Lew Rockwell Institute

The Trump administration, through its attorney general Pam Bondi, announced on August 7 it has doubled a reward—from $25 million to $50 million—for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. According to the administration, Maduro is in cahoots with drug cartels, specifically Cártel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns). 

Bondi accused Maduro of heading up one of the world’s most notorious drug trafficking operations. She said his alleged involvement in the drug trade is a threat to the national security of the United States. Trump’s AG said Maduro utilizes “foreign terrorist and criminal organizations,” including the Tren de Aragua gang, the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, in addition to Cartel of the Suns, to traffic cocaine in the United States.

“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we’ve doubled his reward to $50 million,” Bondi said in a video posted on X. 

While there is little compelling evidence of Maduro’s involvement in the drug trade, it is known that the Venezuelan National Guard and military began to buy, store, transfer and distribute cocaine in the mid-2000s. Prior to direct involvement, the Venezuelan military extorted narcos in the transfer of drug shipments.

“According to InSight Crime, a theory as to what may have motivated this move is that Colombian narcos began to pay the military in drugs rather than cash. This forced the Venezuelans to seek markets of their own,” writes intelligence analyst Javier Sutil Toledano. 

Venezuela might not have become involved in the drug trade if not for the multi-billion-dollar Plan Colombia security program signed with the United States. Billed as an anti-narcotics effort, the real purpose of the plan was to eradicate guerrilla movements aligned against corporate petroleum and mining activities. Colombia Plan maintained a close relationship with death squads and organized paramilitary forces, notes Noam Chomsky. 

Plan Colombia’s war on guerrilla movements forced FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) to move operations to the border with Venezuela and corrupt officials became involved in the drug trade. The narrative claims FARC is a major distributor of cocaine. This is, however, an exaggeration.

“In standard US terminology, the FARC forces are ‘narcoguerrillas,’ a useful concept as a cover for counterinsurgency,” writes Chomsky. “It is agreed—and FARC leaders say—that they rely for funding on coca production, which they tax, as they tax other businesses.” 

Klaus Nyholm, at the time head of the UN Drug Control Program, believes “the guerrillas are something different from the traffickers,” while Andean drug specialist Ricardo Vargas argues the guerrillas were “primarily focused on taxation of illicit crops,” not trafficking. Moreover, FARC called for “a development plan for the peasants” that would “allow eradication of coca on the basis of alternative crops.” Vargas added that Colombian peasants grow cocoa plants “because of the crisis in the agricultural sector of Latin American countries, escalated by the general economic crisis in the region,” a crisis exacerbated by neoliberal trade policies. 

In 2013, it was reported that FARC, while in the process of demobilization, was taken over piecemeal by the Gaitanistas (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, aka Clan del Golfo), described as a rightwing Colombian neo-paramilitary group and the largest drug cartel in Colombia. It is believed the group is comprised of either reservists or retired professional soldiers. Colombian General Leonardo Alfonso Barrero Gordillo worked with Clan del Golfo and its paramilitary groups, according to human rights organizations. 

“Although Maduro was not among the early Venezuelan officials tied to narco-trafficking during the previous Hugo Chávez presidency, a federal indictment filed in New York shows his rise through the ranks of the Cartel of the Suns,” claims the Miami Herald.

The news outlet mentions an indictment that claims Maduro and the cartel aimed “to flood the United States with cocaine and inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in this country.”

CIA Runs Cocaine to Fund Black Ops

The Trump administration is less interested in the “harmful and addictive effects” of cocaine on Americans than the ongoing US effort to overthrow the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and destroy  the Bolivarian Revolution initially led by the late  former President Hugo Chávez. If Trump and crew were sincerely interested in stopping the importation of cocaine, they would turn their attention to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Joël van der Reijden, an independent Dutch researcher, believes CIA involvement in the drug trade is one of the most important covered up conspiracies of all time. The CIA inherited the drug business from Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE), a now defunct French intelligence agency. The operation was “upscaled” with heroin in Vietnam and later a similar template was used in South America with cocaine. It is said US intelligence was involved in drug trafficking with Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia) before the establishment of the CIA in 1947. The Southeast Asian “Golden Triangle” of heroin production and distribution included early CIA notables, including Frank Wisner, Paul Helliwell, Claire Chennault, William Pawley, and Tommy Corcoran. 

In the 1980s, the CIA oversaw Nicaraguan Contra arms and cocaine trafficking. The operation was revealed when American commercial airline pilot Barry Seal was investigated for working with the Medellin Cartel in Colombia. Seal had a relationship with the CIA.

“Barry Seal was a veteran of both the drug trade and the intelligence business,” write Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn. “Seal’s first contact with the CIA came in the 1960s while he served as a pilot for the US Army’s Special Forces division. He left the army in 1965 to become, at the age of twenty-six, a pilot for TransWorld Airlines, and it’s apparent that Seal continued his relationship with the Agency during his employment with the airline.”

According to van der Reijden,

“it is virtually certain that both [George H.W.] Bush and [Bill] Clinton, the latter as governor of Arkansas, were shielding Seal’s operations from law enforcement… the  [CIA director] Casey-Bush-North alliance destroyed the DEA’s operation aimed at bringing down the entire Medellin Cartel when they decided to leak the Contra sting operation of their asset Barry Seal to the media,” thus allowing Reagan to accuse the Sandinista government of drug trafficking and force Congress to end the ban on US military aid to the Contras. 

CIA cocaine distribution in the United States was exposed in the 1990s by journalist Gary Webb in a three-part series published by the Mercury News. The newspaper series documented how profits from the sale of crack cocaine in Los Angeles in the 1980s was siphoned to the Contras, the CIA mercenary army attempting to overthrow the Sandinista government. 

Additionally, in 1993 the Justice Department investigated “allegations that officers of a special Venezuelan anti-drug unit funded by the CIA smuggled more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States with the knowledge of CIA officials,” The New York Times reported.

“CIA ties to international drug trafficking date to the Korean War. In 1949, two of Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated generals, Li Wen Huan and Tuan Shi Wen, marched their Third and Fifth Route armies, with families and livestock, across the mountains to northern Burma. Once installed, the peasant soldiers began cultivating the crop they knew best, the opium poppy.”

Panama Invasion Redux?

In December, 1989, President George H.W. Bush ordered the US military to invade Panama City. The invasion was codenamed Operation Just Cause, and the supposed just cause was the arrest of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, a long time CIA asset, on drug trafficking charges. Noriega received protection from DEA investigations due to his “special relationship with the CIA” (see Cockburn and St. Clair, Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs, and the Press, 1998). He was instrumental the effort to launder drug money while also receiving financial support from drug dealers. According to Gary Webb (Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, 1999), Noriega was involved in the CIA effort to smuggle cocaine into the United States. 

After Noriega was exposed in The New York Times as a participant in the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan tried to have the Panamanian leader step down, but he refused to do so. The notorious Elliot Abrams and the Pentagon agitated for an invasion of Panama. Reagan declined, afraid it would hurt the upcoming Bush presidential campaign. However, after his successor assumed office, the plan to get rid of the exposed CIA asset Manuel Noriega became more urgent, especially after the press called George H.W. Bush a “wimp” for not going after Noriega. The new president was berated after he called for hunting down major drug dealers and then not acting on Noriega. 

27,684 US troops and over 300 aircraft invaded on December 20. Explosions and fire ripped through the heavily populated El Chorrillo neighborhood in downtown Panama City.

“El Chorrillo was invaded, destroyed, burned, and desecrated on that fateful day,” writes Argelis Wesley. “Thousands fled barefoot and terrified, many watched as their homes collapsed under the flames and disappeared in the chaos. Others witnessed point-blank executions and the violation of fundamental rights. Some chose to leave the place they had called home since birth.”

She writes that years later,

“we still do not know how many people died or how many bodies were buried in mass graves. Nor do we fully understand how this brutal incident affected the mental health and well-being of El Chorrillo’s generations, from children to adults.”

On January 3, 1990, Noriega surrendered to US forces. He was convicted of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He was subsequently extradited to France, and then back to Panama, where he died during surgery to remove a brain tumor. 

The invasion of Panama was sold to the American people as protection of its citizens abroad (Reagan used this as well during the invasion of Grenada), “restoring democracy,” and installing a friendly government in Panama. The objective of taking out an “off the reservation” asset is rarely mentioned. 

On August 8, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare options for attacking drug cartels now designated as terrorist groups.

“President Trump’s top priority is protecting the homeland, which is why he took the bold step to designate several cartels and gangs as foreign terrorist organizations,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News.

This might be considered little more than Trumpian bluster if not for the fact Trump seriously considered attacking Venezuela during his previous term. In August, 2018, during a discussion on imposing sanctions on Venezuela,

“Trump turned to his top aides and asked an unsettling question: With a fast unraveling Venezuela threatening regional security, why can’t the U.S. just simply invade the troubled country?” reported the Associated Press. National security adviser H.R. McMaster dissuaded Trump of the idea. 

During his second term, Trump has become more belligerent and irrational. He violated constitutional and international law when he bombed Iran’s nuclear sites. In his previous term, Trump assassinated the respected commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, while the military officer was on a peace mission. His administration bombed Yemen on several occasions. It has provided a genocidal state with advanced munitions to kill Palestinians, more than the Biden administration sent. 

Considering the level criticism leveled at Trump for his campaign promise reversals, including ending forever war, and the threat of the Epstein scandal refusing to fade into the background, it is a possibility Trump will send troops to Venezuela to abduct Nicolás Maduro as a “terrorist” drug trafficker. Venezuela has long prepared for an invasion by the United States.  The National Bolivarian Militia is a force comprised of civilian volunteers and was founded by Chávez in 2008 to support the country’s armed forces, Newsweek reported. 

The original source of this article is Global Research.

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According to America’s Whore Media, yesterday the No Kings Protests Drew 7 Million Americans at 2,700 separate rallies

The No Kings protest is a form of insurrection.  The aim is to stop the functioning of democracy in the name of democracy by branding the reduction of DEI, closing of borders, and deportation of illegal aliens, for which Americans voted, as King Trump’s personal policy,  The two Jews who organized the No Kings protests, Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, said “Today, millions of Americans stood together to reject authoritarianism and remind the world that our democracy belongs to the people, not to one man’s ambition.” What Levin and Greenberg mean is that America belongs to the Democrat far left.

Ask yourselves, who financed this enormous undertaking?  George Soros?  Israel?  The Democrat National Committee?  

If Trump is really against war, he can stop funding wars.  Ukraine is financed by Washington.  The Israeli genocide of Palestine is financed by Washington.  The armed intervention against Venezuela, being prepared under false pretenses just as was the “war on terror,” is a Trump project.  The same for the pressure on Iran that is leading to war.

Trump could easily stop the wars.  So why is he causing wars?

Instead, he should address the war against America that is being unleashed by Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg and their financiers, by Democrat mayors, city councils, and governors who defy federal law and protect illegal aliens from their crime of illegal entry as if they are American citizens, by the anti-American media that ruthlessly attacks traditional Americans and every politician who attempts to serve Americans’ interest, and by the leftwing ideologues that anti-American Democrats with the complicity of insouciant Republicans have institutionalized in the judiciary, especially at the District Court level.

Dear President Trump:  Our main enemies are at home.  Our only foreign enemy is Israel.  Please defend OUR COUNTRY.  Why are you working so hard to create more foreign enemies for America?

Don Lemon Designates Illegal Aliens “Citizens” and calls on People of Color to Arm Themselves Against Federal Agents

“Take up arms,” urges Lemon.  This is an act of insurrection.  Why isn’t Lemon arrested?

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Today the Ukrainian former president Vladimir Zelenski will be in Washington to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to further turn the screws on Russia.

A call yesterday between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Trump was initiated by the Russians to preempt any concessions from Trump to Ukraine.

A major headache for the Russians was the potential introduction of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles onto the battlefield. While these weapons are old, and can easily be defended against, they are, in principle, nuclear capable. They are also complex and can not be fired without the input from U.S. satellites, U.S. intelligence analysis and specialized software.

Tomahawks are naval missiles. There are less than a handful of ground launchers which were only recently introduced to the U.S. military. Any launch of a Tomahawk from Ukrainian ground would thus have to be done by the U.S. military. Any U.S. firing of a potentially nuclear armed missile towards Moscow would have to have serious consequences.

Russia would HAVE to respond to such an attack with a direct attack on major U.S. assets. Otherwise its means of (nuclear) deterrence would lose of all of their values.

Putin wanted to avoid that situation and the decisions that would have followed from it. Thus his call to Donald Trump.

So far that part of the call of seems to have been successful:

In recent days, Mr Trump had shown an openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Mr Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.

But following Thursday’s call with Mr Putin, Mr Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles (1,600km).

“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Mr Trump said.

“We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete our country.”

After the call Trump announced that there would soon be a new summit between him and President Putin:

President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this “inglorious” War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.

It is notable that The Russian readout was much less committed:

In this context, it is worthy of note that the presidents discussed the possibility of holding another personal meeting. This is indeed a very significant development. It was agreed that representatives of both countries would immediately begin preparations for the summit, which could potentially be organised in Budapest, for instance.

It is doubtful that any new meeting would lead to results.

Trump wants to stop the war in Ukraine because the U.S./NATO proxy force in form the Ukrainian army gets currently beaten to pulp. A multiyear pause is needed to refresh the Ukrainian army, to make and deliver more weapons for it and to prepare for another attempt to defeat Russia.

Russia will not commit to that. It wants to resolve the root cause of the war, the steady NATO march towards Russia’s border, once and for all. Any pause or ceasefire would defeat that purpose.

The difference between those positions is the reason why the August summit in Alaska had ended badly. Despite both sides lauding the outcome it was obvious that the summit had been cut short. It had ended without a common readout or press conference. After the summit President Trump also extended his support for the Ukrainian side of the conflict by allowing U.S. intelligence to be used in attacks on Russian oil infrastructure.

A new Financial Times piece on the previous summit has some background information on this (archived):

With just a handful of advisers present, Putin rejected the US offer of sanctions relief for a ceasefire, insisting the war would end only if Ukraine capitulated and ceded more territory in the Donbas.

The Russian president then delivered a rambling historical discursion spanning medieval princes such as Rurik of Novgorod and Yaroslav the Wise, along with the 17th century Cossack chieftain Bohdan Khmelnytsky — figures he often cites to support his claim Ukraine and Russia are one nation.

Taken aback, Trump raised his voice several times and at one point threatened to walk out, the people said. He ultimately cut the meeting short and cancelled a planned lunch where broader delegations were due to discuss economic ties and co-operation.

Bohdan Khmelnytsky was the Cossack hetman who in 1654 voluntarily subordinate his people to the Russian Tsar:

After a series of negotiations, it was agreed that the Cossacks would accept overlordship by the Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. To finalize the treaty, a Russian embassy led by boyar Vasily Buturlin came to Pereiaslav, where, on 18 January 1654, the Cossack Rada was called and the treaty concluded. [..] The treaty legitimized Russian claims to the capital of Kievan Rus’ and strengthened the tsar’s influence in the region. Khmelnytsky needed the treaty to gain a legitimate monarch’s protection and support from a friendly Orthodox power.

I see no reason for hope that a new summit would change the positions of the parties or the outcome. Putin’s position towards the U.S. has only hardened:

“Whatever they want, they do. But what they are doing now in Ukraine is not thousands of miles away from our national borders; it is on our doorstep. And they must realize that we simply have nowhere else to retreat to.”

The promise of the new summit is still positive as it stretches the time to an eventual further escalation. More time is of advantage to the Russian side. It allows for the current campaign to de-energize Ukraine to have impact on the mood in the country and on the willingness of its government to agree to serious concessions.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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According to- discoveryalert.com.au: The push for a cashless society represents more than just technological evolution—it’s a coordinated effort occurring at multiple levels of government, financial institutions, and corporations worldwide. This transition is reshaping how we interact with money and raising significant questions about financial freedom and privacy.

The cashless society is a necessary step in preparation for the mark of the beast.

The mark of the beast, btw, is a concept based on a couple of short passages from The Revelation (end of chapter 13 and start of chapter 14), which say that there will eventually be a one world government just before Jesus returns, and the spiritual leader of that government will cause people everywhere to get a mark put in their right hand or in their forehead, without which they will not be able to buy or sell.

What we have used for centuries for buying and selling is cash (or checks). We have also progressed to credit cards.

So all of these would need to be replaced with the mark, in order for the prophecy to come true.

Is cashless society in World a bad step?

Cashless Means Automatic

If money is easy to spend, it is also easy to take. Convenience can easily become tyranny. Automatic payments that come directly from your bank account illustrate the point.)

Below Is First 9 Major Risks of a Cashless Society:

1.Risk of Confiscation

The convenience of digital money that allows you to spend your money more easily, also makes it easier for banks, governments and thieves to take it.The message to depositors is clear- when you put money in a bank you are a creditor of the bank and if it goes bust you are at the bottom of the list of creditors. Your money** will be seized as part of any approved plan, perhaps even before the broke bank files for bankruptcy.

Your bank account can be raided by government authorities, like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) without notice or reason given. If the IRS believes your bank account deposit and/or withdrawals activity is suspicious and/or may involve a pattern designed to avoid reporting requirements, they may seize your account.

Think your money is safe in the bank? Think again.

2. Risk of Theft

Digital cash a bit of Trap-it can be stolen.Think digital money is safer than cash and can’t be stolen?

3. Crime is Easier

Some actually believe that in a cashless society that crime will go down and drug dealers will go out of business. Think again.

In a cashless society, theft will occur on line and in far larger amounts than cash heists. An online thief never has to confront his victim, commit violence, crack a safe, get past an alarm system, dog or armed guards and carry away his loot. Rather, in a cashless society, the cyber thief merely has to hack the systems where the ‘money” is. The online heist involves no risk of death or threat to the thief’s personal safety and can be done from anywhere in the world.

4. Risk of System Failure

Without cash, the value of currency would have no independent value outside a functioning banking system to which you have access. Your money wouldn ‘work’ without a functioning banking system. If the banking system is down due to a power outage, solar flare, financial crisis, Internet failure, hack or network crash, your money is unavailable and potentially lost. If back up files are lost how do you prove you had $15,000 in your account?

5. Risk of Being Exiled From the System

Even if the digital banking system was 100% fool proof, you may end up being shut out of the system for wrong doing (actual or alleged), bad credit or failure to pay banking fees. Or you may be the victim of identity theft and as a “precaution” your account may be closed. Without access to the banking system, how will you pay your bills and buy items you need?

6. Results in a Loss of Freedom

While going cashless may be convenient when you choose to buy something, but if a purchase is thrust officiously upon you by government order, your money can be removed from your account to pay for it, conveniently of course. This type of forced convenience results in a removal of freedom of choice of how you may wish to spend your money.

7. Loss of property rights

Property rights are the foundation of a free society. If you don’t have control, ready access or the ability to spend your money when and as you please, you do not really own it.Rather, you are a co-owner with the currency issuer (the bank) who has veto rights over your use of the currency.

8. Loss of Privacy

In a cashless society there is the loss of privacy. Digital money offers the convenience of allowing you to track and budget your money online. Such a system, however, also leaves a permanent digital foot print of where you spent your money, accesible to just about anyone who has access to your account. (crimminal hackers and government agencies). A common objection to this privacy invasion is that “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about”.

9. Loss of Understanding Value & Responsiblity

Without cash, consumers are no longer market participants that evaluate tangible value based on how much cash they have in their wallets, but mindless spenders without a sense of the value of the items they are purchasing or a sense of understanding of their actual cost after incurring bank and credit card interest fees. (still sky high even after years of zero interest rate policies across the globe).

In a society that uses cash, acts like making change and giving tips provide market participants with a tangible sense of economic value. Children that grow up saving money in piggy banks and counting their pennies, nickels and dimes learn the value of money through the tactil experience of handling money.

A cashless society turns money and value into digital abstractions as defined and controlled by the banks and central planners.

This article was originally published on Preppgroup.

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“No Kings” may be the first time I can recall clapping for a bunch of entitled, Starbuck’s drinking, middle-aged lefties and global communist money launderers.  Is our national conversation getting closer to real anti-authoritarianism, even anti-statism?

If we rely on the No Kings crowd as an indicator, the answer is no.  They demand more government, modern monetary theory at home and abroad, and the replacement of Trump with a President who won’t challenge the other two branches to do their jobs.  Most are content to ignore the Constitution, not exercise it. The selected color for this “revolution” is yellow for optimism; the “color of democracy.”  There’s a lot of black as well, begging the question of whether they are really just Proud Boys in ladysuits. The expert troll himself jumped in, with his bright yellow tie just a few days before the No Kings rally.

Any protest against authoritarianism and the state must be welcomed, in the mode of Thomas Paine.  Radical, brave, and with only his life to lose, he valued independence of self and mind, always chose reason over the stupid crowd, believed that blind faith in the state could be corrected by facts and logic. He boldly welcomed trouble in his time, so the next generation might have peace.

We all have a little Tom Paine in us, and no doubt we are blessed with a multitude of modern crises in which to nurture that bold seed of sheer contempt for the criminal state. Those of us who quell our Tom Paine urges and sensibilities will indeed lose badly.  Beyond remaining slaves and dying as slaves, we will condemn our children to both slavery and war.  On the other hand, what better time than now to exult and celebrate the man who understood that “…taxes are not raised to carry on wars, but that wars are raised to carry on taxes.”

We might assume, from the Declaration of Independence, and from the fundamentals of the Philadelphia trick, that the supreme cause for which man forms a “government” is liberty, and from liberty, man garners peace and prosperity.  Paine wrote, “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”

I suspect most Americans – far beyond the mostly urban and purely political “No Kings” celebrants – would agree with Tom Paine that it adds insult to injury that we are forced to pay in full, and obey unconditionally, the very criminal and obscene government that oppresses us and much of the world.

This unifying concern is gaining momentum, creating passion, and catching fire.  The humanitarians and justice seekers among us rage that our dollars go to murder unarmed people, individually and en masse, by our gleeful leaders in Congress and the White House.  American nationalists seek decentralization and redirection of federal tax receipts from overseas and the counties around DC into the small towns, roads, bridges, and domestic quality of life, and even – most radically – back into the people’s pockets.

“Small government conservatives” while largely extinct, sought a government so tiny and weak it could be drowned in a bathtub. This sentiment, credited to Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist, was perhaps articulated only decades before its time.  The No Kings movement is certainly ready to conduct a small suffocation or two in DC, and who would oppose it?

It is still too much for most Americans to look into the abyss of state evil.  Our lived fairy tales of state assassination of leaders, journalists, and Presidents, of spying and mass surveillance, of mass murder at home and abroad – frighten more than enrage.   The federal war on the very natural rights it was chartered to protect, so acutely observed today, is a cause for only a semblance of revolt, a shadow of discontent.  In too many ways, state actions and its agendas are working as intended – fueling latent fears, promoting a certain kind of self-censorship, encouraging a wide-eyed hunkering down rather than a steely-eyed standing up.

Thomas Paine differentiated between summer soldiers and sunshine patriots, and those who stand fast in a hard fight for liberty, against the odds.  Today, soldiers and patriots alike need to hear the advice of Whitney Webb, where she explains the active state engineering of desperation and the cause it serves.

Perhaps we can learn from the recent resignations of our so-called “warrior” class, like SOUTHCOM’s Admiral Holsey and SOCOM’s General Fenton, and Marine Colonel Doug Krugman who retired with a public letter explaining that the Constitution, the law, is his commander, not politicians.  I think Paine would appreciate the sentiment. Thus far, there is no sign that these retirements, or the many that will follow, are evidence of anything other than the summer soldier and sunshine patriot.  But we shall see.

There was a recent moment in social science where a mental disease was created, mainly for children and teenagers, called “opposition(al) defiant disorder.”  In true Brave New World fashion, it is cured pharmacologically, and its warning signs may be increasingly familiar to many of us long past childhood.

A mass American movement against the state is rising, but it is not yet clear if this rise will be coherent, or incoherent, inchoate or completed and perfected.  Uncertainty is a natural part of the crisis in which we find ourselves, with limited information, despite having the whole of human knowledge and history at our fingertips.  But nothing can stop us today from closely watching our enemy, the state, and noting that it is growing financially precarious, representationally and ethically unbalanced, and increasingly frantic and increasingly evil.

Thomas Paine would see great opportunities today for real liberty to be regained, and as he wrote in Common Sense, he would recognize both the inevitability of change and the danger of waiting by the sidelines.  His 1776 question, “Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting period…?” must be answered by each of us, and increasingly, it is being answered by our actions more than our words.  What a time to be alive!

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While American businesses and consumers are bearing the burden of higher costs from tariffs and inflation, the United States is providing a $20 billion bailout to Argentina’s Milei regime.  This bailout is separate from the $20 billion bailout given by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Argentina earlier this year. Argentina is by far the largest debtor to the IMF.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US has reached a $20 billion currency swap agreement with Argentina’s central bank, allowing it to exchange Argentine pesos for the US dollar. CNN reported that the US also bought, “an undisclosed amount of Argentine pesos.”

The bailout would greatly benefit Rob Citrone, a billionaire hedge fund manager with substantial investments in Argentina. “Bessent’s personal and professional relationship with Citrone has spanned decades,” according to journalist Judd Legum.

“It’s unclear why the Trump administration is providing a de facto bailout of the Argentinian peso when there is no significant financial or economic relationship between the two economies,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at the audit and consulting firm, RSM.

Furthermore, we should question whether the US bailout of Argentina is motivated by the Milei regime’s enthusiastic support of the US and Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We should acknowledge that President Trump is a puppet of political donor Miriam Adelson and Israeli Prime Minister (and de-facto US President) Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ordinary people suffer the consequences of the reckless economic policies of their politicians. The Argentinian people should demand the immediate removal of the incompetent Milei regime and the American people should demand the immediate removal of the treasonous Netanyahu-Trump regime.

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