriage and childrearing patterns has led to more social isolation.

Married parents are often the key group that is essential to maintaining these networks and institutions. For example, in a 2010 study, Richard Caputo found that

Families play an important part in the transmission of civic-mindedness: horizontally through interactions with other adults in community and church-related activities which reinforce and help spread civic culture and vertically as parents socialize their children. …

Married persons were found to volunteer more than unmarried, due primarily to increased opportunities to do so arising from their children’s school among other venues … the modal volunteer was found to be the married parent with children, especially of school-age, living in the household.

“Civic engagement” can mean a lot of things, but married persons were found to be especially active in “non-activist” civic engagement such as community fundraisers, supporting local businesses, and donating time to non-political organizations. Caputo notes “more than one-fourth of married persons (28.5%) were non-activist volunteers, nearly twice that of persons who were separated, widowed, or divorced (17.4%) and of nevermarried persons (14.4%).”

(In contrast, unmarried people tend to be more engaged in political activities such as volunteering for a political party.)

Moreover, a 2018 Australian study concludes:

Parents seem to play a key role in providing a route into civic participation and encouraging our young participants to get involved – even more so than a positive experience at school or through friendships with peers. The data we present undermine the idea that strong families do not contribute to civil society – and suggest instead that strong bonds forged within the family can lead to linkages outside it.

Much of the contribution from married couples with children in this regard can be described as “accidental.” That is, as Caputo notes, the process of raising and educating children tends to simply thrust families into more social and interconnected roles within the community. Moreover, married couples with children tend to move around less, therefore contributing to more stable neighborhoods and communities. For one, married parents stay together longer than unmarried co-habiting couples. The relative longevity of married parents leads to more stability for the home lives of children. Moreover, even when adjusted for income, high levels of residential mobility are associated with “negative outcomes including suicide attempts, criminality, psychiatric disorders, drug abuse, and unnatural mortality.”

As a study for the US Department of Housing and Human Services found, “twice as many single-parent families moved compared with two-parent families (26 percent and 13 percent, respectively).” . The presence of children often encourages married parents to avoid even short-distance moves. Parents may be instinctively concluding what other reasearch has shown—namely that frequent moves lead to disruptions in a child’s life and correlate with negative social outcomes.

The Link Between Families and Religion 

Like families, religious institutions—at least in the West—have offered competition for state institutions and have been central to the independence of civil society.  The key building block of religious institutions have been families with married parents.

For example, a substantially larger portion of married people attend religious services compared to never married and separated/divorced adults. This is reinforced when children enter the equation.

A number of studies show a sizable overlap, in terms of behavior and lifestyle, between married people and religious people. This is because married people tend to be religious and vice versa. As summarized by Hanna Seariac:

Additionally, married people are generally more likely to be religious and stay religious.

Both religion and marriage have demonstrable benefits. Research shows actively religious people tend to be happier, more civically engaged, participate in more communities, report some health benefits and engage in more philanthropy. Marriage has benefits for individual couples and their children, but also is instrumental in creating economic stability. …

Researchers have discovered that children who grow up in a single-parent household are more likely to disaffect from their religion and less likely to attend religious services. … As children observe the rupture of their parents’ marriage, they become less likely to be religious growing up and more likely to either not marry or have an unstable marriage.

There is a feedback loop here. Research on civic engagement has shown that much of that engagement involves volunteering for religious institutions and related charitable organizations. This, in turn, encourages more and continued engagement between these married people and their religious institutions.

Data has also shown that those people who regularly attend religious services tend to be married more often and experience much lower rates of divorce. This leads to longer marriages, which in turn leads to more volunteering and community engagement, and so on.

Political Views of Married People and Religious People 

Increased non-political civic engagement among married people likely reflects an ideological bent that is more skeptical of state power.

In his research on attendance at religious services, Ryan Burge concludes “There is almost no ‘liberalizing religion’ in the United States … The more people attend [church], the less liberal they are.” (”Liberal” in this context means “leftist” or “progressive” or “social democrat.”)

Among those who attend weekly or more than weekly, no more than 16 percent identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Nearly 60 percent of those who attend religious services more than once a week identify as conservative or “very conservative.” This correlation is so solid it even cuts across racial categories.1

What do these conservatives believe? Well, for our purposes here—i.e., looking at family as a non-state institution—a 2021 Pew survey shows that people who self-identify as conservatives tend to overwhelmingly agree with the statements “government is almost always wasteful and inefficient,” and “government is doing too many things.” In contrast, the opposite is true for those who self-identify as “liberal” and lopsidedly disagree that governments are too wasteful and powerful.

At the same time, married people more often tend toward self-identifying as “conservative.” This leads to the so-called “marriage gap” in which there is a sizable difference between political views of the unmarried and the married—especially among women. Unmarried women tend to lean well to the left of married women, and adhere to a far more positive view of an activist state.

It’s easy to see why states and their agents have for so long sought to weaken families and related institutions. Without strong families at the center of civil society, many other non-state institutions are weakened as well, and state institutions like public schools and welfare programs become far more central to the lives of many.

1 An additional dimension to this can be found in how conservatives tend to report higher “relationship quality.” See Troy L Fangmeier, Scott M Stanley, Kayla Knopp, Galena K Rhoades,  ”Political Party Identification and Romantic Relationship Quality,” Couple Family Psychol 25, No.9 (Jun 2020)  (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8266382/)

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

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Back to the Caves

Mar, 25/11/2025 - 05:01

Attendance at Mass has plummeted since that New Springtime for the Church, heralded by the Second Vatican Council. There has been no springtime. Indeed, in no area of human culture has there been any such—not in the fine arts, film, literature, education, social institutions, civic life, folkways; not in the ordinary interchanges of human beings outside of their homes; not even in life within the home.

People have not turned from the Church to the mosque, or to the Order of Raccoons, or to some weekly meeting of armchair philosophers. They have turned to nothing at all; or to worse than nothing, the antisocial life of social media, where all is rancor, pride, and spite, and no one need look anyone in the eye and say, “I think you’re wrong,” and begin a fruitful or at least a human discussion. The glory of God is man fully alive; the boast of Satan is to reduce man to less than man, to deaden him within, to get him to prance with pride while he becomes pettier, more predictable; to replace him with automatism, as if he were aspiring with all his tiny heart to become a machine.

I’ve visited my hometown after seven years, and I am struck by how busy the streets are with traffic and how empty the sidewalks are of persons. It is a death-in-life. A few hundred feet from my mother’s house is a small playground with a sign dedicating it to one of our old neighbors. It is empty, always. It is as if someone has mummified and decorated a corpse.

The town had promised the children in my neighborhood a playground. That was almost 60 years ago, when I was a boy. For we had had one, shabby enough, but full of life. On it stood the ruins of a tiny schoolhouse. It had no roof. The walls were scrawled with graffiti. Nails and jagged wood stuck out here and there. Of course we loved it.

One summer, the town sent a couple of teenagers there to oversee it and to do some projects with the inevitable swarm of children climbing the monkey bars, or playing wiffle ball, or hanging around. One project was to make plaster-of-Paris “statues” from rubber molds and then to paint them when they had hardened. One I recall was a bust of John F. Kennedy; another was of the Ten Commandments.

But an old lady next door couldn’t stand the noise, so she badgered the town council till they let her buy the patch of land the playground was on. They promised us a new one nearby, but by the time they got to it, times had changed, and we who had known the old playground were too big for the new one. There were fewer children, too. There it sits, unused, a monument to a feature of human life fallen away.

It is the same with the baseball fields. When I was a boy, we had only one, a sandlot that the men also used for softball and baseball, so there was no fence in the outfield. It was inadequate, but that didn’t matter.

Our small town fielded six Little League teams, with 15 boys on a team. My brother and I and seven of our cousins and three next-door neighbors played on a team that my uncle and then my father managed. But now my brother tells me that the town has only one team. When we had six teams, we played a 20-game schedule, 10 games in each half, which meant there were 60 games all told, so for 12 weeks in the late spring and summer, there were five games a week. People would wander over to the sandlot to check out what was going on. Now, nothing.

I drove past the church, and I saw that parish offices now occupy the house where the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters used to live, when they taught in the three-story building that one of the parish’s old pastors had built. When I attended there, we had between 45 and 51 pupils in my class, all in the same room. Nobody thought that was odd. The school is no more. The parish sold the building to the town, which now uses it for its offices.

The town’s own high school stood across the street, but that was rendered obsolete after the town consolidated its school district with those of two adjacent towns. The new institution was built outside of where anybody lived. A memorial marks the place where the high school used to be. It used also to swarm with young people, most of whom would walk to and from the place, as we did at our Catholic school, so that, twice a day during the school year, there would be some 500 children on the streets, and many of these might not go straight home but rather stop for a snack at the drug store or one of the small groceries, or get a haircut, or lean over the rail of the bridge to spit in the river, or anything—anything human.

People used to do such things. Teenagers went to dances where a local band was playing—and there were innumerable such bands, everywhere in the country. In my town, they used to tack up their advertisements on telephone poles. The fire department, a five-minute walk from my house, often rented space to a band for a small fee; admission might cost a couple of dollars. Such bands acquired a local or regional reputation. One of them in our area, The Poets, played their last gig in 2019. The point is not that they have been superseded by other bands. They have been superseded by nothing.

When I went to the fire department to hear them play, I walked down a very steep road that in snowy weather you would never dare to drive on—so the man who lived at the bottom of the hill, the father of one of my classmates, set up sawhorses in the middle of the street below to keep people away. I like to think that he did so also to allow us children to sled down that hill, which ended in a 90-degree blind turn, so that we did rely on there being no cars to run us over.

On the other side of town there was a hill almost as steep but much longer. It was interrupted by a bed for railroad tracks, which under snow became a ramp for sleds to strike at great speed and sail into the air. This hill could not be cordoned off against cars, but boys would sled down it anyway, as their field of vision there was clear. I wonder how long it has been since anyone has sledded down either hill.

Read the Whole Article

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Who Let The DOGE Out? With Guest David Gornoski

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 18:15

With eight months left on its charter, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has ceased to exist according to the Trump Administration. Radio talk show host David Gornoski was at the center of the storm when Elon Musk endorsed a role for Ron Paul in DOGE and he joins today’s Liberty Report to discuss those heady early days and how the principles of DOGE will remain alive and continue to grow. Also today: the sad departure of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The post Who Let The DOGE Out? With Guest David Gornoski appeared first on LewRockwell.

Murray Rothbard on Freedom of Association

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

Many people today think that it should be illegal to discriminate against other people because of their race, sex, or religion. Applied to blacks, the view I’ll be discussing claims that people should not be allowed to “discriminate” against blacks by refusing to hire them, by refusing to rent to them or to sell property to them, or to reject them in business transactions. If a customer comes into your store, you are not allowed to refuse him service. You are required to be “colorblind”, and, if you aren’t, you can be fined or jailed.

An alternative view is that you are allowed to or even required to give them preferential treatment. If, for example, two of your employees, one black and the other white or Asian, are eligible for promotion, you should promote the black employee, even if the white employee has more seniority. You can’t test people who want a job or a promotion if blacks don’t do as well on the test as whites or Asians, because this outcome shows that the test is biased against them. You are subject to be fined or even jailed if you do give such a test.

Murray Rothbard rejected all of what I have described in the preceding two paragraphs. He had a simple solution. All transactions in a free society are voluntary. You are free to associate, or not to associate with anyone who wants to associate with you.

As he puts it in For a New Liberty: “Fundamental to the libertarian creed is every man’s right to choose who shall enter or use his own property, provided of course that the other person is willing. ‘Discrimination,’ in the sense of choosing favorably or unfavorably in accordance with whatever criteria a person may employ, is an integral part of freedom of choice, and hence of a free society.”

He thought that most people wouldn’t discriminate, because there is an economic cost to doing so. You must bear all the costs of your choices: “Suppose, for example, that someone in a free society is a landlord of a house or a block of houses. He could simply charge the free market rent and let it go at that. But then there are risks; he may choose to discriminate against renting to couples with young children, figuring that there is substantial risk of defacing his property. On the other hand, he may well choose to charge extra rent to compensate for the higher risk, so that the free-market rent for such families will tend to be higher than otherwise. This, in fact, will happen in most cases on the free market. But what of personal, rather than strictly economic, ‘discrimination’ by the landlord? Suppose, for example, that the landlord is a great admirer of six-foot Swedish-Americans, and decides to rent his apartments only to families of such a group. In the free society it would be fully in his right to do so, but he would clearly suffer a large monetary loss as a result. For this means that he would have to turn away tenant after tenant in an endless quest for very tall Swedish-Americans. While this may be considered an extreme example, the effect is exactly the same, though differing in degree, for any sort of personal discrimination in the marketplace. If, for example, the landlord dislikes redheads and determines not to rent his apartments to them, he will suffer losses, although not as severely as in the first example. In any case, anytime anyone practices such ‘discrimination’ in the free market, he must bear the costs.”

Some people object to the example of redheads. They point out that most people don’t have negative views about redheads; and, even if they do, redheads can easily find someone else to deal with. But many people have negative views about blacks.  Because of this, blacks may find it difficult to find people who want to deal with them and as a result, they may have to accept inferior alternatives. Even if this is true, though, they have no right to violate the property rights of others. People’s property rights aren’t dependent on not putting others at a significant disadvantage.

But in fact, as Rothbard says, the profit motive is very strong, and most businessmen won’t be willing to give up a deal because of their personal opinions about a group. We can see this in the history of the American South after the end of the War Between the States.

There is an excellent discussion of this vital fact in an article by Tom Mullen, written in a very Rothbardian spirit. Here is what Mullen says: “If you believe the approved narrative, the post-bellum South was a monolithic hive-mind of sheet-wearing racists who couldn’t wait to codify their hatred into law. While this fiction validates statists of every stripe and allows northerners to feel morally superior, the truth is uncomfortable for both: large parts of the South were already desegregating on their own until the government stepped in to stop them.

“That’s right. Before the Jim Crow laws of 1890–1910, tens of thousands of Southern businesses – black and white owned – served both races without a second thought. Streetcars in New Orleans, theaters in Charleston, barbershops in Richmond, saloons in Mobile, and first-class railroad cars from Virginia to Texas routinely mixed Black and White customers. In many cities the integrated establishments were not a courageous minority; they were the majority.

“The free market was producing exactly what free markets always produce: a spectrum of choices, some segregated by private choice, most not. And the non-segregated ones were winning.

This situation changed only when the state governments required segregation: “If you believe the approved narrative, the post-bellum South was a monolithic hive-mind of sheet-wearing racists who couldn’t wait to codify their hatred into law. While this fiction validates statists of every stripe and allows northerners to feel morally superior, the truth is uncomfortable for both: large parts of the South were already desegregating on their own until the government stepped in to stop them.

“That’s right. Before the Jim Crow laws of 1890–1910, tens of thousands of Southern businesses – black and white owned – served both races without a second thought. Streetcars in New Orleans, theaters in Charleston, barbershops in Richmond, saloons in Mobile, and first-class railroad cars from Virginia to Texas routinely mixed Black and White customers. In many cities the integrated establishments were not a courageous minority; they were the majority.

“The free market was producing exactly what free markets always produce: a spectrum of choices, some segregated by private choice, most not. And the non-segregated ones were winning.”

This situation changed only after the state governments required segregation: “Every single segregation statute was a blatant violation of freedom of association and freedom of contract. The Louisiana Separate Car Act didn’t politely ‘ask’ the railroad to add a colored car; it threatened prison for any conductor who let a Black passenger sit in the White section—or a White passenger sit in the Black section if he preferred the company. The Arkansas streetcar law of 1903 didn’t appeal to conscience; it fined drivers $25 (over $800 today) every time they failed to enforce the color line.

“These weren’t ‘public safety’ regulations. They were cartel enforcement mechanisms written by the losers in the marketplace who couldn’t compete with entrepreneurs – Black or White – who treated customers as individuals instead of racial categories.

“White restaurant owners in Mobile didn’t lobby for segregation because they woke up one day disliking black people any more than they previously did. They did it because John Callahan’s café served Black longshoremen at the same counter for the same price and was stealing their lunch trade. White theater owners in Chattanooga didn’t care about ‘racial purity’ until the Bijou started selling orchestra seats to Black patrons and cut their ticket revenue in half. White barbers in Little Rock passed a law banning barbers from cutting the hair of the opposite race because Black barbers had cornered the high-end White clientele.

“And don’t think they only targeted Black competitors. White ‘race traitors’ got it worse. The Richmond streetcar monopoly didn’t just want Black hack drivers gone; they wanted every White hack driver who still picked up Black passengers run out of business, too. Economic historian Jennifer Roback documented that Jim Crow laws systematically raised the cost of doing integrated business until only the state-protected cartel survived.”

Let’s do everything we can to defend genuine freedom of association and oppose all laws requiring either preferential treatment or “segregation.” This is what our great teacher Murray Rothbard wanted us to do.

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Read My Lips: No More Bushes

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

You’ve been there.  You wake up, grab some coffee, check LewRockwell, and then begin sorting through domestic and global news.  All of a sudden, a story smacks you in the jaw, and you almost spit up some much-needed caffeinated brew.  

That’s what happened to me when I saw Breitbart’s lead story early Thursday. It didn’t concern the prospect of nuclear war with China or Russia, and it had nothing to do with federal judges cosplaying as royal monarchs. The headlineblared, “Bush Family Plotting Comeback to Retake GOP from Trump.” As I read the words, I could hear the little girl fromPoltergeist IIsquealing, “They’re baaaaack!” As is true of every other horror movie, I knew deep down that the Deep State Bushes would never really go away.

Breitbart was putting a spotlight on areportfrom the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail, in which that publication claims, “Behind the scenes, and still with deep connections around the country, a shadow Republican Party is lying in wait to take over when Trump is gone.” The Mail then references a “former Bush official with a visceral hatred of Trump” who is working with others to support a 2028 “push” that would “end the so-called ‘Bush Exile’ and take back the GOP from the so-called scourge of Trumpism.” Napoleon had a similar plan when he departed the Island of Elba, and look at how well that worked out for him!

The Daily Mail says that “neocons” have been very unhappy with the way that President Trump lambasts their “forever wars” and expensive “interventionism” but now feel “vindicated” by Trump’s “failure” to contain Vladimir Putin. One anonymous Bush official argues explicitly that Trump should have “surrounded himself” with members of the “deep state.” Uff da. I mean, a principal reason why Americans voted for Trump in 2016 is because they had become thoroughly fed up with both Republicans and Democrats running the same presidential and vice presidential candidates every four years: Deep State/Deep State (R) vs. Deep State/Deep State (D). Americans finally realized that voting for the same dip**its — I mean, deep-staters — is a losing strategy. Yet the Bush Republicans want to put the Deep State back in charge and celebrate “competence” or something.

The Daily Mail points out that Bush II was “particularly irked” by President Trump’s decision to break up USAID — you know, the longtime CIA front group that posed as a humanitarian organization while it stirred up chaos in foreign countries, fomented “color revolutions,” and installed NATO/EU/CIA-friendly leaders in the name of “democracy.” Although “Dubya” is biting his tongue right now, the Mail notes that “scores of former Bush officials” have already “left the Republican Party, joining anti-Trump groups like The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump.” Perhaps the Brits are too far away to know that Americans see those clowns as nothing more than a menagerie of child predators, RINOs, somewhat-closeted Democrats, leftist-globalists, oligarchs, and permanent-government grifters who would trade the welfare of their countrymen for a hundred dollar steak and a Cayman Islands bank account filled with foreign “donations.”

The Mail acknowledges that the Bush dynasty has suffered some defeats as of late — most notably the embarrassing blowout losses for Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican primaries and for Jeb’s son, George Prescott Bush, in the Texas attorney general race against Ken Paxton. But the British publication seems to have swallowed some of the Democrats’/RINOs’ hype that Jeffrey Epstein’s pimping services for Democrats, royals, tech billionaires, and other assorted deviants will somehow take down President Trump. Should that happen, the Mail concludes, “it could open the door within the Republican Party for the rise of an ‘anti-MAGA’ heir to Bush.”

Thirteen hours after Breitbart first uploaded its story, the most popular reactions in the comments included these darts:

“No chance…zero. They might as well dig up Herbert Hoover.”

“I’ll never vote for another Bush as long as I live. I learned my lesson.”

“No more globalists! The only reason people voted for W, is because he was better than Al Gore and John Kerry — or so we thought.”

“I hate these A-Holes and I’m from Texas. Look, MAGA is the way. It is the only way.”

“The Bushes are Kennebunkport arrogant Yankees. They’re as Texas as a New England clam bake or clam chowder.”

No matter how much the British/American Deep State would love to resurrect the Bush dynasty until it can institute a proper global government to rule over Americans, MAGA voters aren’t likely to bend the knee for Karl Rove and his petulant coalition of castrated RINOs.

The legacy of George W. Bush isn’t pretty: After failing to prevent 9/11, “Dubya” instituted unconstitutional mass surveillance programs under the Patriot Act and led us into two separate multi-decade-long wars that accomplished remarkably little given their cost in blood and treasure. Then he presided over a 2008 financial crisis that nearly broke the global economy and helped put Divider-in-Chief Obama in office for eight years.

His father should never have been Reagan’s running-mate. After riding Reagan’s populist coattails into the White House, Bush I betrayed Reaganomics and laid the groundwork for the blue-collar-job-killing NAFTA that destroyed small towns across the country.

Read my lipsNo more Bushes.

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The Dynasty That Changed the World

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

The movie recommended in Chapter XII of ‘The Bible Under the Microscope’ will help us introduce this new series of chapters dedicated to history.. Apparently, this film with mythological undertones is, at its core, a mirror reflecting hidden structures and silent hierarchies. What appears as fiction on the screen could very well be an allegory of what has been happening —in the shadows— for centuries. And it is precisely this thin line between what is told and what is hidden that we will explore in this new series: what versions of history have we been allowed to know, and which have been deliberately buried?

History, just as we have confirmed with religion, is not neutral. It is a constructed narrative, traded for interests, manipulated, and sometimes deliberately distorted. Acknowledging this allows us to better understand how certain readings of the past serve to legitimize restrictions, dogmas, or privileges in the present.

The security of what we believe to know dissolves when we are asked to go beyond the obvious. What is accepted could be a structure to maintain the status quo, sustained by repetition and agreement. Under this suspicion, every statement is examined rigorously: what appears tangible may be hidden behind facades, and what is unquestioned could be the visible part of a broader project.

What I am about to share in this new series of chapters is difficult to admit, but this journey is not simply an exchange of data: it is an assault on what you believe you know. It is a clash with what you have learned since childhood, against the truths that have been repeated to you countless times in the classroom, in textbooks, and through authoritative voices. Lies upon lies—there they are, like puzzle pieces laid out on a desk, accompanied by dates, names, and doctrines that form a story which, in many moments, reveals itself as false or incomplete.

I know this is provocative and may disrupt the beliefs you hold. I have already mentioned that the subject is uncomfortable and challenges certainties that have been given to you. But trust me, within all this information there is truth and honesty. It is not about demolishing beliefs merely for the sake of doubt, but about seeking an understanding that can withstand scrutiny: the truth does not fear verification, and wisdom is not solidified without examination.

If you have doubts, I invite you to investigate and study. Not to obey a new dogma, but so that your judgment is fueled by evidence—so that you can construct, with your own hands and your own thinking, a more complex and more faithful view of reality. In this process, there is no betrayal—only an act of openness: a conversation between what you believed and what is yet to be discovered.

Before we begin, it is worth clarifying that the goal is not to pursue a radical or offensive stance; on the contrary, we aim to avoid any belligerent tone and to maintain a respectful attitude. The main objective is to learn, to know, and to rigorously investigate those little-known aspects that can clarify, even if only partially, the overall picture of our history. For those who may feel addressed, it is guaranteed that the individuals involved in this research demonstrate a clear commitment to respect for all races, cultures, and beliefs. What is delicate and thorny in this topic should not distract us from the essential purpose: to seek and present the facts with clarity and responsibility.

Introduction and Context

The information provided here is based on an extraordinary English book, “The History of the House of Rothschild” by Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, published in 2007. This history, which begins around 1743, spans just over 250 years, but its knowledge offers a comprehensive understanding of what is truly happening in the world. As a result of this information, many things can be understood, even if it may come as a shock to existing knowledge and consciousness. It is a story of power based on money, of global domination, and of world governance.

I want to reiterate, as clearly as possible, that the words expressed here are not intended to attack or offend any race or belief. We affirm that all races belong to our same species. Based on the knowledge gained from the series published about the Bible, I suspect that, just as in ancient times, the tendency to divide and confront human beings remains active. History seems to repeat itself: divide, finance both sides, and pit them against each other, as was done during times of human sacrifices. I do not blame anyone; I believe we must be clever enough to understand the game that these beings are playing with our species. I suspect that, behind these events, they still remain present, as the similarities with certain aspects of the Bible are truly astonishing.

To maintain objectivity, the chosen approach will be a chronological description of absolutely verifiable facts and events, which can be confirmed as long as the internet remains accessible. However, I must mention that today it is already difficult to find non-official information. Therefore, the period we will analyze in this chapter covers the years from 1743 to 1798.

The Origins: Mayer Amschel Bauer and the Red Sign

The story begins in 1743 with the birth in Frankfurt (Germany) of Mayer Amschel Bauer, of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.

His father, Moses, was a moneylender and owner of a “Counting House” (an accounting and financial business). He placed a red sign with the symbol of the hexagram, the six-pointed star, on the entrance door of his office—a sign he knew well: It was common at the time to distinguish homes and businesses by means of a sign or symbol, as street numbers were not common. Jews often used these distinctive symbols in Eastern Europe, and the hexagram was a Jewish identification symbol in some communities before it became the universal symbol of Zionism.

This “red sign” gave rise to the family name. Rothschild in German means Rot (red) and Schild (sign). For Mayer, symbols held decisive importance; it is very likely he already participated in secret rituals, influenced by his father’s knowledge. He was very clear about what he was pursuing; he knew the current pacts perfectly and understood the plan devised over millennia, which they, for reasons still unexplained to us, had been chosen to execute. A plan that, as we will see, was a project of control and world domination. While it is not difficult to suspect who might be behind all this, once we examine the topic of religion in the series *The Bible Under the Microscope*, located in the Forbidden Files section.

The hexagram is today visible on monuments, on the dollar bill, on the Pope’s hat, and on the flag of Israel.

In the 1760s, Mayer worked for the Oppenheimer family bank in Hanover, Germany, becoming very successful in business and a minor partner. There, he became familiar with General Von Storf. After his father’s death, Mayer returned to Frankfurt to take charge of the family business.

The Accumulation of Power and Wealth

General Von Storf was assigned to the court of Prince William IX of Hesse-Hanau. This was one of Europe’s wealthiest royal houses, which had accumulated its riches by leasing soldiers (mercenaries) to foreign countries at war, earning extraordinary profits.

Mayer Rothschild, the great merchant, saw a significant business opportunity. Under the pretext of selling valuable coins and trinkets to the prince at reduced prices, he attempted to approach the prince himself. The prince was satisfied, and Rothschild offered him participation in any other venture he might propose—an approach that would eventually lead to complete dependence of the monarchy and governments on his economic power.

Rothschild discovered that lending money to governments and royalty was more profitable than to individuals, since the loans were larger and secured by the nation’s taxes. This discovery opened an incredible source of opportunities to craft his plan and explains why all governments in the world are in debt, despite the ability to issue their own currency. Yet, countries remain tied to the largest bank in the world owned by the Rothschild family.

In 1769, the prince authorized Mayer to hang a sign identifying him as “M. Rothschild assigned to the court by His Highness Prince William of Hanau.

Before continuing, let’s look at some strange and curious family details, because one of the traits of this dynasty is marrying within their own family and not mixing with outsiders. This detail strongly reminded me of the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., where marriages often occurred within the same kinship.

In 1743, Mayer married Gutle Schnapper. Naturally, they are all Jewish—meaning, of course, people of that origin.

In 1773Amsel was born—an important figure in the story—the first son of Mayer. Like all his siblings who followed him, he would enter the family business at age 12. In the next chapter, I will share some of the practices they use to manage this family clan and the certain requirements, laws, criteria, or principles that everyone must strictly follow.

In 1774, Salomon Mayer Rothschild was born. I won’t focus much on the births, but I want you to understand that as the plan develops, a dynasty is being created that later involves links with other families. This is because new people began to appear—motivated by financial, political, and military interests—and, of course, always connected to royalty or high-power families with great prestige. They start distributing power, but always within a very small group.

The Creation of the Illuminati

In the year 1770, a pivotal year, Mayer Rothschild drafted a project for the creation of the Illuminati and entrusted its development and formulation to Adam Weishaupt, a Crypto-Jewish Ashkenazi of Roman Catholic faith. A Crypto-Jewish Ashkenazi is a person of Ashkenazi descent (Jewish ancestry from Central/Eastern Europe) who, outwardly, appeared Christian or of another religion but secretly concealed or practiced Jewish customs. Thus, this lodge was born, whose name translates as “the Enlightened,” referring to individuals who have achieved enlightenment/reason.

On May 1, 1776, Adam Weishaupt officially completed the organization of the Illuminati. Its documented and written purpose was:

  • To divide the goyim (all non-Jews) through political, economic, social, and religious means. This also included Jews whom they did not consider as such. They began by dividing all non-Jews via these means, artificially creating conflicts, wars, labor disputes, social upheavals, ethnic riots, and all kinds of revolts.
  • To generate conflict among the goyim by financing weapons for both sides involved in the conflicts.
  • The ultimate goal was to destroy national governments and religious institutions.

In the same year, Weishaupt infiltrated the secret Masonic order and established the Lodge of the Grand Orient as its secret headquarters, whose emblem was “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” precisely the official motto of the French Republic and its national holiday celebrated on July 14. By order of Mayer Rothschild, Weishaupt recruited 2,000 followers, including the most intelligent men in arts, literature, education, science, finance, and industry, and instructed them in methods to control the population:

  1. Use money and sexual bribery to gain control over influential men in government, and once compromised, subjugate them through blackmail and threats (financial ruin, public exposure, death).
  2. Establish connections with students of exceptional ability in colleges and universities, training them in international relations with the central idea that only a world government can end wars. (We now know they are the ones who produce the wars; this was just an excuse). This specialized training was provided to selected individuals through scholarships funded by the Illuminati. This explains the origins of university scholarships and the fact that all universities, especially the most renowned, are financed by them — a project that began with the Illuminati.
  3. Use these controlled or trained individuals as agents within all governments, positioning them as “experts and specialists behind the scenes” to advise policies aligned with the secret plan of the Illuminati conspiracy.You may have already realized that those who appear to govern are not truly in control; they merely hold political positions and owe favors in the form of money, business interests, or other benefits. They serve only an apparent role, while behind the scenes, puppets are used as agents in all governments. Major institutions you know—such as the UN, WHO, UNESCO, etc.—were all created by them with the same purpose.
  4. Achieve absolute control over the press (the only social communication medium at the time) so that all news and information can be skewed, twisted, altered, manipulated, and controlled to induce the masses to believe whatever they want, including the idea of a world government.

Everything you see on television, hear on the radio, read in newspapers, or magazines is manipulated. Independent and truthful information can only be found through independent channels—something increasingly difficult since 2020, when censorship began to dominate the internet. This explains how many events are inexplicable, how realities are fabricated from nothing, and how, overnight, shocking news spreads while the masses, mesmerized by mainstream media, believe it to be true.

Read the Whole Article

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Covid Censors Mending Fences, Poorly

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

On a Saturday morning, August 1, 2021, my boss uncharacteristically showed up at my workplace, two acres of community gardens. Getting right to the point, she asked if I knew someone named John Schroeder. I dealt with hundreds of people at the gardens and knew countless more from other settings. I couldn’t recall anyone with that name.

I asked why she wanted to know. She said someone who had so identified himself had emailed her that I was spreading Covid and “vaccine” misinformation on the Internet.

I told her, “with all due respect,” that I knew far more about The Virus, the shots and the law than she did and would discuss these with her for as long as she was willing. I added that, though Rutgers University, our employer, was about to require all staff to inject, I would never comply, they’d have to fire me and I’d sue them if they did.

To her credit, my boss, a late-thirties Public Health PhD candidate who bought the “Pandemic” hype, understood what Schroeder and many others didn’t: the First Amendment protects free speech. Besides, everything I had written about the shots was true. My semi-government-funded employer couldn’t restrict what I wrote and said, especially on my own time.

Not gonna lie, though: I often mocked the lockdowns and masks in the presence of those I encountered at the gardens. Aren’t college campuses supposed to be bastions of discourse? Isn’t this the ostensible reason for academic tenure?

I requested my boss to send me my accuser’s email. She did but deleted the sender’s address so as to prevent direct contact.

FW: Mark Oshinskie — Director of New Brunswick Community Farm

From: John Schroeder
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2021 3:28 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Mark Oshinskie — Director of New Brunswick Community Farm

The director of the J&J funded community farm in New Brunswick is a rabid anti-vaxxer who is posting vaccine and covid disinformation on his Medium page.

Please see here:

https://forecheck32.medium.com/vaxx-time-for-bonzo-251501c8b742

And generally here:

https://forecheck32.medium.com/

You are each now on notice of this and I should think something should be done about his continued interest in posting dangerous misinformation.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

John

I’m still not sure John Schroeder wasn’t a pseudonym used by someone I knew. Because I often criticized the Covid Scam and have publicly taken other non-PC stances, numerous individuals in my NPR-loving town hate me. A difference between them and me is that when I disagree with someone, I let that person know directly. I don’t contact their boss and “tell on” them.

If the Schroeders of the world strongly believed in lockdowns, closures, masks, tests and shots, why were they so afraid to defend their views in the marketplace of ideas?

Regardless, I didn’t see how pointing out that the lockdowns and shots would cause more harm than good made me “rabid.” Although the lockdowns caused extensive, permanent damage and the shots failed to stop infection or spread and millions of vaxxers have died or been injured, Schroeder and his ilk still falsely tell themselves that the lockdowns and shots saved millions of lives. It’s easy to think you’re right if you rely on bogus statistics, only hear one side of a story and never consider opposing arguments.

Since March 2020, Schroeder and many other lockdown, mask and jab supporters have believed that calling opponents names like “grandma killer,” “Trumper” and “anti-vaxxer” marginalized their targets and simultaneously placed the name-callers on some self-imagined higher moral and intellectual ground. Instead, name-calling should discredit name-callers. I didn’t need to call those who supported the vaxxes, names. I methodically enumerated and explained the lockdowns, school closures, masks and shots’ shortcomings and their financial, social and human costs.

And though “anti-vaxxer” was intended as a disqualifying insult, being called one didn’t bother me. I believe all of the ostensible vaccines are overrated, have seriously injured many children and that parents should be allowed to refuse to have their kids injected. I’m willing to discuss this topic with those who disagree, as long as they remain calm. I’ll first ask which pro-vaxx studies they’ve read and what they know about these studies’ designs. Then I’ll point out the sharp drop in incidence of diseases decades before vaccinations began.

I wondered what Schroeder thought “should be done” to me. I suspect he copied the garden’s vaxx-making funder, Johnson & Johnson, hoping they’d fire me. This outcome was unlikely. I knew a bunch of J & J employees who volunteered at the gardens. We had gotten along well as we worked alongside each other. I think they would have said I was the opposite of rabid.

And those J & J shots didn’t work so well. Unsurprisingly, none of the shots did.

Brainwashed by panic-mongering media, those who supported lockdowns, school closures, masks, asymptomatic testing and vaccines have been wrong throughout. Living among so many fearful, illogical, low-information and ultimately, destructive individuals bothered me. It’s hard to forget the extent of the groupthink, how imperious people and governments became, and how, collectively, millions of people were either threatened with firings or actually lost jobs because they didn’t inject.

Although I didn’t hide from others or wear a mask and I got a religious exemption from the shots, I couldn’t avoid being censored. Medium removed not only my lockdown and shot criticisms, it also removed dozens of my other, unrelated posts. They digitally “disappeared” me, presumably, given the timing, because Schroeder reported me to them. That’s when I found Substack.

The Scamdemic was built on a relentless barrage of propaganda. In order to deceive the public with its biologically, logically and logistically untenable virus-crushing strategies, the propagandists tried to comprehensively block or erase messages criticizing lockdowns, school closures, masks, asymptomatic tests and vaxxes. The propagandists hated dissent. Allowing the public to consider such messaging would have caused a critical mass of the public to question the “mitigation” measures and jabs and ended the Scamdemic.

From the beginning, it was obvious that various entities, later labeled the Censorship Industrial Complex, had conspired to present a one-sided viral narrative. These entities included federal, state and local governments, the media and a group of government-sponsored, university-employed, euphemistically named entities, purportedly tasked to thwart “Misinformation” but really designed to prevent the public from learning the truth about the Covid Scam. Mum was the word.

Clandestine censorship subsequently became a matter of record. Emails showed that Biden’s henchmen and bureaucrats pressured the media and websites to deplatform, suspend or shadowban those who criticized the lockdowns, school closures, masks, tests and shots. This censorship went far beyond “influencers” with sizable followings. It also encompassed legions of social media users who were suspended by Facebook, LinkedIn, et al. for questioning the Covid “mitigation” or later, the shots.

It’s been painfully clear that many with whom I’ve discussed the Covid mitigation and shots had never heard basic facts that revealed the Scam. As four of many examples, most lockdown and shot backers have never heard that: 1) many said to have died ‘“from Covid” really died of other causes, especially old age, 2) many ostensible Covid victims were medicated or ventilated to death, 3) the PCR tests used to detect “Covid” were never supposed to be used for diagnosis because these tests were wildly overinclusive and 4) vaxx efficacy and risk stats were badly distorted via statistical, definitional chicanery I’ve detailed in prior posts.

In a sixth-grade unit regarding newspapers, our teacher, Mrs. Kasper, told the class that newspapers were valuable because they presented both sides of a story, using more facts than TV or radio reports used. In pre-Scamdemic decades, many newspapers, including the major ones, published my commentaries on various topics, even though I had expressed minority views. I remember, in the mid-1970s, seeing a local nun deliver a forceful anti-abortion, Voice of the People, message after CBS’s New York City affiliate’s Six O’clock News. That equal time ethic is long gone.

In March, 2020, newspapers wouldn’t publish my, or anyone else’s, lockdown, school closure, mask and Covid potlatch criticisms. At that time, we Covid dissidents comprised a tiny slice of the population, probably less than 10%. Some of these conscientious objectors were MDs, Public Health PhDs or, as I was, attorneys.

While we objectors wanted to engage in dialogue, public debate didn’t occur. Unheard by most, I shouted along with other dissidents into gale force winds of government and media demagoguery. Richard Nixon spoke of The Silent Majority. Lockdown and vaxx opponents were The Silenced Minority.

Without seeing lockdown skepticism in print or on electronic media, many succumbed to peer pressure and accepted or acquiesced to the prevailing Viral Terror narrative. If instead of such mob mentality, some dissenting voices were allowed to be heard, as in the movie, Twelve Angry Men, many people would have, for the first time, considered the Covid response’s flaws. Such adversarial exchanges used to be common on TV news shows as 60 Minutes or the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour.

While many people are willing to dance, most are too shy to get on the floor until others do. Similarly, as news purveyors blocked Covid skepticism, news sources prevented others who might have added their anti-lockdown and anti-jab voices from seeing that Covid skeptics like me were out on the floor, assailing these interventions.

Beyond reluctance to stand alone, supporting the Covid overreaction was cast as a moral imperative. The ads told us to “Stay Home, Save Lives” and “Your mask protects me.” In order to be seen, or see oneself, as “good” or “kind,” one was told that they had to buy into all of the mitigation measures and shots.

But if the masses had seen and heard that others sensibly opposed this unprecedented overreaction, some of the reluctant Covid rule followers who considered themselves “the good people” would have concluded that not only was it OK, but far better for humanity, to reject the Covid theater and later, to oppose injecting billions of people with an unnecessary, experimental substance than it was to support any of the overreaction. The lockdown supporters, mask wearers and vaxx takers signaled virtue. In contrast, those who opposed these measures advanced public welfare.

If, in particular, more celebrities or clergy had publicly observed all of the Covid theater’s damage, the dysfunctional wall of obedience and censorship would have been breached and then, collapsed and been overrun. The few in either occupation who spoke against lockdowns, closures, masks or shots didn’t receive column space or airtime.

Read the Whole Article

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Traitors in Government Fund Israel, Ukraine, and NATO Parasites

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

Yes, Israel, Ukraine, NATO and all other countries that receive military or financial aid are parasites, not allies, in two ways. 1. No other country has the resources to come to our defense, and 2. it is impossible for us to be invaded because of our oceans. The money we spend on other countries is nothing less than a “go to hell” message to the American people from the Military Industrial Complex aka Zionist Jewish Lobby aka Deep State and our government.

The American people were sold out by the President and most members of Congress. If they were honest, you would have the greatest economy and lifestyle in the world, guaranteed.

Christian Churches that promote Zionism are a powerful political force. It is difficult for me to understand how Christian Ministers if they were honest and devout could promote Zionism when its evil actions are so contrary to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Just remember that we have been in almost constant Wars for Profit during the last eighty years, without a single Declaration of War.  None were for National Security. We lost 105,000 Military Dead, and millions were killed in other countries, causing the world to hate us. The American People lost lives and their standard of Living while our “officials” profited. The only legal solution is to vote most incumbents in both parties out of office. They are all criminals.

If President Trump was to guarantee Israel our support for 20 years, he should be impeached forthwith. Israel has had the gall to ask for a 20-year guarantee of support.  If Trump was to sell our souls, lives and treasure to Israel for any time period, I would expect a revolt.

I have supported President Trump, but this would be the last straw. The American people have been given the Purple Shaft With Barbed Wire Clusters. In other words we have been screwed, big time, by those we trusted and elected, who turned out to be criminals and traitors without morals or ethics.

This is the time in my life as a writer when additional words are not required in a paper. I have told the  simple truth, and if I was considered influential it would lead to my demise by the Jewish Lobby aka Deep State and our government. But my readers already know this truth. Recent polls show that over half of our population now objects to our support of Israel.

Through my writings, I am merely reinforcing the rise in awareness by all the people of the high levels of corruption within the criminal enterprise known as our government. Everybody is feeling the effects of the satanic control exercised by Israel in their daily lives. My writings have offered a peaceful solution, but it requires a strong resolve of moral character by our leaders. Our leaders have sworn an oath to protect our rights, and if this is not their primary objective, they must be removed, one way or the other.

The post Traitors in Government Fund Israel, Ukraine, and NATO Parasites appeared first on LewRockwell.

Without Faith There Is No Future

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

During the 27 years Karol Wojtyla reigned as Christ’s Vicar on earth, an unprecedented tenure beginning in 1978 and ending with his death in 2005, he managed to accomplish a great many things, not the least being countless pastoral visits (129 to be exact) around the globe, including places which had only the most tenuous connection to Catholic-Christianity. But of all those lands and countries touched by the papal presence, there were three in particular that he needed to see more than once.

These were Poland, his native land, to which he would go nine times, in large part to help bring about the end of Soviet hegemony in Europe. This was followed by France, eldest daughter of the Church, to which he would go eight times, raising repeatedly the matter of her baptismal promises. Finally, there was the United States, of course, a nation no pope could ill-afford not to visit, which he did seven times, reminding us each time not to forget where our freedoms came from and why.

But setting aside Poland and the United States, as important as those visits were, it seems to me that the eight visits to France represent perhaps the most consequential exercise of all—in terms, that is, of trying to reorient the soul of France back to God, to that absolute attraction for whom we all lost a very long time ago thanks to the sin of Adam.

And pursuant to that end, he would unfailingly point to the sacrament of baptism as the necessary means, the perfect point of entry, as it were, in the Church’s effort to reignite in the soul precisely that primal attraction which Original Sin had nearly wiped out altogether. And not only within the individual soul, as though one’s relation to God were a purely private affair, but in the outward forms of life as well, which equally evince hunger and thirst for God, for that wholeness of life which only baptism can bring. Here we see the enduring relevance of that larger and more public dimension to human life which we rightly call culture.

Faith, in other words, whose very enfleshment creates culture, becomes the key ingredient in human history. “A society which has lost its religion,” Christopher Dawson warns, “becomes sooner or later a society which has lost its culture.” And because it is of the very essence of faith to wish to raise up all that has to do with man, including the social order, and thus elevate it all onto the plane of glory, the Church cannot remain indifferent to culture, cannot leave it in its wounded and unredeemed state.

But why did the pope think it necessary to go to France quite so often? Eight visits to a country clearly and undeniably in decline, indeed, in a kind of moral and, yes, even demographic freefall? Why all the attention? Why not simply write it off as yet another failed state, not unlike so many third-world implosions we regularly hear about on the news? Might it have something to do with her being “the eldest daughter of the Church”? And what does that tell us about her place in the economy of grace? I mean, does the honorific still apply if a nation appears to have fallen into apostasy?

But that is just the point, isn’t it? France really is the purest distillate of what postmodern man actually looks like. It is not a pretty sight. A nation without God will inevitably turn on itself, divesting its people of those protections guaranteed by God. And so if the Church were to succeed in calling France back to the source of her greatness, her identity in Christ, arresting thereby her fall into infidelity, how wonderfully contagious might her return then prove to be in bringing other erstwhile Catholic nations back to God.

It is well to remind ourselves that it was on his very first visit, in May of 1980, that the Holy Father spoke of France in a way unlike any other nation, reminding her of history’s high regard for her role as the eldest of all the Church’s daughters. And why is that? Because, owing to her having been the very first among the peoples of Europe to embrace the Faith and the hope of Jesus Christ, she is not only entitled to wear that particular crown but she has also been most earnestly enjoined by Christ to give witness to that fact by evangelizing others.

And what use had she made of it but to spread the message of Christ far and wide, urging her pagan neighbors to go and do likewise. Did it especially please the people of France, I wonder, to have received such a warm congratulatory message from the pope and Bishop of Rome?

He would again stoke that particular flame of French pride when, in 1996, he returned to celebrate 1,500 years of her Catholic-Christian identity. On that day spent celebrating the great jubilee of the baptism of the Frankish King Clovis in the year 496, he particularly commended France for her missionary outreach to the world, for producing so rich a repository of saints and martyrs along the way.

But then, just as the pope was about to conclude his panegyric, the mood suddenly changed. “Dear France,” he began,

permit me to ask this question. We are here to celebrate the fifteenth centenary of a baptism, which you like to think of as your baptism, as the baptism of France. What have you done with your baptism? What has become of it? What have you made of your baptism?

Now there’s an icebreaker for you. And not a few of the French who were there felt the sting of it—including most especially the President of France himself, Jacques Chirac, who had been at great pains in welcoming the Holy Father in the name of a “republican and secular France,” thus erasing an entire millennium and a half of French history.

If the event of a king’s baptism, his putting on Christ both for himself and for all those disparate tribes whom divine providence entrusted him to unite and look after, is not to be dismissed as unreal and therefore unimportant, then it is a huge historical mistake not to acknowledge the connection. It shows how vastly ignorant so much of France is of her own past. Between governance and God, human culture and Christian faith, a nexus had long ago been struck, the fruit of which became Western Christian Civilization. By not knowing that fact, or by heaping scorn and derision upon it, France has made the most egregious confession of ignorance. She has uprooted the very tree in whose branches she had been sitting for centuries.

It was in August of the following year, 1997, that the pope would return to his eldest daughter, traveling this time to Paris for World Youth Day, during which he would strike a very different note. There he spoke to many thousands of eager young pilgrims.

“Do you know,” he asked them, “what the sacrament of baptism does to you?” He told them:

It means that God acknowledges you as his children and transforms your existence into a story of love with him. He conforms you to Christ so that you will be able to fulfill your personal vocation. He has come to make a pact with you and he offers you his peace. Live from now on as children of the light who know that they are reconciled by the Cross of the Savior!

What might the young people of France yet do with their baptismal promises? And what are we going to do with ours?

This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.

The post Without Faith There Is No Future appeared first on LewRockwell.

Freedom From the State’s Conception of Existence, or Having the Courage of a Bee to be faithful to the Nonviolent Jesus and His Way of Nonviolent Love.

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

Leo Tolstoy, one of humanity’s authentic literary geniuses, wrote the masterpiece on Gospel Nonviolence, The Kingdom of God is Within you, which upon reading it was the critical and final step in Gandhi’s conversion to nonviolence, as well as in the conversions of untold numbers of other human beings to explicitly Gospel Nonviolence. Tolstoy was also a seasoned beekeeper. Throughout his writings he employs bees and their ways to illuminate a deeper understanding of or solution to seemingly intractable human spiritual and practical problems. For example, below he addresses one of the most insoluble and destructive of the conundrums facing humanity

Men in their present condition are like a swarm of bees hanging in a cluster to a branch. The position of the bees on the branch is temporary, and must inevitably be changed. They must start off and find themselves a habitation. Each of the bees knows this, and desires to change her own and the others’ position, but no one of them can do it till the rest of them do it. They cannot all start off at once, because one hangs on to another and hinders her from separating from the swarm, and therefore they all continue to hang there. It would seem that the bees could never escape from their position, just as it seems that worldly men, caught in the state’s conception of life, can never escape it. And there would be no escape for the bees, if each of them were not a living, separate creature, endowed with wings of its own. Similarly there would be no escape for men, if each were not a living being endowed with the faculty of entering into the Gospel’s conception of life.

If every bee who could fly, did not try to fly, the others, too, would never be stirred, and the swarm would never change its position. And if the man who has mastered Jesus’ conception of life would not, without waiting for other people, begin to live in accordance with this conception, mankind would never change its position. But only let one bee spread her wings, start off, and fly away, and after her another, and another would follow, and the clinging, inert cluster would become a freely flying swarm of bees. Just in the same way, only let one man look at life as the Gospel teaches him to look at it, and after him let another and another do the same, and the destructive enchanted circle of existence in the state conception of life, from which there seemed no escape, will be broken through.

But men think that to set all men free by this means is too slow a process, that they must find some other means by which they could set all men free at once. It is just as though the bees who want to start and fly away should consider it too long a process to wait for all the swarm to start one by one; and should think they ought to find some means by which it would not be necessary for every separate bee to spread her wings and fly off, but by which the whole swarm could fly at once where it wanted to. But that is not possible; till a first, then a second, then a third then a hundredth bee spreads her wings and flies off of her own accord, the swarm will not fly off and will not begin its new life. Till every individual man makes Jesus’ conception of life his own, and begins to live in accord with it, there can be no solution of the problem of violence and war, enmity and deception in human life, and no establishment of a new form of life.”

Question:

Have you personally taken one or many steps away from the state’s conception of existence with its use and justification of violence and war, enmity and deception? Have you taken one step or many steps away your violent religion’s spiritual and moral endorsement of, support of and fostering of the state’s conception of existence?

Has the step or have the steps you have taken away from the state’s conception of existence only been mental and intellectual or did they have physical and incarnational components to them?

Does anyone outside yourself—even if your steps have been only mental or intellectual— know of your steps away from the swarm of  ceaseless violence that is the condition of the state, which follows automatically from the state’s conception of existence

The post Freedom From the State’s Conception of Existence, or Having the Courage of a Bee to be faithful to the Nonviolent Jesus and His Way of Nonviolent Love. appeared first on LewRockwell.

The 28-Point Theater of the Absurd

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

The chihuahuas of war will keep barking while the SMO will keep rollin’ along.

The Circus Ringmaster’s 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine may be seen as a pet seal splashing around in a pond to amuse the galleries. And up next, we move to another attraction.

Yet if taken seriously – and that requires not a pinch but a barrel of salt – it’s like a twin to the Circus Ringmaster’s “plan” for Gaza, this time with the objective of snatching a pitiful “victory” from the jaws of the Empire of Chaos’s own, de facto strategic defeat.

Let’s check the reactions. Here you will find Larry Johnson’s analysis – which I share – , but most of all the video of the stunning two-hour interview  we had mid-week in Moscow with stellar Maria Zakharova, the most articulated Foreign Ministry spokeswoman on the planet.

What Mrs. Zakharova essentially told us is that by mid-week there was no Russian reaction because Moscow had not received anything concrete: “When we have some official information, when we receive it via a relevant channel, naturally, we will always be open to work.”

The same applied to the Kremlin. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “No, we haven’t received anything officially. We see some innovations. But officially, we haven’t received anything. And there hasn’t been any substantive discussion of these items.”

The first actual, terse response that came from President Putin was stunningly graphic: in camouflage, visiting a command center, and stressing that the set up in Kiev can no longer be described as a “political leadership” because it’s just “a criminal organization”.

After a few frantic days buried in a tsunami of spin concocted by NATOstan mainstream media, supporting but essentially against the 28-pointer, someone in Washington – and not necessarily Russian middleman Kirill Dmitriev – may have delivered it, officially, to the Kremlin.

So this past Friday we had, finally, President Putin’s own response, during a session of the permanent members of Russia’s Security Council.

The key Putin points must be stressed:

Alaska: “The main point of the Alaska summit, its main purpose, was that during the talks in Anchorage we confirmed that, despite some difficult issues and complexities, we nevertheless agreed with these proposals and were prepared to demonstrate the requested flexibility.”

Global South reaction: “We provided detailed information to all our friends and partners in the Global South on these matters – including China, India, the DPRK, South Africa, Brazil, many other countries, and, of course, the CSTO states. All our friends and partners, and I want to emphasise this – without exception – supported these potential arrangements.”

U.S. non-response: “However, after the negotiations in Alaska, we have seen a certain pause on the part of the U.S., and we know this is due to Ukraine’s de facto refusal to accept the peace plan proposed by President Trump. I believe this is precisely why a new version has emerged – essentially an updated plan consisting of 28 points.” Note that “updated” is the key operative word here – as in an extension of Alaska.

What the 28-pointer really means: “We have the text. We received it through our existing channels of communication with the U.S. Administration. I believe it too could form the basis of a final peace settlement, but this text is not being discussed with us in substance. And I can suggest why.

The reason, I believe, remains the same: the U.S. Administration still cannot secure Ukraine’s consent – Ukraine rejects it.

Evidently, Ukraine and its European allies remain under illusions and still dream of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield. I think this position is rooted not so much in a lack of competence – I will leave this topic aside for now – but rather in the absence of objective information about the real situation on the ground.”

Expanding on the EU and Ukraine: “All things considered, neither Ukraine nor Europe grasp the consequences of this path. Just one very recent example – Kupyansk. Not long ago, on 4 November – just two weeks ago – officials in Kiev publicly stated that no more than 60 Russian servicemen were present in the city, and that within the next few days, as they claimed, Ukrainian forces would fully unblock it.

But I would like to inform you that already at that moment, on 4 November, the city of Kupyansk was practically entirely secured by the Russian Armed Forces. Our guys were, as they say, simply finishing the job – clearing the remaining streets and neighbourhoods. The fate of the city had already been fully determined.

What does this tell us? Either the Kiev leaders do not have objective information about the situation at the front, or, having it, they are simply unable to assess it objectively.”

The SMO will go on: “If Kiev does not want to discuss President Trump’s proposals and rejects them, then they – and their European war-instigators – must understand that the situation in Kupyansk will inevitably be repeated on other key sectors of the front. Perhaps not as quickly as we would like, but the outcome will be inevitably repeated.”

The inevitable conclusion: “On the whole, this is acceptable to us, as it leads to achieving the objectives of the special military operation by military means. But, as I have said many times before, we are also ready for peace negotiations and for resolving problems by peaceful means. However, this requires a substantive discussion of all details of the proposed plan.We are ready for that.”

Deconstructing an incoherent mish-mash

So here we have finally come back to the essentials – what everyone with an IQ over room temperature following the imperial proxy war against Russia in Ukraine already knows: Russia is ready for peace, but in Putin’s own words, “is also satisfied with the current dynamics of the SMO”. Because this is leading – slowly but surely, “to the achievement of its goals” in the battlefield.

Whatever was the real story behind the 28 pointer – assuming it was Dmtriev and Witkoff holed up in Miami for three days; and then lowly neo-con Marco Rubio and zero-expert on anything Zionist asset Jared Kushner (!) chiming in – the messy, even infantile “plan” posing as Hegemon in Control and mocking the BRICS/SCO is completely unworkable.

What if it was designed to be exactly that?

The new frantic spin is that the sweaty sweatshirt in Kiev has been given an ultimatum by Trump 2.0: under a new “aggressive timeline”, he has to get on board. Or else.

Kiev’s backers – the proverbial assortment of chihuahuas comprising the EU, the European Commision (EC) and “leaders” in selected capitals – have rejected the 28-pointer, and so did Kiev, right from the start.

The 28-pointer indeed manages the feat of assembling an incoherent mish-mash that is unworkable not only for Russia but also for the EU/NATO combo. A few examples:

Point 4: “A U.S.-mediated Russia–NATO dialogue will be launched to resolve security issues and promote cooperation”. NATO is a brainchild of the Empire of Chaos. It will never “cooperate” with “existential threat” Russia.

Point 9: “European fighter jets will be stationed in Poland.” That means NATO still ready to attack Russian territory.

Point 10. “The U.S. security guarantee [to Ukraine] comes with conditions: – The U.S. receives compensation.” That’s pure “offer you can’t refuse” Mafia territory.

Point 13: “Russia will be reintegrated into the global economy:

  • Gradual lifting of sanctions
  • Long-term U.S.–Russia economic cooperation
  • Joint ventures in AI, energy, infrastructure, rare earths, and Arctic extraction
  • Russia rejoins the G8”

That’s what this is all about, per the Circus Ringmaster himself: grabbing Russian natural resources. Moreover Russia does not need the G8: Moscow’s focus is on BRICS/SCO.

Point 14: “Frozen Russian assets will be allocated as follows:

  • $100 billion used to rebuild Ukraine (run by the U.S.)
  • The U.S. receives 50% of profits from reconstruction investments
  • Europe contributes another $100 billion
  • Remaining frozen assets go into a U.S.–Russia joint investment vehicle to deepen economic ties.”

That’s peak Theater of the Absurd: not only the Americans want to use Russian funds to rebuild Ukraine – which they were instrumental in destroying – but their “10 per cent for the Big Guy” turns out to be a hefty 50%.

Point 17: “The U.S. and Russia will extend nuclear arms-control treaties, including New START.” A non-starter: Moscow has been stressing non-stop that arms-control treaties will not be negotiated in relation to the SMO.

Point 21: “Territorial arrangements:

  • Crimea, Donetsk, and Lugansk are recognized as de facto Russian, including by the U.S.
  • Parts of Kherson and Zaporozhye become frozen “contact line” zones (also de facto recognition)
  • Russia gives up other agreed areas
  • Ukraine withdraws from remaining parts of Donetsk; the zone becomes a Russian-recognized neutral buffer
  • Russian forces cannot enter the buffer zone.”

Total non-starter – and not only for the EU/NATO-Kiev combo.  Kherson and Zaporozhye, constitutionally, are now fully Russian – and will be liberated on the battlefield.

Point 26: “Full amnesty for all parties for all actions taken during the war: no prosecutions, no war-crimes claims.” Total non-starter: Kiev forced the draft document to use “amnesty” instead of “audit”. Moscow will settle for nothing less that full prosecution of members of the “criminal organization”. Yes, there will be a war crimes tribunal.

Point 27: “The agreement will be legally binding and enforced by a Peace Council chaired by Donald J. Trump.” That’s a Gaza replay. As if Putin and the Russian Security Council would accept a “Peace Council” chaired by a Circus Ringmaster whose expiry date is fast approaching, not to mention be subordinated to the losers in a vicious proxy war. 

About a really intriguing takeaway

One plausible takeaway of the 28-pointer is that the selected oligarchy running the Empire of Chaos continues to run a protection racket – and the only way to salvage the de facto strategic defeat in country 404 is to turn a quick buck.

Another more intriguing, plausible takeaway is that the 28-pointer was never meant to be accepted by the EU-Kiev combo. It’s all about the Circus Ringmaster’s exit strategy from the debacle in Novorossiya.

Trump is already preparing the terrain – as in I tried everything, but Zelensky won’t comply. So it’s now his – and his gang’s – problem only, side by side with the EU chihuahuas. Up next: an immediate change of narrative. What else: the Empire of Chaos cannot manage reality, only narratives.

Trump 2.0 may start to work on improving U.S.-Russia relations – while blame for the collapse of the “peace process” is laid on the EU-Kiev combo. The optics of the 28-pointer P.R. op are everything: packaged as it is asking Moscow to strike a compromise, even as Russia is winning in the battlefield, while making sure the “criminal organization” in Kiev cannot agree to the main provisions.

Provisional endgame: the chihuahuas of war will keep barking while the SMO will keep rollin’ along.

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

The post The 28-Point Theater of the Absurd appeared first on LewRockwell.

Kiev Regime’s Relentless Corruption Proves the Ukraine Conflict Is a Criminal Western Proxy War Racket

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

The corruption and the lies of the Western narrative are falling out like bodies from a rotten sack.

The corruption fiasco that exploded last week in Ukraine shows beyond any doubt that the Kiev regime, headed up by Vladimir Zelensky, is an unmitigated disgrace and fraud. But it is not just the Kiev regime that is exposed as reprehensible. Its Western sponsors – governments, NATO, and the entire news media – are also outed for the corrupt facade that they are.

Washington may now exploit the chance to force the criminal cabal in Kiev to accept a peace deal that President Trump unveiled this week, as he desperately wants to extricate the United States from a disastrous proxy war. The European rulers, on the other hand, are, for different reasons, more tied to the sinking, stinking ship.

Zelensky, who cancelled elections last year and continues in office by decree rather than democratic mandate, and his inner circle of ministers and business associates have finally been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, allegedly helping themselves to $100 million in graft and kickbacks – all paid for courtesy of Western taxpayers. Still, that figure is only crumbs compared with the billions that have been siphoned off by the regime and its Western backers.

Since the military conflict erupted in Ukraine nearly four years ago, in February 2022, many objective observers have contended that it was a proxy war against Russia for the Western powers in a geopolitical confrontation. Ukraine was only a pawn in the bloody game. An essential driver for the proxy war was the corruption and payoffs to Zelensky and his regime to keep the whole military confrontation going, on the calculation that it would lead to the “strategic defeat of Russia.”

The Western propaganda narrative told by Western governments and the controlled corporate media was an impossible fantasy to believe for any critical observer. The Western public was told that Ukraine and its “brave” comedian-turned-president were standing up to “Russian aggression.” The lie of that absurd morality play was told over and over ad infinitum – the Big Lie technique – to justify the bankrolling of a war that was always futile and indefensible. Millions of casualties on the Ukrainian side and many too on the Russian side could have been spared if the United States and its NATO allies had engaged in diplomacy with Moscow five years ago to resolve historic issues of NATO expansion. They refused because the Western system wanted war.

Skeptics or critics of the Western narrative were shouted down as “Russian stooges”.

Well, now it is incontestable that the Kiev regime is a cesspit of corruption. Even the Western media propaganda machine has been compelled to acknowledge the truth about the rampant sleaze.

But the Western forced acknowledgment of Kiev corruption only goes so far. Incredibly, it is brushed aside as somehow an unfortunate wrinkle, and also as an affair that has little to do with Zelensky. How ridiculous! The man who sits atop the cesspit is somehow deodorized by the Western media as trying to combat the corruption. This is simply a farce on top of a fiasco.

The recent $100 million scandal is played down and covered up by the West because that vice is essential for facilitating the much bigger corruption of the Western war racket to continue.

Astoundingly, only days after the embezzlement scam blew up, Zelensky was hosted in Paris by French President Emmanuel Macron, where they signed a deal for Ukraine to buy 100 Rafale fighter jets. As our columnist Finian Cunningham points out, the sales order could cost a total of $10 billion. That’s a nice boost for the ailing French economy, which Macron will milk for political gain. France’s Dassault company, the maker of the Rafale, gets juicy profits, and no doubt French and Ukrainian fixers will enjoy commissions and kickbacks.

Meanwhile, also this week, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, the former German military minister who has Russophobia surging through her veins, urged the EU nations to bankroll Ukraine for another two years with $165 billion – on top of the $200 billion that the EU has already funneled into Ukraine over the past four years. Incredibly, Von der Leyen made no mention of the corruption that is oozing out of Kiev.

It was only a few sane voices among the European political leaders, such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who condemned the “madness” of continuing to finance a war mafia.

The corruption scandal – even with the Western attempts to play it down – exposes the bigger scandal. The Western states have been fueling a proxy war that has nothing to do with defending democracy, or supposed Western values, or international law from alleged Russian aggression.

The agenda is a criminal project of imperialist confrontation to subjugate Russia using Ukraine to the last Ukrainian. The proxy war has enriched Western military industries and laundered hundreds of billions of dollars and euros from Western taxpayers.

President Trump has the marginal good sense to want out of the racket that his predecessors in Washington engineered. The European political class, however, is so invested in their own lies and Russophobia, they cannot extricate themselves without admitting their criminal schemes. They, therefore, have to keep the racket going by whitewashing Zelensky and the Kiev regime and naysaying any move by Trump to wrap up the failed proxy war.

The paradox is that by prolonging the proxy war, the Western sponsors are buying time for themselves, but the longer the rope on which they will eventually hang themselves in disaster, politically, financially, morally, and perhaps even legally.

After all the grand theft of Western economies to fund a criminal war, Russia is winning it decisively. The last defenses of NATO’s proxy army in Ukraine are crumbling as Russia takes the bastions of Kupyansk and Pokrovsk (Krasnoarmeysk). The corruption and the lies of the Western narrative are falling out like bodies from a rotten sack. Western ideologues, through their imperialist warmongering schemes for hegemony and Russophobic delusions, have destroyed their own economies.

This week saw the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Nuremberg Trials, which prosecuted top Nazi criminals. A similar fate of justice awaits American and European leaders who concocted the war racket in Ukraine to defeat Russia and enrich themselves. In that event, the courts will be the people of the Western states who will furiously demand accountability from their corrupt leaders.

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

The post Kiev Regime’s Relentless Corruption Proves the Ukraine Conflict Is a Criminal Western Proxy War Racket appeared first on LewRockwell.

You Don’t Hate The Mass Media Enough

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

There was another IDF massacre in Gaza on Saturday, reportedly killing dozens of Palestinians.

Israel as usual claimed it was responding to a ceasefire violation by Hamas, but of course there’s absolutely no evidence for this to be found. AP reports that according to the IDF the strikes were launched after a Hamas fighter “shot at troops in southern Gaza,” but that “no soldiers were hurt” in this alleged attack. Not so much as a scratch. So I guess we’re just expected to take Israel’s word for it.

Now check out these western media headlines about the massacre and notice the disgusting spin they are placing on the narrative to normalize the continued slaughter of Palestinians:

Do you see what they’re doing here?

The western press see the killing of Palestinians as such a baseline norm that Israel can massacre dozens of people in Gaza and they’ll go, “Gosh I sure hope this doesn’t lead to any violations of the ceasefire!”

When Israel violates Trump’s ceasefire, the mainstream media calls it “testing” the ceasefire.

There is no circumstance in this or in any other universe in which Hamas could kill 24 Israelis and the media would reduce it to Hamas “testing” the ceasefire. https://t.co/QfaJh2N8bR

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) November 22, 2025

It’s never a ceasefire violation to commit mass murder against Palestinians. It’s only ever a “test” of the ceasefire, or something that happens “amid a fragile ceasefire”. If Hamas suddenly attacked and killed dozens of Israelis, these empire propagandists wouldn’t be saying “Hmm I sure hope the fragile ceasefire holds up amid this challenging test.” They’d just call it what it is. And it would be the main news story in the world.

The imperial media have been framing Israel’s ceasefire violations like this the entire time. Just the other day NBC News ran a report about a different IDF massacre in Gaza titled “Israeli airstrikes kill 25 Palestinians in Gaza, rattling fragile ceasefire”. Last month CNN ran a headline claiming “US-brokered ceasefire appears to survive first major test” after Israel killed at least 44 people, when Israel had been violating the ceasefire every single day up to that point.

The mass media have been running egregiously misleading headlines throughout this entire genocide, which has an overwhelmingly distorting effect on public perception in an information environment where skim-reading has become the norm and most social media users share news stories after just reading the headline.

It almost feels silly to point out that the mass media are wildly biased in favor of Israel two years into a genocide which they’ve actively run propaganda cover for in brazen acts of journalistic malpractice from the very beginning. But we can’t let it slip from our attention how evil these imperial spinmeisters are. How racist they are. How mendacious and manipulative they are. However much you hate them, you don’t hate them enough.

These are the people who are informing western perspectives about what’s going on in our world. They aren’t just deceiving the public with dishonest headlines and precipitously slanted reporting which gets loudly amplified by Silicon Valley algorithms, they are writing the stories which get used and cited by AI chatbots and online platforms like Wikipedia which people are increasingly turning to for information about world events. They are polluting the entire information ecosystem with a deluge of propaganda they are churning out day after day, year after year.

These freaks are attacking our minds. They are attacking humanity’s ability to understand its waking reality. They are continuously indoctrinating the public into an ignorant, western supremacist worldview which only values human life when it lives in the correct part of the world, speaks the correct language, practices the correct religion, has the correct skin color, and aligns with the correct geopolitical agendas.

They make everything worse. It’s impossible to have enough disdain for these mass media propagandists.

________________

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Kellogg Fired Over Leaking 28-Point Plan – Proposal Designed To Trap Putin

Lun, 24/11/2025 - 05:01

It seems that Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, got fired over leaking news of the 28-point ‘peace plan’. Let’s follow the traces.

On Tuesday the 18th November someone ‘leaked’ to Axios reporter Barak Ravid who then wrote the first story of Trump’s new plan for Ukraine.

Scoop: U.S. secretly drafting new plan to end Ukraine war

The plan’s 28 points fall into four general buckets, sources tell Axios: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is leading the drafting of the plan and has discussed it extensively with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, a U.S. official said.

Shortly thereafter Steve Witkoff made a mistake on Twitter when he sent a response meant for a private direct message to the public side of his account. He soon deleted it but someone had already taken a screenshot.

bigger

On Thursday, the 20th of November, the New York Post mentioned it:

Senior US officials confirm details of 28-point plan to end Ukraine war

The [Marco Rubio] comment came after Axios on Tuesday reported a deal had been reached, citing Putin henchman Kirill Dmitriev, who claimed he worked on the plan with Witkoff.

Senior US officials believe Dmitriev leaked the plan to Axios as a way to put their “their POV out there first [because] it seemed like they were winning,” one of the officials said. “This is just a tit for tat. Always has been.”

Witkoff appeared to have surmised the same in a quickly deleted post to X in response to the article Tuesday night.

“He must have got this from K,” Witkoff wrote of the Axios author, Barak Ravid — apparently meaning to send it as a DM referring to Dmitriev by his first initial.

I seriously doubt that the “K” Witkoff mentions was Kirill Dmitriev. Dimitriev is not a Washington insider. He is unlikely to leak anything to an Israeli mouthpiece at Axios.

Another “K”, intimately involve in all things Kiev is General Keith Kellogg. When the leak happened he still was Trump’s special envoy to Kiev and will have had knowledge of the plan.

A day later after the leak to Axios Kellogg got fired. As Reuters reported on Wednesday:

Exclusive: Trump’s Ukraine envoy Kellogg to leave post in January, sources say

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has told associates he plans to leave the administration in January, four sources told Reuters, a departure that would mean the loss of a key advocate for Ukraine in the Trump administration.

Special presidential envoy is a temporary designation, and such envoys in theory must be confirmed by the Senate to stay in their positions past 360 days. Kellogg has indicated that January would be a natural departure point, given existing legislation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

His departure will be unwelcome news in Kyiv. The retired lieutenant general was widely viewed by European diplomats, Ukrainians included, as a sympathetic ear in an administration that has at times leaned toward Moscow’s view on the origins of the war in Ukraine.

I doubt that the sources claim to Reuters that Kellogg is leading because of a January deadline. That would be an official reasoning. But The Hill reported on Friday that the White House is dumb on this:

Trump special envoy for Ukraine to leave post

President Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, will depart his position in January, the White House confirmed to The Hill on Thursday, as the president has renewed efforts to end Russia’s war against Kyiv.

The White House did not provide any other details about the reasons for the departure of Kellogg, whose role and influence in the Trump administration elicited mixed reactions.

He was originally appointed in January as special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, and had earlier advocated conditioning U.S. military aid on Kyiv agreeing to participate in peace talks. Kellogg’s profile was downsized to only focusing on Ukraine when Trump brought in Witkoff to serve as a special envoy to Russia.

In his position, Kellogg was viewed as an advocate for Kyiv in an administration that more closely hewed to the Kremlin’s negotiating position.

Anonymous sources to Reuters, and The Hill, say that Kellogg was leaving because time was running out before he would needed Congress confirmation. The point in time for that would be in January.

But if that is so why wouldn’t the White House confirm it?

And if January is the end-date, why was Kellogg’s replacement already named on Friday?

As the Guardian wrote yesterday:

Zelenskyy says Ukraine has impossible choice as Trump pushes plan to end war

A delegation of senior US military officials led by the army secretary, Dan Driscoll, held talks with Zelenskyy on Thursday in Kyiv. Trump has named Driscoll – Vance’s friend and former classmate – as his newest “special representative”. The group of American generals was likely to fly to Moscow at the end of next week to discuss the “peace plan” with the Kremlin, US sources said.

To summarize:

  • The 28-point plan leak to Axios happened on Tuesday.
  • Witkoff texting immediately that “K” was the leaker.
  • On Wednesday Reuters reports that Kellogg is leaving in January.
  • On Thursday The Hill reports that the White House ‘gave no detail’ about his leaving.
  • ‘Senior US officials’ obfuscate the issue in the NY Post by claiming that Witkoff’s “K” meant Kirill Dmitriov.
  • On Friday The Guardian says that Kellogg’s job and title have already been handed over to someone else.

I will bet a 100 in any currency that it was Kellogg who had leaked the plan. Witkoff complained about it to Trump (or Vance). Kellogg got fired with immediate effect. His replacement is already in. Anonymous claims that Kellogg is leaving for other reasons are obfuscations (by Kellogg himself?) and wrong.

Yesterday Dan Driscol, Kellogg’s replacement, was already briefing European ambassadors in Kiev:

The US army secretary Dan Driscoll briefed ambassadors from Nato nations at a meeting in Kyiv late on Friday, after talks with Zelenskyy and taking a phone call from the White House. “No deal is perfect, but it must be done sooner rather than later,” he told them, according to one person who was present.

The mood in the room was sombre, with several European ambassadors questioning the content of the deal and the way in which the US had conducted the negotiations with Russia without keeping allies informed.

“It was a nightmare meeting. It was the ‘you have no cards’ argument again,” said the source, referring to Trump’s claim that Zelenskyy had no cards to play, during a contentious White House meeting back in February.

Alastair Crooke, who has personal experience in hardcore diplomacy, thinks that the 28-point plan is part of an escalation to press Russia into making concessions:

This set of proposals is not likely to be accepted by the Europeans, Russia or even Zelensky. Their purpose is to dictate a completely new start-point to any negotiation. Any Russian concessions stipulated in the text will be ‘pocketed’ by the US, whilst the rug will be pulled on Russia’s ‘stated principles’. The pressures on Russia will escalate.

In fact, escalation has already begun. Coinciding with publication of the proposals, four long-range US-supplied and targeted ATACMS were fired deep into Russian pre-2014 territory at Voronezh, which is where Russia’s over-the-horizon strategic radars are situated. All were shot down, and Russian Iksander missiles immediately destroyed the launch platforms and killed the 10 launch operators.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has threatened yet more sanctions for Russia, and Trump has indicated that he is ok with Senator Lindsay Graham’s 500% sanctions proposal for those trading with Russia – provided that he, Trump, has complete discretion over the new sanctions package.

The overall aim to these proposals clearly is to corner Putin, and push him off his fundamental principles — such as his insistence on eliminating the root causes to the conflict, and not just the symptoms. There is no hint in this paper of any recognition of root causes [expansion of NATO and missile emplacements] beyond the vague promise of a “dialogue [that] will be conducted between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation, thereby ensuring global security and increasing opportunities for cooperation and future economic development”.

Blah, blah, blah.

It seems that escalation is ahead. Russia will need to consider how to militarily deter the US effectively, yet without starting up the steps of the escalatory ladder to WW3 …

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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