Lew Rockwell Institute

In most debates over what caused any historical event to occur, the disputants tend to emphasize what they consider to be the most important causal factor, and minimize the influence of factors they consider to be less important. It is not so much that they dispute the relevance of contested factors in understanding the event comprehensively, but more that there is no agreement on the degree of importance that ought to be attached to those factors. Often people will emphasize the factors that fall within their own field of expertise, where they consider themselves able to contribute meaningfully to the debate. This was a basic feature of scholarly discourse before academic institutions were taken over by political activists. There is no problem with approaching any contested issue from many different perspectives in the traditional academic way, as long as it is understood that each discipline will emphasize certain factors over others. The point about debate is that the participants attempt to defend a specific position or line of argument, otherwise it would not be called a “debate.”

In the case of war, there is rarely, if ever, universal consensus on a single explanation for the causes and conduct of any war. As the great historian Clyde Wilson observes in relation to Lincoln’s war:

What a war is about has many answers according to the varied perspectives of different participants and of those who come after. To limit so vast an event as that war to one cause is to show contempt for the complexities of history as a quest for the understanding of human action.

Those who argue that Lincoln’s war was “about slavery” hold the view that while there may well have been other factors at play, in their view, slavery was the most important issue. The same applies to those who highlight the reasons Lincoln gave for launching his attack, all of which, before the outbreak of war and until at least 1863, had to do with saving the Union, securing his tariffs, and punishing the states that had the temerity to break up his empire. They would argue that the most important issue was Lincoln’s desire to fulfill these political goals.

These debates illustrate the importance of free speech and open inquiry. The truth lies in understanding all the relevant facts and examining historical events from different angles. If certain facts are arbitrarily excluded from the scope of inquiry by the morality police who gatekeep the bounds of permissible debate, then there is no hope that the truth would ever be ascertained. We would be limited to debating only what falls within the bounds of socially acceptable propaganda. In relation to Lincoln’s War, those who promote the “about slavery” explanation often resort to the methods and strategies of cancel culture to silence their opponents, their aim being to ensure that theirs is the only explanation that will ever be heard.

This explains how the economic causes of the war came to be downplayed or even dismissed. Rather than doing the hard work of showing why (in their opinion) the economic causes were not important, they seek to close down debate by the simple expedient of accusing those who mention economic causes of promoting a “lost cause.” In “The Truth About Tariffs and the War” Philip Leigh explains:

During the past thirty years most historians claim that slavery was the dominant cause of the Civil War. They increasingly insist that the South’s opposition to protective tariffs was a minimal factor, even though such tariffs were specifically outlawed in the Confederate constitution. Historian Marc-William Palen, for example, writes: “One of the most egregious of the so-called Lost Cause narratives suggests that it was not slavery, but a protective tariff that sparked the Civil War.”

Those who dismiss the tariff issue as “a lost cause narrative” really just mean that they disagree concerning the importance attached to the tariff dispute. They seek to create a sham “consensus” in which “we all agree” as to the causes of the war, and to achieve this they deem it necessary to dismiss the economic arguments about the importance of the tariff issue so that everyone can “agree” that the war was caused by slavery. How else would they create their ideal world in which nobody dissents from their precious “scholarly consensus”? The point here is that on issues so deeply-contested that universal consensus will never be achieved, it becomes even more important to air different analytical perspectives. The quest for “consensus” is inimical to open and honest inquiry and debate.

In their book Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: the Economics of the Civil War, Mark Thornton and Robert E. Ekelund, Jr. make the case for acquiring a better understanding of the economic causes of the war:

These comments suggest that economics is necessary to understand the causes, course, and consequences of the Civil War. Indeed, economics is a means of explaining and understanding history and all history is written with some theoretical structure, whether good or bad, implicit or explicit.… The economic history of the factors leading to war—those pertaining to both its conduct and its aftermath—demonstrates the power of modern economic analysis to provide critical insights into this seminal US conflict.

Concerning the role played by slavery in precipitating war, they explain, “Economists, however, might refer to slavery as a necessary but not a sufficient cause because other factors were required to precipitate the war at the particular time when it began.” This is an important point, especially when it is recalled that all states in the Union recognized slavery as a legal institution when the Constitution was framed. The notion that slavery would be a sufficient cause for the states to wage war against each other is easily seen to be very thin indeed.

As the Northern states industrialized, they implemented gradual emancipation often through selling their slaves to the South or by redesignating the status of slaves as indentured servants for a term—25 years in many cases. Massachusetts—the first state to legislate slavery—did not legislate to abolish it, as the end of slavery in that state was achieved by decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Further, only seven slave states seceded, with six of them doing so to join South Carolina. If slavery was the sole or primary cause of this dispute, all fifteen slave states would logically have been expected to secede. This points to the need to cast the net wider in seeking to understand the causes of the war.

The economic causes of the war relate to the prevailing economic conditions in the years preceding the war. Understanding these events is not based on a claim that economic factors are morally “more important” than other factors. What is morally important is a value judgment, and economics properly understood is not concerned with evaluating people’s motives and judging them based on who had morally good or bad motives. Economics is a value-free science. In his essay explaining what is meant by value free economics, David Gordon quotes the following passage from Ludwig von Mises:

An economist investigates whether a measure a can bring about the result p for the attainment of which it is recommended, and finds that a does not result in p but in g, an effect which even the supporters of the measure a consider undesirable. If this economist states the outcome of his investigation by saying that a is a bad measure, he does not pronounce a judgment of value. He merely says that from the point of view of those aiming at the goal p, the measure a is inappropriate. In this sense the free-trade economists attacked protection. They demonstrated that protection does not, as its champions believe, increase but, on the contrary, decreases the total amount of products, and is therefore bad from the point of view of those who prefer an ampler supply of products to a smaller. It is in this sense that economists criticize policies from the point of view of the ends aimed at. If an economist calls minimum wage rates a bad policy, what he means is that its effects are contrary to the purpose of those who recommend their application.

In making the case for studying the economic causes of the war, the argument is not that the morality of slavery is irrelevant but, on the contrary, that the discipline of economics has important lessons in understanding the war. This is not a claim that morality is unimportant, but a claim that economics is a valuable discipline whose purpose is not to evaluate morality but to explain how certain economic factors may have contributed to the situation we seek to understand. As Thornton and Ekelund argue,

…the moral centrality of the slavery issue in bringing about the war is not in debate here because it is difficult for economists to ascribe motives that would lead to this war… The discovery of motives is the purview of in-depth historical research and historical biography.

Their argument is that to ascertain the motives of the men making decisions in 1860, one would have to study those men closely—what they said, what they wrote, their background, their personality, their activities, and everything about their historical context that would shed light on their motives. This is the purview of history or historiography, not economics. Economics, unlike history, seeks not to evaluate moral or political values but only to give an explanation of means and ends—as Mises puts it, “whether a measure a can bring about the result p for which it is recommended” or whether it will instead “not result in p but in g.”

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

The post Understanding the Causes of Lincoln’s War appeared first on LewRockwell.

In 50 days, Trump will have a serious amount of egg on his face when Russia’s defeat of the NATO proxy war becomes more evident.

What’s behind Trump’s angry ultimatum to Russia this week? The short answer: failure and frustration. Donald Trump promised American voters that he would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours upon his election in November 2024. Six months into his presidency, Trump has failed to deliver on his boastful promises.

This week, Trump flipped his pacemaker image by pledging billions of dollars worth of new American weaponry to Ukraine. He also issued a warning to Russia to call a ceasefire within 50 days or else face severe secondary tariffs on its oil and gas exports. The tariffs, quoted at 100 percent, will be applied to nations purchasing Russian exports, primarily Brazil, China, and India. The latter move indicates that the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is really part of a bigger geopolitical confrontation to maintain American global hegemony.

In any case, Moscow dismissed Trump’s ultimatum. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow would not comply with pressure and that Russia would not back down from its strategic goals in Ukraine to counter NATO’s historic aggression.

It is clear that Trump and his administration have failed to understand Russia’s strategic position and the root causes of the conflict.

Trump’s supposed diplomacy is seen to operate on a superficial basis more akin to showbiz, with no substance. He wants a peace deal with Russia to show off his vaunted skills as a business negotiator and to grab the limelight, headlines, and adulation.

Resolving a conflict like Ukraine requires deep historical understanding and genuine commitment to due diligence. Moscow has repeatedly stated the need to address the root causes of the conflict: the expansion of NATO on its borders, the CIA-sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014, and the nature of the NATO-weaponized Neo-Nazi regime over the past decade.

Trump and his administration have failed to appreciate Russia’s viewpoint. Thus, expecting a peace deal based on nothing but rhetoric and vacuous claims about “ending the killing” is futile. It won’t happen.

This failure, based on unrealistic expectations, has led Trump to adopt an increasingly bitter attitude towards Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent weeks. Ironically, Trump has accused Putin of duplicity and procrastination when, in reality, it is Trump who has shown no serious commitment to resolving the conflict.

Now, with chagrin and bruised ego, Trump has reacted with frustration over what are his own failings by issuing ultimatums to Russia. Trump’s 50-day deadline for a Russian response to his demands has a similarity to the 60-day deadline he threatened Iran with, after which he carried out a massive bombing attack on that country. Trump’s aggression towards Iran has turned out to be a fiasco and failure. Threatening Russia is even more useless.

This proclivity for threatening other nations has the hallmark of a Mafiosa megalomaniac. It is also causing Trump to lose support among his voter base, who believed he was going to end “endless wars.” It’s shambolic. Biden’s war is becoming Trump’s war because, at the end of the day, it is the U.S. imperial deep state that rules.

Trump’s mercurial switch from professing peace in Ukraine to ramping up the promise of weapons shows that his previous aspirations were always hollow and contingent on other interests.

It seems that the 47th American president did not want peace after all. What was driving his apparent desire to end the conflict in Ukraine – what he deprecated as “Biden’s war” – was simply to cut American financial costs.

What has appealed to Trump is that the proposed new supplies of American weapons to Ukraine will be paid for by Europe. Money and profit are all that matter to him. It is significant that when Trump announced the new arms racket scheme, he was sitting beside NATO chief Mark Rutte in the Oval Office. Rutte has a knack for wheedling, previously referring to Trump as “daddy” and this week absurdly praising the U.S. as the world’s policeman for securing peace. It seems that the NATO and transatlantic ruling establishment have found a way to manipulate Trump. Tell him that the Europeans will henceforth directly subsidize the U.S. military-industrial complex.

The trouble for Trump and the NATO establishment is that it is all an unworkable bluff. For a start, the U.S. arsenal of Patriot missiles and other munitions has been depleted and destroyed by Russia over the past three years in Ukraine. There are no “wonder weapons” that can alter the battlefield dominance of Russia.

Secondly, the European economies are broke and can hardly sustain the proposed purchase of U.S. weapons for Ukraine, even if such supplies were feasible, which they are not. At least four European states, including France, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Hungary, have said they will not engage in any scheme of buying American weapons for Ukraine.

Thirdly, Trump’s threat of secondary sanctions against Brazil, China, India, and others for doing business with Russia is a blatant assault on the BRICS and Global South that will only garner international contempt. Trump’s bullying is neither viable nor credible. His earlier trade war against China has already failed and shown that the United States is an impotent giant whose power is a thing of the past. Trump had to climb down from his hobby horse towards China.

So, threatening to hit China and others with 100 percent tariffs for doing business with Russia is like a former prizefighter shaking a feeble fist while sitting in a wheelchair. He is liable to incur more self-harm.

Lastly, Russia is decisively winning the NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine. The Kiev regime’s air defenses are non-existent at this stage. Therefore, Russia can and will press its strategic terms to end the conflict because it is the military victor.

Trump’s ultimatum to Russia is nothing but bluster and bluff. He once mocked Ukraine’s puppet president Zelensky, that he had no cards to play. Trump, for all his bravado, has only a couple of deuces himself.

In 50 days, Trump will have a serious amount of egg on his face when Russia’s defeat of the NATO proxy war becomes more evident.

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

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Dear Martian Central Bank: could you please send us some Grown-Ups?

Scott Galloway recently sketched out a common-sense set of tax reforms that would go a long way to reducing the widening federal deficit. There’s just one Catch, Catch-25: it requires Grown-Ups, and Grown-Ups are out of stock, and have been for a long time, as it seems they’re no longer being produced. The Grown Up Tax Bill.

I confess that to say this is to admit to being delusional, but Galloway’s suggested tax reforms seem self-evidently common-sense, which means there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Heck any of them could possibly be enacted. Common-sense has zero value in today’s cultural void; the only thing that has any value is what’s acceptable to those holding the levers of power and wealth.[amazon template=*lrc ad (right)&asin=1947644564]

If wearing our underwear on the outside of our clothing is acceptable to those holding the levers of power and wealth, then that is a slam-dunk to be enacted regardless of its impracticality and absurdity.

Those holding the levers of power and wealth all have luxury penthouses in FantasyLand, where they can peer down at all the little people doing whatever little people do–go to work, pay taxes, get takeout because they’re exhausted, watch the latest bingeable entertainment, and so on.

There are two core industries in FantasyLand. One is corruption and the other is borrowing or creating however many trillions of dollars it takes to keep FantasyLand looking tidy. Oh, wait–I guess there’s only one industry because borrowing or creating trillions of dollars to blow on keeping up appearances rather than on increasing efficiency and productivity is the ultimate form of corruption.

Here are thumbnails of Galloway’s requires Grown-Ups, oops, dang, we’re plumb out of Grown-Ups tax reforms:

1. Increase compliance with existing tax laws. Sounds fair, right, because us little people don’t have $500/hour experts to pore over the tens of thousands of tax-regulation pages to find loopholes. (Spoiler alert: there aren’t any for us little people.) But nope, increasing compliance via audits is out because rich people might have to pay the taxes they owe and that is a mortal sin against all that is sacred in the status quo.

So forget pressuring wealthy folks to pay the taxes they owe, that requires Grown-Ups, and there aren’t any in stock. We do have plenty of self-serving billionaires, will they do in a pinch? No? Well then, shucks, we can’t help you fellas.

2. Reverse the $30 million estate tax giveaway. I’m sure this helps all the little people who would suffer catastrophic declines in their family’s welfare if they could only pass along $5 million tax free. I mean, come on, that wouldn’t even cover the beachfront getaway bungalow on Hanalei Bay, never mind all the other nice things. To pay any estate tax is an affront to decency.

Imagine, forcing us to stash the wealth in do-good hidey-holes, a.k.a. philanthro-Capitalist Foundations. What is the world coming to?

3. Put some teeth back in the Alternative Minimum Tax for incomes above 5X median household income ($80,000), i.e. $400,000. The original motivation for the AMT was public outrage that wealthy taxpayers paid zero taxes while those of us earning a fraction of their incomes were paying through the nose.

Look, I get that $400,000 doesn’t go very far these days, but it is 5X median household income, and those collecting $400K in income should be able to pay at least what the household making $80K is paying.

Remember, the AMT isn’t an extra tax, it’s a means to collect some tax from people making a lot of money who would otherwise be paying little or nothing.

If you end up owing AMT, you did good. Pat yourself on the back. If you’d paid 40% of your income in taxes like us self-employed stiffs, you wouldn’t be paying any AMT.

4. Since corporations are “citizens,” then tax them like “citizens.” Yes, I know all the arguments that corporate taxes are “double taxes” because shareholders pay tax on dividends, and maybe there’s a common-sense way to deal with this, such as deducting dividends paid to shareholders. And I’ve often said here that I favor a low corporate flat tax rather than the convoluted unfair mess we have now.

But hey, if corporations have all the privileges of “citizens,” then shouldn’t they pay taxes like “citizens”?

5. OK, cup your hands and I’ll pour liquid iron into them. In other words, I’m going to brace myself and reprint Galloway’s last reform, means-testing Social Security payments as the common-sense way to avoid slashing the payments to all beneficiaries when the bogus “trust fund” (another FantasyLand invention) runs dry in a few years.

Galloway’s summary: “Phasing out benefits for those with more than $150,000 of non-Social Security income would save an estimated $600b to $700b over a decade.” I know, I know, I paid into the system all these years.

Yeah, so have I, so let’s set up a little Excel macro and run through every beneficiary’s SSA account and adjust each year’s SSA taxes paid for inflation so each years’ SSA taxes paid is in today’s dollars, then add the average short-term Treasury yield rate in each year to the running total, and then we’ll have a total of what each beneficiary paid in, with interest. Once we add the employer’s half, we have a grand total of all monies paid into SSA and the interest that would have accrued if it had actually been in a Trust Fund rather than a bogus make-believe flim-flam.

After these funds are paid out, the SSA payments stop: we paid back what you put in with interest, so we’re done paying you. Wouldn’t that be fair? Given that the SSA payroll tax percentage was a lot lower in the old days, many beneficiaries would discover that their contributions plus interest only lasted a few years.

So what’s common-sense? What’s fair? That’s open to discussion, but the money running out isn’t a matter of opinion: it’s the real world, and a deep recession will bring that date forward.

OK, I hear you: what about slashing and burning all that gummit waste? The biggest budget items just begging to be slashed and burned are 1) Medicare, 2) Medicaid, 3) the Pentagon and 4) interest paid on all the debt we’ve borrowed to put off having to act like Grown-Ups.

Rounding up a bit because rounding down simply isn’t common-sense, here are the big budget programs:

Social Security: $1.5 trillion
Medicare: $1.2 trillion
Medicaid: $1 trillion
Pentagon: $1 trillion
Interest paid: $1 trillion
TOTAL $5.7 trillion
total federal budget: $6.8 trillion
Everything else: $1.1 trillion

Read the Whole Article

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If there’s one characteristic that defines Donald Trump it’s his habit of switching his positions on a dime – Leaving many a critic looking rather foolish when they establish an argument against him today, only to discover he mostly agrees with them tomorrow. I’ve learned it’s best to wait a little while before commenting on the man’s policy decisions and allow time for the debate to ferment. After months of deflection and now retraction, the Jeffery Epstein controversy has turned especially ripe.

To understand the chaos surrounding the Epstein issue we have to first recognize that it’s the product of an inherent division within the MAGA movement that needs to be addressed. The campaign to support Trump is built on two groups that intersect but don’t always agree:

1) Average Republicans (and some moderates) who are most concerned with defeating the agenda of leftists and keeping woke activists out of government power.

2) Hardcore conservatives and libertarians from the “conspiracy” end of the movement who are most concerned with defeating the globalist cabal.

I find myself in rooted in both camps and I see both as essential, though it’s clear to me that the goals of the second group are ultimately more important.

To be clear, leftist saboteurs are a legitimate enemy that has been employed as a weapon against the rest of the populace. I’m growing especially tired of the laziness of libertarians who cry “False left/right paradigm!” while forgetting the living hell we all experienced under the reign of Joe Biden and the Democrats. The differences between conservatives and leftists cannot be denied.

The country has at least been tolerable under Trump – No more “transing” or grooming of children in schools. No more pride month. No more pandering to DEI. No more open borders. No more federal accusations of conservatives being “terrorists” and a “danger to democracy”. If you can’t at least give some credit for these changes then you’re not a serious person and I have no time for you.

That said, in the end the threat of the political left pales in comparison to the threat presented by the globalists. These are people with a luciferian ideology of self worship and moral relativism and they are in positions of immense power (at least in financial terms). Though their political reputation in the US is faltering, they still have near total control of the narratives in Europe, Australia and Canada, not to mention invasive financial influence throughout most of the world.

Look at it this way: Have you ever heard of a globalist being punished or arrested for their attempts to manipulate and corrupt the social and governmental institutions of any given nation? How many globalist NGOs have been shut down in recent memory? Isn’t the US still pouring tax dollars into globalist institutions like the IMF, BIS (through the Federal Reserve), World Bank, etc.?

Political factions may battle for the minds of the masses and many times these fights are very real, but the globalists always remain in the background watching and waiting for another chance to push civilization further towards their dystopian vision. They don’t care what happens politically as long as their money and influence remain intact. No one ever aims their cannons at the whispering men lurking behind the curtain.

For conservative patriots, dealing with the evils of the political left serves the immediate purpose of treating symptoms, but not the disease. Globalists are a parasitic organism that feeds on humanity, spawning more and more decline and despair as they grow. They must be eliminated from the equation if our future is to ever improve.

Trump has openly admonished the globalists on many occasions and he ran his 2016 and 2024 campaigns on reversing the economic damage they have done. Defeating globalism was a big part of his election platform, it’s undeniable. The problem is, he has consistently backed away from any direct prosecution or punishment of said devils.

Trump stated succinctly in 2024 that he would release the Epstein list, and he now refuses. The haphazard dismissal of the Epstein files despite the embarrassing controversy is a reality check for the conspiracy subset. For the anti-globalist portion of MAGA, especially libertarians and conservative Christians, you have been given notice; Trump is not your gladiator or your savior. He’s not going to fulfill your dreams of government reform, nor is he going to bring the hammer down on the elites.

I warned back in May in my article ‘The Trump Administration’s Biggest Wins And Biggest Fails So Far’ that his handling of the Epstein case was an epic blunder. I noted:

“All we want is a concise list of who engaged with Epstein and his “services”. These people need to be called out and brought to justice NOW. If they are in government they need to be removed ASAP. There is no room for pedos in American leadership anymore.

I can understand certain obstacles, such as keeping victims protected. An outright dump of info would be reckless, not to mention illegal. That said, the feds have had years to go over this evidence. I suspect that the White House is stalling because the client list could destroy a large portion of the government. The number of leaders exposed must be extensive enough that a release of the list would cripple the system. It’s the only explanation that makes sense for why they continue to keep the American people waiting…”

For those seeking answers as to why Trump is running away from the Epstein client list like it’s a nuclear bomb, it’s because it IS a nuclear bomb. I continue to hold that the list is pure poison for the existing government and that its release would be so detrimental it would trigger the collapse of the US system and create a cataclysmic domino effect around the world.

It’s so dangerous, in fact, that Trump is now asserting it “doesn’t exist” or that it’s a “Democrat conspiracy” with files manipulated by Democrats before Biden left office. There’s no explanation as to what Trump means by this other than he seems to be saying the existing evidence is fabricated.

Epstein was arrested for child trafficking. He conveniently died “by suicide” before going to trial (psychopathic personalities like Epstein rarely kill themselves) nullifying any court discovery and public release of his files. Numerous victims have come forward, but we’re supposed to believe that there were no clients?  Or, that Epstein never kept a list of those clients? It’s pure stupidity.

The Trump Administration admits to obtaining an endless array of videos featuring minor victims. The question is simple: WHO is in those videos abusing those young girls (or boys)? It’s not that difficult to understand – WE WANT THE NAMES, and we’re never going to stop demanding those names.

But lets not fool ourselves, we’re not going to get our hands on the real, unredacted list. Why? Because some of the most powerful people in the world are on that register and pedophilia is still an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the west. Proof of a mass conspiracy of wealthy pedos and political diddlers is one of the few things that would inspire the public to actually pick up torches and pitchforks and burn Washington DC to the ground.

It’s not a coincidence that woke activists and NGOs have sought to normalize pedophilia through trans propaganda. Globalists eventually want to turn the crime into a social issue; labeling it a matter of “sexual preference” protected by inclusion ideology so they can pursue their disgusting fetish with impunity.

Though leftists have intricate arguments as to why children should be allowed to legally “consent”, the act of pedophilia is still considered worthy of long term imprisonment, castration and even death. No normal person is convinced by the “consent” theory.

Meaning, if a sweeping list is produced that includes the names of government officials, those officials would be dealt with by someone even if they never face prosecution. Trust in government would plummet. The normal functions of American institutions would cease. The country would collapse.

Could this calamity be managed? Possibly, but I don’t think any political leader including Trump wants to to take responsibility for the repercussions. Some say that Trump is on the list – Obviously he knew Epstein as did most people in the upper echelons of society. Epstein made a point to slither into every wealthy circle he could find.

Trump did reportedly kick the guy out of Mar-a-Lago after finding out he made a pass at the underage daughter of an associate. If Trump is on the list then there must be extensive blackmail evidence – So, why didn’t Democrats ever release it?  Democrats had four years to flood the media with information (real or fake) on the Epstein case and they did absolutely nothing. No, I think Trump is withholding the list because it’s a weapon of mass destruction, not because he’s on it.

Everyone expected the Dems to suppress the list. No one expected them to do the right thing. People are fuming about Trump because they had high hopes.  They expected him to damn the torpedoes and release the files regardless of the aftermath.

I’m here to tell you, government will ALWAYS protect itself first. It’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact.

You’re probably familiar with the concept of the “thin blue line”; the assertion that police act as the only barrier between order and mayhem in American society. The notion has been criticized as elitist and fundamentally untrue. Cops rarely stop crimes in progress and only clean up the mess afterwards, leaving most Americans to protect themselves.

But one could argue that the mere existence of law enforcement as an institution acts as a deterrent to societal decay. And, in the past this idea of the “greater good” has led LEOs to protect each other from prosecution rather than pursue the ugly truth about their brothers in arms.

I think that many people within government also see themselves as a “thin line” of protection; a morally gray barrier between civilization and annihilation. A line between order and anarchy. I think they view their mandate as sacrosanct and that the ends always justify the means.

There’s a large percentage of the normal population that is also willing to overlook the Epstein debacle if it means defeating the chaos of the woke revolution. Recent polls show Trump’s overall approval rating among Republicans actually INCREASED after his handling of the Epstein issue, even though a majority of people in polls also believe the case is being covered up.  There’s a lot of us that will continue to call attention to the client list, but don’t doubt for a second that many other people will forget and move on within weeks.

Again, the anti-globalists need to accept the reality that they have limited influence within MAGA. Plenty of people care about libertarian economic theory, the Bildergberg Group, Davos, CBDCs, foreign aid to Israel and cults of ultra-rich luciferian pedos, but not enough people to make any of these things a popular priority. The deeper agenda of globalist control is barely on their peripheral radar, or they don’t take it seriously enough to worry about it over their morning coffee.

Could Trump suddenly change his stance and unleash a torrent of files tomorrow?  Like I said in the beginning, he switches positions on a dime, but it will be hard for him to go back on his claims that the client list represents a “hoax”.  I am doubtful we’ll see an uncensored version of the list and even more doubtful that anyone will be prosecuted.

Trump is certainly pulling America back from leftist extremism (that’s a good thing), but he has no intention of going to war with the globalists (that’s a bad thing). As I have noted over and over again, if liberty proponents want to get rid of the cabal they will have to stop waiting for political solutions that will never materialize. The war to unseat the globalists will not be fought by MAGA. The eternal mandate of the political edifice is self preservation, and Trump is part of that edifice.

Reprinted with permission from Alt-Market.us.

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The former leader of the fundamentalist-Sunni ISIS and al-Qaeda forces in Syria, al-Jolani (renamed al-Sharaa) has now suffered his first military defeat at the hands of the fundamentalist-Jewish Israeli Government, which is determined to keep parts of Syria and will now be free to take more of it. This defeat is a shattering blow to al-Sharaa’s followers, whom he increasingly struggles to hold together, while the country that he (backed by support from the U.S., Turkey, Qatar, the Saud family, and Israel) conquered from the fleeing prior secularist (anti-sectarian) Syrian Government by Bashar al-Assad, whom the U.S. regime had been planning ever since 2009 to overthrow, and actively started in 2011 to overthrow (that’s also archived here).

On July 17th, SouthFront headlined “NEW SYRIA SUFFERS FIRST DEFEAT” (archived here), and reported:

Syria’s new Islamist-led government has suffered its first defeat in al-Suwayda, where [Christian] Druze fighters backed by Israel solidified their control over the southern governorate.

The battle in al-Suwayda broke out on July 13 with a confrontation between Druze fighters and Sunni tribesmen. The clashes, which were focused in the eastern outskirts of al-Suwayda city, were the result of a series of assaults on Druze civilians traveling on the highway that linked the governorate with the capital, Damascus.

Early on July 14, the [al-Sharaa] government announced that it was sending its military and security forces to al-Suwayda to end the confrontation. However, [the Sunni] government forces sided with the [Sunni] tribesmen and launched a major offensive [against the Druze Christians] on al-Suwayda city.

Israel, which had vowed to protect Syrian Druze after the fall of the Assad regime last December, intervened, launching a few strikes at government forces.

On July 15, government forces stormed al-Suwayda city. Reports of war crimes, including summary executions of Druze civilians, began to surface.

Despite being overpowered, Druze fighters, led by the al-Suwayda Military Council, showed fierce resistance. Later on the same day, with direct Israeli air support, the fighters launched a counter-attack and managed to recapture most of the city.

All of the progress was lost, however, by early July 16, with government forces, reinforced with heavy weapons and drones, re-entering al-Suwayda.

What came next was an unprecedented escalation by Israel against Syria’s new rulers. Multiple Israeli strikes hit the Syrian military headquarters as well as the Presidential Palace in Damascus, with [Israel’s] Defense Minister Israel Katz declaring that “the signaling in Damascus is over, now come the painful blows.”

Other Israeli strikes hit government convoys near Damascus, military sites in the southern governorate of Daraa, as well as the forces operating in al-Suwayda and its outskirts. The strikes in Daraa claimed the lives of four senior commanders, in the first instance of Israel deliberately killing officials of the new government.

Late at night, the Syrian government announced an agreement with Druze leaders to end fighting, withdrew the military and deploye security forces in the city. However, the agreement was rejected by the spiritual leader of the group, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri.

Early on July 17, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa conceded the defeat, announcing a full withdrawal from al-Suwayda. Up to 700 government troops were reportedly killed. The losses on the other side are still unclear, but at least dozens of Druze civilians were reportedly executed.

The defeat in al-Suwayda was the first serious blow to the Syrian government. Despite engaging in talks with Sharaa, Israel appears to have its own agenda for Syria, which likely includes dividing the country.

On July 16th, Syria Observer headlined “From Spiritual Guide to Political Actor: Who Is Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri?” (archived here) and reported:

As the southern Syrian province of Suweida grapples with crisis and upheaval, one name looms large over the headlines: Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri. Once confined to his role as a spiritual authority among Syria’s Druze community, Hijri has, over the past decade, evolved into one of the most polarizing political actors in the country’s post-Assad landscape.

His rise is emblematic of a broader shift in Syria, where local and sectarian leaders — often sidelined or co-opted under Baathist authoritarianism — have reasserted themselves, amid the state’s collapse and the contested reconstruction of authority.

A Complicated Inheritance

Hijri inherited the title of Sheikh al-‘Aql, or chief Druze religious leader, under unusual circumstances following the death of his brother in a car accident. Though initially perceived as a reluctant heir to the position, close associates suggest he had long harboured ambitions to revive the influence of the role — once a prestigious post with both spiritual and political clout — beyond the ceremonial status it had been reduced to under Baathist rule.

His lineage only strengthened this aspiration. He descends from a revered line of Druze religious leaders. His ancestor, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Hijri, became a semi-mythical figure among the Druze for leading resistance against Egyptian ruler Ibrahim Pasha in the 19th century. Later, Sheikh Ahmad al-Hijri, who died in 1953, emerged as a national figure during the French Mandate and early independence, hosting Syrian nationalist leaders in his home.

However, by the time Sheikh Hikmat assumed the position, the Syrian state under Hafez and then Bashar al-Assad had significantly diminished the autonomy of traditional religious and tribal leadership. Religious figures — including Druze clerics — were expected to conform to the role of mashāyikh al-sultān (“clergy of the regime”), often receiving government cars and stipends in exchange for political loyalty.

Hijri initially conformed to this mold, but according to those close to him, he did so begrudgingly, hiding a long-standing desire to break with this dependency and restore the role’s former significance.

From Symbol to Separatist?

The 2011 uprising — and especially the unrest in Suweida — provided al-Hijri an opening. By the final years of Bashar al-Assad’s rule, al-Hijri had aligned himself with popular opposition movements in the province, notably the Karama Square protests, where he gained a following as a spiritual figure advocating for civil resistance.

After Assad’s fall in late 2024, Hijri’s home became a political pilgrimage site, receiving delegations from across Syria. Some began likening him to Sultan al-Atrash, the legendary Druze leader of the 1925 Syrian Revolt against the French. But what appeared as a return to nationalist heroism soon veered in a very different direction.

Critics argue that Hijri’s increasingly political tone — calling for a new constitution, secular democracy, and inclusive dialogue — began to sound less like civic demands and more like sectarian bargaining. Speaking on behalf of “the Druze” as a bloc, he inadvertently positioned his community in direct confrontation with the Sunni majority, they argue. His demands, while at times justified, came to be viewed through a communal lens rather than as universal principles.

Worse still, say his detractors, was his shift from spiritual guide to would-be regional actor. Hijri began to engage with foreign powers and speak of the Druze as a distinct regional force. His circle maintained informal communications with U.S. contacts — allegedly through his relative, Khaldoun al-Hijri, based in the United States — as well as less publicized exchanges with Druze leadership in Israel.

The Shadow of Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif

One of the most controversial dimensions of Hijri’s role is his alleged relationship with Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the Druze spiritual leader in Israel. Though the two have never publicly acknowledged contact, numerous activists in Suweida describe their connection as an “open secret.” Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt hinted as much in a recent interview, suggesting that al-Hijri is “influenced” by Tarif — a statement seen by many as a diplomatic understatement.

Members of Hijri’s inner circle reportedly consult Tarif’s “advice” on political positioning, especially regarding international actors. Analysts speculate that Tarif encouraged Hijri to capitalize on Israeli, American, and European pressure on Damascus to extract local gains for Suweida—an idea many see as reckless and destabilizing. Such manoeuvres, they warn, risked rupturing the fragile social fabric of Syria even further.

Indeed, the Syrian government has been accused of playing both sides of this dynamic: turning a blind eye to Israeli messaging toward the Druze at first, only to later use those same messages to rally public opinion against Hijri and justify military actions. At the same time, pro-government factions reportedly carried out sectarian attacks in Druze areas near Damascus, lending credence to Hijri’s suspicions and reinforcing his base.

Still, some believe the tide may be turning. Both the U.S. and Israel appear to have distanced themselves from Hijri’s escalating rhetoric in recent weeks. Sheikh Tarif, too, is said to have backed away from the Syrian cleric. These developments raise a critical question: on what basis did Hijri continue to escalate his confrontation with the new Syrian government?

What Comes Next?

With the Syrian Ministry of Interior now in control of Suweida following the recent Israeli strikes and internal security deployment, Hijri’s future hangs in the balance. Some sources suggest that a behind-the-scenes deal — possibly brokered by Walid Jumblatt — is in the works, though details remain murky.

For now, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri stands at a crossroads: once a revered spiritual leader, then a national symbol of civil resistance [against the prior, secularist, Government], and now a polarizing figure whose political ambitions may have overstepped both his mandate and his moment. Whether history remembers him as a visionary or a divisive opportunist will depend on how the days ahead unfold — and on how far Syria is willing to go to reconcile its fractured identities.

——

On Friday night, July 18th, Reuters headlined “Israel and Syria agree ceasefire as Israel allows Syrian troops limited access to Sweida”, and reported that the Trump Administration had gotten al-Sharaa’s consent to temporarily halt attacks against the Druze. “Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has worked to establish warmer ties with the U.S., accused Israel of trying to fracture Syria and promised to protect its Druze minority.” Trump is siding with Israel, against Sharaa. Sharaa is obeying. Whether he will be able to hold his fighters together this way is unknown. But the initial signs are that he won’t. The best up-to-date news-site on wars is South Front, and on July 19th it headlined “TRIBAL FIGHTERS STORM AL-SUWAYDA CITY AMID REPORTS OF MASS ATROCITIES (18+ VIDEOS)”. Syria is clearly repeating Libya, which repeated Iraq, which repeated Afghanistan; but U.S. armaments-makers profit enormously from each of these — and each of the other U.S.-generated — wars. It’s a terrific business to invest in, and America’s billionaires know this.

MY COMMENTARY: What Obama did to Libya, he and his successors Biden and Trump together, did also to Syria. Throughout that long period, overwhelming majorities in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, and in both of America’s (fascist-imperialist) political Parties, and their respective propaganda agencies (such as their ‘news’-media) likewise supported both operations (including unlimited U.S. armaments to Israel for its bombings of Syria and for the genocide against Gazans). The U.S. regime’s colonies (‘allies’) likewise did (and Germany contributed 30% of those armaments to Israel). For more information about the U.S. regime’s rape of Syria, I recommend Stephen Gowans’s excellent 2017 book Washington’s Long War on Syria. It is systematic, and it individually names key operatives. Its only lacks are its non-coverage of the CIA cut-out operations by some of the ‘non-profits’ (‘NGOs’) such as NED (National Endowment for Democracy), USAID and Soros’s Open Society Foundation, in fomenting the 2011 demonstrations to overthroow Assad. For example, according to NED’s 2011 Annual Report (p.70 of the pdf), NED spent over $600,000 that year in Syria, $500,000 of which came from the U.S. Republican Party’s International Republican Institute. Nowadays, such ‘non-profits’ do much of the work that formerly only the CIA did. The coup-producing machinery is at least as effective now as it was when it first was set up in 1947 to take over the world.

This article was originally published on Eric’s Substack.

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The post VivaBarnesLaw – Ep. 273: Russia Hoax CONFIRMED! Will ARRESTS Follow? Trump SUES WSJ! Epstein Docs Release? & MORE! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Everything You Need to Know about the Government’s Mass Censorship Campaign

Why would anyone believe anything from these lying scum?

The post Why Would Anyone Believe Anything From These Lying Scum? appeared first on LewRockwell.

All Americans, regardless of party or ideological stance, should thank the dedicated patriot Tulsi Gabbard for her diligent actions toward preserving, protecting, and defending our Constitution and saving our Republic. These seditious traitors she names should be fully prosecuted and convicted to the fullest extent of the law.

The post Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard: The Obama Administration Must Be Held Accountable appeared first on LewRockwell.

Saleh Abdullah wrote:

Alternative Hypothesis: It will be revealed that “Bibi” has been threatening Trump with the “Samson Option”, in the form of nuclear devices hidden in American cities.

The “Samson Option” refers to Israel’s vindictive intention to use nuclear weapons if its existence was ever threatened, even if it meant sacrificing itself.

Let’s see what happens. One thing is for sure, this Epstein thing doesn’t seem to be going away. 

See here.

The post How the Church Should Respond to Injustice, Epstein Scandal appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Matt Taibbi

The post Note on New Trump-Russia Disclosures appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

The post Brighter Nights and Darker Days Increase Risk of Death by Up to 46% appeared first on LewRockwell.

Joseph Morabito wrote:

Microsoft to stop using engineers in China for tech support of US military, Hegseth orders review.

The report detailed Microsoft’s use of Chinese engineers to work on U.S. military cloud computing systems under the supervision of U.S. “digital escorts” hired through subcontractors who have security clearances but often lacked the technical skills to assess whether the work of the Chinese engineers posed a cybersecurity threat.

Reuters

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The post Larry C. Johnson Explains Why Trump Wants the Epstein Matter To Disappear. appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

Late Nighter

The post CBS Reportedly Lost $40 Million on Colbert’s Late Show This Year appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Joseph Morabito.

The Takeout

The post The Nasty Truth Of What Competitive Hot Dog Eating Does To Your Stomach appeared first on LewRockwell.

Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters are much like the evangelical supporters of Israel. (In fact, a large percentage of these two groups are one and the same.) Evangelicals defiantly refuse to believe that Cyrus Scofield (and their Dispensationalist pastors) lied to them; and MAGA supporters defiantly refuse to believe that Trump lied to them. But the peace and prosperity of America just might depend on MAGA facing the reality that Donald Trump has indeed lied to them.

Six months into Trump’s term in office have proven that the similarities between Donald Trump and Joe Biden are much more than the differences between them.

Ukraine

We all clearly remember Trump’s repeated campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” after taking office. Few people believed he could literally end the war in one day, but we all knew that the President of the United States had the power to end that conflict in a very brief period of time: a couple of weeks or less.

All Trump needed to do was terminate the U.S. munitions pipeline to Ukraine and withdraw ALL U.S. personnel—including and especially the CIA—from Ukraine. Had Trump done what he promised to do, the mass murderer and corrupt politician Volodymyr Zelensky would have been forced to cease his “stupid” (Trump’s word) proxy war with Russia, and the war would have ended posthaste—and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians would still be alive.

But what has Trump done? He has continued and is now expanding Ukraine’s (meaning America’s) stupid war.

US President Donald Trump will for the first time use his authority to send weapons drawn from Pentagon stockpiles directly to Ukraine, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the decision.

While the Trump administration has so far only delivered weapons approved under his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) allows Trump to supply arms to Ukraine in an emergency.

The new shipment could reportedly be worth around $300 million and may include Patriot surface-to-air missiles as well as medium-range rockets.

The president confirmed earlier this week that he would send additional arms to Ukraine.

During his election campaign, Trump criticized Biden’s unconditional aid to Kiev and called Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky “the greatest salesman on Earth” for persuading Democrats to keep weapons flowing.

(Source)

Trump justifies this betrayal of the American people who voted for him in typical Trump fashion by turning his betrayal into a business deal. “The European Union is paying for them [America’s Patriot missiles]. We are not paying anything for them… This will be a business for us,” Trump spouted.

So, money for the war profiteers justifies the escalation of the Ukraine war. The military/industrial complex (and its allies in Congress) will continue to rake in huge financial profits off the blood of the Ukrainian people.

In an open letter to President Trump, Mark Dankof writes:

You have lied to the American public on the Russian-Ukrainian war. Instead of acknowledging that the United States had no business engaging in a coup d’etat in Kiev in February of 2014 and continuing the illegitimate policy of expanding NATO to encircle Russia, your latest decision to arm Zelensky further has now made Mr. Biden’s War, Mr. Trump’s War. Apparently no one has informed you that Mr. Putin and the Russians have already won this conflict and have decided after the Minsk and Istanbul negotiation frauds, the Nord Stream pipeline bombing, and the Dugina Assassination among others, that acquiescence to your game playing is not going to happen. The only question remaining is whether or not the entirety of Ukraine is going to be destroyed and annexed by Russia with remaining Ukrainians confined to residence in a blue-and-yellow flag cemetery not of their choice. Your policy pivots only prolong the possibility of direct American military involvement in a war the United States cannot win for reasons not related at all to the national security of this country.

MAGA: Donald Trump lied to you!

Wars For Israel

Israel’s genocidal slaughter of innocent Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated with 100 children being murdered or wounded every day, as Donald Trump continues providing the murderous madman Benjamin Netanyahu with a perpetual supply of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. munitions, with at least two C-130 cargo planes arriving in Israel each week.

Many of the Palestinian victims are being massacred as they arrive at Israeli ambush points (aka food distribution centers). Added to the ugliness of America’s involvement in Israel’s war lust is that many American mercenaries (soldiers of fortune) are in Israel working as snipers to pick off the Palestinian people one by one.

Furthermore, Trump is collaborating with Netanyahu on the plan to force Gazans into concentration camps and proceed with Trump’s goal of turning Gaza into the Riviera of the Middle East.

Instead of ending Israel’s wars in the Middle East, Trump not only has continued the genocide in Gaza, but he has also expanded the war to include the U.S. bombing of Yemen and Iran and an expanded Israeli assault against the West Bank and Lebanon—not to mention Trump’s support for the ISIS/al Qaeda terrorist takeover of Syria, which was done to create a second war front against Iran.

And speaking of Syria, please read (watch) this report. This is what the terrorist Jihadists—that Donald Trump helped put in control of Syria, lifted sanctions for, removed “terrorist” designation from and had his picture taken shaking hands with—are doing with Trump’s new found favor.

I mean REALLY read and watch the report. Then try to convince yourself that Donald Trump is a well-intentioned man who truly loves people and wants what’s best for the Middle East, for Christians and for America. Keep telling yourself that as you bury your soul and harden your heart to continue following a monster.

On Trump’s Middle East betrayal, Dankof’s letter to the president states:

Your continued pursuit of a Middle Eastern foreign policy under the direction of Benjamin Netanyahu, AIPAC, the Republican Jewish Coalition, and a Defense Secretary linked to the Israeli Temple Mount Eschatological Crackpot Association has now led you to the idiotic and criminal decision to attack Iran.

The result? On top of your commissioned assassination of General Soleimani and American withdrawal from JCPOA in your first term, this second term military assault has resulted in Iranian withdrawal from the NPT, the booting of an Israeli-friendly IAEA out of Iran, and an understandable resolve on the part of the Iranians to avoid any further dialogue with the United States.

Former Army Intelligence Officer and CIA Case Officer Philip Giraldi summarizes Trump’s betrayal of his peace promises this way:

And so it goes, so much lying and dissimulation that one has to wonder what surprises will be on the table next week. The fog of war may have lifted for now and the phony ceasefire between Israel and Iran has paused the immediate bloodshed, but don’t be fooled. The respite is to allow an exhausted Israel to rearm with US provided weapons so the neoconservatives and the Israel Firsters aren’t done. The war drums are still beating, and Trump’s America First movement is starting to fracture under the strain, with a growing divide inside MAGA over America’s pointless wars for Israel. One group wants to stay out of foreign conflicts while the other is ready to back Israel completely, no matter the cost. Trump is either consciously or inadvertently playing his usual role of spewing contradictions and sowing confusion and instability every time he speaks or acts. Israel cannot retreat, it can only continue on its path of blood and slaughter, and Iran will not surrender. This might create in the near and long run the potential for a major false flag operation by Israel to draw the US in and trigger a full-blown war against Iran.

MAGA: Donald Trump lied to you!

Epstein Files 

One of Trump’s first stated items of business after taking office was to release the Epstein files. But only a few days ago, we all saw Trump’s angry determination to maintain the Epstein coverup.

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson released a report entitled The Epstein Client List — Why is Trump Breaking His Promise to Publish?

In Johnson’s report, he shows the first page of Epstein’s client list, which was compiled by historian/researcher Ryan Dawson. Johnson writes:

Although Donald Trump and Pam Bondi insist that there is no Epstein Client List… there is a list and it is reproduced above with the permission of its author, Ryan Dawson. Ryan compiled the list the old-fashioned way… he combed through court transcripts and charging documents. He only put names on the list if the victims of Epstein’s pedophilia enterprise identified or named a particular individual. As you peruse the list you will notice that there are some very wealthy, powerful individuals named. Not one of them has brought a libel or slander legal action against Ryan. If he was posting false material, he would have been a certain target of lawsuits.

Of course, we all saw the defiant Donald Trump when he was asked at a press conference about the Epstein files. By his brutish reaction, it is obvious that Trump has no intention of releasing the Epstein files. Why not?

In his report, Larry Johnson opines:

So why has Donald Trump broken his promise to publish the list? I think there are two reasons — neither mutually exclusive. First, Donald Trump probably paid no attention to Ryan’s work and was never familiar with the list. Once he signed the executive order to publish the Epstein file, he was then briefed on the actual names and realized that many of them are major donors to his campaign, e.g., Jamie Dimon, Robert Kraft. While there are several names on that list who are confirmed anti-Trumpers, there are others who are friends.

Second, and in my opinion a more important consideration, is that the full Epstein file would expose a foreign intelligence blackmail operation that implicates the Mossad and the CIA. Alexander Acosta, the former Secretary of Labor for Donald Trump, said he was told that Jeffrey Epstein had ties to intelligence. During the controversy surrounding his handling of Epstein’s 2008 plea deal as a US attorney, Acosta reportedly told Trump administration officials that he had been informed Epstein “belonged to intelligence,” and that this was a reason for the unusually lenient plea agreement. It would not surprise me that Bibi Netanyahu asked Trump to pull the plug on releasing the material. Did Trump get something in return from Bibi?

Paul Craig Roberts seconds Johnson’s speculated Epstein-Mossad connection:

As Epstein was murdered to keep him quiet, it was obvious no files would be released.  AG Bondi said she had the files and videos and was going through them.  But then the men in black paid a visit, and suddenly there were no files.  Moreover, the authorities concluded that Epstein committed suicide in his prison cell.  So we are left with the puzzle, there is no evidence that Epstein did anything wrong, so he committed suicide for no reason. If Epstein had no client list, to whom was he trafficking the minors?

The stink is so strong that Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, is reportedly considering resigning. I cited a news source from India to show that the entire world is watching the US government make a fool of itself.

This is not a “who is the most MAGA, Bondi or Bongino, situation.” It is the ruling elite preventing the whistle from being blown on them, backed up by Netanyahu making sure Trump understands that Epstein’s connection to Mossad does not come up.  Indeed, that and not Iran could be the real reason for Netanyahu’s visit.  If Iran was the reason, how come we have not heard anything about the discussion or decision?

The situation seems clear enough.  So many important people are ensnared in videos engaged in sex with underaged persons that it must be hushed up. Otherwise, Americans will lose confidence in their leadership class.  So folks there is nothing there.  The Clintons and the princes and all the others were flown to Epstein’s island where there were underaged sexual attractions just to see the island and to have tea with Epstein, a math teacher who somehow overnight became super rich.

The probable Epstein story is that Israel, knowing of the sexual perversion rife among the American leadership class, set up Epstein to ensnare those who could be blackmailed to conform American policies with Israel’s interest.  How else do we explain the US spending the 21st century fighting wars for Israel, protecting and enabling Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, passing laws that protect Israel from protests and boycotts and preventing Americans from stating the truth about Israel?

America has been the instrument of Israeli aggression.  Israel has so much blackmail power over the American ruling class that the United States of America is locked into its role as Israel’s agent.

MAGA: Donald Trump lied to you!

At the beginning of this column I wrote, “the peace and prosperity of America just might depend on MAGA facing the reality that Donald Trump has indeed lied to them.” I strongly believe that this statement is a factual reality.

Trump’s inability to seriously study and concentrate, his inability to reason and negotiate, his inability to realize that he really doesn’t know everything about everything and his inability to recognize the very clear and present danger in which he is putting America threaten America’s very existence.

Donald Trump is a reckless, feckless egomaniac. We will be extremely fortunate if America is not engulfed in a major financial collapse and embroiled in a major nuclear conflict before the midterm elections next year.

The only hope is that Trump’s MAGA base will awaken to his delirious deceptions in such force and with such fury as to convince Donald Trump to return to his campaign promises. MAGA is the only entity that can accomplish this feat. As long as MAGA covers for Trump, he will continue his Helter-Skelter subordination to the Neocon/Zionist/Uniparty agenda that could very easily (and very probably) lead to catastrophe.

Face it, MAGA: Donald Trump lied to you!

Reprinted with permission from Chuck Baldwin Live.

The post Face It, MAGA: Donald Trump Lied To You! appeared first on LewRockwell.

One hot, early August, 1973 Sunday afternoon, I was walking alongside my big brother outside the third-base side of Shea Stadium before a major league baseball game. That since-demolished stadium had open sides, with vertical cables that supported a scattered array of ornamental sheet-metal blue and orange squares, displaying the home team’s colors. From the concourse’s upper decks, one could behold a vast, open-air panorama, including Flushing Bay and LaGuardia Airport.

One could also throw things from these heights onto unsuspecting pedestrians far below. On that day, one did.

I was looking toward my brother to my left as we strolled toward the stadium’s entrance when I saw, from the corner of my eye, an object dropping out of the upper reaches of the stadium, perhaps on-target to hit him. I called, “Look out!” and reflexively pushed him to a spot that seemed safer. A split second later, a large plastic cup nearly full of cola burst on the walkway and stickily splattered my shorts-wearing brother’s legs. It was a better outcome than if he’d been struck on the head, but still unfavorable. My angry, wet brother looked skyward. A hundred-plus feet above us, three late teens were laughing at their stunt and its victim.

My brother glared up at the three and shouted a specific physical threat. The presumptive tosser in the middle laughed and called out, “Ha! You’ll never catch me!”

This was undeniably true. Given the angle and height, we couldn’t see their faces clearly. And there were 40,000 attendees. We had no chance of finding the drink droppers. Besides, if my brother found and roughed up the guy, we’d have been ejected from the stadium.

We soon forgot about the aerial assault. We wanted to enjoy our day off.

Then the Mets got thumped. We shoulda just gone swimming.

—

Life presents countless situations, more serious than the one described above, where evildoers aren’t, and from a practical standpoint can’t be, held accountable for what they’ve done to others.

For every crime committed, hundreds go undetected, uninvestigated and/or unsolved. If they’re not killed, crime victims must come to terms with what was done to them and carry on. It’s how life is.

Nor does civil litigation deliver commensurate compensation when harm is done. Those who amass unserviceable debt declare bankruptcy and pay their creditors pennies on the dollar, if they pay anything at all. And in personal injury matters, some of the amounts awarded or paid in settlement are excessive in relation to the injury claimed, as in fender-bender cases. But some awards are too low because money simply can’t make up for the loss of health, time or a loved one. How, for example, could the federal government or Pharma compensate women who may have been rendered infertile by mRNA shots? As a threshold matter, federal law immunizes the vaxx pushers. From lawsuits, I mean.

Similarly, while many business pledges, money-back-guarantees and purportedly lifetime commitments are breached, for either legal or practical reasons, the party that’s been lied to lacks recourse. Life is full of examples.

—

Rather than yielding punishment for transgressions, written laws and the judicial system exist principally to create a fear of consequences and thus, to deter widespread misbehavior.

Religious commandments and beliefs may also disincentivize misconduct. Even those who don’t fear secular authorities may decline to commit a crime because they feel that a supreme being is watching and keeping score.

Still other potential miscreants forgo misconduct because they believe in karma, either in a theological or a sociological/practical sense. Feeling that that others will reciprocate their bad acts somewhere down the line promotes restraint and respect.

—

But the street-smart and the well-connected and wealthy know they’re unlikely to get caught or face serious consequences if they disobey laws. Thus, they do what they want with impunity.

The sociopathic Scamdemicians didn’t worry about facing punishment for their extreme overreach. Freed of concern for the consequences that prevent much misconduct, the Covid conspirators caused massive damage and are walking away, scot-free, from their evil deeds. This cynical team flexed power without regard to morality.

Many Americans advocate Nuremberg 2.0 trials for the Covid Scam’s orchestrators. These would make for great TV. Seeing those charged—many of whom aren’t household names—face simple, yet challenging questions for the first time, most Americans would belatedly be exposed to how extensive and phony the whole lockdown/school closure/mask/test and shot charade and Congressional subsidies/giveaways were. But the bureaucrats and other operatives knew they were too powerful, well-connected and/or old to face prosecution, much less imprisonment.

No politician has been held accountable for their role in orchestrating the Scamdemic. All who pushed the Covid clampdown and shots were reelected. And the Public Health, DoD, Biosecurity, Pharma, NGO, media, college and school administrators, teacher’s union heads and other operatives who concocted and drove the Scam continue to lurk, well-paid, within their institutions. Others have retired.

—

Even if they were identified as co-conspirators, instead of saying they were “following orders,” as during Nuremberg, they’ll maintain that they were “following The Science.” Much of the public still accepts this lame alibi. Despite the obvious illogic of the Covid response and the shots’ failure, tens of millions of the well-propagandized still believe the lockdowns, closures, masks, tests and shots were clever and saved lives. Even those who now realize how destructive it was tell themselves that well-intentioned people did the best they could and “couldn’t have known” in March 2020 that the worst respiratory virus in human history couldn’t simply, magically emerge. They take no responsibility for their gullibility or passivity.

Many have intentionally forgotten about the lockdowns and shots because admitting that they supported such lunacy and tyranny reflects poorly on their intellect or integrity. Most have been distracted by life and various forms of addictions and entertainment as things slowly returned to normal.

Thus, in either the court of public opinion or in the criminal courts, it seems impossible to convince a jury that lockdown, mask, test and shot-pushing individuals have perpetrated a massive fraud.

The Scamdemic’s perpetrators and promoters have gone silent and changed the subject. As during the recent Epstein non-disclosures, the government wants you to move on. But the lack of accountability for the Covid response and the mRNA injection injuries and deaths has, among many, deepened mistrust of government. Public anger about the DOJ’s refusal to release Epstein documents manifests that many Americans know their government lied extensively during the Scamdemic and won’t accept being told that nothing untoward happened in either situation. This group won’t quietly “let it go.”

—

In 1979, Nicaraguan rebels ousted their President, Anastasio Somoza-Debayle. Somoza is said to have further impoverished his already poor and earthquake-devastated citizens by embezzling nearly all of the national treasury, including millions of earthquake relief funds and by bombing civilians and ordering his political enemies to be pushed out of helicopters from heights much greater than baseball stadia.

Some Nicaraguans were unwilling to let bygones be bygones. A year after Somoza went into hiding, rebels tracked him down in Paraguay, blew up his car and him with rocket-propelled grenades and strafed him with a hail of close-range bullets from automatic rifles. Curbside justice in response to heinous crimes fulfills the human desire for reciprocity. It also deters future oppression. The public has exacted similar, direct, terminal revenge against Ceausescu, Mussolini and many others. Thomas Jefferson expressly endorsed lethal violence against tyrants.

In this vein, despite its stated commitments to democracy, due process and non-violent conflict resolution, the US government has carried out and/or facilitated plenty of assassinations, both here and abroad. More recently, many Americans cheered Luigi Mangione for allegedly killing a medical insurance executive whose company denied too many claims. The Covid conspirators hurt way more people than any insurance exec ever did.

Six of seven of Somoza’s assassins escaped. But surveillance has advanced exponentially since 1980, especially in the US. How many Americans are willing to be killed or spend the rest of their lives in jail for seeking Covid retribution? I’m not. I like my family, friends and sunlight. Plus, they say jail food is bad and the neighbors are unfriendly.

—

During the Scamdemic, most Americans went along because they naively believed that government officials were smart and honorable and that the legal system would ultimately punish any who weren’t. Earlier in their lives, the gullible heard and believed too many grandiose political speeches and had seen too many detective shows where the criminal gets caught in the end and too many courtroom dramas where the murderer is shown to be lying and breaks down on the stand. Moreover, most Americans have a satisfactory level of wealth and comfort. They’re unwilling to give these up to become vigilantes whom the government would kill or incarcerate.

Thus, the Scam orchestrators won’t be punished. And the Scamdemic damage won’t be and can’t be undone. The time stolen is irreplaceable. And the many who made millions from the Scam bought stocks, real estate and other stuff that they’re never giving back.

Those who wish to retroactively impose punishment should instead have perceived the Scam from the beginning and refused to cooperate. Civil disobedience is the only practical and effective response to governmental oppression. But such resistance requires knowledge, insight and widespread, durable commitment. In 2020-21, Americans showed that they sorely they lacked these qualities.

After accepting and embracing 2020’s lockdowns and giveaways and buying into Vaxxmania, it became too late to turn the tide against these scams. As at the stadium, the Scamdemic perpetrators sneakily threw shit on people from above and disappeared into obscure, safe havens. They knew the masses were too naive, fearful, unassertive, distracted and circumstantially boxed-in to resist or seek vengeance.

Reprinted with permission from Dispatches from a Scamdemic.

The post Why the Covid Conspirators Won’t Be Held Accountable appeared first on LewRockwell.

If you don’t think Washington is in the maws of a Fiscal Doomsday Machine, think again.

And the place to start is with the 30-year CBO projections—expressed as the dollar increase from the current $29 trillion level of publicly held US Treasury debt.

To wit, if Washington does nothing except leave current tax, spending and structural deficit policies in place (i.e. baseline policy), the publicly-held debt will grow by $102 trillion over the next three decades, reaching a staggering 154% of what would be $85 trillion of GDP by 2054.

Moreover, that outcome assumes that Rosy Scenario does not loose her footing for even a moment through the middle of the century. Stated differently, the underlying CBO projections presume that there will be no recession during the 34 year span from 2020 to 2054, and that, in fact, there will be perpetual full-employment at about 4% from here on out.

Of course, during the last 30 years there have been three recessions (shaded area) and no such full-employment perfection was even remotely achieved. The short spells of 4% unemployment or under, in fact, were few and far between—in stark contrast to the CBO baseline which presumes 4% unemployment year after year until 2054.

The CBO projections also assumes that inflation stays strictly in its Fed-prescribed lane at around 2.0% for the next 30 years, as well. That hasn’t remotely happened during the last 30 years, when the inflation rate has exceeded the 2.0% mark during 17 years, and frequently by substantial amounts.

Y/Y Change In CPI 1994 to 2024

Likewise, it assumes that the bond pits will have no problem funding more than $100 trillion of new Treasury debt at yields which average just 3.6% over the next 30 years. Of course, the actual weighted average yield in the Treasury market today stands at 4.2% and the fulcrum 10-year note has been cycling around 4.4%, albeit at this point the prospective debt inundation is just getting started.

Again, judging by the last 30 years of history, the odds that interest rates will be pushed down into the mid-3% range and remain there for 30 years running would not seem very compelling, either.

Indeed, during the past 30-year period shown in the graph below the bond pits had the Fed’s big wind at their back as the latter monetized upwards of $8.5 trillion of US Treasury and GSE paper by the 2022 peak. Even then, yields were well above the CBO 3.6% assumption half the time, and were pushed lower only by the massive money-printing spree between 2008 and 2022—a feat not likely to be repeatable again without fueling even more inflation and speculation than we already have.

10-Year UST Yield, 1994 to 2024

Needless to say, with a baseline projection of $102 trillion of new debt ridding on the back of a veritable Rosy Scenario, you would think that Washington might be forming a fiscal bucket brigade to beginning bailing out the sinking budgetary ship. And most especially that it would be lead by the GOP—the once and former party of balance budgets and fiscal rectitude.

Not the Trumpified GOP, however. The Donald’s OBBBA—even with the egregious budget gimmick of terminating new tax cuts and bennies in the 2028 election year to make the cost look lower on the standard 10-year window—will add massively to the public debt.

The head-in-the-sand GOP leadership and White House economic policy pimps say not to sweat the extra debt because it is only $3 trillion on paper over 10-years, and, besides, much of that can be purportedly absorbed through enhanced “growth.”

Actually, what drives revenue growth is nominal GDP and the CBO baseline assumes an average of +3.7% growth per annum for the entire 30 year period through 2054. Given that nominal GDP growth averaged exactly 3.9% during the 20 years ending in Q1 2020—a period in which the Fed’s printing presses were running red hot—we doubt there would be much additional nominal GDP growth tonic from essentially extending existing tax law (i.e. the expiring 2017 Trump tax cuts) through the next three decades of massive rising debt burdens.

In any event, on a 30 years basis, the OBBBA will add $117 trillion to the public debt, which figure would rise to an additional +$133 trillion when you price-out OBBBA without the accounting gimmicks. Now, how anyone thinks that quintupling the public debt from $29 trillion to $162 trillion over the next three decades is a plausible route to the Golden Age of Prosperity actually extends well beyond our powers of imagination.

Even then, the truth is surely far worse. Just remove one brick from the edifice of Rosy Scenario—perpetually low interest rates—and the fiscal dragons truly come surging from the budgetary vasty deep. That is, if you assume the weighted average UST yields will clock in at 4.25% rather than 3.5% over the next three decades, the added debt from the permanent extension of the OBBBA would amount to $156 trillion.

That’s right. Face with a veritable Fiscal Doomsday Machine as embodied in the current CBO baseline, the Trumpified GOP has essentially embraced a budgetary path to a $185 trillion public debt by mid-century, representing a crushing 218% of GDP. In a word, the GOP has surrendered to fiscal calamity lock, stock and barrel.

But that’s not the entirety of the matter. As it happens, given the GOPs allergy to taxes, cowardice on entitlements and thirst for Forever Wars and a massive Warfare State, there is no way the nation’s runaway debts will be tackled from the Republican side of the aisle. To remind, when you set aside defense, which will cost $9.7 trillion over the next decade, Veterans at $4.1 trillion, Medicare and Social Security at $15.3 trillion and $20.6 trillion, respectively, and interest at $13.9 trillion, these GOP Sacred Cows add up to $63.4 trillion over the next decade.

That’s 71% of total baseline outlays of $89 trillion and when you add in $7 trillion of Federal Medicaid—from which the GOP has not yet agreed to cut only a small bite–there is only $18 trillion left. And that’s for the entirety of the Federal government from the NIH to highways, the national parks, farm programs, school lunches, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the BLM, the Federal judiciary, the Coast Guard and the Washington Monument, too, among countless others.

That is to say, the $89 trillion of spending built into the budgetary baseline is virtually immune to the budgetary knife because after decades of Dem demagoguery on these items the GOP has thrown in the towel, too.

Baseline Federal Spending For The GOP’s Sacred Cows, FY 2026 to FY 2035

At the same time, the UniParty has come to a frozen stand-off on the revenue side of the ledger. When it comes to the possibility of a new revenue source such as a national sales tax or VAT, the Dems are dead set opposed because these taxes are allegedly too regressive, while the GOP is opposed in principle because they are a tax.

At the same time, the income tax is essentially tapped out from an economic perspective. At the present time fully 58.7% of Federal income taxes are paid for by the top 5% of households and 86% by the top 20%. In a word, the preponderance majority of the nation’s 160 million income tax filers pay no tax at all (about 45 million returns owe no taxes) or after the vastly enlarged standard deduction and increased child credits owe a single digit percentage of their income in Federal taxes.

Indeed, as shown below, in 2022 the bottom 80% of taxpayers paid only $292 billion in income taxes, amounting to just 13.7% of total collections. Against AGI, the effective tax rate was just 5.6%.

At the end of the day, the GOP and Dems have competed their way into a de facto income tax holiday for 80% of households. And we don’t see how you raise their taxes in that competitive environment, while recognizing the the GOP has every reason to staunchly oppose shifting even more income tax burden on the top of the economic ladder.

Distribution of 2022 Federal Income Tax Payments By Income Level

There is always the possibility of higher payroll taxes or returning the corporate income tax to the 35% level of pre-2017. But there is not a snowball’s chance in the hot place that organized labor would allow the former or that the vast phalanx of business lobbies would permit the latter.

In short, raising taxes is usually a bad idea—especially when the $7 trillion Federal budget is freighted-down with Warfare State and Welfare State spending that should be drastically curtailed. But there is no visible combination of political factions within the UniParty arrangement that makes this even remotely feasible—even as the second best solution of revenue increases is even more beyond the range of political possibility.

That is to say, there is real no escape from the Fiscal Doomsday Machine that has now tightly engulfed the nation’s very governing process.

Reprinted with permission from David Stockman’s Contra Corner.

The post No Escape From Washington’s Fiscal Doomsday Machine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Is there something about liberal elite networks, you should understand?

Half the country is up in arms about President Donald Trump’s inexplicable decision to mock his base, because many are appalled that Attorney General Pam Bondi seems to be orchestrating a coverup of a serial rapist of children. Bondi’s Justice Department released a memo last week: “The two-page document said the department found no evidence of an Epstein client list and that no additional files from the investigation would be made public.”

President Trump’s response to all this has been startling: He stated that “[O]nly really bad people […] want to keep something like this going.” According to NBC, he also called MAGA supporters of his who are upset at AG Bondi, “weaklings” who “bought into this bull—-t” —.

President Trump’s supporters, including Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and even Alex Jones, are furious, and calling for full release of the “Epstein files.” Polls show harm to his support: numbers that could threaten Republicans in the midterms.

Democrats are racing to capitalize on the fissures opening among Republicans, as Politico reports. President Trump’s appeal to his base is that he is “one of us”, and that he promises transparency. A situation that casts him as a rich guy with muddy motivations protecting another late rich guy’s friends — the dead man, the worst of the worst — could lose him the base, and cause MAHA voters – millions of them moms and dads of girls like the ones that Epstein abused — to flee.

Conservatives are baffled. My husband, a truly objective man (as well as an ardent President Trump supporter who also worked for numerous intelligence agencies for almost three decades), is puzzled, to the point of wondering if the President is acting uncharacteristically in response to some serious unnamed threat (or threats), perceived or actual.

Because I spent decades in the same elite liberal circles that sheltered Epstein, I am not puzzled. I think I understand the matrix of this situation.

It has, in my view, to do with “the network.”

I think that it is likely that multiple people who are critical to this administration’s success — my guess is, that these are mostly guys from the Silicon Valley community, who have been the ones to put the fuel of their billions and their technical and media support into President Trump’s campaign and administration’s engines — whether they are innocent or guilty, are in the Epstein files. (Remember why Mrs Gates broke up with Mr Gates?) And I think this nation’s most important scientists, innocent or guilty, are in the files. And my guess is that the funders have confronted President Trump.

Why do I think this? There are several clues.

One is the interview of the late Epstein’s former lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, with Chris Cuomo. Remember, Dershowitz used to represent President Trump as well. Dershowitz confirmed that there is a redacted list of people accused of improper conduct, stressed that no one who is a public figure who is in office currently (you get it) is on the list, and called on AG Pam Bondi to ask the New York Courts, who have custody of this list, to release it.

If you read the hieroglyphics here correctly, what you should see (this is why it is useful to have been a political consultant; you can read the code, which often involves triangulation or “deniability”) that A/ President Trump is not on this list. B/ President Trump does not wish the horrific baggage of being the one to infuriate all the powerful people who are on this list, by releasing it himself via his AG. C/ They — the Trump administration — want it released by others, ie, the New York courts, so that they themselves don’t receive the appalling blowback.

I also believe that there are make-or-break tech bro Trump supporters on the list, because of a moving interview given by Eric Weinstein on July 14, 2025— interestingly, in the midst of the Bondi furor — to Steven Bartlett, on the “Diary of a CEO” podcast.

Weinstein was til 2022 managing director for the American venture capital firm Thiel Capital. Weinstein is a compelling intellectual, in addition having served at the very top of one of Silicon Valley’s key organizations. He created a physics-based “theory of everything” that he brought to a fellowship at the Mathematical Institute at Oxford, and he was trained in mathematics at Harvard University.

On the podcast, he stated that “[s]ex offender Jeffrey Epstein was a “product of one or more elements of the intelligence community.” Weinstein, who said he had met Epstein, described him as “certainly was not a financier in any standard sense. That was a cover story.”‘

“British entrepreneur Bartlett asks about Weinstein having met Epstein, and he says, “He wasn’t a financier the day I met him.” Weinstein goes on to describe Epstein as a “weird guy,” who “didn’t seem to know a lot about currency trading.”

Weinstein also describes Epstein as a “construct”‘.

This interview has been seen by 2.4 million people. It is riveting. I felt a deep sense of recognition when Weinstein was speaking. My sense is that Weinstein was speaking extremely carefully; that his goal, among others, was to establish that one could be enmeshed in documentation around the Epstein community and “lists”, without being a pedophile — indeed, one could be enmeshed in those documents simply for being a cutting-edge scientist; and that one intention of his was to put this situation on the record.

I know that Weinstein is correct; “the list/s” will have pedophiles on them, and they will have innocent men (and women) who are snapshotted forever in the vicinity of Epstein – even at his New Mexico ranch and yes, even on his island — simply because they had the misfortune to be some of the most important scientists and mathematicians — and technologists — of our time.

Weinstein argues that the Epstein “construct” was what the military calls “dual use” –that is, that Epstein had multiple missions running concurrently.

One mission, of course, was that of running a grotesque sexual honeypot, exploiting minors, for purposes of blackmail.

But another, Weinstein argues, is the management and direction of Western science itself. Weinstein notes that Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, the late publishing magnate/reputed intelligence asset Robert Maxwell, founded the scientific imprint Pergamon Press, the Oxford-based imprint that published medical books and journals, which was bought by Elsevier, which is the main scientific publishing imprint (and the advance guard scientifically for the COVID/vaccine narrative; indeed, Elsevier created a “resource hub” about COVID for “librarians, campuses and health professionals”, an oddly activist offering from what is supposed to be a neutral scientific platform).

Weinstein notes that Epstein funded a number of important scientists, and that he had an office at Harvard. Weinstein says in the podcast, with what looks like suppressed rage, that he wants to know why Epstein was aware of his, Weinstein’s, work, and why Epstein was embedded in the Harvard mathematics department.

Indeed, Harvard was an avid matchmaker for Epstein among the scientific and mathematics community. Harvard accepted about $9 million from Jeffery Epstein, and gave him an office in the institute that he helped to fund. Epstein visited Harvard more than 40 times.

Key Harvard academics were brought to him by connectors in the university, and encouraged to socialize with him. “Some [Harvard] professors beyond [mathematics professor Martin Nowak] appear to have enjoyed close ties with Epstein, the [Harvard] review found. The report says “a number” of faculty members visited Epstein at his homes in New York, Florida, New Mexico and the Virgin Islands. [Italics mine]. Some said they visited him in jail or took trips on his planes. The visits were done in a personal capacity, the report said, and do not appear to violate Harvard rules.”

So: systematically, consistently, major intellectuals, especially in the fields of computation, genetics, evolutionary biology, and consciousness, were being herded by gatekeepers into proximity to Epstein, who had been planted physically in their midst; and these academics were urged to accept his funding money and to meet with him and by implication, to befriend him or to accept his friendship, and even his invitations. I think this is the “Why?” that Weinstein is asking. We will return to the implications of this systematic engagement structure, later.

Eric Weinstein is correct. Jeffrey Epstein did fund cutting-edge scientists and mathematicians, especially in the fields of genetics and and evolutionary biology. He even convened them via another entity, into a community under his funding structure.

Weinstein’s larger claim — that the Maxwell/Epstein nexus or “construct” served not just to fund but to direct and manage and gate-keep and put a frame around and essentially set the direction of science — is a claim that makes sense, from what I know.

I know that Weinstein is right because I was unknowingly part of a network that overlapped with a part of this network. My agent for almost all of my career, since I was “discovered” by him and since he helped me to publish my first book, The Beauty Myth, a bestseller, at the age of 26, was the legendary literary agent John Brockman. Brockman became as famous as his famous stable of intellectuals, especially during the 2000s and 2010s, for promoting something he called “The Third Culture,” an intersection between the humanities, technology and the sciences.

Brockman’s roster of writers had no mass market novelists, no thriller writers, no cookbook writers, no popular historians. It was, in retrospect, a remarkably curated list. I was honored to join it. Brockman Inc primarily represented the very pinnacle of science and science-adjacent writers: evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, cognitive scientist Daniel Dennet, psychologist Daniel Kahneman. “Nimble Deal-Maker for the Stars of Science” reads a gushing New York Times profile of John Brockman.

Jeffrey Epstein funded the Edge Foundation, Brockman’s digital and irl salon. No one knew this. Or, at least, no one I knew, knew this.

This entity held gatherings of these intellectuals, and published a website and books in which they were asked critical questions (the website is still up). Edge.org’s website hosts commentary by the best of the best — the minds that are directing our culture and our science: theoretical physicist Murray Gell-Mann, cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, Gnostic Gospel scholar Elaine Pagels, theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, Google co-founder Larry Page.

Its motto is: “To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.”

Edge.org hosted “millionaire’s dinners”, which later became “billionaires’ dinners”; these brought the elite of the world of science together with the elites of Silicon Valley. Edge.org also published commentary by some of the most influential intellectuals in the world — men (mostly men) from both of those worlds, in dialogue. (Evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein and Eric Weinstein both contributed to Edge.org, and in 2018 Eric Weinstein thanked Brockman in a tweet, for the opportunity to speak “as me”.)

I will just lift out the sections from Wikipedia that explain the basics of the Epstein link with Brockman Inc, as I do not wish to locate myself in the cross-hairs of any new reporting for this dangerous story:

“In an interview with Prince Andrew dated November 17, 2019, BBC reporter Emily Maitlis mentioned that both Andrew and John Brockman attended an intimate dinner at child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion to celebrate Epstein’s release from prison for charges which stemmed from at least one decade of child sex trafficking.[7]

Andrew’s presence at Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan mansion was corroborated by Brockman himself, in emails published in an October 2019 New Republic report. The story suggested that Brockman was the “intellectual enabler” of Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who died in August 2019 while again awaiting trial on charges related to sex trafficking.[8]

Brockman’s famous literary dinners—held during the TED Conference—were, for a number of years after Epstein’s conviction, almost entirely funded by Epstein as documented in his annual tax filings.” This allowed Epstein to mingle with scientists, startup icons and tech billionaires [Italics mine].”

Read the Whole Article

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A Russian loss would be catastrophic for China’s security, while a Russian victory could end the discounted energy bonanza that’s helping it maintain its economic growth amidst the slowdown, not to mention accelerate the US’ “Pivot (back) to (East) Asia” for more muscularly containing it.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) cited unnamed sources to report that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his EU counterpart that China doesn’t want Russia to lose in Ukraine because the US’ whole focus might then shift to China. His alleged remarks were spun by the Mainstream Media as an admission that China isn’t as neutral as it claims, just as they and their Alt-Media rivals suspected. Both now believe that China will help Russia win, as in obtain its maximum goals, but that’s likely not the case.

Assuming for the sake of argument that Wang did indeed say what was attributed to him, it would align with the assessment around the conflict’s one-year anniversary in February 2023 that “China Doesn’t Want Anyone To Win In Ukraine”. The SCMP channeled the gist of the preceding analysis by writing that “One interpretation of Wang’s statement in Brussels is that while China did not ask for the war, its prolongation may suit Beijing’s strategic needs, so long as the US remains engaged in Ukraine.”

To explain, not only would the US be unable to “Pivot (back) to (East) Asia” for more muscularly containing China at the scale that Trump envisages if the Ukrainian Conflict drags on, but the continued pressure placed upon the Russian economy by Western sanctions would benefit the Chinese economy. China already imports a staggering amount of discounted Russian oil, which helps maintain its economic growth amidst the slowdown that it’s experiencing, but this could end if sanctions were curtailed.

Additionally, the greater that China’s role becomes in serving as a valve for Russia from Western sanctions pressure (both in terms of energy imports for helping to finance the Russian budget but also exports that replace lost Western products), the more dependent Russia will become on China. The increasingly lopsided nature of their economic relations could then be leveraged to clinch the most preferential long-term energy deals possible as regards the Power of Siberia II and other pipelines.

These outcomes could restore China’s superpower trajectory that was derailed during the first six months of the special operation as explained here at the time, thus strengthening its overall resilience to US pressure and therefore making it less likely that the US can coerce a series of lopsided deals from it. It’s for this reason that Trump’s Special Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff is reportedly pushing for the US to lift its energy sanctions on Russia in order to deprive China of these financial and strategic benefits.

The nascent Russian–US “New Détente” could restore the Kremlin’s energy clientele as a first step via phased sanctions relief, thus expanding its range of partners to preemptively avert the aforementioned Russian dependence on China, especially in the event of joint energy cooperation in the Arctic. The purpose, as explained here in early January, would be to deprive China of decades-long access to ultra-cheap resources for fueling its superpower rise at the US’ expense.

All in all, a Russian victory (whether in full or in part via compromises) could end the discounted energy bonanza that’s helping China maintain its economic growth amidst the slowdown, ergo why Beijing won’t send military aid or troops to facilitate this (apart from also fearing serious Western sanctions). Likewise, the scenario of the West inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia would be catastrophic for China’s security, ergo another reason for the aforesaid imports in order to help Russia maintain its war economy.

This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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