Lew Rockwell Institute

Ginny Garner writes:

Lew,

After reading five pages of “Wired,” Bob Woodward’s book on Bill Murray’s close friend John Belushi, Murray came to the conclusion that Woodward’s reporting on Watergate in the Washington Post played a role in framing Richard Nixon on Watergate. Murray made these comments during an interview with Joe Rogan. Link: 

https://rumble.com/v6pze8a-bill-murray-to-joe-rogan-based-on-what-woodward-wrote-about-john-belushi-th.html

Murray reportedly had words with Woodward when both recently attended a showing of a documentary about Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham. Link:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14461997/bill-murray-bob-woodward-confrontation-john-belushi-book-watergate.html

There is a growing consensus Watergate was a silent coup by the CIA and that Woodward acted as Navy intelligence to set Nixon up because the former president was going to expose the CIA’s involvement in the assassination of JFK. Link:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/05/nixon-helms-cia-jfk-assassination-00037232

The post Bill Murray on Watergate: Nixon was Framed appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Bruce McLane.

Shifting the goal posts.. they are NOT done. pic.twitter.com/E9eVEYTuG8

— Boone Cutler (@boonecutler) March 10, 2025

The post Never ending goal post shift appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

The Federalist

The post Covid Taught Americans To Stop Trusting A Govt That Puts Us Last appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

 Ukrainian organ harvesting/trafficking isn’t an urban myth or Russian propaganda. Nor is Ukraine a “ Democracy”. The U.S. made certain of it.

See here.

The post Sickening! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Reclaim the Net

The post Congressional Hearing Reveals Stablecoins and CBDCs Share the Same Financial Control Risks appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

Modernity News

The post Flu Vaccine Exposed: The Shocking NIH Discovery They Don’t Want You to Know appeared first on LewRockwell.

Jerome Barber  wrote:

AI is not the only thing they want to replace us.

The post Who Needs Human Beings? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post The Western-Backed Murder Of Syria, With Guest Kevork Almassian appeared first on LewRockwell.

As President Trump and President Putin negotiate a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine in the weeks ahead, the outcome now is indisputable. We, the U.S. and NATO, lost our proxy war in Ukraine, a war that will go down in history as one of our worst foreign policy disasters, even worse than our ignominious withdrawal from our 20-year war in Afghanistan.

Hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are dead, and even more are wounded and maimed. We fought to the last Ukrainian soldier, with no skin in the game. Sorrow blankets the land. Ukraine’s infrastructure has been decimated. Russia is substantially stronger economically and militarily, with stronger ties to Iran, North Korea, and China. Sanctions had little if any effect. The economies of Western Europe lie stagnant or contracting, the paucity of their military forces, capabilities, and industries starkly exposed. Political upheaval is in the air across Europe. $183 billion of our U.S. taxpayer money proved a foolish investment, enriching the corrupt Zelensky regime and the U.S. defense industry, and served no purpose other than protracting the war.

Lest we forget, it was all borrowed money increasing annual deficits and the U.S. debt, which now exceeds $36 trillion. Not surprisingly, the war’s political and military pundits are growing silent. The years of utter propaganda and untruthful narrative espoused by U.S. and NATO political elites and think tanks to justify and sustain the war appears for what it was. NATO’s viability and utility have been further diminished, having proved useless for deterring Russia for over a decade, much less demonstrating that its combat equipment and methods of training enable an army to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield. Calls for dissolving NATO and creating a new security arrangement for Europe become louder each passing day. An unbiased, objective look at NATO’s performance as a military organization since 1989 strongly supports the need.

For those who believe NATO is the most effective military alliance in history, I offer a more pragmatic, realistic view based on cold, hard facts. Since the Soviet Union collapsed some 35 years ago, new reasons were forged by the political elites of member nations to justify and sustain NATO’s existence. NATO morphed into an organization far removed from the purpose it was originally formed to achieve and did achieve. Yet, the treaty has never been changed. For example, from March to June 1999, NATO launched an offensive air campaign attacking the armed forces of Serbia over a period of 78 days until Serbia agreed to withdraw from Kosovo and end its conflict with Kosovo Albanians. Politicians of NATO nations, without the direct authorization of the United Nations Security Council, justified this war ostensibly to end and prevent egregious human rights abuses. Article 5 of the treaty was not invoked. It was ignored. Not a single NATO country was attacked by Serbia. Nor has peace been restored. For the past 25 years, some 4,500 NATO soldiers have remained in Kosovo to preserve an unstable peace at immense cost and expense with no end in sight.

Next, consider the war in Afghanistan. NATO assumed command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in August 2003. This military operation marked the first deployment of NATO forces outside Europe and North America. By 2006, NATO forces were engaged in intensive combat to defeat Taliban insurgents across the entire nation. All 30 nations of NATO contributed forces to this effort. ISAF continued operations until December 2014, when the U.S. withdrew most of its forces. For these 11 years under NATO command, soldiers suffered under fifteen commanding generals, continual mission turbulence, and conflicting rules of engagement. Many commanders served six months or less. The rest, a little over a year. The Taliban was not destroyed. Just the opposite. On the heels of the U.S.’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, followed by the unexpected and rapid collapse of the Afghan National Security Force, Taliban forces stormed across the nation and retook control of Afghanistan. 3,606 NATO soldiers were killed during operations from 2001-2021, and thousands more were grievously wounded: 68% of the casualties were from the U.S, 12% by the United Kingdom, 4.5% by Canada, and the remainder from other NATO nations. The cost was almost $1 trillion, the majority paid by U.S. taxpayers on borrowed money, and it achieved nothing.

Add to this the fact that NATO was unable to deter Russia from invading and seizing Crimea and large portions of eastern Ukraine in 2014. President Putin sensed NATO’s political, economic, and military weakness and rightly judged that NATO would not intervene and engage in direct conflict with Russia. Eight years later, in February 2022, NATO failed to deter Russia from extending its invasion into Ukraine and securing even larger areas of territory in the eastern oblasts of Ukraine and Crimea. Having failed to deter Russia, NATO, led by the Biden administration, without invoking Article 5 of the NATO charter, decided to go to war against Russia in support of President Zelensky’s uncompromising political objective—recover all territory lost to Russia. Without any viable military strategy—demanded by Congress and ignored for two years—or a political objective to achieve other than “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”, NATO limited its support to providing combat equipment, ammunition, and military supplies, but placing restrictions on all long-range missile systems that could strike deep into Russia for fear of provoking Russia into using nuclear weapons. NATO provided just enough to sustain the war, but not to win it. NATO nations knew full well their populations would never support the employment of NATO air and ground forces in direct combat against Russia. Instead, NATO decided to fight to the last Ukrainian soldier, with no skin in the game, hence the proxy war that it was.

Let’s review the bidding. Based on its performance as a military organization since its founding mission was achieved in 1989, it’s evident that NATO, under U.S. leadership, is anything but the most effective military alliance in history. Granted, it may serve a political purpose, but it has proved inept at the conduct of war and devoid of political and military strategies that brought lasting peace to any conflict it touched. Moreover, the idea that NATO could cobble together one or more army corps, blending forces from 32 nations, speaking as many different languages, all equipped and highly trained to prevail against Russia under the conditions of the Russia-Ukrainian battlefield the past three years, is laughable.

There is no reason the American taxpayer should continue to support a security alliance that no longer serves the purpose for which it was formed in April 1949 nor serves as a deterrent. It’s time for European nations to shoulder the burden of their own security and seek different means. No doubt the trans-Atlantic political elites and globalists will be apoplectic, let them. The people of the European nations deserve a security arrangement and military capability far better than NATO has provided. It’s time to turn out the lights.

Colonel (Ret) John D. Rosenberger served 29 years in the U.S. Army as a combined arms warrior and lifelong student of military history and strategy. Among his military assignments, he directed the SACEUR’s training program for NATO CJTF HQs and commanded the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the vaunted OPFOR at the National Training Center. He has written and published extensively on issues related to battlefield leadership, the art of battle command, military readiness, and Joint combined arms training. He recently published op-eds highlighting critical shortfalls in military capabilities in the Pacific. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of JANUS Research Group, Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense.

The post Eloquent Op-Ed in Armed Forces Press by Colonel John Rosenberger on Ending NATO appeared first on LewRockwell.

Here are more recovered/restored Amazon Listmania! book lists created before they discontinued this service. I had 120 lists before they were purged. Hundreds of hours of labor were involved in preparing these lists for Amazon patrons and readers. Amazon data indicated that several hundreds of thousands of persons world-wide had accessed and viewed my lists. Emails to me confirm this. Unfortunately, Amazon has removed my comments on each volume. I’ve also included a few intriguing relevant lists others had posted. Save/earmark these lists for future reference. Enjoy!

Click upon the shown book on each list and also on the empty book spaces to be taken to the appropriate Amazon descriptive link.

The Great Depression and the New Deal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/WRA3R4587PAU/the-great-depression-and-the-new-deal/

Critical Views of FDR’s New Deal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3G6JM97W9IH1H/fdrs-new-deal-critical-views/

Theological Canon of the Welfare-Warfare State
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1YR6KNKXQUTR8/theological-canon-of-the-welfare-warfare-state/

Power Brokers, Fixers, and Elite Insiders
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3R15C6XC3B7QI/power-brokers-fixers-and-elite-insiders/

The New Political History: Ethnoreligious and Ethnocultural
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R8L20UY34S9PS/the-new-political-history-ethnoreligious-and-ethnocultural/

Court Historians – Servile Scribes of State Power
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3DT7I2Y5M4C7Q/court-historians-servile-scribes-of-state-power/

Politically Incorrect Guides
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R30Q20HSBM24U8/politically-incorrect-guides/

The Essential Paleo Bookshelf
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R2JRQG7UBB9KUJ/the-essential-paleo-bookshelf/

Ron Paul: The Champion of the Constitution
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1MORJTYFX9BC3/ron-paul-the-champion-of-the-constitution/

Ron Paul’s Reading List for a Free and Prosperous America
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1J1EQ2H6J02CB/ron-pauls-reading-list-for-a-free-and-prosperous-america/

Ron Paul’s Reading List – Part II
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/RQO7LF175SQGS/ron-pauls-reading-list-part-ii/

A Reading List for a Free and Prosperous America Part 1
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1IQ4RNQHCTWDU/a-reading-list-for-a-free-and-prosperous-america-part-1/

My Favorite Libertarian and Paleo-Libertarian Books
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2OH6Y1NEIERW0/my-favorite-libertarian-and-paleo-libertarian-books/

Libertarian books for Christians
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1UVRSMAIRKLB1/libertarian-books-for-christians/

Books That Promote Liberty
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R6TRKVA3S6E81/books-that-promote-liberty/

Recommended Books on the Free Market
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2K903OLDPUV45/recommended-books-on-the-free-market/

Our Libertarian American Revolution
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/16GUZ7S87IK4Y/our-libertarian-american-revolution/

“The Special Relationship”
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3BMYEUARYHXQJ/the-special-relationship/

O.S.S. and the “Special Relationship”
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1913KFB0YPUVE/oss-and-the-special-relationship/

Dissident Histories of US Foreign Policy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/9FIXFBYAQKA6/dissident-histories-of-us-foreign-policy/

Isolationism: The Unknown Ideal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1IC102ACY3N3H/isolationism-the-unknown-ideal/

The Cold War: Soviet Communism’s Murderous Legacy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3N0W0ARDH5ZHT/the-cold-war-soviet-communisms-murderous-legacy/

The creators and executors of Cold War foreign policy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/26ZM7RRF1ISAO/the-creators-and-executors-of-cold-war-foriegn-policy/

The end of the Cold War and confronting its legacies
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1HRYKWOBMAI7P/the-end-of-the-cold-war-and-confronting-its-legacies/

A Critical Account of Socialism – Theory and History
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1THKC4K23USQ4/a-critical-account-of-socialism-theory-and-history/

Utopia in Blood – Red Delusions and Nightmare Reality
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/20ITHH2X135QS/utopia-in-blood-red-delusions-and-nightmare-reality/

Magic History
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1AYXMYISUU36D/magic-history/

Gnosticism and Esoteric Christianity
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2CLVYVAX20RJH/gnosticism-and-esoteric-christianity/

Gnostic Texts and the Nag Hammadi Library
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1E69CPTYVDO5B/gnostic-texts-and-the-nag-hammadi-library/

Gnostic Gospels and the Other Bible
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/RVLFGO1Y760L/gnostic-gospels-and-the-other-bible/

Utopian Nightmares and Gnostic Political Religions
https://listmania.org/list/id/1E8UKBWSGZB5P/utopian-nightmares-and-gnostic-political-religions/

Hermetica
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R253EN9KOIYJEC/hermetica/

historiography / philosophy of history
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1AAGALDEZIPR0/historiography-philosophy-of-history/

Robert D. Kaplan-Journalist and Foreign Relations Expert
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/18JN2KEO1T54V/robert-d-kaplan-journalist-and-foreign-relations-expert/

The Katyn Massacre the Gulag (Gulags) and Communist Genocide
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/RRDUTKEW4HTFD/the-katyn-massacre-the-gulag-gulags-and-communist-genocide/

Poland: Invaded by totalitarians and betrayed by the Allies
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2YJFVLD12EV29/poland-invaded-by-totalitarians-and-betrayed-by-the-allies/

Best books about the WWII Eastern Front
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1O0J3XG9BQO3I/best-books-about-the-eastern-front/

Soviet Politics VII: Perestroika
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R2ACLZEPBM0T5G/soviet-politics-vii-perestroika/

The Spanish Civil War
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3TQ2WB6HK4VHQ/the-spanish-civil-war/

The Russo-Finnish War of 1939-40 & the Continuation War
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R311N4VELL7VD5/the-russo-finnish-war-of-1939-40-the-continuation-war/

Nazism: Ideas Have Consequences
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3K8A4UAW2R4B0/nazism-ideas-have-consequences/

National Socialism – a different perspective
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1BW89Z7J70T8M/national-socialism-a-different-perspective/

The A-to-Z of Nazi Germany
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1SZ9MC2OEWZAM/the-a-to-z-of-nazi-germany/

Esoteric Aryanism and Nazi Occultism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2QPMV1UEDUQQM/esoteric-aryanism-and-nazi-occultism/

An Overview of the First World War
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3GW9ZJDDIUR6V/an-ovesrview-of-the-first-world-war/

Hitler Is Winning: 21st Century Proxy Wars
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3ETQVYRU8DN5U/hitler-is-winning-21st-century-proxy-wars/

Military Studies 1–Insurgency and Counterinsurgency
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1MF2EWJJCCWOE/military-studies-1-insurgency-and-counterinsurgency/

Bushwacked America: Exposing Lies Corruption and Treason
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3652VNCID3Z1K/bushwacked-america-exposing-lies-corruption-and-treason/

Dissecting Leftism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/35NPZRLXRZVGW/dissecting-leftism-no-2/

My Favorite Libertarian and Paleo-Libertarian Books
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2OH6Y1NEIERW0/my-favorite-libertarian-and-paleo-libertarian-books/

Libertarian books for Christians
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1UVRSMAIRKLB1/libertarian-books-for-christians/

Recommended Books on the Free Market
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/2K903OLDPUV45/recommended-books-on-the-free-market/

The American Revolution
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1JB6WKSRDJJX1/the-american-revolution/

Essentials in Political Philosophy
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/NHUC7GZS6TJW/essentials-in-political-philosophy/

History/Politics – All the Best that’s Been Thought and Said
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/NEMYNXZ17B5Q/historypolitics-all-the-best-thats-been-thought-and-said/

A Reading Assignment For Conservative Americans
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R8KDU9BNSGTYJ/a-reading-assignment-for-conservative-americans/

Robert Anton Wilson favorites
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3SZRH90PNLGNX/robert-anton-wilson-favorites/

a discordian reading primer (evolve your mind damn it!)
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1ID2U768MPAZZ/a-discordian-reading-primer-evolve-your-mind-damn-it/

Great Works of Psychedelic Philosophy & Literature
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/1YGLOOR70G83A/great-works-of-psychedelic-philosophy-literature/

Gore Vidal: Our American Cicero
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R3DNMOFS33DQQR/gore-vidal-our-american-cicero/

Last Partisan of the Old Republic: The Essential Gore Vidal
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/331PNJ7HPR1OX/last-partisan-of-the-old-republic-the-essential-gore-vidal/

Robert V. Remini-The eminent Jacksonian Historian
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/YWYC6YMP4OWS/robert-v-remini-the-eminent-jacksonian-historian/

The Golden Age of Sci-Fi Movies (1950s)
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3C1LIYKP0D7UK/the-golden-age-of-sci-fi-movies-1950s/

Understand the Lincoln Assassination
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R322TUSNFST7B/understand-the-lincoln-assassination/

VINCE PALAMARA IN JFK & SECRET SERVICE BOOKS
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R159E1MYPECO9B/vince-palamara-in-jfk-secret-service-books/

Counter Reformation
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/373TLMIBJV344/counter-reformation/

Compromised Campus: Scientism and Statism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R2QOBOYZL1I939/compromised-campus-scientism-and-statism/

Southern Conservatism
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/3T4KA28WCEO7K/southern-conservatism/

the Americanist Library
https://www.listmania.org/list/id/R1G2FWF1ZWT33/the-americanist-library/

The post My Recovered Amazon Listmania! Book Lists appeared first on LewRockwell.

Five years ago, politicians and bureaucrats went berserk and pointlessly ravaged Americans’ freedom. The Covid-19 pandemic provided the pretext to destroy hundreds of thousands of businesses, padlock churches, close down schools, and effectively place hundreds of millions of Americans under house arrest. Despite all the forced sacrifices, most Americans contracted covid and more than a million were listed as dying from the virus.

“Pandemic Security Theater Is Self-Destructive, And Won’t Make Us Safer” was the headline of my first salvo against the pandemic hysteria, published on March 24, 2020 in the Daily Caller. I scoffed at President Trump’s proclamations about being a “wartime president at war with an invisible enemy.” Wartime presidents too easily pretend they’re on a mission from God to scourge all resistance. I warned: “The pandemic threatens to open authoritarian Pandora’s Boxes. Permitting governments to seize almost unlimited power based on shaky extrapolations of infection rates will doom our republic.”

From the start of the pandemic, the Mises Institute was in the forefront of condemning policies that eradicated prosperity in the name of public health. In a May 19, 2020 Mises piece headlined, “Hacksawing the Economy,” I noted, “The political response to COVID-19 is eerily similar to Civil War surgeons’ rationales for hacking off arms and legs…. As long as politicians claim that things would be worse if they had not amputated much of the economy, they can pirouette as saviors.”

Living in the Washington area, I had a front row seat for many of Covid-19’s biggest absurdities. After federal officials whipped up panic, “I Believe in Science” lawn signs popped up like mushrooms, soon accompanied by “Thank You, Dr. Fauci” placards. Those signs looked to me like frightful decorations of a Halloween that never ended.

Thoreau provided my lodestar for the pandemic: “A man sits as many risks as he runs.” I knew that isolation would make me too ornery for my own good. I had survived the flu plenty of times in prior decades and I didn’t reckon covid would deliver my coffin nails. I was a co-leader of a Meetup hiking group which continued hiking almost every weekend throughout the pandemic.

But politicians made such jaunts more difficult. In February 2021, President Biden decreed that face masks must be worn in national parks. Probably 95 percent of the National Park Service’s 800+ million acres is uncrowded 95 percent of the time. The only “evidence” to justify the mandate was that many Biden supporters were frightened or enraged whenever they saw anyone not wearing a mask. The new mandate quickly became an entitlement program for junior Stasi members.

I told attendees on my hikes that masks were optional but kvetching about other hikers wearing or not wearing masks was prohibited. Biden’s edict helped turn the C & O Canal Towpath—one of my favorite hiking venues—into a hotbed of self-righteousness. That Towpath was ten feet wide in most places, but it was the principle of the matter. I had numerous people furiously screaming at me because I wasn’t wearing a facemask as I strolled outside. If mask hecklers were especially persistent, I would shrug and ask them: “How is your therapy going?”

Washingtonians pride themselves on being smarter and better educated than most other Americans (okay, maybe excepting San Francisco and Boston). They instinctively knew that total servility was the only hope for surviving the pandemic, and maximizing hatred was the key to compliance. After Biden ordered 100 million adults to get injected with the covid vaccine, Biden derided the unvaxxed as aspiring mass murderers who only wanted “the freedom to kill you” with covid. (The Supreme Court struck down most of that illegal vax mandate.)

Thanks to Biden’s fear mongering, almost half of Democratic voters favored locking the unvaxxed into government detention facilities, according to an early 2022 Rasmussen poll. The same survey showed that almost half of Democrats favored empowering government to “fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy” of Covid-19 vaccines on social media. The Biden administration unleashed a massive censorship campaign on social media and beyond that effectively muzzled millions of Americans who doubted the feds.

At that point, most American adults were vaxxed, but the injections were catastrophically failing against the latest covid variant. There were a million new covid cases per day—mainly among the vaxxed—and most covid fatalities were occurring among the fully vaxxed.

But “best and brightest” Washingtonians retained their absolute faith in a command-and-control response to the pandemic. District of Columbia Mayor, Muriel Bowser, decreed that anyone who was not vaccinated and carrying proof of the jab was banned from entering any restaurant, bar, gym, or meeting space in her domain. Affluent Washingtonians happily rushed to get free software apps so the government could track them and their health status. That new app had a spiffy logo that quickly became the ultimate status symbol.

I stopped hosting hikes within DC city limits: I would be damned if I would condone Bowser’s biomedical caste system. But I did venture into DC in early 2022 to pay respects to an editor who was fleeing southward. Exiting at the Dupont Circle metro station, I briefly stepped out of a torrential downpour into an upscale coffee shop. Every table hosted a hefty warning sign: “Masks on & Vaccine Cards out!” Patrons were hectored: “All cafes and restaurants… are REQUIRED by the Mayor’s Office to check vaccine cards of dine-in customers. Thank you for helping us comply with local regulations to remain open!” Why didn’t that establishment just advertise the slogan: “Come Sip with the Gestapo!” I skedaddled before anybody asked to see a vax passport.

I was mystified why people would pay $6.50 for a coffee to be treated worse than parolees. Dupont Circle was home to many of DC’s best educated residents. The more graduate degrees they amassed, the more submissive they became. Flourishing your vax card proved your moral and intellectual superiority over anyone who balked at bending over again.

But it was a different story in Anacostia, the poorest part of the city, where one of the unsung heroes of the pandemic emerged. Blacks had a much lower vaccination rate and the mayor’s edict effectively made many of them second-class citizens. Bowser, Fauci, and a PBS film crew pounded on front doors in Anacostia and hectored residents to get injected. A guy in his 30s came to the front door of his row house, saw Fauci and the TV cameras, and condemned the entire covid carnival: “Y’all campaign is about fear. You all attack people with fear. That’s what this pandemic is.” He scorned the speedy vax approval: “Nine months is definitely not enough for nobody to be taking no vaccination that you all came up with.” Actually, the Biden White House had browbeat the Food and Drug Administration to unjustifiably grant final approval to the Pfizer vax. With the video cameras rolling, he angrily told Fauci and Bowser: “The people in America are not settled with the information that’s been given to us right now.” Watch the PBS Fauci “Vaccine Outreach” Anacostia brawl here.

Fauci and the PBS film crew probably thought that exchange exemplified the type of fools who refused to submit and be saved. Fauci justified covid mandates because average citizens “don’t have the ability” to determine what is best for them. But despite getting any and all boosters, Fauci was personally ravaged by covid at least three times. Fauci’s frauds began to be exposed, including his role in covertly bankrolling the reckless gain-of-function research that escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and killed seven million people worldwide. Instead of receiving a Nobel prize, Fauci was grateful that—on President Biden’s final day in office—he received a full presidential pardon for any and all of his crimes committed for the prior decade.

But what sort of savior scientist needs a presidential pardon, anyway?

A virus with a 99+ percent survival rate spawned a 100 percent presumption in favor of despotism. The government has no liability for the injections it mandates or the freedoms it destroys. The Covid-19 pandemic should teach Americans to never defer to “experts” who promise that granting them boundless power will keep everyone else safe. In the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from viruses.

The post Five Years Later, We Remember How Politicians Unleashed Covid Tyranny appeared first on LewRockwell.

Republicans hold only slim majorities in Congress, particularly in the House.

Midterm elections typically shift control to the party not in the White House. Democrats need only a few more House seats to hinder President Trump’s final two years in office and will seek to impeach him daily until he leaves in January 2029.

Trump’s first month in office has been like a wrecking ball, disastrous for the entrenched ruling class and administrative state. The unavoidable chaos resulting from dismantling a massive bureaucracy, exacerbated by corporate media gaslighting, could tilt enough midterm votes to flip at least one house of Congress to the Democrats.

That’s the likely scenario, assuming Democrats present a compelling and attractive alternative agenda to MAGA and DOGE. Since Trump’s landslide (at least by modern standards) election in November 2024, Democrats have offered American voters nothing but hatred, petulance, and nastiness.

They aim only to obstruct and undermine his administration and supporters, resorting to the same inept and destructive policies that characterized President Joe Biden’s four years.

The Democrats’ behavior at Trump’s optimistic and forceful speech before a joint session of Congress last week leads one to conclude that they hate America.

Republicans stood and applauded many times. This was a president who accomplished more in a month than many of his predecessors achieved in years. This was a president who kept his campaign promises and more.

Instead, Democrats sat and sulked. Rep. Al Green’s initial churlish behavior resulted in his expulsion from the House chamber. Democrats displayed placards reading “Musk steals” or “false,” as if they were at an auction or a sporting event.

They could neither stand nor applaud Trump’s accomplishments, which include closing the border, identifying billions in government waste, fraud, and abuse, and a potential peace deal for Ukraine. Instead, they sat and mumbled, staring at their hands or their phones as Trump honored the families of fallen heroes and those killed by illegal aliens.

They found no joy in a child with brain cancer being named an honorary member of the U.S. Secret Service or in a teenager receiving an acceptance letter to West Point. While these scenes brought tears to many Americans’ eyes, the Democrats merely sat and smirked.

Yet they all “stand for Ukraine,” at least for endless war, not for peace and an end to the death and destruction of millions of young Ukrainians and Russians.

When not sitting and pouting, they dance and shadow-box in cringeworthy fashion, saying, “Choose your fighter.” Sorry, Dems, we chose our fighter last Nov. 5.

What does it mean when Democrats wear their pins and proclaim loudly on social media, “I stand with Ukraine” or “Slava Ukraini”?

Are they planning to provide their own funds to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his wartime efforts? Or do they expect others to contribute their money, thereby supporting “the lavish lifestyles of Ukrainian elites”?

Are they volunteering themselves, their children, or their grandchildren to take up arms in Ukraine as part of the security guarantees that Zelensky and the EU leadership insisted upon? Or do they expect other children to fight in the war? When EU President Ursula von der Leyen was asked if her children were in the military, she laughed and replied, “Nein, nein.“

Regardless of one’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war and its origins, what will “Glory to Ukraine” mean in early 2025?

Did Russia invade Ukraine without provocation? Or has the West been provoking Russia since 1990, when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would expand, “not one inch eastward,” if Gorbachev complied with Ronald Reagan’s demand to “tear down that wall”?

Here we are, three years into what seems like an endless war. Trump claims that America has spent $350 billion on it, while others suggest a lower figure. Regardless, it remains a significant sum for a country facing $2 trillion annual budget deficits.

Read the Whole Article

The post Democrats Stand for Ukraine but Sit for America appeared first on LewRockwell.

There they go again. The latest missive from the Convention of States (COS) echo chamber reeks of recycled rhetoric and shallow sloganeering, wrapped in a false piety toward the Constitution they purport to defend but so plainly misunderstand. Their tired attacks on the John Birch Society — the last line of principled defense against the gutting of our constitutional republic — are not only dishonest, but profoundly dangerous.

Let us dispense with their clumsy propaganda and expose the COS scheme for what it is: a Trojan horse dressed in constitutional garb, promising “reform” while preparing the kindling for a political inferno that could consume the Constitution entirely.

A Permanent Fix or a Permanent Fraud?

The article opens with a back-patting paean to the Trump administration’s limited steps toward trimming bureaucracy — as if temporary political appointments are a substitute for real constitutional fidelity. But then comes the COS bait-and-switch: “We need a Convention of States,” they say, “to make these reforms permanent.” What they mean, of course, is a permanent rewrite of the Constitution, conducted not by the Founding Fathers but by modern politicians, academics, and activists who possess neither the virtue nor the vision of the men who gave us the greatest charter of liberty ever conceived.

Let me say this plainly: There is nothing “constitutional” about using Article V to do what the Constitution never authorized — open itself to revision at the hands of ambitious reformers operating under the illusion of control.

The “Runaway Convention” Myth Myth

COS mouthpieces love to scoff at the phrase “runaway convention,” as if sneering makes it untrue. Their rebuttal hinges almost entirely on an article by Michael Farris — a man who would do well to remember that publishing in a law journal does not render one’s opinion scripture.

Farris claims that the 1787 convention wasn’t a runaway because the Confederation Congress didn’t technically call it. But this is sophistry. The undeniable fact — recorded by the framers themselves — is that the delegates exceeded their commissions, abandoned the Articles of Confederation, and drafted an entirely new system of government. Whether that was good or bad is beside the point; the fact of it is indisputable. To pretend otherwise is historical malpractice.

Farris and his fellow COS salesmen dismiss this reality because it inconveniently highlights the very danger Article V critics have warned of: A convention, once convened, cannot be constrained — not by theory, not by wishful thinking, and certainly not by Michael Farris’s footnotes.

“Just Proposing Amendments?” Don’t Be Naive.

The COS crowd insists that because Article V says a convention “proposes amendments,” it cannot exceed that function. But that claim reveals a dangerous ignorance of constitutional history. Proposing amendments sounds harmless — until one remembers that every radical restructuring of government in history began with “mere amendments.” The 1787 Convention itself began as a mission to revise the Articles — and ended with a brand-new government. History laughs at those who believe they can uncap a volcano and control the lava.

Moreover, Article V does not prescribe the procedures, delegate selection, voting rules, or scope-enforcement mechanisms for such a convention. The COS movement is asking Americans to jump into constitutional quicksand based on speculative “assurances” and half-remembered precedents from 200 years ago.

On Interstate Convention Precedents: A Shell Game

The COS defenders point to “scores of historical state conventions” as proof that conventions stay within their limits. But this is sleight of hand. The state conventions of the past were not held under the auspices of Article V, and most importantly, none of them held the power to alter the national Constitution. The stakes were incomparable. To pretend these minor meetings are reliable templates for a 21st-century constitutional convention is to compare a campfire to an atomic bomb.

The Declaration of Independence: Misquoted or Misunderstood?

The COS team sneers at the JBS’s invocation of the Declaration’s affirmation of the people’s right to alter or abolish government. But their smug dismissal only reveals their unfamiliarity with the principles they claim to uphold. The Declaration affirms the inalienable right of a free people to remake their government — convention or no convention. That’s the very danger: Once you call a convention, you don’t control the participants; you don’t control the scope; you don’t control the outcome. The COS camp pretends otherwise because the truth would send shivers down the spine of any constitutionally literate American.

On Voting Rules and Undefined Terms: A Lawyer’s Ruse

The COS argument that “one state, one vote” will prevail simply because “it always has” is laughably naive. Article V says nothing about voting procedures, delegate limits, or enforcement. The Constitution does not define these terms because the Founders never intended for this path to be trodden lightly. To treat these gaping ambiguities as harmless is to play Russian roulette with our republican form of government.

Opening the Constitution Is Exactly What They’re Doing

The final and most absurd claim is that a convention wouldn’t “open the Constitution” or “rewrite” it. Nonsense. Once a convention convenes, there is no constitutional clause that prevents delegates from proposing sweeping rewrites, consolidations, or redefinitions of liberty. And if you doubt that, just read the proposals already floating in COS circles: term limits, federal marriage definitions, balanced budget amendments that constitutionalize debt ceilings, and more. That’s not reform. That’s reengineering.

Read the Whole Article

The post Convention of States: The False-hope Hucksters appeared first on LewRockwell.

A friend just sent me a New York Post report from 2022 introducing Europe’s “tough women leaders taking on Vladimir Putin,” replete with this illustration.

Ursula von der Leyen is the EU Commission President, Annalena Baerbock is the German Foreign Minister, Sanna Marin is the former Finnish Prime Minister, now a “strategic advisor” of the Tony Blair Institute. Kaja Kallas is the former Estonian Prime Minister and now Vice President of the European Commission.

The trouble with such “tough women,” it seems to me, is that may often be lulled into thinking that they have something to prove. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy remarked to a confidante that the trouble with General Curtis LeMay, who wanted to commence hostilities with the Russians, was that he allowed his decision-making to be governed by his fear of seeming weak.

I sometimes wonder if John Kennedy was the last man of any real sophistication to hold high office in the West. Since he was assassinated, we have, it seems to me, witnessed a steady decline of intellect in our leaders.

It reminds me of the great opening scene of Patrick O’Brian’s novel, HMS Surprise, set during the Napoleonic Wars. Sir Joseph Blain, the head of British naval intelligence, attends a meeting of the Admiralty and assesses the men who staff it.

[Sir Joseph] leant back in his chair, watching the speakers, assessing their abilities. Poor, on the whole; and the new First Lord was a fool, a mere politician. Sir Joseph had served under Chatham, Spencer, St Vincent and Melville, and this man made a pitiful figure beside them: they had had their failings, particularly Chatham, but not one would so have missed the point…

I once heard a story about a man whose inner ear was ruptured while big wave surfing on Maui, which induced chronic vertigo so severe that he was violently nauseated at all times. I sometimes think about this man’s unfathomable suffering, especially when I hear relatively inexperienced surfers express the desire to go tow-surfing on Jaws—one of the biggest waves in the world.

The less you know about something dangerous, the more you are at liberty to fantasize about it. I fear the “tough women leaders of Europe who wish to take on Vladimir Putin” know little about the reality of war.

I have heard that, in the run-up to the First World War, the German general staff carefully studied the character and the strategy of the American Union General, William Sherman. They found him a fascinating study, though it’s not clear that they learned much from him.

Because “the tough women of Europe” have apparently learned nothing from their own recent history, maybe they could learn something from William Sherman’s warning to Southern men in 1860 when he was at the Louisiana Seminary. In a conversation with David Boyd, one of his professors, about South Carolina’s secession, Sherman is reported to have said the following about the forthcoming war.

This country will be drenched in blood. God only knows how it will end. Perhaps the liberties of the whole country, of every section and every man will be destroyed. … Oh, it is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization. … You people speak so lightly of war. You don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing. I know you are a brave, fighting people, but for every day of actual fighting, there are months of marching, exposure and suffering. More men die in war from sickness than are killed in battle. At best war is a frightful loss of life and property, and worse still is the demoralization of the people.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

The post Europe’s Female Leaders Want War appeared first on LewRockwell.

This isn’t just a temporary slowdown—it’s a broad-based economic breakdown. Here’s how we got here and why things are getting worse.

1. Labor Market Breakdown

The labor market has deteriorated significantly, contradicting official narratives of economic strength. Key indicators signal a deep freeze, if not an outright contraction.

• Declining Job Openings: Openings tumbled by over 400,000 in late 2024, falling to their lowest level since January 2021.
• Low Hiring Rates: Hiring remains subdued, with numbers well below healthy economic levels.
• Rising Layoffs & Attrition: Companies are avoiding outright firings but are cutting hours, clawing back bonuses, and offering voluntary buyouts (e.g., Nissan, Chevron).
• Declining Full-Time Employment: In February 2025 alone, full-time jobs plunged by 1.2 million while part-time employment rose, signaling weaker job stability.
• Decreasing Work Hours: The average workweek fell to 34.1 hours—levels not seen since the Great Recession.
• Consumer Fear of Job Losses: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest survey found rising anxiety over job security, leading to increased savings and reduced discretionary spending.

The “Forgot How to Grow” Economy

This labor market freeze aligns with the broader trend of companies and governments struggling to create sustainable economic growth beyond the sugar rush of stimulus.

2. The Stimulus Hangover & Demand Collapse

What looked like a post-pandemic economic recovery was a mirage fueled by artificial stimulus.

• COVID Stimulus Distorted Demand: Incomes surged by 20%, sending false signals to businesses, who overexpanded in response to what seemed like a demand boom.
• “Sugar Rush” Reversal: As stimulus dried up, consumers and businesses were left with inflated costs but no sustained demand to support higher prices.
• Artificially High Consumer Spending (2024 Tariff-Beating): Many purchases were front-loaded to avoid future price hikes, creating a temporary demand surge. The payback period has now arrived.
• Plunging Consumer Confidence: After the artificial highs of 2024, confidence tanked, hitting its lowest levels in over two years.
• Savings Rate Increasing: Households are pulling back spending and hoarding cash in anticipation of job losses.

3. Collapsing Corporate Earnings & Business Investment

Businesses miscalculated demand, and now they’re scrambling to cut costs.

• Massive Corporate Layoffs: Chevron announced job cuts affecting 15-20% of its workforce, citing collapsing demand.
• Automotive Sector in Crisis: Nissan, Bridgestone, and others are cutting shifts and offering buyouts as car inventories pile up.
• Tech & AI Bubble Cracking: The hype cycle for AI investments appears to be stalling, with companies failing to generate profits from heavy investments.
• No Risk-Taking in Banking: The world’s largest banks are hoarding safe assets and avoiding lending—essentially preparing for a downturn.

4. Market Red Flags: Credit, Bonds, and Recession Signals

Financial markets are finally waking up to the economic reality.

Bond Market

• Yields Collapsing: The 10-year Treasury yield fell below 4.2%, and the 2-year Treasury is near 3.9%, signaling severe growth fears.
• Steepening Yield Curve: Historically, this happens before a recession as investors anticipate rate cuts.
• Swap Spreads Compressing & Then Plunging: Wild swings suggest markets are pricing in economic distress.

Credit Market

• Credit Spreads at Dangerous Levels: Corporate bond spreads are at their lowest since 2007, just before the last financial crisis.
• Complacency Before the Crash: Investors are piling into risky debt despite warning signs.
• Lack of Bank Lending: Instead of lending, banks are buying government bonds—just like they did in past economic crises.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Economy in Crisis: How We Got Here and What’s Happening Now appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump’s announcement, which followed a dramatic live confrontation in the White House on Feb 28, 2025 with Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Zelenskyy, that the American President would suspend all aid to Ukraine, caused shock waves around the world.

This was followed by President Trump’s declaration that the United States would no longer pay disproportionately for Europe’s defense in NATO, and that he would not defend his NATO allies if they did not pay their fair share. “‘”It’s common sense, right,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them. No, I’m not going to defend them.”‘

The President’s supporters, especially those in the United States, cheered these moves. They object to what looks at times like a global shell game that enriches all who collude with it, with this collusion coming at the cost, as the President pointed out, of two thousand Russian and Ukrainian soldiers’ lives a week. These Americans see our refusal to overpay for our role in NATO as being a long-overdue stop to a multi-billion-dollar, decades-long gravy train that has sustained, since 1949, what are in fact, now, wealthy societies.

NATO’s founding origins in the misery, fear and rubble of post-World War II Europe, made sense at that time. How did the agreement start?

“The result of these extensive [1949] negotiations was the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. In this agreement, the United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom agreed to consider attack against one an attack against all, along with consultations about threats and defense matters. This collective defense arrangement only formally applied to attacks against the signatories that occurred in Europe or North America; it did not include conflicts in colonial territories. … Later in 1949, President Truman proposed a military assistance program, and the Mutual Defense Assistance Program passed the U.S. Congress in October, appropriating some $1.4 billion dollars for the purpose of building Western European defenses.”

But that was then.

The conditions that led us to consider it useful to join forces with Europe, and to agree for us to defend one another, still apply, in a world full of threats and anti-Western sentiment. But I’ll argue that the conditions that led the US to assume a disproportionate share of the financial burden, do not exist any longer, and that President Trump is right to course-correct on our disproportionate payments to Europe.

President Trump says that the US has spent $300-350 billion dollars on defense of Ukraine. The BBC argues that it is much less — $119.7 billion. But still, the outsize amount that America has provided is stunning to consider, in relation to Europe’s far more limited contributions. The BBC’s chart below shows that our $119.7 billion contrasts sharply with France’s $5.1 billion and the EU’s $51.3 billion. Add to this disparity the fact that the vast majority of Europe’s funds heading to Ukraine, arrive in the form of loans, not grants, as opposed to the outright wealth transfers made by the United States. In other words, in theory at least, the money with which Europe is parting, is not meant to be lost to European lender nations forever.

European elites, of course, see these moves on the part of President Trump very differently than do President Trump’s supporters, as does European media. European elites and press commentators are, at the very thought that the disproportionate US money spigot for NATO, and for Ukraine in particular, may be turned off, sustaining an existential crisis. I was in Europe as much of this started to play out, and the expressions of shock — but, more significantly, entitled shock — were audible everywhere one turned.

The reaction was not an adult one: “Well, that’s over; it’s time to figure out how we will manage without the outsized commitment of the United States.” One dis not even hear many mature, thoughtful arguments aimed at America, that this withdrawal is bad for all of us.

One heard, rather, a range of crude coping mechanisms from European thought leaders: they mocked the President and his decisions, or they expressed flustered outrage. Some actually suggest that the President acts as he does because Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “has something on him.” The hostility was unremitting.

I am not a psychologist, but this reaction is fascinating to me because it is so defensive, irrational and so, well, adolescent. These howls were emitted in the tone of people against whom a crime is being committed.

This reaction begs the question: why?

Did Europe think that the status quo — an unaccountable American money spigot, paying for the defense of Europe — would last forever? Did Europe’s elites and media imagine that American Presidents would change but that the policy related to our paying for European defense, one initiated under one US President decades ago, would stay the same throughout all time under every President?

Did the leaders of these nations, and their spokespeople and media, never have, or even imagine, a Plan B?

Some commentators slowly started dealing with the fact that Europe will have to step up in its own defense:

“The message is clear – an ‘electroshock’, as French President Emmanuel Macron called it: European countries will have to step up defence spending if they intend to protect themselves from Russian aggression.”

As European leaders come to terms with the new reality, the incredible military emasculation of Europe that has been allowed to develop during 75 years of reliance on the US for defense, grows painfully clear.

Britain has not quite three days’ worth of ammo: Chatham House.org, otherwise known as The Royal Institute of International Affairs, a UK foreign policy think tank, warns that Europe may simply be unable to close the gap opened by the withdrawal of the United States: “Lord Robertson’s review of UK defence is expected to make clear how strained British armed forces are; it is thought to say that the entire UK forces have less than three days’ worth of ammunition.” ChathamHouse.org warns that for Europe to defend itself without help from the US, the task would absorb almost all of the UK’s military power:

“It remains to be seen if Europe’s leaders can unify to shore up defence, at a time of political uncertainty in France and Germany. Even if they can, it is far from clear that will be enough to deter an aggressive, badly mauled Russia, absent the might of the United States.”

While Europe cries aloud at being forced to come up with funds if President Trump follows through on his threat — it’s not that Europe does not have the money at all. It is, rather, that in scraping together the funds, European nations would have to cut into their more politically popular expenditures, and also perhaps go into debt.

President Trump asked Europe to spend 5% of its GDP on defense, which would double the amount it currently spends:

“To [raise the money], European countries may have to consider loosening the fiscal rules that have governed their borrowing for more than a decade.

Beyond that, they face unpalatable political choices: whether to pare back welfare, health and pension benefits to pay for defence – a hard message to give to voters.

For the UK, the choice is similar. Politicians of all parties have been steadfast behind Ukraine. But now they have to work out how to step up defence spending. The government has pledged to commit 2.5 per cent of GDP, up from the current 2.3 per cent – but not said by when.”

The bottom line is that Europe and Britain have standards of living that are now higher than Americans,’ in many metrics. This is possible because European countries don’t spend 5% of their GDP on defense.

Europeans live better, in many ways, these days, than do Americans — we who pay for 40% of the defense spending around the world, though our population is just 4.22 of the total world’s population.

I learned while I was in Europe, that European elites’ sense of what America is, vis a vis Europe, is out of date, and unrealistic. It was clear to me that the emotional, the conceptual, relationship, between Europe and the US, is oddly frozen in time.

To Europe, in relation to America, it is always 1949.

John Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn imagines a scenario in which lovers are frozen in time; in which time has stood still: “Forever wilt though love, and she be fair!” Historical consciousness seems to have frozen in a similar way for European-American relations. Forever, America is seen by the older nations as the bouncing, thoughtless, insanely wealthy young nation of the end of the war, and the start of the post-World War 2 period: America always will have so much more money than Europe, and Europe will always desperately need America’s money. Europe’s sense of America is stuck in a moment when Italy and Germany were reduced to rubble, and starving; when France was struggling with black-market scarcity; and when British cities were blown to bits and the population reduced to grey austerity.

Desperate Europeans postwar saw then, in film reels, Hollywood stars and starlets emerging in furs from limousines; they saw American tables laden with every kind of abundance; they saw golden sunbathers in Malibu and dashing skiiers in Maine; and endless Leavittowns, complete with ample one-parent incomes. They saw teenagers with rec rooms in basements, middle-class homes with swimming pools and two cars, and modern appliances in every kitchen. Add to that a Socialist influence on the continent, that combines a sense of entitlement to wealth redistribution: because America is so rich, therefore Europe is entitled to her funding in perpetuity.

Well, that sense of who Europe is vis a vis America, is just no longer accurate. President Trump, in my view, is trying to adjust our foreign policy to suit our actual fiscal and social reality in 2025, and Europe does not want to come along into the present.

America is broke. We can’t pay for our existing debt. We are no longer the robust, wealthy adolescent nation of the 1950s, in contrast to desperate, starveling late 1940s Europe. America’s middle class is not expanding, as in the postwar period, but contracting.

Read the Whole Article

The post Europe’s Own Wars appeared first on LewRockwell.

There are five compelling arguments for either scenario.

Ukraine just agreed to a month-long ceasefire after talks with the US in Jeddah, but it’s conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, which remains uncertain. Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to pay his second trip to Moscow in just as many months later this week, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz plans to speak to Russian officials soon, while Trump said that he hopes to talk to Putin by Friday. All three will try to convince Putin to silence the guns. Here’s why he might not agree to do that:

———-

1. Russia Wants To Liberate All The Occupied Territories

Putin declared last June that he’d only agree to a ceasefire if Ukraine withdrew from the entirety of the four regions that voted to join Russia in September 2022 and publicly abandoned its plans to join NATO. That was shortly before Ukraine invaded Russia’s universally recognized Kursk Region. Agreeing to a ceasefire now with no guarantee that it’ll lead to the liberation of those five regions could result in the indefinite occupation of at least some of them if the front lines harden into a Korean-DMZ.

2. The Front Lines Might Soon Collapse To Russia’s Benefit

It’s obvious that one of the primary reasons why Ukraine agreed to a month-long ceasefire conditional on Russia agreeing to the same, apart from resuming the US’ previously cut military and intelligence aid, is to prevent the front lines from soon collapsing to Russia’s benefit. Aware of this, Russia might decide to carry on – perhaps advancing while negotiating additional terms to the proposed ceasefire – in order to take full advantage of this, thus raising the chances of speedily liberating all the occupied territories.

3. Russia Wants To Scare Away Western Peacekeepers

European peacekeepers might enter Ukraine during the month-long ceasefire, or some of their “mercenaries” who are already there might simply switch uniforms to then take on this role instead, which Russia already said would be absolutely unacceptable and make them legitimate targets. Keeping the conflict going might therefore scare them away from this and thus ensure that de facto NATO forces are kept as far away from Russia’s western border as possible.

4. Some Of The Russian Public Don’t Want A Ceasefire

A significant share of the Russian public, including veterans of the special operation, are thought to be against any ceasefire since they’d consider it to be stopping halfway instead of finishing the job after all the sacrifices that were paid to get this far. The authorities are sensitive to public opinion on the conflict, especially from veterans, so their opposition to this might be taken into consideration more than outside observers expect and could thus push Putin a lot closer to rejecting a ceasefire than most other factors.

5. Putin Might Really Believe That Trump Is Bluffing

And finally, the most decisive factor might be that Putin truly believes that Trump is bluffing about “escalating to de-escalate”, whether economically-financially through the strict enforcement of secondary sanctions against India, China, etc., and/or militarily by going all-in backing Ukraine. If that’s the case, then it follows that Putin only entertained negotiations to see whether he could achieve his maximum goals through diplomatic means, absent which he’d continue pursuing them militarily.

—–

There’s also the chance that Putin agrees to a ceasefire, which could be explained in the following ways:

1. Russia Wants To Avert Disproportionate Dependence On China

Trump’s tweet last Friday suggested that he plans strict secondary sanctions enforcement against India and China if Putin rejects a ceasefire, which could lead to the first complying and thus placing Russia in the position where it would become much more dependent on the second. Russia has thus far relied on India as its friendly counterbalance vis-a-vis China, but if Putin is informed that this might no longer be the case if Russia keeps fighting, then he might opt for peace to avoid becoming China’s junior partner.

2. It Also Wants To Beat China To The Chase With The “New Détente”

Putin wouldn’t just be rejecting a ceasefire, but also a “New Détente” with the US, which could lead to China replacing Russia in this arrangement if Trump travels to China next month like the latest reports claim and then negotiates a deal for ending their trade war. The recalibrated triangulation that might follow wouldn’t be in Russia’s interests, especially if the US gets China to comply with sanctions in order to coerce Russia into peace, so Putin might agree to a ceasefire in order to avert this scenario as well.

3. The “New Détente” Could Geopolitically Revolutionize The World

Putin might calculate that beating China to the chase with the “New Détente” and becoming more of a strategic partner to the US than the EU are worth pragmatic compromises on Ukraine since these two outcomes could geopolitically revolutionize the world to Russia’s grand strategic advantage. If that’s what he’s thinking, then he might defy popular expectations to boldly agree to a ceasefire, after which publicly financed media would explain the rationale to Russia’s supporters at home and abroad.

4. Additional (& Even Secret) Terms Might Be Attached To The Ceasefire

Building upon the above, additional (and even secret) terms might be attached to the ceasefire for guaranteeing that Western peacekeepers won’t enter Ukraine and that the US won’t maximally rearm it during that period, which Russia could get the US to agree to via creative resource diplomacy. Giving the US privileged access to Russian energy and minerals, especially the rare earth ones that it needs for competing with China, might be all that it takes for Trump to put the kibosh on those two aforesaid fears.

5. Putin Might Really Believe That Trump Is Serious

And finally, the most decisive factor might be that Putin truly believes that Trump is serious about “escalating to de-escalate”, in which case he might prefer not to risk a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could hypothetically end with Russia compromising on much more than if it agreed to a ceasefire. Putin is a pragmatist who prefers managing tensions instead of exacerbating them, with the only recent exception being the decision to use the Oreshniks as explained here, so he might take Trump up on this.

———-

Everyone will soon find out whether or not Putin agrees to a ceasefire, but whichever decision he makes, the five reasons that were shared for each scenario would compellingly explain his choice. It’s anyone’s guess what he’ll do since each scenario’s arguments are persuasive and he knows that this is his most fateful decision since the special operation. Putin might therefore ask their respective Kremlin proponents to debate amongst themselves in front of him one last time before making up his mind.

This originally appeared on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

The post Will Putin Agree to a Ceasefire? appeared first on LewRockwell.

The divine liturgy accompanies us through the solar year as in a mirror, in which we see the history of the redemption summarized and represented.

The time of Advent takes us back to the expectation of the Messiah in the ancient law; the time of Christmas celebrates His most holy Incarnation; Holy Lent and Passiontide take us back to the times that preceded the Sacrifice of the Cross; the time of Easter celebrates the Resurrection and the Ascension of the Lord into heaven; the time of Pentecost retraces the earthly life of the Savior, His miracles, and His teachings; and at the end of the liturgical cycle – just as at its beginning – we are projected to the End Times, to the Universal Judgment, to the reward or condemnation of each and every person.

In a certain way the seasons of the year themselves accompany this sacred summary of salvation history, so that during the rigors of winter we understand the pains of the Child King born in a manger, and then as nature awakens during springtime we are able to see the homage of creation to the Lord who rises again and triumphs over death.

On Ash Wednesday, we entered into a time of penance and purification to prepare ourselves in body and spirit for this triumph of Our Lord: a real, historical triumph, witnessed by those who were its contemporaries, and celebrated by Christians of every age and place. To accompany us in this purification, the holy liturgy shows us what our fathers did in the Old Testament and points out to us the need to be ready in turn to face the great persecution of the End Times. Because one cannot fight without preparation, nor line up for a race without training for it.

In the Old Testament, the priests invoke mercy for the people: Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo! – “Spare your people, O Lord.” In the New Testament, it is Christ Himself, raised on the wood of the Cross, who intercedes for us: Forgive them, O Father! And together with Him, the Most Holy Virgin, all the saints, and the souls in purgatory also intercede before the throne of the divine majesty.

We ourselves, members of the communion of saints, offer our sacrifices to atone for our sins and those of our brothers and sisters. We pay a debt contracted with the infernal usurer: not with his false money, but with the purest gold of the Passion of Christ. That debt that each of us, in Adam, took on against the will of God and despite having received from Him true wealth, the most inestimable treasure.

This Holy Lent, which we begin by sprinkling ashes on our heads and fasting, occurs at a time of great social, political, and ecclesial upheavals. With each passing day new truths are coming to light, showing us an apostate society, a corrupt and perverted political class, and a sold-out and treacherous ecclesiastical hierarchy. Those whom we believed were taking care of the common good are now revealed as our enemies and the enemies of God.

Those whom we thought should defend the truth and proclaim the Gospel of Christ are now revealed as the followers of error and lies. And the authority that Our Lord, King and High Priest, has granted to our rulers – both civil and religious – has been used for the very opposite purpose of that for which He established it.

In the face of this global rebellion, and especially in the face of the betrayal of those who hold authority, we must return with greater conviction to clothing our souls in ashes and sackcloth, to prostrating ourselves before the Lord and repeating the cry of our fathers:

Flectamus iram vindicem, ploremus ante Judicem; clamemus ore supplici, dicamus omnes cernui: Parce, Domine; parce populo tuo: ne in æternum irascaris nobis. — “Let us appease the vengeful wrath, let us weep before the Judge; let us call upon Him with a supplicating voice, let us prostrate ourselves and say all together: Forgive, Lord, forgive Your people, and do not remain forever angry with us.”

However, precisely because of the enormity of our sins and the horror of the public sins of nations and of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, our penance must be accompanied – and preceded, I would say – by the proclamation of the truth against lies. Because the truth is of God; indeed, the truth is God; and lies are the cursed mark of Satan.

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For some time now, I’ve wanted to catalogue in one place all the ways that CDU Chancellor hopeful Friedrich Merz is screwing up. His strategic failures are really a thing to behold; I’ve never seen anybody screw up this frequently and this dramatically before. Yet I have delayed writing this post, above all because I wanted Merz to reach the end of his present streak and stop screwing up for a while. I wanted to have a complete unit – a full collection of screwups – to present to my readers for analysis. I now accept that this is never going to happen, and that the coming months and years are going to provide nothing but an unending parade of screwups, one after the other, each more inexplicable and baffling than the last. We must begin the tiresome work of trying to understand Merz’s screwing up now, because there will only ever be more of this.

As with all deeply rooted phenomena, it is hard to tell where the present parade of screwing up began. There was the lacklustre CDU election campaign and Merz’s ill-advised flirtations with the Greens that began last autumn, which cost the Union parties precious points in the polls. None of that looked auspicious, but the screwing up did not begin in earnest until January, in the wake of Aschaffenburg – when Merz decided to violate the firewall against Alternative für Deutschland. For the first time in history, the CDU, the CSU and the FDP voted with AfD in the Bundestag, first in a successful attempt to pass a meaningless if sternly worded anti-migration resolution, and then in a failed attempt to pass an actual piece of legislation that would take real steps to stem the influx of asylees from the developing world.

This manoeuvre had the real glimmerings of strategy, and so we would do well to ascribe it to Merz’s underlings rather than to Merz himself. It was only superficially an attempt to stop the tide of voter defections to the AfD. Above all, it was an effort to gain leverage over the Greens and the Social Democrats in any future coalition negotiations. Merz and his CDU, sobered by polls showing a left so weakened that they feared having to govern in a nightmare Kenya coalition with the SPD and the Greens both, wanted to send a clear message: “We’re not afraid to achieve parliamentary majorities with the AfD if you won’t go along with our programme.” Had Merz stuck to this line, he’d be in a far better place than he is today. Alas, the man chose to screw up instead. Spooked by yet another wave of leftist protests “against the right” – a “right” which now included not only the AfD but also the CDU and the CSU – Merz lost himself in a string of disavowals. A minority government with AfD support would be unthinkable, he and his lieutenants said. The Union parties would never work with the AfD, he and his lieutenants said.

In this way, Merz’s firewall gambit succeeded only in outraging and energising his future coalition partners, while achieving nothing for himself or his own party. A lot of CDU voters would like to see some measure of cooperation between the Union parties and the AfD, and for his constant never-again-with-the-AfD rhetoric Merz paid a price. The CDU underperformed the polls, crossing the finish line with a catastrophic 28.5% of the vote on 23 February. The Greens whom Merz had spent months courting – at the cost of alienating his own base! – emerged from the vote too weak to give his party a majority, and so the man was left to deal with the Social Democrats, newly radicalised not only by their own dim showing but also by Merz’s firewall trickery.

Thus it came to be that Merz ceded the high ground in negotiations to the SPD, the biggest losers in the 2025 German elections. That is itself remarkable, the kind of thing you could not be certain of achieving even if you tried. And yet it is only the beginning!

The second screwup, it turns out, was in the making for a long time. Merz and his CDU, you will remember, used the constitutionally-anchored German debt brake to destroy the traffic light in 2023. They brought suit with the constitutional court in Karlsruhe against Chancellor Scholz’s budgetary chicanery, and secured a ruling that effectively killed traffic light spending plans. It took a full year for the traffic light to finally die, but it was dead in spirit long before.

After Scholz’s government folded last November, Merz and his party capitalised on their win to present themselves as beacons of fiscal responsibility. They pledged to construct carefully prioritised budgets; the SPD and the Greens might want to max out government credit cards, but not the CDU. They were the farsighted and mature ones. Merz and his party said this over and over, and they even inscribed the message in their party programme – in bold! Meanwhile, behind the scenes, that had begun to wonder whether increasing deficit spending might not be such a bad idea after all. They could have raised this matter with their own voters; it would hardly have cost them more support than their flirtations with the Greens had done. But no, the one party with by far the greatest credibility problem in all of German politics – the party that felt itself forced to step across the firewall to demonstrate sincerity to voters, after decades of Merkelian reversals – decided that the best path would be to promise fiscal responsibility in public while plotting to overturn the debt brake in private.

This brings us to the sad spectacle of coalition negotiations with the SPD, a disgraced party empowered precisely by Merz’s powerful screwups. Now I am not a politician, and still less am I a clever negotiator, but even I know that the key point of all negotiations is to extract concessions from the other party – even if those concessions happen to be things that you secretly desire yourself. The SPD love deficit spending; they are a party that exists entirely to give their constituents money. In these negotiations, Merz ought to have presented his party’s secret plans to overhaul the debt brake and borrow billions of Euros as a concession – something the SPD could have in return for supporting a hard Union line against migration, for example.

Everything we know about these negotiations, however, suggests that Merz entered them determined to convince the SPD of the singular point on which they required no convincing. Perhaps encouraged by the false panic over the prospect of an American withdrawal from Europe, or perhaps just using the Trump freakout du jour as an opportunity, Merz gravely told the SPD that they would have to agree to emend the constitution and blow massive holes in the debt brake. This is like telling your young child over dinner that not only will he not be allowed his vegetables, but that he will also have to eat an extra slice of cake. The CDU and SPD eventually agreed on a 500 billion-Euro “special fund” for infrastructure, and also on a scheme to exempt hundreds of billions in defence spending from deficit limits. The SPD were happy to acquiesce, and they were even happy to write a few stern if broadly meaningless words on migration into their preliminary negotiation paper. Afterwards, leading SPD politician Boris Pistorius, who was involved in the negotiations, told his comrades not to worry – the SPD had succeeded in defanging Merz’s migration restrictionism entirely. All that remained of Merz’s ambitions was a “placebo,” Pistorius said – a few brave words that will have “no effect whatsoever.”

That is bad enough, but actually it is only the beginning of Merz’s screwup on this front, which is so thoroughly bizarre as to enjoy fractal qualities. By this I mean that the more you focus upon it, the more screwed up it appears. Overhauling the debt brake requires a two-thirds majority of the Bundestag, and in the new twenty-first Bundestag Die Linke (the Left Party) and the AfD will be in a position to block any proposed revisions. Thus Merz’s grand and profoundly idiotic plan was to use the old twentieth Bundestag – the one elected in 2021 – to create his “special fund” for infrastructure and to exempt 400 billion Euros to pour into our profoundly dysfunctional Bundeswehr. In the twentieth Bundestag, which still has a few weeks left to live, the AfD and Die Linke are too weak to cause problems.

This is the kind of plan that sounds tactically brilliant at first but that, upon a few seconds of reflection, ought to have revealed itself to all concerned as really, really stupid. There are reasons incipient German governments have never tried to do anything like this before. To begin with, you have to get all kinds of people who have been voted out of parliament to support your plan. Fifty CDU/CSU representatives in the current Bundestag, for example, are not returning. Why should they go along with this train wreck and make their final political act one of complicity in an unprecedented programme of voter deception? I still have yet to read a good explanation anywhere of how this is supposed to work.

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