Lew Rockwell Institute

SANA’A, Yemen – No wonder the Roman Empire called it Arabia Felix.

It’s 3 pm in Al-Sabeen square in the Haddah neighborhood of Sana’a on Friday, March 28, Al Quds Day, at Ramadan, only two days before Eid al-Fikr, and the crowd of over one million Yemenis stretches to the horizon, gently surrounded by naked hills in the distance and with the grand Al-Saleh mosque framing the foreground.

The foreign pilgrim climbs to a small stage and after all his pilgrimages across the world and the lands of Islam, he knows that in one fleeting minute he must essentially thank the crowd – and this nation – for being so noble, so upright, so fearless, bearers of so much moral clarity and purpose. They should know that the whole Global Majority instinctively gets it – and stands with them.

This is not so much about support for Palestine, which they have been showcasing in this same vast square for 17 months, non-stop – as shown all over global social media – but most of all about the inner strength of Arabia Felix. Free Palestine rhymes – and echoes – in eternity with Freedom of Yemen. They can be heroes not just for one day – as Bowie the Western Chameleon immortalized it: they are heroes for posterity.

One week immersed in deep Yemen is untranslatable in mere words. I was privileged to be part of a small group – from East to West – that actually broke the blockade on Yemen, as our gracious hosts never ceased to remind us. We were primarily guests in a wide-ranging conference on Palestine titled, most appropriately, “You Are Not Alone”.

What strikes us like lightning, right away, is the unbounded Yemeni generosity and their naturally aristocratic-cum-debonair allure. They are the epitome of chic not only sartorially but spiritually. Nearly every night last week I was trying to convey this magic across several podcasts, such as this one and this one. As much as the conversations with towering academics, diplomats and top members of the High Political Council, the real delight in Yemen is the famous – Xi Jinping-style – “people to people’s exchanges”, particularly at night time in the mesmerizing souks of Saada in the northwest and the Old City in Sana’a.

This is the true soul of Arabia, its secrets perfuming the air like the incense a Purifier dressed in white spreads around the al-Kabir mosque in the Old City, blind men crouching at the entrance chewing qat and absorbed in meditation. This magic is what Allah himself characterizes in the Holy Book in several verses and chapters – a generosity only bestowed to Yemenis.

Fighting a “coalition” of willing vassals

Amidst a cornucopia of meetings and cups of the best coffee on the planet, a convoy of decoy SUVs slicing the raw landscape from Sana’a to Saada, non-stop pledges of solidary with Palestine and instances of cowardly CENTCOM bombing – from several civilian, residential buildings to an in-progress cancer hospital in Saada – soon it becomes clear that Yemen is fighting yet another lethal chapter, now against the Trump 2.0-led CENTCOM, of what is a 10-year war, initiated in March 26, 2015.

That was the first war in History, as defined by the masterful Undeterred: Yemen In The Face of Decisive Storm, by Prof. Dr. Abdulaziz Saleh bin Habtoor – which I had the honor to meet in Sana’a – “in which all the rich Arab countries” (with the exception of Oman) stood “under the cloak of the most powerful imperialist country in an unsacred coalition against the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula”.

A trademark “coalition” of willing vassals, led by Saudi Arabia and for a stretch also the UAE, with the U.S. under the Obama-Biden racket “leading from behind” and providing the weapons alongside the British, not only bombed Yemen indiscriminately but also imposed a devastating blockade of air, land and sea, preventing the arrival of medicine, fuel and food, and generating at least 2.4 million displaced people and a cholera epidemic.

It’s hardly an accident that the upstart, tawdry, bling bling Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia hate Yemen with a vengeance. War on Yemen, virtually for decades, as Prof. bin Habtoor noted in our meeting, has been the Enterprise Weapon of Choice for a family scam set up by the British Empire in the 1920s to extract the wealth of Arabia.

Obviously no one across the – now fractured – collective West remembers that Yemen later became “Crown Prince” MbS’s war. The existence of his regime – now a darling of Trump 2.0 – was leveraged from the start on winning this war, until MbS was forced to realize he could never make it: only in 2017 the war was costing him more than $300 billion. He had to accept an armistice.

No “victory”: not against these unconquerable heroes.

The memory-impaired, fractured collective West also has no recollection that Britannia Rules the Waves was forced to surrender its self-imagined global dominatrix role to the Americans after it could not subdue extremely fierce resistance in – where else – South Yemen in the 1960s.

That opened the way to Saudi-led dementia – even as the pattern remained the same: Yemenis simply won’t surrender their homeland’s fabulous natural wealth to subsidize the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder’s chronic need for liquidity, collateral for new cash manipulations, and most of all the commodities that lie under Yemen’s rich soil.

And that brings us to the current, relentless CENTCOM bombing of civilian (italics mine) buildings and infrastructure from Sana’a to Saada and the port of Hodeidah – which we could not visit because it’s being bombed virtually every day. As much as we detailed to our Yemeni interlocutors how worried we are with the Empire unleashing its fury, they invariably answered with a smile: We Will Win. That may come from Yahya Saree, the military spokesman of the Yemeni armed forces – who against all security odds visited us in our hotel – or from a drop dead cool camel biker in the souk in Saada.

Extra mischief against Yemen comes from the UAE, a privileged partner of Trump 2.0 in Persian Gulf business, which has primacy over Yemen’s oil assets and access to much of Yemen’s supremely strategic southern coastline, investing heavily in colonizing the island of Socotra. And then there are the “unofficial” proxies, on and off, of Saudis and Emiratis: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and ISIS/Daesh – weapons of choice for selected factions of the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder.

Meanwhile, Ansarallah won’t back down, staring down the Empire in the Red Sea: “When American soldiers are killed in the Red Sea, what will they say to their people and families? Will they claim they were killed for the liberation of their country, or will they say they were killed to protect the Zionist terrorists?”

Unconquerable.

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

The post Unconquerable Yemen appeared first on LewRockwell.

Happy Liberation Day!

Aside from our senses, what are we being freed from?

A properly functioning market? The greatest quality and quantity of goods sold at competitive rates? Producers having to innovate to excel? The ability to buy what we want without giving government a bigger cut?

Whatever deliverance we’re promised was postponed by a day, so Americans wouldn’t think the jokers in charge were playing them for fools.

But this afternoon, at long last, our president will unshackle us from foreign “unfairness”… by building a bigger blockade around ourselves.

Seriously, not Literally

What are the components of today’s Emancipation Proclamation?

Tho’ plans could change before lunch, and be revised again until (or after) details are announced, the Trump Administration will ostensibly impose 25% import taxes on cars and parts… atop the same percentage already applied to steel and aluminum… with comparable duties on countries buying oil and gas from Venezuela.

The president has also intimated he’ll impose tariffs on certain agricultural imports. Specific products and rates remain unclear (of course), but this could tie to the broader notion of reciprocal tariffs.

As of now, these are anticipated for all trading partners. If taken literally (they shouldn’t be, tho’ they should be taken seriously), this would entail reducing taxes the U.S. currently imposes on most countries’ imports. But it’s probably safe to assume that “reciprocal” runs only one direction.

Sector-specific taxes on imports such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, microchips, lumber, and copper have also been bandied. But recent reports suggest they might not be part of today’s rollout, with some (or all) delayed indefinitely or excluded entirely.

Other last minute changes may be in the works. Apparently, the Trump team was scrambling into the small hours this morning to concoct new medicine, to make the potion more palatable to Congressmen and executives whose stock portfolios are making them sick.

What ailment is this elixir supposed to cure? Is it more deadly than the assortment of diseases it’s bound to cause? We don’t know. Nor does anyone else, especially the quacks who are selling this snake oil.

The idea that other countries are “ripping us off” simply isn’t true. The 300% Canadian tariffs on US dairy and Japan’s 700% imposts on American rice take effect only above export thresholds that are rarely reached.

David Stockman, Ronald Reagan’s budget director, explains one example that’s indicative of many:

“In 2024 Canada did not collect one single Canadian dollar or US dollar or even plug nickel of tariff revenue from US dairy exporters of the four leading dairy export products—fluid milk, butter, cheese and skim milk powder….

And the reason for that lies in the so-called TRQs (tariff rate quota) that the Donald himself negotiated with the Canadians in the course of attaining his ballyhooed USMCA deal in 2020.

[In 2024] US export volumes did not reach the quota level in any of them. Therefore, no tariff was applied to nearly 71 million pounds of US dairy exports to Canada last year, meaning that the Donald keeps ranting about a problem that he had already fixed himself!”

Economics and Politics

Most economic debates are really political squabbles. We’ve been conditioned to think of economics and politics are two sides of the same coin. In reality, economics is the gold and politics an alloy… if not outright rust.

“Economists” who advocate tariffs… like those who urge a minimum wage or centrally managed money… are akin to “scientists” who pushed lockdowns to contain a respiratory virus. They almost certainly know better. But they definitely know what’s best… for themselves.

As with any government “authority” or corporate “expert”, they’re extremely knowledgeable in what they are paid to say. They’re compensated to promote particular politics under the guise of economics. It’s a cloak that gets a lot of wear.

Economics is the study of purposeful human behavior under conditions of scarcity. Politics is forcibly shifting wealth from one pocket to another. As with any taxes, tariffs are terrific for doing that.

Economically, tariffs don’t make sense. But politically, they can be potent. As in most political battles, beneficiaries are concentrated and vocal, while victims are usually indifferent and diffuse.

During the most recent campaign, Trump tried to soothe them too. On several occasions, he suggested tariffs could replace the income tax.

That’d be great.

But since the election, it looks like we’re getting one and keeping the other. In a shocking development, repealing the income tax is no longer discussed. Probably because the idea was never practical with our gargantuan government.

From the founding to the “progressive” era, tariffs were the main source of government funds. That worked well when the federal budget was only $715M (as it was in 1913). In today’s dollars (based on gold), that’s about the size of the Department of Energy (among many that shouldn’t exist).

Read the Whole Article

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Martial Law is by far one of the greatest nightmares we might face, one that leaves many preppers up at night.

This is because it can occur in the midst of any natural or man-made disasters.

The march into Martial Law is frequently overlooked by the general population, often branded as nonsense or something belonging to conspiratorial websites. Yet what’s going on in this country is just what our founders have warned us of, and Martial Law is something they’ve taken very, very seriously.

When Martial Law is going on, the world is in so much trouble that even the government won’t be able to handle it. Now I’m assuming Martial Law hasn’t happened yet.

Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been able to read this. This means that you have the opportunity to prepare for it, and I hope, for your sake, that you will do it fast.

What is Martial Law

Martial Law has no established definition, so if you’re looking for a general definition of Martial Law, then Martial Law essentially means using state or national military power to impose the government’s will on the citizens.

Soldiers, rather than city police, execute the law. Military officers make strategic decisions rather than elected officials. People convicted of offenses are taken to military courts rather than regular civil courts. In short, the army is in charge.

Under Martial Law, fundamental liberties and freedoms are abolished and citizens are no longer entitled to their constitutional rights. It effectively helps the army, or a tyrannical politician, to break the Constitution and enforce its will by military force.

The History of Martial Law in U.S. History

In one way or another, tyrants have often used political authority to suppress and influence the people. Although if we’re searching for specific instances of Martial Law being used within the United States, we don’t have to search too hard or deep to find them.

Using the strictest meaning of the word, we can see the origins of Martial Law taking place in America during the time leading up to the Revolutionary War. While there were many motives for the war, including opposition to taxation levied by the British Parliament, the primary cause for England was the use of armed powers to enact the daily rule in the colonies.

Many of the most striking examples of this can be seen in the civil war. Although the history books of today largely neglect the true motives for the war or the several crimes committed by President Lincoln, the reality of what actually happened cannot be denied.

As an example, On 15 September 1863, President Lincoln imposed Martial Law by Congress. In fact, Lincoln had never had a top priority to eradicate slavery. In fact, Lincoln had never wanted to eliminate slavery. His primary interest was to centralize political authority and use the federal government to exercise full control over all residents.

The abolition of slavery was merely a by-product of the war. It actually took the thirteenth amendment to bring an end to slavery, as Lincoln really only liberated Southern slaves, not slaves, in states loyal to the Union.

Lincoln suspended the writing of Habeas Corpus without the consent of Congress. Lincoln put down or spoke against, publications whose authors expressed some dissension to the position of the Union.

Lincoln raised his forces without the approval of Congress. Lincoln closed the courts by force of statute. And eventually, without cause or trial, he too arrested residents, newspaper owners, and public officials

What Will Happen When Martial Law Takes Place

I’m pretty confident that the term “Martial Law” will never be seen. The word ” state of emergency” would undoubtedly take its place first. Martial Law can easily be accomplished globally, in situations of conflict, major terrorist threats, or locally, as observed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Examples of what has occurred in modern years include Martial Law in New Orleans, August 2005. New Orleans has been declared a disaster area, and the governor has declared a state of emergency.

This allowed state officials to order evacuations and forcibly evict people from their residences, suspend some rules, confiscate weapons and suspend selling products such as liquor, firearms, and ammunition.

In the following of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Police Department, U.S. Marshals, and the Louisiana National Guard illegally seized more than 1,000 lawful weapons from law-abiding civilians.

During Martial Law, you will probably see:

• The suspension of the Constitution is likely to persist with the first amendment.
• Detainment of firearms; it has happened in history, and it may happen again.
• Suspension of Habeas corpus: Jail without due process and without trial.
• Travel limits, including road closures and likely quarantine areas.
• Obligatory Curfews and Required Identification.
• Automatic search and seize without a warrant.

When Likely is Martial Law in the U.S.

Let’s address it now. The nation is a complete mess. From massive civil strife, crime, and violence to the rising national debt, which comprises a whole segment of our society that relies on government aid to survive, the writing is on the wall: Trouble is coming.

In my view, we are now in the preliminary form of Martial Law. The founders never expected standing armies to police the United States’ people; unfortunately, that’s just what we have. Drones, armored vehicles with high-powered guns, tanks, and fighting helicopters are no longer something you can find on an overseas battlefield; they are all normal operating practices at police stations across the country.

Our federal government has invested billions of dollars into militarizing and taking over our country’s municipal police departments in what can only be characterized as a domestic military force or a standing army equipped to enforce federal law.

So what exactly do I mean that this has already started?

On 29 September 2006, President George W. Bush signed the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2007 (H.R. 5122).

The legislation increased the power of the President to declare Martial Law in the form of amendments to the Rebellion Act. In fact, it allowed the President to take command of the National Guard forces without the consent of the state governors.

Although several parts of the bill were rolled back in 2008, President Obama used the 2012 NDAA to further expand the Executive Office’s right to declare Martial Law and introduced clauses that would allow U.S. armed forces to arrest U.S. civilians without trial.

In March 2015, the Obama administration set up a task force detailing our nation’s police rules. In his Task Force on the 21st-century Police Report, he proposed the establishment of the National Police Standards and Oversight Division of the federal government.

The study went on to explain how the Department of Homeland Security should be used to “ensure that community police tactics in the state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies are incorporated into their role in homeland security.”

The last and most troubling example is the growing number of Combined Police/Military Practices that view American citizens as theoretical risks.

From the Jade Helm military drills that identified Texas and Utah as dangerous areas to the California National Guard, using crisis actors to represent “right” U.S. civilians in their training exercises, there is an increasing number of military-style drills that portray American citizens as seen as a threat.

Back in 2012, the Army’s study on the military’s potential utilization as a U.S. police force aimed into possible scenarios that the U.S. did. The army may be used against Tea Party “insurgents” that take over U.S. cities.

Over the same time frame, the Department of Homeland Security issued a study entitled “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States,” in which it claimed that the federal government considered the country’s greatest terrorist danger – the threat to U.S. people of radical “right-wing” views.

The United States of America that our Fathers have created is gone; it has been replaced by a system that has become so strong that most people do not even know that they have been enslaved by that same system.

Read the Whole Article

The post This Is How Your Life Will Look Like Under the Coming Martial Law appeared first on LewRockwell.

While studying scholastic theology when I was preparing for the priesthood, St. John Henry Newman inspired me to examine early apostolic Catholic spirituality. Then, over 35 years ago now, I sought out a life of semi-solitude to intensify this search and practice contemplation, and I rediscovered the sublime spirituality that we have so recently lost.

By we, I mean more specifically born Catholics, for whom the faith has become little more than a philosophy of life since the heretical Quietism of the 17th century nearly succeeded in removing contemplative prayer from Catholic spirituality, leaving us with dry moralism.

After a very long life teaching, preaching, and writing about early apostolic spirituality that was, incidentally, first lived and practiced by converts to Christianity, I have seen that it is not new converts, but born Catholics who have let our side down. And their failure has dangerous consequences for converts.

When genuine new converts join the Church, it is only to have their first enthusiasm boiled down to nominalism, externalism, moralism, and relativism, rather than having it raised to the contemplative heights that galvanised the first Catholic converts in apostolic times. I can point to certain modern converts wreaking some havoc in the Church, but this would not, could not have happened if those born Catholics who received them had embodied fully and deeply the new faith to which the converts felt drawn by God.

After nearly 10 years as a weekly columnist, I resigned from a national Catholic newspaper because a recent clerical convert, bristling with Protestant qualifications, was leading the readers astray, and my orthodoxy was an embarrassment to him.

Another convert put me through the third degree to test my orthodoxy before I was allowed to use his website, yet his own, self-taught and deficient spiritual theology has been misdirecting serious seekers for years; his “half knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

Even though my book The Primacy of Loving was originally accepted by a major American Catholic publisher, I spent more than three months trying and failing to convince a senior editor—again a convert who was received into the Church without adequate preparation—that what I had written was true Catholic orthodoxy. His ignorance has been depriving Catholic readers for years of the deeper dimensions of Catholic spirituality, of which he is quite ignorant. In the end I chose to withdraw my book.

Such things could only happen because the born Catholics who welcomed these converts into the faith were even more ignorant than they about the mystical theology that, although it has been largely cast aside, should permeate our faith and certainly was its bulwark for the great saints who came before us.

Once I heard a talk given by a convert on the conversion of St. Paul. Unfortunately it focused exclusively on St. Paul’s brilliant mind; there was no mention of the fact that after his conversion St. Paul went into the desert for three years, nor that he spent double that time in semi-solitude near his own home of Tarsus, to complete what the great historian Monsignor Philip Hughes called his “novitiate.” If St. Barnabas had not insisted that it was time for his apostolate to the Gentiles to begin, he would have spent longer.

At the end of St. Paul’s “novitiate,” he had profound mystical experiences; like the novitiate itself, these also were not mentioned by the speaker. Yet these experiences are clear evidence that St. Paul passed through a prolonged purification, similar to that described by St. John of the Cross. If so, he received in abundance the fruits of contemplation, namely all the infused theological, cardinal and moral virtues. This then—not his brilliant mind—was the source of the divine wisdom that suffused and brought his human wisdom to perfection just as it did for the other apostles, who completed their “novitiate” in Jerusalem.

In early Christianity a minimum of two years of ascetical and spiritual training was necessary before reception into the Church. Then new Christians had to learn how to be further purified in a second “baptism of fire” after the baptism of water. But now that Catholicism is seen as a philosophy of life rather than a call to ongoing spiritual transformation, a simple intellectual reorientation seems to suffice as initiation for new members. Even the preparatory courses for new converts, primarily intellectual in content, are easily bypassed if you are a highflying academic.

When I was a young man a convert had to wait two years before he was admitted to train for the priesthood or religious life. Then it would be six or more years before he could begin, as a junior and supervised member of the hierarchy, to preach to the faithful.

To be clear, in my experience the vast majority of converts come home to the Catholic Church for the right reasons. But many then find the sublime spirituality they had every right to expect in the Catholic Faith has long since been lost to sight, misunderstood, or squandered by born Catholics.

Read the Whole Article

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Christine Grady, a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the wife of Anthony Fauci, was fired during the restructuring at the Dept. of Health and Human Services.

I don’t think she will miss the high salary she earned. The Faucis are worth an estimated $11.5 million.

The post Fauci’s Wife Fired appeared first on LewRockwell.

And sixteen other fascinating speakers at our Revisionist History of War conference in Auburn, Alabama, May 15-17, 2025.  Here’s a short clip of Col. Macgregor.

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. . . on April 26 at the Arizona Biltmore for our Mises Circle on the topic of “Our Enemy: The Bureaucracy.”  I will discuss some of the key insights about the evils of government bureaucracy by Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, while Tom Woods and Dr. Malone will discuss their dealings with the covid bureaucrats along with their books Psywar: Enforcing the New World Order, and Tom’s Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania.

The registration fee is $120 and $100 for Mises Institute members and includes a catered lunch.  See you in Phoenix!

The post Join Tom Woods, Dr. Robert Malone, and Myself in Phoenix . . . appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

AP News

The post Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinian medics and buried them in a mass grave, UN says appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ginny Garner wrote:

Need To Know News

The post Musk’s AI Company Acquires X, Accesses and Shares 600 Million Users’ Data With Israeli Company appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ginny Garner wrote:

News Target

The post England and Wales: New Law Targets White Christian Males appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Ginny Garner.

What the hell is going on? Trump has turned into Biden? Mercilessly, relentlessly bombing Yemen and aggressively seeking a new war with Iran. Why doesn’t Trump at least meet with the Iranian leaders, as he did North Korea’s? Why doesn’t he educate himself a little and learn about… https://t.co/v4u6kI6I5Q

— Oliver Stone (@TheOliverStone) March 31, 2025

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Ginny Garner wrote:

Lew,

Political activist and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell continues to organize Americans to lobby state election board personnel to get rid of electronic voting machines. Problems with these machines have been known since at least 1988 when the New Yorker magazine published the article “Counting Votes” by Ronnie Dugger and Roy Saltman released his report “Accuracy, Integrity, and Security in Computerized Vote-Tallying.” James and Kenneth Collier’s 1992 book “Votescam: The Stealing of America” provided many more facts on the topic. 

From Lindell:

“In their report, ‘We do not trust voting computers’ showed how the system
worked, what software they had created for it and gave details on how one
could get complete and undetected control of the election results if one had
access to the devices before the elections, even for a brief period. The
report also showed that radio emanations for the systems could be received
at a several meter distance giving the possibility to find out how people
voted. when we had the evidence to melt those machines down! 

The next elections in the Netherlands will use paper ballots and red pencil,
a method that provides transparency and that is now used in several
countries of Europe and in the US where a paper copy of each vote is
required. In Ireland, the use of the voting machines is stopped due to
serious questions regarding their security and the UK election council
intends stopping all electronic voting pilot projects that had been carried
on during the last years. In Germany doubts have arisen regarding their use
as well. In France, serious problems occurred during the pilot electronic
voting in spring election, the system having been considered a disaster. A
petition for the preservation of the paper voting was issued on that
occasion.” 

This was 2007. Instead of our country listening to the known problems with machine voting from other countries who were documenting and reporting these problems, our states began to buy up machines as fast as possible! Then we are told machines are the best, the safest and will deliver “gold standard elections”.  That could not be further from the truth!  

The Netherlands had only used the machines for 10 years at that time and made the decision to go back to paper ballot elections and a red pencil to count. It’s that simple.  

We have over complicated a process that wasn’t meant to be so messy and confusing! The simplicity of casting your paper ballot, having your ballot counted and then tallied manually by a person is the least expensive, and most honest path forward.  

We have one year until the mid-term elections begin. We need your support more now than ever! We continue to fight for our vote to count and the end of electronic voting machines until we secure our election platforms! 

The post Electronic Voting Machines Need To Go appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer. 

Gateway Pundit

The post Elon Musk Announces He’s Receiving 17,000 to 18,000 Death Threats Daily from the Far-Left appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Politico

The post Where’s the gold? Germany’s conservatives sound the alarm over reserves in the US appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

CNN News

The post Trump administration concedes Maryland father from El Salvador was mistakenly deported and sent to mega prison appeared first on LewRockwell.

On March 25, six masked federal agents seized a Turkish graduate student on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Rumeysa Ozturk—who was wearing a hajib—is a Fulbright scholar working on a doctorate at Tufts University.

She was abducted and vanished into the maw of the federal prison system. The Trump administration ignored a federal court order and took Ozturk from Massachusetts to Louisiana federal detention facilities.

But the Trump administration knew Ozturk had criticized the government of Israel a year earlier, enough to seal her doom according to the latest iron-fisted political correctness dictates. She co-authored one piece for the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s refusal to divest from Israel despite “credible accusations of…. indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson justified the takedown: “DHS and ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated.” Ozturk never mentioned Hamas in her op-ed. Ozturk has not been linked to any campus protests at Tufts or elsewhere. The feds have failed to reveal any evidence Ozturk supports Hamas. She simply co-wrote an opinion piece. As the New York Post noted on Friday, DHS “alleged that Ozturk was a supporter of Hamas but has yet to provide any evidence to that effect.” On Friday evening, federal judge Denise Casper blocked the Trump administration from deporting Ozturk and ordered the administration to respond by Tuesday to Ozturk’s legal challenge (now aided by the ACLU) to her detention.

The video of the arrest spurred tidal waves of online cheering. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked about the case while traveling in Guyana, he justified revoking Ozturk’s visa:

If you apply for a visa… and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that vandalize universities, harass students, take over buildings, and cause chaos—we’re not giving you that visa.

Rubio added: “It’s crazy—stupid, even—for any country to let people in who say, ‘I’m going to your universities to riot, take over libraries, and harass people.’ We gave you a visa to study and earn a degree—not to become a social activist tearing up our campuses.”

Rubio promised: “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas.”

Is criticizing a foreign government now considered proof of lunacy in the White House? Does the Trump administration consider op-eds to be a weapon of mass destruction?

The First Amendment doesn’t specify that it only applies to people that the White House approves. Former ICE Chief of Staff, Deborah Fleischaker, slammed the targeting of Ozturk as “a First Amendment violation. ICE had a policy in place that said that First Amendment activity was not to be the basis of enforcement action. That’s not why you enforce.”

Has the Trump administration gone full Nixon barely two months after the inauguration? In 1973, Nixon White House aide, Tom Charles Huston, lamented in congressional testimony the tendency of the FBI “to move from the kid with a bomb to the kid with a picket sign, and from the kid with the picket sign to the kid with the bumper sticker of the opposing candidate. And you just keep going down the line.”

The Nixon administration’s systemic paranoia led it to launch preemptive attacks on its suspected opposition, from secretly searching psychiatrists’ offices to bugging the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate. Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 did not save him from the exposure of the cover-up of White House crimes.

The Trump administration is demanding that universities provide the feds with details on the  “national origin/ethnicity/shared ancestry” of students who were involved in protests that were allegedly antisemitic. Is the Trump administration going to require colleges to conduct DNA tests to determine the precise amount of Arabic, Turkish, or Iranian pedigree of suspects? Lawyers suggested that the “list was meant as a tip sheet that the administration might use to target or deport foreign students who participated in protests,” according to the Washington Post. One lawyer predicted a “witch hunt” would result from such lists.

Trump policymakers have a simple solution to end the protests: prohibit some universities “from having any foreign students if it decides too many are ‘pro-Hamas,’” according to senior Justice and State Department officials. One senior Justice Department official told Axios:

What you’re going to see in the not-too-distant future is the universities that we can show that we’re not doing anything to stop these demonstrations in support of Hamas — or encouraged enrollment by activists —  we can stop approving student visas for them, and they can no longer admit [any] foreign students.

American history demonstrates that persecution that starts with foreigners often snowballs into targeting American citizens. Three months after the 9/11 attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft proclaimed in congressional testimony: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and…give ammunition to America’s enemies.” In other words, critics were traitors—regardless of how many civil liberties Ashcroft actually destroyed. And the definition of pernicious speech continually expanded. In 2004, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, stumping for President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, told audiences: “Political criticism is our enemy’s best friend.”

To subvert freedom of speech after 9/11, it wasn’t necessary for the feds to formally nullify the First Amendment. One of the nation’s most prominent pundits, Michael Kinsley, admitted in 2002 that he had been listening to his “inner Ashcroft”: “As a writer and editor, I have been censoring myself and others quite a bit since September 11.” Kinsley conceded that sometimes it was “simple cowardice” that sparked the censorship. I experienced plenty of such cowardice from editors after 9/11 and long beyond.

The Ozturk case provides an opportunity to clarify the meaning of free speech in American life.  Five years ago, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, some progressive prosecutors acted as if looting and burning were simply free speech on amphetamines.  The legal impunity that protestors received helped spur widespread carnage and billions of dollars of property damage.

Few Americans would object to deporting foreign students who destroy property or physically assault other people. But Ozturk was merely guilty of using words that are detested by the current administration. Are Trump’s policymakers using the same “guilt by association” standard the Biden administration used to persecute anyone near the Capitol on January 6, 2021? Biden’s Justice Department acted like anyone who merely “paraded without a permit” near the Capitol that day was guilty of insurrection and deserved a harsh prison sentence. Is any criticism of Israeli policy  now the legal and moral equivalent of insurrection?

More than 30 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter on Thursday to Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanding information on the case in which the video “looked like a kidnapping.” But what if the Trump administration believes itself entitled to kidnap anyone who espouses an idea it disapproves? And what will be the next opinion to sanctify broad daylight federal kidnappings?

The post First They Came for the Op-Ed Writers appeared first on LewRockwell.

A war with Iran would be 10 to 15 times worse than the Iraq War in terms of casualties and costs… And we would lose. We would undoubtedly lose…. Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson

There has been much discussion about the relocation of B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia in anticipation of a potential conflict with Iran… However, the B-2 excels primarily against small, unsophisticated, and impoverished nations equipped with outdated air defense systems. …In short, the B-2 is a sophisticated tool for intimidating weaker adversaries but is largely ineffective against modern Integrated Air Defense Systems (IADS). Mike Mihajlovic @MihajlovicMike

Recent reports and satellite imagery indicate a significant buildup of US military assets at Diego Garcia, a strategic base in the Indian Ocean. The Pentagon has deployed seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers (capable of carrying nuclear payloads) numerous C-17 transport planes, ten KC-135 refueling tankers, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, and two carrier groups to locations where they can be used in a preemptive attack on Iran. The unprecedented buildup coincides with recent threats by President Donald Trump regarding Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. On Friday, Trump delivered another ominous warning to Iran during a briefing at the White House. He said:

Iran is very high on my list of things to watch. … We will have to talk it out or very bad things are going to happen to Iran…. My big preference is that we work it out with Iran, but if we don’t work it out, bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran.

The increase in warnings along with the deployment of B-2 bombers has caused a stir among analysts, many of who now believe that Trump is planning to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with “low yield” nuclear bunker buster bombs that are designed to penetrate and destroy underground, fortified facilities. If that action were to take place, Iran would be forced to launch massive retaliatory attacks on US and Israeli bases, naval assets, critical infrastructure and oil facilities across the Middle East. And, if those attacks were able to inflict significant damage on US or Israeli targets, then we could see a rapid escalation to a nuclear war, a scenario that seems more likely now than ever before. This is an excerpt from an interview with former weapons inspector Scott Ritter:

…seven B-2 bombers have been deployed from Whitman Airforce base in the United States to Diego Garcia. This is an unprecedented deployment. And they are matched with 10 KC-31 Tankers; that’s what’s needed to launch an attack against a target like Iran. This is something that should wake people up because there is real potential for conflict….The fact is there are B-2 bombers, there are Ohio class submarines, there are nuclear weapons attached to each of these weapons systems; nuclear weapons that have been built for the sole purpose of attacking targets like these that exist in Iran. … I am simply stating the fact that the Trump administration has a nuclear posture attached to a nuclear employment plan that will use nuclear weapons in a conflict against Iran, and we can’t pretend that that doesn’t exist. Scott Ritter; minute 5:40

It’s worth noting, that the Trump administration is on the verge of launching a war on a country that poses no national security threat to the United States, nor does it threaten US interests in the region. Iran’s only crime is that it occupies a piece of real estate in a region where Israel is determined to be the dominant power. That means Iran’s military capability must be significantly diminished by Israel’s favorite pit-bull, the United States. To that end, wealthy Zionists filled Trump’s campaign coffers during the last presidential election knowing that Trump’s vast popularity would be useful in advancing the Israeli agenda. The primary goal of that agenda has always been the obliteration of Iran’s military capability so that Israel can emerge as the as the regional hegemon unopposed. Trump is merely playing the role for which he was chosen. Here’s more from Ritter:

Scott Ritter—When Trump was president last time (2016) he redid the Nuclear Posture Review and the Nuclear Employment Guidance. And the Nuclear Employment Guidance is the war plan. The war plan was rewritten so he could launch nuclear strikes on Iran. So we’re ready to launch strikes on Iran today, the plan was implemented… we have the weapons, we’ve identified the targets ….

Question—What was rewritten?

Scott Ritter—You need specific weapons-types…. We do now have a new nuclear “low yield” bunker busting bomb that will penetrate and destroy the facility with minimal fallout (We have similar nukes on Trident submarines in the region that can be used in a decapitation strike on Iran) We are ready to go to war against Iran. We have already made that decision; the plan exists.

Question—So what you’re telling me is that, if Iran develops a nuclear weapon…

Scott Ritter—We will strike, and they will be annihilated… They’ll never know what his them, and they’ll never recover from it.... The American plan will not kill tens of millions of Iranians, but it will kill tens of thousands of Iranians, destroy the nuclear infrastructure, and set Iran back forever. The alternative for Iran is to negotiate away their nuclear (program) Scott Ritter

This is why Ritter is so worried. He seriously believes that Trump is planning to preemptively attack Iran’s nuclear sites which would set the dominoes in motion triggering a nuclear war. To me, this seems like a reasonable concern, but, surprisingly, Ritter’s analysis has ignited a firestorm among a number of his supporters online who have (overnight) turned into some of his most vicious critics. Here’s a short clip from a post by Sony Thang@nxt888 that has been widely circulated on X:

Scott… Let me tell you plainly: If the U.S. uses nuclear weapons against Iran—even “tactical” ones—the spell breaks. Forever. The myth of Western restraint dies in the open. The lie of rules-based order evaporates in radioactive dust….

China won’t wait to be next. Russia will tighten its alliance with Tehran. The Global South will turn its back for good. And every nation not under Washington’s boot will know the truth: if you don’t arm yourself, you will be annihilated.

That’s not proliferation. That’s inevitability.

You say, “Only one nation walks away.”

No, Scott.

No one walks away from nuclear war. Not cleanly. Not economically. Not morally. But let’s entertain your scenario.

Iran is wiped out. Oil hits $500 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is a graveyard. The global economy implodes—not just Europe and Asia, but the dollar itself, because trust dies when empire burns its last moral pretense.

And here’s the part your Pentagon fantasies never compute: It’s not just bombs that bring nations to their knees. It’s legitimacy. Once lost, never regained.

And the U.S.? Already staggering from endless wars—it won’t rise from the ashes of another charred country. It’ll sink into them.

You claim you “assess the world as it is”?

Then look again. The American empire is not ascending.

It’s cornered. It’s flailing. It’s threatening annihilation not out of strength, but fear. Fear that the world it dominated is slipping away. Fear that Iran refuses to kneel. And fear that history, which you once claimed would hold America accountable, is no longer on your side.

So, keep listing your bombers, your submarines, your low-yield fantasies. Because beneath all that steel and strategy lies a single truth:

You’ve already lost the moral war.

And when that goes? Everything else follows. Sony Thang

The overall thrust of these critiques is a tacit objection to any move by Iran to compromise (or negotiate) with the Trump administration. This is generally perceived as “caving in” to the evil empire. (which, in many respects, is true.)

It’s worth noting, that Iran is not currently in violation of The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) nor has it been in the past. In fact, Iran has willingly complied with numerous additional protocols and confidence building measures (that were never imposed on any other country) all aimed at allaying fears that it was secretly developing nuclear weapons. But as Tulsi Gabbard confirmed recently, and former CIA Director William Burns before her; Iran does not have nukes, is not building nukes, and has not broken its agreements under the NPT. The whole matter is a mendacious confection concocted by powerful Zionists and their media collaborators who want to destroy Iran in order for Israel to become the dominant power in the Middle East.

It’s also worth noting the dishonest way this crisis has been presented to the American people. The public has been led to believe that Trump is trying to prevent nuclear proliferation when, in fact, the administration is demanding that Iran abandon its ballistic missile program as well.

On March 23, 2025, on Face the Nation, Trump advisor Mike Waltz stated bluntly that Trump’s demands include the dismantling of Iran’s “strategic missile program”. But Iran’s ballistic missiles do not violate any international law nor are they banned under any treaty obligation. Trump is simply ordering Iran to surrender the means by which it defends itself or face military action by the US. Is that a reasonable demand?

No, it is national suicide. And, once again, the origin of this insanity is Benjamin Netanyahu who has consistently urged the U.S. to take stronger action against Iran’s missile capabilities. (Israel’s agents in Congress introduced the MISSILES Act in July 2023 to codify U.S. sanctions on Iran’s missile and drone programs, citing Israel’s security. At the same time, Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign has included “missile-related entities”…”credited to Netanyahu’s input.”)

In short, Iran is being asked to willingly disarm itself so Israel can do to Iran what it is currently doing to Syria and Lebanon. Why would they do that?

They won’t. They will open back-channel communications with Trump’s envoys and continue to comply with their treaty obligations but eventually Trump will order air-strikes on nuclear targets in Iran signaling the beginning of the war. And that will pit America’s out-of-date weapons cache up-against Iran’s state-of-the-art ballistic missile systems that will—as Will Schryver opines—expose American weakness, not reinforce the widespread mythology of untouchable American strength.

The reasons for this are easy to understand. Following last year’s tit-for-tat missile attacks between Israel and Iran, a fantastical narrative emerged that Israeli air strikes on Iran were successful while Iranian missile attacks on Israel failed to do any significant damage. But nothing could be further from the truth. Israel’s air campaign was sharply rebuffed by Iran’s advanced multi-layered air defense systems while the vast majority of Iran’s long-range hypersonic ballistic missiles cut-through Israeli vaunted air defense systems striking targets without interference.

How do we draw these unusual conclusions?

By checking the documented accounts of what actually took place. For example, consider this early account of Israel’s October 26 attack by former intelligence officer Alastair Crooke:

Question—Did Israel cause any meaningful damage to Iran in its attack on October 26?

Alastair Crooke—No, but something significant did happen, because the attack was supposed to lead off with the destruction of the air defense systems…. what they call SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses) The aircraft was supposed to destroy the air defenses in Iraq, Syria and Iran so the second and third waves would come in with conventional weapons to destroy the targets that had been selected for them. But the second and third wave could only enter Iranian airspace if it was safe for them to do that. (if the air defenses had been properly suppressed) Now what happened (although we don’t know precisely) is that those second and third waves never happened. We got into the first wave and the Israelis said “That’s it, we’re finished. It’s over. We won and it’s a great success.”

What seems to have happened is that the Israeli aircraft with their long-range missiles to destroy the air defense systems never got closer than 70 kms to Iran, too far for their missiles to lock on to the air defenses because they needed the signals to lock onto. …The key thing they said—and this is from Israeli sources—“We’ve discovered an unknown air defense system over Tehran province.” So what seems to have happened is that they (the Israeli aircraft) were being locked onto by another air defense system so they were frightened to go ahead and they scrapped the attack. They then simply released their long-range missiles (Most of these missiles are guided by GPS and the Russians are highly adept at jamming GPS.) But …this unexplained air defense system, was possibly a Russian air defense system that can attack stealth fighters like the F-35s. … If you have a missile that has a radar capacity that is able to identify a stealth fighter, then the whole idea of the attack on Iran seems to have collapsed….

All the conventional bombers carrying conventional weapons wouldn’t go into the area because it was too dangerous, it was not a secure area. The airspace was dominated by air defense that threatened the stealth fighters themselves.

This has huge geostrategic implications if this is what in fact happened…. You see, there was a three-phased plan; and when the plan was scuppered, they just announced the plan as if it had happened. “We’ve succeeded. We flew over Tehran; we suppressed their air defenses, we bombed targets and we destroyed their missile capacity.”

It’s just hype. It’s not true. Judging Freedom, Alastair Crooke, YouTube

Keep in mind, Crooke’s account is just one of many accounts that relay the same basic facts and the draw the same basic conclusions. And those conclusions, as we stated earlier, are linked to “Iran’s advanced multi-layered air defense system that can counter any potential Israeli attack on the homeland.”

In short, there is no evidence that either Israel or the United States have the ability to effectively penetrate Iran’s air defense system and destroy the targets they need to obliterate to win the war.

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The Right- both “awake” and in conservative slumber- are still rejoicing over Donald Trump’s glorious election to a second term as president. He won every swing state, we are told repeatedly. Or is it battleground state? I get confused. I guess either one works. Think Hamas and Hezbollah.

Trump certainly seemed like a winner at first, bull rushing around with autopen in hand, writing executive orders and breaking the china. But what exactly has changed? Well, the stock market has collapsed. This is almost exclusively due to Trump’s ass backwards policy of implementing- or constantly threatening to implement- tariffs on other countries. That would be fine, and a good way to protect American industry. Except that our industry is gone. Shipped offshore. Outsourced for cheaper foreign labor, under NAFTA and other disastrous trade deals. You have to build new factories, and start actually making products again, so you can provide domestic competition to imports. Obviously, that should be done before you place any tariffs on anyone. What Trump is doing is a bit like what we saw in Alice in Wonderland; sentence first, verdict afterwards. Unless your goal is to crash the market.

So, while Republicans brag, beat their chests, and chant “USA! USA!” repeatedly, the seemingly tamed “Woke” Democrats continue to rest on their laurels. And, when the occasion calls for it, to win again. They always win. Trump signs a long overdue executive order, abolishing birthright citizenship. A typical federal judge, using the never constitutional power of Judicial Review, simply overturns it. Trump waits for “his” Supreme Court to help him out and declare it constitutional. “His” Supreme Court has rarely been on his side. Virtue signaler extraordinaire Amy Coney Barrett never is. Yeah, let’s wait for “our” Supreme Court. That’s what “democracy” is all about. Getting the right unelected judge, or group of unelected judges, to decide important issues. Thomas Jefferson tried to warn against this, when John Marshall simply usurped the checks and balances and created the all powerful judiciary.

What the MAGA faithful should be learning is that you can’t govern exclusively by executive order. Theoretically, Trump should have easy sailing in getting his ideas passed into law. After all, Republicans are a majority in both houses of Congress. But as is very obvious, most Republicans are RINOs and will never support any actual “America First” policies. Even if you get all members of the “Freedom Caucus” on board, the average Republicuck is going to side with the establishment. Every time. Sure, you have the great Thomas Massie, suddenly widowed after his interview last year condemning the influence of AIPAC, but Trumpenstein has decided that the best Republican in Congress must be defeated for reelection. Meanwhile, the Giant Orange Man has once again endorsed his golfing buddy, macho Lindsey Graham, for yet another term in the Senate. Why do you think I call him Trumpenstein?

So, the MAGA people have Trump’s fiery rhetoric. They have the fact that he won all the swing states. Or all the battleground states. They believe that during his first term, he created “the strongest economy in this country’s history.” I mean, it’s only been eight years or less. Are MAGA memories really that short? Trump has made all kinds of fanciful proposals regarding taxes. Apparently Congress just voted down his plan to stop taxing tips. That was thanks to the Democrats. Party of the little guy. I believe they approved eliminating taxes on overtime, but this apparently applies only to federal workers. Do any of them work overtime? Do any of them even put in their scheduled forty hours a week? But Trump will still brag about this incredible accomplishment. He’ll just leave out the part about it applying only to those who’ll never need it. Like the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free slaves in the North.

The Democrats, my old party, are gearing up to go full clown show. Front and center is the lovely Jasmine Crockett, our first really, really ghetto member of Congress. Now, she grew up in a decidedly non-ghetto environment, which is the case with all of our non-upwardly mobile “representatives.” You may have seen tape of her speaking the King’s English as well as the average White boob. But when she dons the persona of Ghetto Girl, she suddenly sounds like one of Snoop Dogg’s side bitches. She keeps it all too “real.” Recently, she derided Governor Greg Abbott of Texas as “governor hot wheels.” This was a tasteless barb aimed at the fact Abbott is confined to a wheelchair. Predictably, Ghetto Girl refused to apologize, claiming nonsensically that she was referring to Abbott’s practice of shipping illegals to other states. Remember the furor over Trump waving his arms in a spastic way, supposedly making fun of the disabled?

Ghetto Girl also was recently quoted, during her non-apology over the Abbott remarks, as saying that “we should punch,” becoming the first known elected political leader in America to endorse physically striking someone you disagree with. Well, it’s really just an extension of “punch a Nazi in the face,” which every poor “marginalized person” applauds. The Democrats’ other new political star is none other than ESPN talking head Steven A. Smith. If you haven’t watched Smith’s act- and it is definitely an act- it consists of very loud shouting, misuse of big words, and continuous racial idolatry. That is Jason Whitlock’s term for playing the perpetual victim card, claiming that everything and everyone is “racist,” and that you, as an ill educated buffoon who has nonetheless recently signed a $100 million contract to spew out predictable “Woke” talking points, are in fact somehow a victim of “racism,” too.

Smith is just as much as advocate of physical violence, of might makes right, as the lovely Ghetto Girl is. He has become embroiled in a truly theatrical, contrived “feud” with NBA star Lebron James, and let everyone know recently that he would most assuredly have thrown a punch at Lebron if he had “laid hands” on him. Steven A. is a really, really tough guy. Just like Jasmine Crockett is really, really ghetto. Jason Whitlock destroyed Steven A.’s fake background with some real journalistic research. He proved conclusively that Steven A. lied about his college, maybe even his high school basketball career. As Whitlock says, Steven A. is a pathological liar. Which I suppose alone makes him qualified for a political career. And the mainstream Right is actively promoting Steven A. as a credible politician. Sean Hannity has him on regularly. Meghan Kelly and Patrick Bet-David sing his praises.

Trump signed an executive order outlawing DEI practices in government. I don’t know that he has this power, but he signed such an order. Recently, my own Fairfax County school board voted 16-0 to implement “gender studies” for elementary students. That sounds pretty “DEI” to me. I guess they didn’t get Trump’s message. Furthermore, I guess voters don’t mind paying these petty tyrants to not educate their children, because none of them appear to have been voted out. The same thing is going on in neighboring Loudon County, epicenter of the angry parent protests, where the “Woke” school board still reigns with unbridalled power. As I said at the time, if we can’t effect change at this kind of local level, we can’t effect change. Either most parents with young children want them to be subjected to insane Tik Tok teachers changing their pronouns, or they aren’t counting any of their votes.

As I stress consistently, we can only “win” anything by coming together. By using the only real weapon we have, which is a tremendous advantage in numbers. If you’re not an insane virtue signaling parent, go to your school board meetings, and if you are too afraid to speak up, at least stand behind the brave parents who do. If those lonely moms and dads just had a big group cheering them on, the corrupt board members wouldn’t be able to cavalierly have them thrown out by the always compliant police officers there. Is it really that hard to get angry about your children being subjected to gay pedophilic pornography like Gender Queer? To be read to by hairy, half-naked men pretending to be female strippers? For White parents to object to their kindergartner being guilted over the real and imagined transgressions of his ancestors? If you can’t get outraged about this kind of lunacy, what would it take to outrage you?

So the “Woke” Left, while seemingly on the ropes, is employing some kind of updated Rope a Dope on the Right. And it’s just as scripted and contrived as Muhammad Ali’s strategy once was. Trumpenstein is hitting them with haymaker flip flops and Hall of Fame level trolling. I’m looking to see any real improvements. I’m still waiting for the first politician to do anything that results in a positive impact on my life. I drive around and I don’t see less people. I guess they aren’t dying off from the vaccine in my area. I guess the illegals haven’t been rounded up in my area. Maybe the lovely Kristi Noem can come stand in front of our local prison and tease the sex-starved prisoners, like she did with the mega prison in El Salvador. There were supposedly vicious gang members behind bars in the background, but they seemed really tiny. Kristi needs to get her green screen people more training. And stop wearing $50,000 Rolexes.

The even lovelier Rep. Anna Paulina Luna told Fox News (who else) that she has been made aware of film being withheld by NBC, which supposedly shows patsy Lee Harvey Oswald standing “next to the vehicle,” in her words, at the time of the shooting. I hope she isn’t clumsily describing the so-called Prayer Man, an indistinct figure in the rear doorway of the Texas School Book Depository Building. Some contend that the figure is Oswald, which would of course all by itself prove that he didn’t shoot Kennedy. She also described conferring with Oliver Stone, who is set to testify before her committee. That should be interesting viewing, although she really should have sought out the humble community college dropout who now has seniority on just about everyone else in the JFK assassination research community. Although, of course, that would have instantly discredited me in the eyes of some.

The Woking Dead appear to be losing all the time. Look at the horrific remake of Disney’s classic Snow White. Although person of color Rachel Zegler did everything she could to discredit the film before anyone saw it, it still managed to hit the theaters. For like a week or so, before flaming out spectacularly. Zegler has to be seen and heard to be believed. Her incantation of “Weird! Weird!” evoked memories of the best of late medical examiner D. Wayne Carver’s press conference discussing the Sandy Hook case. Although the remake of Snow White will experience perhaps a record loss at the box office, Disney CEO Bob Iger doesn’t care. He has already slammed the criticism as politically inspired. He has no regrets about casting an obnoxious, batshit crazy leading lady who not only isn’t White, but proudly anti-White. To play a character who was named for her translucent white skin.

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When I was in graduate school I read all of the literature on how European revolutionary doctrine had destabilized Russia in the late 19th century. This process culminated with the Bolsheviks—animated by the crude doctrine of Marxism-Leninism—unleashing hell on the country. The bibliography is vast, and I suspect that few Americans or Englishmen alive today have read many of these books.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin was a young man, he participated in this corrupt system as an intelligence agent stationed in Dresden between 1985 and 1990, where he apparently worked with the Stasi—the German Democratic Republic’s horrible secret police.

However, there are many indications that, at some point after 1991—or perhaps even during his KGB service—he had something akin to a Damascene Moment in which he saw that the secular state religion he served was corrupt.

I have never met Putin and I know nothing about his character. However, according to Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin, who is said to be Putin’s intellectual and spiritual advisor, Putin has genuinely rejected the Marxism-Leninist doctrine of his youth.

Here it should be noted that the West has always struggled to understand the Russian mind, which Churchill famously described as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside and enigma.”

Dugin’s Russian brand of conservatism would doubtless strike most people in the West as strange and politically incorrect. I sense that some of this thinking can be traced back to Dostoevsky’s 1871 novel Demons, about young Russian revolutionaries who has been possessed by European secular-socialist ideology.

For all of Russia’s own corruption and problems, the country nevertheless presents a fascinating counterbalance to many of the incredibly stupid, destructive, shallow, and childish cultural and political currents in the West.

One of my best friends is a Russian who, because of his family’s Jewish ancestry, was allowed to leave the Soviet Union in a deal struck between Reagan and Gorbachev. His family settled in Vienna, where he grew up. After studying math at Cambridge, he returned to Moscow, where he lived for a few years and experienced what he described as “the time of my life.” He understood as well as anyone all the country’s problems, but he nevertheless found most Russians to be extremely friendly and funny.

Especially refreshing for him was the conspicuous absence of Cultural Marxism and other doctrines that have poisoned the American and English university systems. He also developed an inordinate fondness for Russian women and—despite the extreme anti-Russian sentiment with which he must now contend in his current home in London—he continues to maintain a great relationship with his Russian girlfriend. Understandably so—she is a lovely and intelligent girl.

I mention this because I was appalled by the recent New York Times report (The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine) that the CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense have provided all of the sophisticated weapons and targeting that have enabled the Ukrainian military to kill up to 700,000 Russians.

I believe the totality of circumstances indicates that the U.S. government and the CIA have, since 2014 at the latest, persistently and systematically baited Russia into taking military action against Ukraine to counter the U.S. de facto takeover of the country—a takeover with objectives and activities that are relentlessly hostile to Russia right on its doorstep. An exceptionally educated friend who grew up in Ukraine completely agrees with this assessment.

My own experience in Russia has been limited to visiting St. Petersburg, founded by the Russian Czar Peter the Great in 1703. Vladimir Putin was born in St. Petersburg, and I suspect that at least part of him shares the the Russian’s Czar’s fascination with European culture. His story reminds me of Mausolus, a ruler of what is now western Anatolia (in Turkey) in the Persian Empire between 377-353 B.C. While Mausolus had a reputation for being a stalwart ruler of Persian cultural and political sensibilities, he became deeply involved through military action in Greek affairs. Ultimately he seemed to become a greater lover of Greek culture than most Greeks, especially where art and architecture were concerned.

Since 2022, I have frequently told anyone who would listen that the United States should adopt a policy of recognizing that Russia has legitimate economic and security interests. The majority of people with whom I have spoken have accused me of being a “Putin Apologist” or “Putin Stooge” and they have asked me why I would trust Vladimir Putin.

My response has always been, “Why should I trust Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, and Olaf Scholz?”

Indeed, it seems to me that, since around the year 2008, pretty much everything we’ve heard emanating from Washington D.C., London, Paris, and Berlin is dubious at best, and mostly a lie. Most of the policies implemented by Europe’s elites have been detrimental to the working and middle class citizenry of Europe. Germany’s insane “Green Energy” policies have been a total disaster for its skilled manufacturing sector—until recently the envy of the West—and its insane immigration policies have been a disaster for public safety and the security of German women.

In recent years, the government of Great Britain has repudiated the nation’s long and venerable tradition of free speech. Nowadays the UK is a place in which Big Brother is Watching and severely punishing those who violate the state’s growing restricted speech code. A couple of years ago, British comedian and author, Konstantin Kisin (who was born and raised in Russia and is a strong critic of Vladimir Putin) pointed out that in one recent year, 400 people had been arrested in Russia for things they said on social media. In same year, 3,300 people were in arrested in the UK for things they said on social media. This is, it seems to me, is absolutely shocking.

Yesterday came the news that Marine Le Pen was banned from the next presidential race because of an accounting irregularity. The charges reminded me of similar law-fare tactics the Democrat Party used against Donald Trump.

Since 2020 in the West, we have experienced COVID-19 mRNA vaccine mandates, censorship, and the banning of political opposition.

Considering this, I pose the following provocative question: Could it be that—for all of its faults—the Russian nation is now something like a defender of Western Civilization from the militant barbarians who have taken over the politics and culture of the West?

Before readers respond with comments, I hope they will bear in mind that I am NOT asserting this to be true, I am merely asking the question. It to me that asking provocative questions is the first step to opening up serious thought and inquiry about a complex and difficult subject.

This originally appeared on Focal Points – Courageous Discourse.

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