Lew Rockwell Institute

So there I was, making a loaf of my world-famous jalapeño cheddar bread, when an unusual thought occurred to me. Well, unusual for some folks, but not really for me, per se.

Here’s what I was thinking: At 115 feet long and weighing 100 tons, how did Argentinosaurus not crush itself under its own weight, especially with pneumatised (hollow) bones? More importantly, how did a creature that big get away from predators? Run? Swim? Jump? It’s fossils aren’t connected to particularly wet areas, so it wasn’t a floater, like a bored college student at the pool on spring break. Besides, to maintain that mass, it had to eat more or less constantly.

“Wow,” you say, “he thought all that while making bread?” Well, yeah, kneading is a long, tedious process that doesn’t require much brain power.

Then another unusual thought occurred to me, and this time it was unusual even for me.

Here’s what I was thinking: Suppose 100 million years ago, the Earth was smaller and thus gravity was greatly reduced, thus huge land animals didn’t weigh then what they would now? Suppose the continents don’t “float” like slag on a molten sea, but rather are ripped apart by an expanding planet?

If you’re starting to see the connection with making bread, give yourself a gold star, and then consult a therapist.

Here’s what started it all: I was reading this article about how Earth’s interior is all lumpy and bubbly, kind of like those old lava lamps that hippie chicks always had on a table in the corner next to the incense burner and patchouli oil.

I’ve also been monitoring the earthquake swarm in Ethiopia, along the Great Rift where the Horn of Africa is tearing away from the continent. This, of course, is tangential to Earth’s weakening magnetic field and impending pole flip, allowing greatly increased amounts of cosmic radiation through, and allowing the solar “wind” to strip away the ozone layer (not CFCs).

Which brings me back to the bread.

When I first finish the dough, it’s a tight ball about the size of a softball. After an hour or so, it’s a soft mushy blob twice its original size. It’s not a perfect metaphor, because the bread isn’t adding mass, just blowing up like a balloon.

With the Earth, however, that flood of cosmic radiation lets tons of protons and electrons and neutrinos plow into the ground. The neutrinos mostly pass right through at relativistic speeds, but some strike random atoms and convert from energy into matter. All of this is adding mass to the Earth, albeit a miniscule amount relative to a human lifetime, but over (cue Carl Sagan) millions and millions of years, it adds up.

Suppose, I mused, the continents don’t drift, but are rather pulled apart by a swelling planet? Suppose it wasn’t an asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, but increasing gravity crushing them? Suppose those blobs and bubbles the scientidiots have “just discovered,” despite decades of mapping the planet’s interior with sound waves, are new structures indicating that the weakening magnetic field is allowing in more radiation, which is increasing the matter that makes up the planet?

And why does the smell of yeast always make me crave a high-quality brewed beverage?

Oh sure, there’s a constant rain of cosmic dust falling on us all the time. About 80% of the dust in your house is your own skin flakes, but some amount of it is star ashes. Stuff falling on the surface wouldn’t cause the tectonic plates to separate, though. That would have to be new material deep inside causing the planet to swell, similar to the way yeast farts cause dough to swell.

Is there any other indication that the Earth is swelling? Well…

Imagine a bowling ball sliding down the alley doing its back or side spin. As the ball goes along it swells, adding weight and girth. What happens to the spin? Well, it slows down, right? it’s all laws of physics type stuff; trust me it’s true.

Well, guess what? The Earth’s rotation is slowing by 1.7 milliseconds a century, just like our bowling ball. It’s happening on Venus too, though Mars is spinning faster. There’s obviously other factors involved, but our situation here on Earth lines up with other observed phenomena that indicate a swelling planet.

Now I don’t claim to have special insight here, but the pieces seem to line up in a way that makes sense and views the planet as a holistic system, rather than isolated events. Besides, I don’t trust scientidiots. Their heads are buried so deep in their navels all they see is lint.

Taking just one of the scientidiot gospels about plate tectonics, if the Earth isn’t swelling, what would cause the plates to move in the first place? If you blow up a balloon and cover it in plaster, the plaster doesn’t suddenly start shifting around. But if you add more air, cracks form and the pieces start separating, right?

If a bunch of enormous animals roamed the Earth millions of years ago, then suddenly (geologically speaking) all died out and the biggest thing we have now is an elephant, it seems increasing gravity could have a lot to do with that.

Just sayin’.

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International Man: President Trump has openly voiced his interest in having the US government take control of the Panama Canal.

He has even suggested that he wouldn’t rule out using military force to make it happen.

What is going on here?

Doug Casey: Panama, like most countries, is an artificial construct; it’s not part of the cosmic firmament. It came into being when it seceded from Colombia in 1903, midwifed by US intervention. That was a “good” secession, unlike that of the Donbas from the Ukraine in 2014 or the South from the Union in 1861, which everyone knows were “bad” secessions.

The US then bought the Zone (5 miles on either side of the proposed canal) from Panama for $10 million, which was 500,000 ounces of gold. That impresses me as a fair price, considering it was an undeveloped fever-ridden jungle at the time and that gold is worth nearly $1.5 billion today. Another $40 million (2,000,000 ounces) was paid to buy out the previous French developer. In those days the US still—sometimes—dealt with a measure of honor and propriety. Then, another $350 million (17.5 million ounces) was spent to build the canal itself.

It makes sense to think in terms of gold since that was money then. It was the largest US investment in history up to that time. Be that as it may, creating Panama enabled the US to build the canal—to the great advantage of all concerned.

Anyway, the canal now supposedly yields $3 billion (+/- 1,000,000 ounces) of profit on about $5 billion of gross receipts per year. It’s not a giant money machine in today’s context.

Panama has been de facto US territory and the Canal Zone de jure US territory, fair and square, from the get-go. Until Jimmy Carter “sold” the Zone to Panama in 1977 (for a token $1) because he felt it was the right thing to do. I disagree, but everybody’s got an opinion. Since then, the Panamanians have run the canal competently and greatly improved it.

Perhaps we should just forget about the legalisms. Central America has been under the thumb of the US since at least the days of William Walker, who nearly succeeded in singlehandedly conquering most of the region in the 1850’s. USMC Gen. Smedley Butler spent the best part of his career acting as an enforcer when Central American cuadillos got uppity. And, most recently, the US invaded Panama in 1989 to depose long-time CIA stooge Manuel Noriega, killing several thousand Panamanians as collateral damage.

One annoying element of the current kerfuffle is the way Trump keeps saying the Panamanians are “ripping off” the US. I’m unsure how he’s jumped to that conclusion since, thanks to the Jones Act, almost zero US-flagged ships exist to “rip off.” All ships pay the same prices for passage, regardless of nationality, except for US Naval vessels, which pay nothing. Apart from that, Canal fees have risen much less than inflation since Panama took over.

The big question here is to what degree one nation-state can repossess or conquer real estate that may belong to another. Revanchism has been a consistent casus belli throughout history. The Argentines with the Falklands. The Moslems and the Jews with Palestine. The Suez Crisis in 1956 when Egypt took that Canal away from the UK and France.

Should Mexico try to repossess the American Southwest, which the Americans conquered in 1848? Should France try to repossess the Louisiana Purchase because they think it was sold too cheaply? Should Russia take back Alaska for the same reason?

Does the nationality of an asset like the canal make any difference? Or is it important that it’s operated competently and peaceably? It was weak and stupid of Carter to have given the Zone to Panama. But it’s dishonorable and stupid of Trump to threaten a theft.

International Man: Trump has also taken significant steps toward Greenland, a strategically important Arctic territory.

Why is Trump so focused on Greenland?

Doug Casey: Governments love to use the word “strategic.” It’s a magic word. Everything is strategic when they want something.

The island is quite an anomaly, bigger than Alaska and California combined, but with only 47,000 people, 90% of whom are “real” natives. I understand there’s something of a race problem, though, despite the fact the natives are a large majority. The “real” natives apparently have an animus against those of European descent, even if they were born in Greenland. And even though it costs Copenhagen about $10,000 per person per year to maintain the place. It would appear Greenland is a $500 million annual drain on the Danish treasury.

Does Greenland have mineral wealth? Of course. But so does Alaska, with a vastly better climate, vastly more development, 500,000 people, and a cornucopia of all types of minerals. Fun fact: Mineral production is greatly overrated as a source of wealth.

As for “strategic” things, during the Afghanistan war, strategic thinkers thought “we” should take it over because someone said it had $3 trillion of minerals. Similar numbers are pulled out of thin air for Greenland, but they’re meaningless for a dozen different reasons. The theoretical value of minerals in the ground is meaningless. What counts is the cost and possible profitability—or not—of recovering them.

One thing they’re not considering is who now owns Greenland. It’s not the Danish government. My understanding is that the island is owned in common by the natives—not just the vast icefields but even the land under everyone’s house. It’s a very tribal and communal society. Washington is not likely to respect that.

Greenland should declare independence. This might incentivize the natives to deploy their asset in the most economic way. Perhaps becoming an Arctic version of the Caymans or Singapore, buttressed by some theoretically valuable real estate. Becoming part of the US would most likely turn them into welfare recipients, a colder version of Puerto Rico—a lose-lose for both parties.

International Man: Trump has also proposed making Canada the 51st state, even going as far as threatening to use “economic force” to achieve this.

What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: The Donald has a quirky sense of humor, something I’ve always liked about him. Maybe he’s just letting loose his comic instincts. However, jesting about an Anschluss with other people’s property isn’t a clever negotiating technique. In today’s world, it’s very dangerous. Could it be grounds for removal under the 25th Amendment?

This calls to mind what Thucydides said in his tome on the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians decided to teach the island of Milos a lesson for not actively supporting them against the Spartans. They invaded and destroyed the city, justifying it by saying: “The powerful do what they wish, and the weak suffer what they must.” It’s not a good look or a good model for the US.

But would Canada be better off if it merged with the US?

The cultures of Canada and the US are very similar. The big difference lies in the nature of their governments. Both are poorly run, bankrupt, and far from their founding principles.

That said, it’s arguable Canada would gain tremendously. The country has a per capita GDP of only 2/3rds that of the US, and it’s much more highly taxed and regulated. Merging them would only create an even more dysfunctional and “diverse” US.

The best solution for Canada is to split up, starting with Quebec. It’s not just that the province is culturally French and alien to the rest of the country; it has long been an economic drain. In fact, all the provinces would do better, becoming independent countries. Alberta has made noises in that direction for years. Newfoundland only joined Canada in 1949 to become a large net welfare recipient and the butt of Newfie jokes. They climbed aboard a sinking ship when they should have manned a lifeboat.

The real problem is that Canada is much more left-leaning than the US. If, heaven forbid, Trump somehow merged the two countries, it would only guarantee that leftists would control the US forever after. It would be a disaster for the US.

International Man: The idea of merging the US, Canada, and Mexico was once dismissed as a nefarious globalist scheme to centralize power, erode US sovereignty, and pave the way for a global government.

Trump has rebranded this concept, and many who once opposed it are now cheering it on.

Is globalism wrapped in a MAGA package still globalism?

Doug Casey: Apart from the fact that the world would be better off with many more microstates, not just a few megastates (or MAGAstates), it’s further proof that Trump has no philosophical core, and the US government is “on tilt.” That’s said of an incompetent, out-of-control gambler who keeps doubling his bets in the hope of somehow breaking even. The US is irredeemably bankrupt, controlled by an entrenched and deeply corrupt Deep State which operates for its own benefit, not the country as a whole.

I’m afraid the US is like a star about to go supernova, in collapse after burning its fuel. Or a dinosaur thrashing around in its death throes. It’s become a bankrupt multicultural domestic empire. Contrary to what Trump seems to think, it can’t solve its problems by expanding and taking over more territory.

That will only create more chaos.

International Man: What are the overall investment implications of Trump’s geopolitical strategy?

Doug Casey: We’re in for tough times. But, as always, I like to look at the bright side… namely that Harris and the Jacobins aren’t returning to office next week. On the dark side, Trump is starting to prove himself a megalomaniac. A bull in a China shop. A loose cannon. But, going back to the bright side, maybe this will have the effect of delegitimizing the US government, which is rotten to its core.

The average American has forgotten that his real enemy aren’t some motley foreigners on the other side of the globe—it’s his own government.

If Trump breaks some Deep State rice bowls, that’s great. I wish him, via Elon and Vivek, great success. Although success is a longshot bet. But what if Trump goes megalomaniacally wild and creates international chaos—in addition to what he may do in the Middle East or the Ukraine?

Washing away rotten foundations is both good and necessary. The problem is that a sound replacement foundation doesn’t exist on which to rebuild things because the basics of American society have been washed away as well.

I think we’re looking at potential chaos over the next four years, and then, when the Republicans are kicked out of office, it will get even worse. Truly rabid Democrats will take power as “our democracy” begs for a new father figure or Big Brother to kiss the situation and make it better.

So, as Lenin said, “What is to be done?”

With grossly overpriced stock, bond, and real estate markets, and a fiat currency heading towards its intrinsic value, it makes sense to own gold, silver, other underpriced commodities, and, of course, some speculations in the companies that produce them.

Reprinted with permission from International Man,

The post Trump’s Geopolitical Strategy (or Lack Thereof) in Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal appeared first on LewRockwell.

Possibly one of the most inane phrases ever uttered about modern governments is Oliver Wendell Holmes’s oft-quoted phrase stating that “taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

This reflected the naïve view, often pushed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, of the so-called “social contract.” According to this idea, we pay taxes, and in return the state provides order, protection, and all the blessings of civilization.

Presumably included among all those taxpayer-funded civilizational “services” provided by governments one can find “fire suppression.” But, you wouldn’t know it from watching tens of thousands of residents flee their homes in southern California and Los Angeles County as fires rage. As of Wednesday at midday, five different fires in southern California are still zero-percent contained. Nor is this some hard-to-reach rural area with few roads and little infrastructure. These fires are right in the middle of suburban cities and towns. Yet, it is all apparently too much for lavishly-funded government agencies to handle.

Indeed, government authorities in Los Angeles County and California had neglected infrastructure to the point that it became useless in many areas in terms of battling the blazes. In the early hours of the Palisades fire, firefighters found themselves hamstrung by a lack of water from fire hydrants. In spite of years of warning about the growing threat of fires in the region, California bureaucrats couldn’t be bothered with upgrading the water system to ensure reliable water supply and pressure in case of a major fire.

Since 2022, California firefighters have been bragging that they’ve been sending fire suppression equipement to Ukraine. This wasn’t paid for by firefighters, of course. It was funded by the taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the mayor of the City of Los Angeles—who is paid more than $300,000 per year—is on a taxpayer-funded trip to Ghana to attend the inauguration of the new president of that west African country. What possible benefit this could bring to ordinary people in Los Angeles remains a mystery, but residents are certainly paying for what is essentially a vacation for the mayor.

Before she left for her vacation, however, the mayor supported large budget cuts to fire suppression services, as well as to other basic services like sanitation and public works. This was necessitated by the city’s budget crisis stemming from years of waste, mismanagement, and legal settlements. In 2024, the city owes $47 million to residents who have sustained injuries from the city’s crumbling infrastructure and police incompetence.

Is all this failing infrastructure a result of cuts to taxes in the city? Of course not. Taxes in Los Angeles are among the highest in the nation. And, all of that is on top of California’s debilitating income taxes which include the highest progressive state income taxes. California has the highest tax burden in the nation.

Moreover, it’s hard to hire sufficient fire suppression workers when unionized firefighters earn outrageously inflated government salaries. As The Daily Mail reported in 2024, the LA fire captain Jason Getchius earned $823,000 in 2023. In California is it not unusual to find government employees earning mid-six-figures by milking the government overtime system.

The police are notorious for doing this as well. Naturally, these enormous salaries for police don’t translate into low crime rates.

The woman in charge of water and public works in Los Angeles, Janisse Quinones, makes at least $750,000. Like most government officials, her salary does not correlate with her competence.

This is the real reason we pay taxes: to keep the ruling class (high ranking officials) and the larger parasite class (government employees and government contractors) living lifestyles of relative opulence and ease while private sector workers toil to produce all the real wealth. If it seems worse in California it’s because the grift is at a far more advanced stage there. For example, government services like fire suppression and infrastructure are cut in order to fund lavish pensions for state employees. This is true in many states, but it’s especially bad in California.

Dry fire hydrants. Millionaire firemen. High crime. Crumbling infrastructure. Is this that “civilization” that Oliver Wendell Holmes was talking about? Possibly. Contra the clueless Holmes, however, taxes are definitely not the price we pay for civilization. If anything, taxes destroy civilization by funneling resources to extractive state organs which work primarily to enrich themselves and the ruling oligarchy.

And why should ordinary people expect any real services in exchange for all those enormous taxes they pay, year after year? They shouldn’t. The state looks out for the state and its closest friends. It doesn’t look out for the people who pay the bills, except on occasion and by accident in pursuit of some good public relations. Instead, state organizations like the City of Los Angeles will spend endless hours and mountains of resources on rewarding politically connected interest groups and on endless meetings about micro-aggressions and diversity hires and on censoring critics. Fighting fires? That’s a mere afterthought.

The post The LA Fires: The ‘Social Contract’ Is Nonsense, and No One Is Coming to Save You appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Rudolf Jung was an early National Socialist who wrote the first book on the movement (six years before Mein Kampf). He not only reveals the origins of the National Socialist movement, but he also shapes Hitler’s views and spells out their views and what they were trying to achieve. Jung wanted to be known as the ‘Karl Marx’ of National Socialism. In this video, we’ll take a look at Rudolf Jung’s life and book and see what we can learn from this.”

This is a fascinating and illuminating presentation on the early roots of the National Socialist movement and the seminal impactful influence of Rudolf Jung upon Hitler. After over 100 years, we are only now beginning to fully grasp the malignant origins this of deadly ideology, in order to understand its consequential impact in the Second World War, the later aspect of the Thirty Years War of the Twentieth Century.

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I speak of course of Netanyahoo and his American “allies,” not Putin.

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Writes Gail Appel:

Trump knows how to get it done. Nor would this have happened under his watch.

With all the grief he’s gotten about his “ lack of diplomacy”, how well has the “diplomacy” of his predecessors worked out? They start wars. He ends them.

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Writes David Martin:

Extremist Israeli settler leaders invited as ‘special guests’ to Trump inauguration

These are the people we’re talking about: Grasping Bastards

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Writes Gail Appel:

Ignominious , malicious ba…d. Pity he’s not leaving the White House in a prisoner transport bus.

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Writes Gail Appel:

Ft. Detrick sound familiar? Remember  the stolen, weaponized anthrax? Operation Dark Winter? Fauci, Mueller, Cheney, Rumsfeld ?

The post Let’s be blunt: the US Government collected the closest progenitor to SARS2 appeared first on LewRockwell.

I was not aware that the State of California takes in $220 billion a year in taxes (starting at around 18:30). The next nearest state in tax income is New York, with $100 billion. The government of California pisses away this tax money. There is NO excuse for cutting the funding for fire and police protection in California. There’s no excuse for our lousy roads and highways. Our crummy airports, hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure. The politicians and bureaucrats piss away our tax money. It’s infuriating!

The post LA Fires appeared first on LewRockwell.

Please watch (at least) the first 53 seconds of this interview, HERE.

For more information on how to Ground yourself indoors during these winter months please go to Earthing.com

To do a deeper dive on the research please go to EarthingInstitute.net

There, go to the Menu, BASICS and then the submenu, GETTING STARTED.

Highly Recommended

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Thanks, Johnny Kramer. 

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Click here:

The Guardian

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Thanks, Saleh Abdullah. 

War Room

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Writes Tim McGraw :

I’m fed up with the bastards and bitches in power. They need to go. Sure, more evil will come soon enough and replace them with new sociopaths. But let’s get rid of this batch first. I’m tired of looking at them. Hearing them. Paying their salaries.

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Trump wants to create an External Revenue Service to collect his increased tariffs. I thought he was going to cut agencies, not add new ones? Importers will be harassed by the ERS to no end to make sure every penny is collected. An External Revenue Service to collect tariffs? Sounds like something Lincoln would do.

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Donald Trump’s most recent comments have perplexed everyone. Sure, he always says provocative things, and trolling is an essential characteristic of the Trumpenstein Project. But he has inexplicably introduced ideas and proposals which he has never touched on before. And they contradict everything about the MAGA movement.

Trump has suddenly shifted focus from mass deportations and fake news to annexing Greenland. Making Canada the 51th state. And renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. He and his most loyal followers have begun singing the praises of a new North American Union. This was an idea supported by the dastardly Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and was basically an extension of the disastrous NAFTA trade deal, which of course Trump vehemently opposed. In the early 2000s, the establishment’s national country club the Council on Foreign Relations pushed for it. So it has a decidedly non-MAGA history. And yet Trump sycophants like Steve Bannon are proudly promoting his curious new scheme. I could find nothing from Alex Jones on the subject, but he unquestionably will back Trump, as he always does. World government is a good thing! Globalism is our friend! Welcome to the New World Order, Trump style!

This really came out of nowhere. Perhaps not coincidentally, Trump’s unprecedented emphasis on American expansionism occurred shortly after Elon Musk engaged in a food fight with MAGA faithful on X, and notably told one to “Fuck yourself in the face,” and vowed to “go to war” to protect the H-1B Visa program which takes jobs away from American citizens. Trumpenstein predictably sided with Musk instead of the MAGA base which has supported him through his endless history of flip-flopping. Around the same time, Trumpenstein pitched one of his renowned tantrums over the flag being flown at half-staff for Jimmy Carter. Of course, he wouldn’t be Trumpenstein if he didn’t make sure to refer to it as “half-mast,” thus inviting even more catcalls. It’s a hamberder thing, you wouldn’t understand. Trump’s trademark whining about a deceased president was in bad taste regardless.

And on top of all this, what are the odds, while the nation goes through an Abraham Lincoln-like extended mourning period for Carter, that Trump starts belligerently rattling sabers over “taking back” the Panama Canal? The Panama Canal hasn’t been an issue since the late 1970s. This was of paramount importance to the 70 million plus Americans that voted for Trump? That and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Talk about a mindless gesture of plastic patriotism. Now that will make America great again! I don’t expect Trump to hold BP’s feet to the fire, over the horrific oil spill that had a lasting impact on our environment. I mean, if it’s going to be the Gulf of America, we’ll expect a much cleaner gulf. As Trump will undoubtedly boast, “We have the best gulfs! Nobody has gulfs like we do!” Just picture the way he explained that “I love the Visas.” Nobody has better visa workers than we do.

You’re probably asking yourself, just what does changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, “taking back” the Panama Canal, annexing Greenland, and making Canada the 51st state have to do with MAGA, let alone putting America First? These are not issues that Trump ever mentioned, let alone ran on. I’m certain that probably a majority of the MAGA voters will be convinced that this is a good thing. This American Union is different than the one Bill Clinton and the CFR wanted. Much sexier. The best American Union ever. Manifest Destiny is a good thing. Sure, this looks pretty much the same as what the hobgoblin Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine, and also a lot like the imperialism that built the British Empire. But this is Trump imperialism. Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt would be proud. Forget about the food and gas prices. We want Greenland! USA! USA!

Trumpenstein has been so over the top as president-elect that I really don’t know what to expect after he’s inaugurated. Maybe he’ll come “out” during his inaugural address. As what, I’m not sure. Gay? Transgender? Democrat? What I don’t anticipate are those promised mass deportations. On “day one.” His last “day one” featured no executive orders banning birth-right citizenships or sanctuary cities, or DACA, or the foreign visa worker programs. Which Trump now enthusiastically endorses. He loves the Visas, after all. I think it’s more likely that Musk eliminates Social Security than for millions of illegal immigrants to be deported. The essence of Trumpenstein is bluster. He doesn’t do anything. But he talks a lot. Odds are he will once again ignore all his campaign promises. Odds are that his MAGA base will once again ignore him ignoring them. This is a demented form of theater. Trump is the orangest crisis actor.

Trump hasn’t ruled out using the military for his bizarre new expansionist fantasies. He didn’t rule out doing that several times during his first administration. But he never did, except when he was ordered to bomb Syria (twice) by the real powers that be. He talked tough with North Korea. But he failed to even use the National Guard to restore order in the burning cities during the summer of 2020. He never brought a fraction of the U.S. troops home that are stationed nonsensically in over 150 countries around the world, and placed them at our purposefully open southern border, as he hinted at. He tweeted a lot of “I might dos.” So there is no reason to suspect that he will abruptly begin behaving like Genghis Khan. At least I hope not. The “Woke” Left fears he will use the military against his “internal enemies.” It’s debatable whether military leaders would even obey orders from commander in chief Trumpenstein.

I’m just speculating here. Trump is such a wild card. The Trumpenstein script has been unpredictable, to put it mildly. I still find the lack of protests against his election, by the normally deranged “Woke” Left, to be utterly perplexing. Maybe we’ll see some Antifa style fireworks during the inauguration. Certainly we’ll see them if Trump actually attempts massive deportations. Or actually tries to abolish the Department of Education or the IRS. Or actually gets Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., by far the most impressive thing about his prospective 2.0 administration, approved. RFK, Jr. by himself could make this the most radical White House in history by cleaning up our food and water. No one will be prosecuted except perhaps Matt Gaetz, who would have been a dynamo as Attorney General. I can see Trump’s own justice department prosecuting him for the fake charges stemming from an extortion attempt on his dad.

I can hear some of you saying, okay, it’s nice that you’re picking on Trump, shooting fish in a barrel again, but what about Biden and the evil Democrats? Well, as Rodney Dangerfield might have said, they’re no winners either. Biden’s list of recent Medal of Honor recipients was indistinguishable from a Babylon Bee spoof. Hillary Clinton? Serial Deep State criminal? Queen of the Swamp? George Soros? Funder of all that is malevolent and destructive of American society? Bono? The cartoonish, pretentious rock star/social “activist,” who is best remembered for his One Foundation, a “charity” that gives an astounding 1.2 percent of donations to actual causes? In some sort of twisted posthumous humiliation ritual, Biden threw Robert F. Kennedy in there as a winner as well. His award was accepted by daughter Kerry, best known for ridiculing her brother RFK, Jr. in public, and as the former wife of the odious Andrew Cuomo.

So for those of you who think I’m picking on Trump, and ignoring the nonstop shenanigans of the “opposing” party, please read what I’ve written about LBJ, and Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Not to mention, going back a bit, my extensive exposure of the diabolical Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, which you can read all about in my latest book American Memory Hole. I’m an equal opportunity offender. I concentrate more on Trump and Republicans because they portray themselves as the opposition to the madness of today’s Democratic Party. There isn’t a single Democrat in Congress now that isn’t somewhere on the Satanic spectrum. Trump ignites the passions of millions, causing them to believe that once in power (again) he will end their reign of terror. He will finally bring all these nasty creatures to justice. If he does that, no will be more pleasantly surprised than me. I might even chant USA! USA!

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In Germany, we suffer under an annual media ritual in which a “jury” consisting of four linguists and a journalist select an “Unwort des Jahres” – an “Unword of the year” – to condemn as politically incorrect. The entire German press then reprint excerpts of the press release issued by these self-appointed language police, and the Gutmenschen can either pat themselves on the back for never having used that evil word in the first place, or strive like hell to keep it from their lips in the future.

As with many deeply retarded conventions, the Unword of the Year became a thing after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1991 – as a “linguistically critical” campaign to lecture the masses about all the things they should not say. Its present guardians preach that “linguistic expressions become Unwords because they are used by speakers either thoughtlessly or with intentions worthy of criticism.” They furthermore hope that their “reflection and criticism on the use of Unwords” might “raise awareness about discriminatory, stigmatising, euphemistic, misleading or inhumane language usage.” That might sound all very transparently contentious, politically loaded and ridiculous to you, dear reader, but in Germany the Unwordians are experts and the media treat them like a minor lexicographical priesthood.

Let us go through a few past Unwords of the year, to gain an understanding of what our Unwordians get up to:

• In 2023, the Unword was “Remigration,” a term that came into currency as many who were not of the migrationist school began to wonder how the millions of hostile guests we’d heedlessly welcomed to our continent might be encouraged to go home. The Unwordians claimed that “remigration” had to be unworded because it had become “a right-wing battle cry” and “a euphemistic camouflage word … that obscures actual intentions.” I don’t know what that means; I’m pretty sure that people who talk about remigration just want migrants to remigrate.
• In 2022, the Unword was “Climate terrorists,” a term of art for the Letzte Generation lunatics who would not stop blocking traffic and defacing monuments in a strange campaign to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. The Unwordians argued that “climate terrorists” had to be unworded because “the term has been used in public discourse to discredit activists and their protests.” Heaven knows we wouldn’t want to cast aspersions upon a bunch of crazy and disruptive social vandals in thrall to a pseudoscientific apocalyptic cult. That would be just terrible.
• In 2021, the Unword was “Pushback,” a borrowing from English that describes stopping irregular migrants at one’s border – in this case, the European border. “Pushback” had to be unworded, they said, because it “glosses over an inhumane procedure” that is intended to deny asylees their human right to claim asylum. Imagine the almost infinite chain of privileges the Unwordians conjure with this argument: Claiming asylum is a human right, so asylees must be allowed to cross borders to exercise their human right to claim asylum, and presumably they must be permitted all the prior actions necessary to bring them to these borders so that they may cross them and claim asylum.
• In 2020, for the first time in history, the Unwordians selected two Unwords of the year, one of which is not worth explaining, and the other of which was “Corona dictatorship.” This had to be unworded because it was used by “right-right extremist propagandists to discredit government policy measures to contain the pandemic.” The Unwordians complained specifically that “Corona dictatorship” was a term “used at demonstrations,” which they found to be a “contradiction” because said demonstrations, “unlike in authoritarian systems, are explicitly allowed.” I do not know what benighted outer moon of Jupiter the Unwordians can live on, such that they remained unaware of the fact that the Corona dictatorship did few things so systematically as banning demonstrations and arresting and beating up demonstrators.

On and on it goes like this. Over the years our speech police have produced a dubious catalogue of Unwords that reveal nothing so much as the emotional and political fragility of the Unwordians themselves. In 2019, the year of St. Greta, the Unword was “climate hysteria”; in 2017, the first year of the Trump administration, it was “alternative facts”; in 2015, the year Angela Merkel opened the borders, it was “Gutmensch.”

This brings us to the Unword of 2024, a particularly infuriating choice announced today by our unbiased and unpartisan Unwordian jury. It is biodeutsch, or “bio-German,” an adjective used to distinguish ethnic Germans from more recent arrivals.

From the decree of our Unwordians:

In 2024, the term biodeutsch was increasingly used in public and social discourse and especially in social media, to classify, evaluate and discriminate against people on the basis of supposedly biological criteria of origin … The term biodeutsch constructs a racist, biological form of nationality. Originally used ironically as a satirical term … for several years now a very thoughtless and unreflective, non-satirical and literally intended use has been observed for biodeutsch. In this way, ‘being German’ is justified via an appeal to nature for the purpose of demarcating and devaluing Germans with a migration background. Biodeutsch and the associated nouns … are in line with other words such as “passport German” and “authentic German,” which serve to ascribe unequal characteristics to groups of people who are equal before the law, thus classifying them hierarchically. This division into supposedly “real” Germans and second-class Germans that goes hand in hand with the use of biodeutsch is a form of everyday racism.

This is dumb for several reasons. First of all, “biodeutsch” does not “construct” a “biological form of nationality,” despite the bio- prefix. Linguists – even linguists as stupid and politically addled as the Unwordians – ought to know there is a powerful distinction between etymology and meaning. Second of all, as the Unwordians themselves reluctantly acknowledge, biodeutsch originated in leftist circles with ironic overtones that are too tiresome to describe. Later, it came to be used more seriously by those who asked why migrants require special designations (like “people of migrant background”) and why ethnic Germans should not be the ones singled out by marked and specific terminology.1 Over a decade ago the Green politician Cem Özdemir – the son of Turkish immigrants – used the term repeatedly, and generally in a negative sense:

In the noughts, Cem Özdemir … appropriated the word. With it, the Green politician … threw down the gauntlet. There should be no distinction: Germans for whom this one word – “German” – is fully sufficient, and Germans who require an additional term, like “passport Germans” or “fellow citizens with a migration background.”

He countered this hidden linguistic devaluation by introducing biodeutsch. The biological German does not have two passports, is not bilingual, and does not deserve the unique selling point of being only “German” without any prefixes or suffixes. The trendy left then gladly adopted this in their self-deprecating pirouettes; the prefix “bio” signalled an awareness of their own limitations and privilege.

Because the distinction between ethnic Germans and non-ethnic Germans is very important (even if our present political religion insists that it does not exist); and because Özdemir was beyond accusations of racism, and furthermore precisely because he had christened biodeutsch as a specific ethnic pejorative – one intended to deny Germans the status of being simply German – Germans happily adopted the word for themselves. At least biodeutsch should be safe, they thought; at least biodeutsch would be a way to describe ethnicity, which is one of the most salient and important divisions in human populations next to gender.

Nothing, however, is safe from the left – particularly not the German left, and especially not when it comes to finding some way to describe or articulate Germanness. In the Anglophone world, “racism” is commonly understood to involve the (alleged) devaluation or dehumanisation of racial outgroups. Only recently and in the race-critical circles of particularly noxious radicals did the idea emerge that Europeanness itself (“whiteness”) is a false and racist concept worthy of abolition. The German left are altogether more eager to embrace this programme of aspirational self-annihilation by insisting the primary racist sin lies in believing that there are ethnic Germans at all, or at least in talking as if there were.

The Unwordians argue that the term biodeutsch has become “discriminatory” because “it violates the idea of democratic equality” and “excludes” non-ethnic Germans from the notional community of the Biodeutsche. We have achieved such an elaborated understanding of what “democratic equality” requires, that it is impossible to reconcile with everyday social realities. Perhaps if equality is to mean that we can’t even acknowledge or describe our own existence, we should strive to have a bit less of it. Or perhaps the Unwordians should try chasing down all the Turkish immigrants, the Chinese immigrants, the Syrian immigrants, and all the other immigrants who invariably maintain their own exclusionary ethnic identities long after receiving their German passports, and inform them that they, too, are guilty of undemocratic racism. That project is likely to turn out well.

—

1 As Welt points out, we find this important use in a 2010 book by the Ethiopian-German author Asfa-Wossen Asserate (Draußen nur Kännchen): “Recently, the strange term ‘people with a migration background’ has been in vogue. But what is the point of a term that is used to turn German citizens back into foreigners? Wouldn’t it be better to introduce a counterpart for the ‘people living in Germany without a migration background’? How about the term biodeutsch, for example?”

This originally appeared on A Plague Chronicle.

The post Leftist German Word Police Announce That a Standard Colloquialism for ‘Ethnic German’ Is Racist, Exclusionary and Antidemocratic appeared first on LewRockwell.

As someone who lives in the Los Angeles area, the past few days have been nothing but mind-numbing yet shocking. I can gratefully report that everyone in my family is safe and have not been threatened by the wildfires that have ravaged Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

These wildfires have been called the perfect storm. If one expands the scope beyond the fires themselves and include the luxury beliefs and criminal negligence built into state and local law, policy, and culture that have taken place over the past few decades, this claim simply can’t be argued.

Whatever the priorities Governor Newsom, LA Mayor Karen Bass, and the LA County Board of Supervisors had before the wildfires, it had nothing to do with the main responsibilities of local governments – education, fire, police, courts. The local infrastructure has been ignored at the expense of pet progressive projects for so long, they exacerbated the helplessness local fire and police had during the first hours of the firestorm. It is a miracle the death toll isn’t nearly as extensive as it could have been.

It may seem unfair to bring politics so early into this crisis, but California politics has been unfair for a very long time. I, for one, see no need to play fair when state and local authorities have been derelict in their day jobs while demonizing those of us who have objected to turning southern California into a progressive paradise.

All utopian projects end in misery and destruction. This one is no different. While I wish the mostly naive elites living in West LA and the San Gabriel Valley could have come to this realization on their own terms, many of them are realizing this as they ponder the ashes of their former homes. They and their families have built decades of cherished memories in these once beautiful abodes, and it’s all gone.

There have been concerns raised about how Democrats, who have been controlled by globalists for years, may use this destruction as an opportunity to turn LA into a 15-minute city; a digital prison, if you will. They point to city documents, published during the social equity dreams of 2020, detailing such plans.

There are two reasons why I think the likelihood of LA becoming a digital city is close to nil.

First, if city leadership is as craven and incompetent as it seems (and it is), how could it possibly rebuild the city that way? They may have the desire; they may even have the will. What they don’t have is the competence to pull such a gargantuan project off.

Second, if the Democrats wanted to build such a city, they couldn’t have angered a worse group of LA’s residents before doing so.

Some of the wealthiest, most talented, and energetic elites in LA live in Pacific Palisades. They vote overwhelmingly Democratic, and have donated enormous sums to the party. If the Democrats/globalists think that these people are going to be told that they won’t be able to rebuild their homes that were destroyed partly because of the state’s criminal negligence, these criminal clowns have another thing coming.

Elite LA Democrats, having been mugged by a very stark reality, have a lot of soul searching to do. The honest ones, at some point, will recognize that their support of the Democratic party have helped contribute to the very conditions that led to the destruction of their neighborhood. Such a journey is not easy for anyone, least of all for those who considered themselves powerful in any way. However, by seeking and gaining clarity, they have an opportunity to understand what it will take to not only rebuild their homes and neighborhoods, but California and the United States as well.

One of the reasons Trump won the 2024 election is that a subset of elites in the Silicon Valley recognized that the Democratic party would eventually destroy their businesses and industries. Some of these elites, such as Elon Musk, Marc Andreesen, and David Sachs, have made enormous strides in their understanding of the destructive role governments play in society. They recognize that after decades of foreign policy disasters, interest groups being favored over everyday Americans, and monetary debasement, America needs to refocus on rebuilding communities at home, rather than seeking to create yet another fever-dreamed utopia.

Unfortunately, many Los Angeles elites have begun learning this lesson in a very hard way. The scales are falling off of their eyes. Regardless of whatever schemes Sacramento may come up with to fight Trump’s agenda or rebuild Los Angeles based on insane notions, it will need to contend with a rising group of former supporters within southern California who are no longer willing to play ball with them anymore.

This originally appeared on A Simple Fool.

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