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Thanks, Saleh Abdullah.

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Thanks, John Frahm.

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John Leake

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When I was in Belem, Brazil, in the Amazon for six months in the summer of 1990, this was one of the top three songs played in the dance clubs of Belem. They played the English version by Bonnie Tyler. The Brazilians are the most romantic people I’ve ever met. They don’t just listen to romantic music, watch romantic TV shows, and read romantic novels; they live them.

Belem is an amazing place. You won’t find people like the Belemese anywhere else on Earth.

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For 28 years I taught World History to high school students. Here is a listing of their assignments. It includes assignments focusing upon this excellent series below —

World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West is a 2008 six-episode BBC/PBS documentary series on the role of Joseph Stalin and German-Soviet relations before, during, and after World War II, created by Laurence Rees and Andrew Williams.

It contains new controversial material which only became available to the public after the fall of communism from the Soviet archives, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Each episode lasts approximately one hour and features reenactments of the situations subject.

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I love you, BUT I’m not “in love” with you.  You don’t have to go home, BUT you can’t stay here.  You may continue fighting, Martial Law President Zelensky, BUT the American people won’t be following you into World War III.

No matter how agreeable the first half of a sentence might sound, the “buts” change everything on a dime.

President Trump has been clear that he wants the Russia-Ukraine War to end, but he says Zelensky must choose to end the conflict.  When the war began, 73% of Ukrainians wanted to fight Russia until Ukraine secured victory, but 69% now want the war to end as soon as possible through negotiations!  Perhaps that is why Z-Man agreed to meet President Trump in D.C.  It was widely rumored that U.S. officials encouraged the battledress-wearing comedian to don a real suit for the occasion, but the holdover-president wore a military-style jacket in all black.  The guy who plays piano with his penis still looks out of his element at the White House, but he does dress like someone attending his own funeral.

With the titular head of the Ukrainian government back at the White House — surrounded by an entourage of European honchos eager to butt in — we will finally discover whether some kind of peace between Russia and Ukraine is tenable.  To be sure, there are many powerful people in the United States and across Europe who would prefer to keep Ukraine a battlefield for years to come.

Why?

As a man holding onto the presidency eighteen months beyond his elected term, Zelensky might finally bring peace to his war-torn country, but he will likely be voted out of office once the exigencies of martial law disappear.

U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer, French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen may publicly express their desire for lasting European peace, but the Russian bogeyman has long been the perfect scapegoat and distraction for European societies self-immolating from mass immigration, censorship, and “climate change” communism.

The World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and other august organizations ostensibly dedicated to global welfare might applaud an end to bloodshed, but all of their depopulation enthusiasts will no doubt regret the loss of a conflict zone chalking up more deaths than births.

BlackRock, J.P. Morgan, and other international investment houses will be happy to make money from lucrative rebuilding projects in Ukraine, but they will lament that the war did not topple President Putin and open up Russian lands to their profit-seeking conquest.

Weapons manufacturers will be glad to have so much demand from American and European militaries desperate to restock munitions after years of supplying Ukraine, but their boards of directors will be busy finding new places around the globe to slaughter in the cutthroat business of war.

So there may well be happy faces and cheers over the next few days and weeks when it comes to the prospect of Ukrainian peace, but there will be plenty of villains scowling behind the scenes — all hoping that the tentative peace breaks and the carnage resumes.

Those European and Chinese power-players who have long seen war between the Russian Federation and the United States as an opportunity to diminish both countries simultaneously will say all the right things in upbeat social media postings praising compromise, but they will regret that the America-last Biden administration is no longer around to stumble recklessly into nuclear war.  Spy agencies across the West may pause their “color revolution” activities long enough to install a new Ukrainian puppet into the presidency, but they will continue their hybrid warfare operations in former Warsaw Pact countries.

London and New York City bankers will perhaps allow Russian citizens to access their overseas assets once again, but Western central banks will pursue monetary policies that cause enough domestic turmoil in target countries to return the West to a state of war in the near future.  In sound bites, everyone loves peace, but in the world of big business, war means profits.

War is big business, but it is also a convenient political distraction.

During the destructive interregnum of the Biden installation, Democrats laundered trillions of dollars in “Green New Deal” spending through the Build Back Better Act (cynically relabeled the Inflation Reduction Act to appeal to idiotic members of the press).  While that legislation stole from taxpayers and accomplished nothing for the American people, it put enormous sums of money into the bank accounts of Democrat-run NGOs structured as “social justice” and “environmental justice” front groups.

Combined with Democrats’ ongoing war against inexpensive hydrocarbon energies, the inflation-triggering money-printing of that harmful legislative handout to Establishment insiders and crony capitalists doubled grocery prices in the United States.  How did Democrats explain away their disastrous handling of the economy to struggling American families?  They simply blamed Russia (as they have for the last decade) and called the spike in the cost of living “Putin’s price hike.”

Sure, the cost of food, fuel, and basic necessities rose precipitously during the bungling Biden administration, but Russia, Russia, Russia!  Americans were even encouraged to view their growing household bills as a patriotic form of suffering worth enduring in America’s undeclared alliance with Ukraine against the Russian Federation.  First, Democrats blamed Hillary’s 2016 election loss on imaginary Russian bots and contrived Russian collusion.  Then they blamed the massive spike in prices on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Europe has played the same cynical game against its citizens.  Instead of admitting that “green energy” totalitarianism is destroying the continent’s industrial competitiveness and household wealth, mendacious politicians blame the War in Ukraine for their crumbling economies.  Of course, the rise in energy costs across Europe might also have something to do with ineffective sanctions against Russian energy companies (that merely divert Russian products to China and the greater Global South); the convenient sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines; and Ukraine’s military attacks on key pipelines transporting oil and natural gas from Russia to households in Hungary, Slovakia, and other parts of Europe.  The more expensive ordinary goods become, the louder Eurocrats insist that the problem is not “green energy”–induced inflation but rather Russia’s war in Ukraine!

For European politicians, the Russia-Ukraine War supplies many ancillary benefits.  It provides already indebted nations an excuse to borrow more money for defense spending.  It creates a common enemy for the European Commission to exploit as a life-and-death reason for member states to relinquish national sovereignty.  It creates a distraction from the rising frequency of social conflicts related to rampant illegal immigration.  It provides a pretext for canceling inconvenient election results in Romania and designating popular political parties as national security threats.  It allows the prevailing Establishment to entrench its control over the European bureaucracy.  As Democrats in America and socialists in Europe are fond of whispering, Never let a crisis go to waste.

Turning Russia into an irredeemable bugaboo and Ukraine into some saintly bastion of “democracy” worthy of every European’s sacrifice is how we have gotten to the point when all of Europe’s problems are brushed aside.  Serious people may be warning about a looming civil war in the United Kingdom, but Ukraine’s territorial integrity is all that matters.  Churches in France may be burning down for unexplained reasons, but Russians are the real threat.  The German economy may be fundamentally unsound, but military spending will create jobs.

Americans and Europeans should want the killing in Ukraine to end, but there are just so many politicians and bankers who find that outcome disappointing.  In all likelihood, this war would have continued for many more years.  But, thankfully, the American people elected President Trump.

Hat tip to Megan Draper, M.S.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

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Peter recently returned to the Mining Network for an interview with Peter Gadsdon. In this interview the duo covers executive overreach, unreliable government jobs data, a weakening dollar, and why persistent inflation will keep the Federal Reserve from cutting rates. Peter ties all of these threads to a larger theme — loss of confidence in fiat money and the growing logic for holding sound money.

He opens by calling out a recent deal struck by President Trump and Nvidia that oversteps constitutional authority and functions like an export tax. Peter sees it as another example of presidential power expanding at the expense of constitutional limits and ordinary commerce:

Trump doesn’t have the authority to do this. And also, it amounts to an export tax, which is completely unconstitutional because the Constitution doesn’t even give the government the power to tax exports. They can tax imports, but those are supposed to originate in the House of Representatives, not with the White House. So Trump is making a mockery of the Constitution. He is dramatically expanding the power of the government, particularly the presidency.

He follows that up by questioning the motives behind a recent politically-motivated firing and connects it to what he sees as a systematic problem with jobs numbers. Peter thinks the administration has been misreading — and taking credit for — data that is often revised substantially after the fact:

The crazy part about the fact that he fired her was why. He didn’t fire her because all six of the last jobs numbers have been wrong, right, because everyone was revised way down. Meanwhile, every time one of these jobs reports came out better than expected, Trump was taking credit, even though we now know that every single jobs report that he took credit for wasn’t a beat, but it was a miss. In fact, the last two reports were revised down by the most in 50 years. So the job creation record so far on Trump’s watch has been dismal.

From domestic statistics he moves to international consequences. Peter warns that if the United States keeps treating its fiscal position as flexible — relying on inflation to erode real debt burdens — foreign holders of dollars and government debt will lose faith and reduce their holdings. He expects this to accelerate a shift away from the dollar and into hard assets:

Well, I mean, I think there’s a loss of confidence in the dollar and in the fiscal integrity of the United States. I think it should be clear to our creditors that we’re never going to get our house in order, that we’re going to inflate away any debt obligations that they’re foolish enough to hold onto. So I think the de-dollarization trend is going to continue and accelerate. I think central banks will keep the investing of dollars and moving more and more of their reserves into gold. I think the world will continue to wean itself off of the US dollar for global payments and transactions.

He also explains why attempts to lower the government’s interest burden by leaning on short-term borrowing are dangerous. Borrowing at the short end only helps if long-term yields cooperate; if they rise, the strategy can leave the country exposed to refinancing risk and sudden increases in interest costs:

The US would only save that money if they do all the borrowing at the very short end of the curve. Because if I’m right and the Fed cuts rates and the yield on long-term bonds goes up, that doesn’t help the government. Right? So the only way the government would save money would be to keep borrowing real short. But that is in a very risky position to put the country in.

Finally, Peter turns to gold markets and the distinction between paper claims and physical metal. He warns that much of the activity in gold is speculative — futures are rolled rather than delivered — but a real run for physical metal could expose the limits of that paper market and create a squeeze. That, in his view, is precisely the kind of event that reveals the value of holding real, deliverable assets rather than promises:

But I do believe that eventually there could be a run on the futures markets because normally people are buying gold futures. They don’t need the gold and they don’t want the gold. They’re just trying to bet on the direction of the gold. They’re happy to roll over the contract to the next month as the contracts mature because they don’t actually need the gold. … Maybe you get the COMEX going bankrupt if the COMEX stands behind all these commitments that the shorts have made.

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

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Almost everyone knows that Germany invaded Poland in September of 1939 and on account of that, the British and French declared war on Germany. Thus began World War II, as every schoolboy knows.

But what about the other thing?

How many schoolboys know that the Soviet Union also invaded Poland shortly after the Germans did? How many who do know that have ever asked how come Britain and France did not declare war on Soviet Russia? Very few. No doubt because they have not been encouraged to ask such impolite questions by the government schools, which impart a redacted and politically correct version of “history.”

This redacted and politically correct version of history frames Germany as the incarnation of All That Is Evil but avoids scrupulously informing schoolboys of the Evil that was Soviet Russia. They are not told the interesting history of the meeting at Yalta – where Stalin introduced Lavrenty Beria to Roosevelt as “our Himmler.” Heinrich Himmler is a name known to most schoolboys. Beria not so much. His predecessors, Yagoda and Dzershinsky even less so.

Why is that?

Himmler was a baddie, certainly. As the head of the German equivalent of Stalin’s Cheka/NKVD “Blue Hats,” Himmler had lots of innocent people rounded up, sent to camps and dispatched to the next life. Drzhinsky, Yagoda and Beria did the same. How many schoolboys know this?  Perhaps a better question is: Why is it that they are not told of this?

Vachyslav Molotov was Soviet Russia’s Joachim Ribbentrop. Both were the foreign ministers of their respective states. Both were key players (behind the scenes) in the dissection of Poland by their respective states. Ribbentrop was sentenced to death and hanged as a war criminal by the postwar Nuremburg Tribunal, at which a Soviet judge named Vyshinksy was among the presiding. The latter was the judge presiding at Stalin’s infamous “show trials” of the 1930s, at which various politically incorrect people were convicted of being just that and sentenced to death. Yet Vyhshinsky sat in judgment of Ribbentrop, while Molotov clinked glasses at postwar celebrations of victory over Germany. He lived a long life and died an old man, of natural causes. Ribbentrop dropped from a height with a rope around his neck and was no more.

At Nuremburg, Herman Goring – the head of the German air force during the war and also Hitler’s designated heir and successor – made his accusers squirm when, after having been charged with being a key player in the attacks upon other countries that had not attacked Germany first, pointed out that his accusers’ countries had all done the same things. The United States, for example, had codified chattel slavery and did to the natives of North America very much what the Germans did to populations of similarly inconvenient people. The entire British empire was based upon imperial plunder. Cecil Rhodes can be fairly compared with Hans Frank, the German governor of occupied Poland.

It was the British, Goring pointed out, that first bombed civilian targets for the express purpose of terrorizing the civilian population. Germany retailed in kind; which is not to suggest either was right to do what was done. The point is they both did the same things but only one was excoriated for having done them. The losing side.

Goring was a baddie, of course. But what of his counterparts? For example, Arthur Harris, the architect of the fire-bombing of Dresden? Schoolboys are not told of this and most could probably not tell you who Harris was.

Why not? Is it not history? The unredacted version?

The truth is almost always nuanced. It is rarely binary, though schoolboys are very much encouraged to believe that it is. The so-called Civil War is another example, beginning with the misleading use of that term to describe what was in unredacted fact the attempt made by a confederacy of Southern states to form their own nation by separating from a “union” they believed had become overbearing and tyrannical to their interests. In other words, the states of the Southern confederacy were very much motivated by the same desire as the American colonies and neither of them had any designs to take over the country. The South wanted to separate from the North, not rule over the North – just as the 13 colonies wanted to separate from the British Empire, not rule it.

A “civil war’s” defining element is two sides vying for control of a country. The British Civil War was a civil war. What occurred in America in 1861-1865 was nothing of the sort. Most schoolboys believe otherwise, though – because it is important that they believe it.

Napoleon famously said that history is a lie agreed upon. He was not wrong, but it’s more than just that. Lies are usually overt. The history imparted to schoolboys is subtler. Exaggerrations and omissions. Half-truths rather than the whole truth. To get the latter, it is necessary to suss it out for yourself. As you do, you will often find that what was imparted to you when you were a schoolboy was not the truth but a narrative. One written and imparted by the victors.

This article was originally published on Eric Peters Autos.

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I appreciate John Helmer’s truth-telling in his program with Nima, Tuesday, August 19.

Also, I am pleased that Helmer’s detailed analysis supports my general conclusions on Nima’s podcast the previous day.  We are both equally contemptuous of the scam underway.  Helmer’s very direct language was appropriate. I thank him for it.

Like John Helmer, I am waiting to see if Putin’s need for time to prepare for wider war causes him to accept Ukraine’s remilitarization as a “peace agreement” and  whether Putin succumbs to a land swap instead of completing the conquest of the areas that are already reincorporated into Russia. Putin said some years ago that “Russia will never again fight a war on its own territory,” but Putin has been doing so for 3.5 years. The question before us is whether Putin is capable of maintaining Russian sovereignty, or is sovereignty an insufficient goal for the Westernized Russian business/intellectual class.

Witkoff reported that Putin had agreed to a land swap and NATO’s protection of Ukraine, which amount to Putin’s surrender.  That is why I said Witkoff said that Putin had surrendered to Trump.  In effect, it would be a surrender of Putin’s long held position.

What I do not understand is why Putin allowed himself to be put in such a situation.  This is why I don’t believe any proper preparation for the meeting was done. Indeed, it could not have been done in one week. It is always a mistake for a leader to put himself in the position that Putin did by going to the meeting with Trump on hope alone.  As Helmer correctly said, by the peace agreement we now mean remilitarization and long-range war.

My impression is that Helmer regards Witkoff’s statements that Putin agreed to a land swap and NATO protection for Ukraine as lies.  As I don’t know why Putin would abandon his position, Witkoff’s statements must be lies.  But what is their purpose?  How does it help Putin at home and the cause of peace by putting Putin on the spot with the Russian military and Russian nationalists as a weak reed  who was knuckled under by Trump?

I would also like to have Helmer’s assessment of Kirill Dmitrive.  He strikes me as only nominally Russian, a person lobbying for the Westernized Russian business/intellectual class interested in making money for which Russian sovereignty can be sacrificed. Helmer pointed out that the Trump family and European politicians are enriching themselves with remilitarization disguised as a peace agreement, so it is reasonable to wonder if there are similar situations in Russia.

If Putin hasn’t accepted NATO’s protection of Ukraine and a land swap that would leave a number of Russians to the mercy of Ukrainians, what happens when this comes clear and the peace process blows up?  As Helmer emphasizes for Trump winning is the agenda.

It seems to me that the only way Putin could survive the military and Russian nationalists by agreeing to a land swap and NATO’s protection of Ukraine would be to explain that it is just a ruse to gain time by ending an unimportant conflict in order to prepare for a much larger one.

I agree with Helmer that Americans and European policymakers have limited vision, but how can they not see that Russia and her allies are likely to be prepared for wider war long before the West is?

The Western World seems incapable of asking the obvious question:  “Why are US hegemony and the profits of the US military/security complex more important than life on earth?”

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Despite claims from the Trump administration about the success of Monday’s meeting with Zelensky and the European pimp delegation, the prospect for a successful negotiation to end the war in Ukraine is zero. Trump continues to mistakenly believe that he simply needs to get Putin and Zelensky together, who will hammer out a deal. Trump labors under the false assumption that the war in Ukraine was caused in part by a personal tiff between Putin and Zelensky. Putin has been very clear that he will only meet with Zelensky once the details of a Ukrainian surrender have been agreed upon. Trump also thinks that is nothing more than a dispute over land, and that land swaps is a key to achieving a peace agreement. Here again, Trump displays profound ignorance about the legal status of Zaporhyzhia and Kherson republics under the Russian Constitution. Putin cannot concede any of that territory to Ukraine any more than Trump can give Alaska back to Russia.

But there is some good news: Notwithstanding Trump’s ignorance of Russia’s reasons for starting the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022, he is sincere about reestablishing dialogue and normal diplomatic relations with Russia… at least that is what the Russians believe. During the Biden term in office, communication with Russia ended in January 2022. Now they have someone to talk to… actually several someones, which includes Trump, Rubio, Ratcliffe and Witkoff.

Russia is not going to back away from increasing military pressure on Ukraine. In the last 24 hours, Russia hit two key oil refineries –i.e., the Kremenchug oil refinery in the Poltava oblast and the SOCAR oil terminal/depot in Odessa. The Kremenchug Oil Refinery is owned by PJSC Ukrtatnafta. The ownership structure of Ukrtatnafta includes:

• The Ukrainian state, through Naftogaz of Ukraine NJSC, holding about 43% of shares.
• The Privat Group, controlled by Ukrainian businessman Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, holding about 56% via offshore entities.

In case you forgot, Ihor Kolomoyskyi is a prominent Ukrainian oligarch who played a significant role in Volodymyr Zelensky’s rise to power during the 2019 presidential election. This support included:

• Media Support: Kolomoyskyi owned the 1+1 Media Group, whose main TV channel (1+1) broadcast “Servant of the People,” the hit political satire starring Zelensky. This show helped propel Zelensky’s national profile and popularity. Kolomoyskyi’s media outlets gave extensive, supportive coverage to Zelensky throughout his campaign.
• Business and Personal Connections: Zelensky’s production company, Kvartal 95, had business ties with Kolomoyskyi’s media group. During the campaign, Zelensky appointed Kolomoyskyi’s personal lawyer as a key adviser, and he travelled to meet Kolomoyskyi abroad on multiple occasions while Kolomoyskyi was in exile.
• Perceptions of Influence: These connections fueled perceptions, especially among critics and political opponents, that Zelensky was “Kolomoyskyi’s candidate” or a potential puppet of the oligarch. His campaign benefited from Kolomoyskyi’s resources and media influence, leading to skepticism about the independence of his anti-oligarch platform

While Kolomoyskyi and Zelensky have since parted ways, Ihor is still a major economic force in Ukraine, and this hit him where it counts. It also damages Ukraine’s lines of communication with respect to getting fuel to Ukrainian military vehicles.

The bombing of SOCAR in Odessa is even bigger news. SOCAR is the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic. It’s Azerbaijan’s national oil and gas corporation and operates fuel stations, terminals, and logistics facilities in several countries, including Ukraine. The Odessa depot serves as a gateway for fuel products destined for European markets and for Israel. The destruction of SOCAR’s Odessa oil depot is a significant financial blow for Azerbaijan, leading to reduced market access, increased cost burdens, and forcing a reassessment of both commercial and diplomatic strategies for Azerbaijan in Ukraine, in Israel and in Europe. Consider this: SOCAR operates around 60 fuel stations across Ukraine and has invested in oil storage and network infrastructure in the Kiev, Odessa, and Nikolayev regions. This is not just an attack against the leader of Azerbaijan; it also is a severe blow to Ukraine’s ability to supply oil and fuel to its military forces. Putin sent a clear message to the Azeri leader, Aliyev, who has been way too chummy with Zelensky, Israel and the United States… FAFO.

If you want to know what Putin’s government is thinking in the wake of Monday’s meeting in Washington between Trump and Zelensky, set aside 20 minutes to listen to Sergei Lavrov:

This article was originally published on Sonar21.

The post Trump Still Fails to Understand Russia’s Fundamental Reason for the Special Military Operation, But He Is Trying appeared first on LewRockwell.

Just the day after the historic Trump-Putin summit in Alaska to discuss finding peace in Ukraine, the famous economist and UN adviser Jeffrey Sachs made his first ever appearance before the Ron Paul Institute’s (RPI) annual conference in Washington DC. Sachs’ Saturday speech presented essentially a ‘Blueprint for Peace’ – which was precisely the title and theme for this year’s event, attended by several hundreds of independent-minded people.

Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of RPI, had previewed in a media statement that “Professor Sachs has become one of the most courageous voices challenging the Washington foreign policy establishment.” Former Congressman from Texas Ron Paul also underscored that “We are facing a perfect storm of reckless foreign policy, unsustainable debt, and attacks on civil liberties” and “Professor Sachs brings the kind of intellectual rigor and moral courage we need to chart a different course.”

While President Trump and his top officials have been commenting on the incredible “complexity” and significant hurdles to achieving peace in Ukraine, Sachs in his Saturday speech demolished this notion, arguing that on the contrary it’s not so complicated at all – that the reality is raging wars from Ukraine to Gaza could be ended in a single day if Washington wanted to. The war can be “ended tomorrow” – or also would have never started, if the US simply but firmly declared NATO will not expand to Ukraine, Sachs at one point emphasized.

“It’s not so complicated actually to end these conflicts. It’s a little surprising how long it takes and how hard it is to to accomplish this, but it’s not so hard in substance because the underlying reasons for the conflicts that the United States is in perpetually are not sound reasons from the point of view of America’s interests, from the point of view of our security, from the point of view of our well‑being or our economy,” Sachs began by explaining.

“All of the conflicts that we are in and those that we could get in are misguided, misdirected, provoked by us to a very large extent and um… solvable. That’s the basic point. It really is not so complicated.”

This is a point which should resonate with the majority of war-weary populations in both America and Europe, who have seen billions siphoned from taxpayers into heavy arms shipments for Ukraine and Israel. Washington could cut off the weapons which help keep these hotspots raging, and could do it tomorrow while pressing hard for peace if it wanted to – as we at ZeroHedge have also long emphasized.

But Sachs pointed out that the establishment, from the military-industrial complex to the media to members of Trump’s own administration, remains stacked in favor of forever wars and is largely dead set against Trump – which means the US leader has a lot working not in his favor if he truly does want to strike a peace deal with Putin.

Sachs called out the mainstream media for wanting to slap a ‘failure’ label on the summit from the beginning (or even before it began): “I was looking at all of the the banner headlines about the failure yesterday [Friday] in Alaska. The failure because we didn’t launch World War because the two presidents had a good meeting together, because they announced progress,” Sachs observed sarcastically.

“This is taken as failure in our media which of course is hawkish by the moment and manipulated by, controlled by, paid by, or simply aligned with the military‑industrial complex in the country. So, it’s extraordinarily hard to hear a word about peace in this country.”

Imagine you spent a half year trying to get Professor Jeffrey Sachs to speak at your conference. One of our greatest antiwar intellectuals. And finally in desperation you fire off a final email saying last invitation. And he responds. What an honor. pic.twitter.com/b27xeUxMHD

— Daniel McAdams (@DanielLMcAdams) August 17, 2025

Below is a breakdown of Sachs’ some 40-minute speech, with key themes, paraphrased takeaways, and direct quotes – compiled by ZeroHedge:

Sachs on Ron Paul & Independent Media

Dan, thank you. Thank you so much for being persistent [in inviting me here]. I’ll tell you the trick why it worked: he was persistent and extraordinarily polite. And it really worked because I said, “That’s a meeting I want to do everything I can to make.”

So, it is a little bit rushed today, but it’s an honor to be here – truly a special delight to be at a conference titled Blueprint for Peace. We don’t hear much about peace in this world anymore, strangely enough – unless it’s on Judge Napolitano’s show or from the Ron Paul Institute.

Eisenhower’s Warning: Can Trump Overcome?

I think the wisest words spoken since World War II were President Eisenhower’s farewell address on January 17, 1961. He said:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Eisenhower knew what he was talking about – as a Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. President, and president of Columbia University. He warned of a reality that already existed in 1961.

Can Trump overcome this?

Whether he has the skill or not, I don’t know. But if he were a communicator and had the guts, what he should do is stand up and explain to the American people that this was about NATO enlargement, but we’re not going to do it… That would be the end. But he can’t quite… he says it privately, I’m sure, but not publicly. Why? Because we’re still trapped. We’re trapped as Eisenhower told us we’re trapped. And all these think tanks up and down the East Coast are bought the same way. It’s all phony. Everything you hear about the data. There was a report recently about Russia’s casualties being x times that of Ukraine by one of the Washington think tanks. So I looked at the sourcing and it was absurd.

Literally the Man Who Saved the World

That reality nearly ended the world during the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy, under immense pressure from military advisors, resisted the push to escalate. If he had listened to them, we wouldn’t be here today.

Even after resolving the crisis diplomatically with Khrushchev, we nearly saw nuclear war because of a Soviet submarine that misunderstood a US provocation – dropping live grenades as a joke – and almost launched a nuclear torpedo. Sachs detailed how the world nearly ended in nuclear annihilation:

We nearly had the world end anyway because of a disabled soviet submarine that was out of communication. And when it began and it was in crisis and when it began to surface, some jackass in the US military was dropping live hand grenades as a joke rather than depth charges. They thought they were under attack. And it happened to be the one submarine in the squadron that had nuclear tipped torpedoes. And they were entered into the bay. And a man named Mr. [Vasili] Arkhipov, who was senior to the captain, countermanded the order and saved the world only to go back home, by the way, and be reprimanded and lived in obscurity. But literally the man who saved the world, saved the world within one second because US doctrine at the time was that any attack by a a nuclear atomic weapon would be met by the full force of the US nuclear armaments. And the estimation at the time was 700 million dead across the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe. But this is good reason to believe that all of humanity might have perished and we came within a second of that.

Kennedy Pursued Peace & Then Was Assassinated

A year later, Kennedy gave one of the greatest speeches in modern history on June 10, 1963 – his peace speech – praising the Soviet Union, speaking of shared humanity, and advocating for peace. It moved Khrushchev so deeply that five weeks later, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed.

And then, four months later, in my opinion, the CIA killed Kennedy for that and other “crimes” — like trying to make peace. From Sachs:

But Kennedy made peace by praising the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, talking about their valor, their culture, their scientific accomplishments, and the fact that both sides would perish in a conflict so both sides could be depended on to seek peace. And Khrushchev heard the speech immediately summoned Kennedy’s envoy Averell Harriman and said that’s the finest speech by a modern American president. I want to make peace with your boss. And five weeks later, the partial nuclear test-ban treaty was signed. And about four months after that, in my opinion, the CIA killed Kennedy for that and for other crimes of trying to make peace. Maybe that explains the military‑industrial complex as much as anything. Maybe our leaders are just afraid, they’re afraid to make peace.

Fear Among US Presidents

Maybe our leaders are just afraid – afraid to make peace, afraid to defy the military-industrial complex. Since Kennedy, perhaps no president has truly been independent. Nixon tried and may have paid the price. Others may be afraid, misinformed, or simply bought.

The Doomsday Clock: A Ticking Warning

The Doomsday Clock was introduced in 1947 to alert us to nuclear danger. At first, it was set to 7 minutes from midnight. After the Cold War ended in 1991, it was pushed back to 17 minutes.

But every U.S. president since – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden – has moved it closer to midnight. Why? Because peace was possible in 1991, but the military-industrial complex decided it was time to dominate.

Amazing Story: Yeltsin Informing Sachs of End of USSR

I had a front-row seat. I worked with President Gorbachev and later with President Yeltsin to advocate for US financial assistance to stabilize Russia in the early ’90s. I was sure the U.S. would help. We didn’t.

Sachs recounts the following astounding story and series of events, as he was there in the room:

We can go to war anywhere we want. We can overthrow any government anywhere we want. I had a bit of a front row seat in those days because I fruitlessly was trying to get the United States to actually help the Soviet Union actively in 1990 and then to help Russia in 1991 and 1992 with financial assistance because of an urgent financial crisis that engulfed… a failed economic system. But when a system fails and a society is in distress I believe you help so that you don’t get into worse trouble so I had a front row seat. I was part of an effort as an adviser to President Gorbachev to try to enlist US support for financial stabilization in a very deep crisis.

I actually was in the Kremlin on December I think it’s December 13. I haven’t been able to absolutely confirm the specific date, but it was around December 13, 1991 when President Yeltsin walked across the room and sat in front of me. because I was a young kid but happened to be head of the delegation and he said, “Gentlemen – because it was all men – I want to tell you the Soviet Union is over.” That’s pretty interesting to hear that in the Kremlin. I kind of pinched myself and then it was my turn to speak and I said, “Mr. President, this is one of the greatest days in modern history and I am sure I am sure that my country will come to your assistance to give you help to help you stabilize because I know how extreme the financial crisis is.”

I’m a financial economist. I’ve helped stabilize a number of hyperinflations. You need some urgent help, even just a standstill on debt service payments because you don’t have foreign exchange reserves. This is a revolution. You need help to stabilize. But Mr. President, I’m sure that this will happen… So I thought I’m a pretty good economist, very convincing. Uh, and they’ll do the same. Nothing of the sort. Then I got blamed for the lack of stabilization in Russia by many people though it was exactly the opposite of what I had been saying because we refused to provide any help whatsoever. And honestly I could not quite figure it out. I knew that the people weren’t very clever but I still couldn’t figure out why. To summarize, the reason why is that the Cold War did not end in December 1991.

The Role of Netanyahu & US-Israel Policy

In 1996, another dangerous figure emerged: Benjamin Netanyahu. His vision was to dominate the Middle East with US support – no compromises, no peace, no division of land. Just take it all.

And so Netanyahu said, “We’re not going to make any compromises. It’s even a funny term if you know the history of Zionism that it’s a compromise: we come in, you should leave.” This is the basic summary, but not even we’ll divide the house. It was your house, we’ll divide the house. We’ll take 78%, you can have 22%. No. We’ll take 100% and there’s a lot of places you can move to. What are you complaining about? You ingrate. That’s the basis of the idea. And then the point is that a lot of people won’t like that. and there will be a militant reaction and then Netanyahu’s idea is you don’t fight the militants, you fight the governments that back them.

When Palestinians resisted, the plan was to go after the governments backing them. General Wesley Clark famously described the Pentagon’s post-9/11 plan: 7 wars in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran. We’ve fought in all of them…

Today, we witness mass killings in Gaza: 60,000 dead, including 18,000 children. Starving people are shot at while seeking food. Ministers boast of taking everything. And yet, not a single word of protest from our government. Why? The American public overwhelmingly opposes this, but our government doesn’t listen.

Illusion of Empire & the Monroe Doctrine

London may be worse than Washington. Britain still acts like it runs the world. MI6 is reckless. Starmer? Don’t get me started. They lost their empire 80 years ago, but they still act as if America is their junior partner in global mischief.

…The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was a reciprocal statement: Europe, stay out of the Americas, and we’ll stay out of your internal affairs. That’s smart diplomacy, especially in a nuclear world.

Yet, we’ve violated that principle time and again – pushing NATO right up to Russia’s border, despite clear promises not to.

The Madness of ‘Extending Russia’ Doctrine & Sachs Personally Warning Biden/Sullivan

The Ukraine war could have been avoided – by simply stating that NATO would not expand to Ukraine. Even Jake Sullivan privately told me it wouldn’t happen. But when I asked him to say it publicly to avoid war, he refused.

The war can be ended tomorrow if the US declares NATO will not expand to Ukraine. That’s all. It’s not about territory. Russia didn’t demand land – just neutrality. Even in Crimea, Russia sought a lease renewal, not annexation – until the U.S.-backed coup. This war is entirely provoked and entirely avoidable.

We will, as the Rand Corporation wrote in 2019 in one of the most absurd, dangerous, ridiculous exemplars of American foreign policy, we will extend you. ‘Extending Russia’: a document of a think tank. How to annoy Russia in 27 different ways. Is this really what we pay them for? How to provoke the other nuclear superpower with 6,000 nuclear weapons and then wonder why the hand of the doomsday clock is 89 seconds to midnight? These people are crazy. Honestly, it’s very very dangerous. …Let me just say that all the major conflicts can be ended straightforwardly. The casus belli of the Ukraine war is NATO enlargement, and US coup operations all over Ukraine. Even the New York Times reported that one a couple of months ago.

More on the warning directly delivered to Jake Sullivan while proxy war in Ukraine unfolded:

And incidentally, I’ll share with you just one moment. In 2021, the war could have been avoided easily by President Biden saying to President Putin, “NATO will not expand to Ukraine.” And I will say so. And I called Jake Sullivan. He teaches at Harvard. It’s all consistent… after you fail in Washington. And I said, “Jake, avoid a war. Stop NATO enlargement. It’s ridiculous. It’s useless. Would you like it on the Rio Grand in Mexico – a Russian military base?” Sullivan responded, “Jeff, we have an open door policy for NATO.”

…Give me a break. Open door policy. I repeated the Monroe Doctrine to no effect and I said, “Jake, stop the NATO enlargement.” He said to me, “Jeff, NATO’s not going to enlarge to Ukraine.” I said, “Jake, we’re going to have a war over something that’s not going to happen. Why don’t you say so?” He said to me, “Don’t worry, there’s not going to be a war.” Honestly, these people are not clever. They’re not clever. What they’re doing makes no sense. They don’t know what they’re doing. We don’t know when Biden checked out. Maybe already then. But in any event, they’re not smart. They’re getting us into trouble. So, we could make peace in Ukraine. Yesterday [Friday] was a hint of it.

Meanwhile…

Just 4 hours ago – Fox News posts an interview with US Sec. of State Marco Rubio who repeats the exact same justification for Ukraine to defacto join NATO or a NATO-like alliance that has been used for DECADES and which led to this whole conflict in the first place…

…the… pic.twitter.com/XirMk79JD6

— Brian Berletic (@BrianJBerletic) August 19, 2025

On the Madness of Preparing for War with China

The most dangerous idea today? Preparing for war with China. It’s madness. China hasn’t invaded anyone in 2,000 years, with the exception of a one-month border clash with Vietnam in 1979 and defensive actions during the Korean War.

Even in Taiwan, conflict would only arise because the U.S. is unilaterally arming it – against diplomatic agreements. We’re turning Taiwan into Ukraine. And the consequences could be far worse.

A Blueprint for Peace: Structural Reforms Needed

1. End CIA covert operations. Intelligence is necessary – regime change is not.
2. Depoliticize the intelligence agencies.
3. Close overseas military bases. They waste resources and create enemies.
4. Aggressively seek diplomacy. We need diplomats, not bombers.
5. Educate the public. The American people must understand our real interests.

Sachs described, “First, it was already recognized by President Truman in 1963 publicly, soon after Kennedy’s assassination – and already known before that, that the biggest mistake we made in 1947 was to give the CIA two jobs: one, intelligence, which we need, and two, covert operations, which is absolutely deadly for our security and for world peace. We should end all CIA covert operations. Period.

A Final Plea

All of these conflicts – Ukraine, Gaza, potential war with China – can be resolved quickly, if we tell the truth, act with courage, and demand accountability. Our government must stop listening to the war profiteers and start listening to the people.

We need brave leaders, honest media, and informed citizens. That’s how peace begins.

Reprinted with permission from ZeroHedge.

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As President Donald Trump works to mediate peace in Ukraine, a major concern among many Americans is that their loved ones will be sent to Ukraine as part of a security agreement being worked out with European and Russian leaders.

On Tuesday, Trump sought to allay those concerns. During a call-in to Fox and Friends, when asked to provide assurance that Americans won’t end up defending Ukraine’s border, he said, “Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president.”

CONFIRMED: No American troops are going into Ukraine:

FOX NEWS: “What kind of assurances do you feel like you have that… it won’t be American boots on the ground defending that border?”

TRUMP: “You have my assurance.”
pic.twitter.com/xYMSKWYffq

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 19, 2025

Security Guarantees

Trump has been talking to the heads of major European nations as well as those of the two warring nations in Eastern Europe. The issue European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, brought up most often during their marathon meeting on Monday was “security guarantees.” Zelensky and the heads of the major Western European nations have made clear that if it were up to them, there would be U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine.

On Monday, Trump was asked about the issue several times, and his responses were consistently vague. When a reporter asked if he would be willing to send “peacekeepers” to Ukraine, Trump evaded, saying, “We’re going to work with Ukraine, we’re going to work with everybody.” A reporter followed up, hoping for clarity. Trump responded, “When it comes to security, there’ll be a lot of help. Europe is the first line of defense, because they’re there, but we’ll help them out.”

Tuesday morning’s “assurance” is the most resolute he’s been on this particular question. But that doesn’t mean that the Europeans won’t try to infuse as much American muscle into the working agreement as possible — and it doesn’t mean that Russians will agree to whatever they propose.

Russian Concerns

Trump recently claimed that Putin agreed to accept security guarantees during his visit in Alaska, a highly curious claim. The Russians have been consistent in their opposition to having troops from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance on their border with Ukraine (ironically, the issue that triggered Russia’s invasion — Ukraine’s possible admittance into NATO — caused Finland to join the alliance in 2023, adding another NATO nation to the list of those that share a border with Russia–Estonia, Latvia, and Poland being among the others). On August 18, the Russians reiterated their opposition to this proposal. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russia does not accept “any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO troops in Ukraine that could lead to an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict.”

A deal between Ukraine and Russia is far from being ironed out, and with tensions in the region humming high, Trump’s assurance that he won’t send American troops to Eastern Europe is better than his usual ambiguity — but it’s insufficient.

Back to the Constitution

Constitutionally speaking, this decision shouldn’t even be up to the president. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution allocates major military-related decisions to Congress. Congress provides for the common defense, Congress declares war, Congress raises and supports armies. As for Article II, Section 2, the oft-cited justification for presidential control of the military, it says that the president “shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the United States, when called into the actual service of the United States.” Who is doing this calling? We refer back to Article I, Section 8: “Congress shall have the power to … declare war.”

As for treaties, the Constitution gives the president more powers. Section 2 says, “He [the president] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.”

So even it the agreement being worked out now would fall under the treaty clause, it appears the president would need support from the Senate if the agreement includes any U.S. military involvement.

This article was originally published on The New American.

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One of the most mysterious passages in the Gospels, to my mind, comes at the end of Jesus’ parable about the king who gave a wedding feast for his son. The people the king invites say that they can’t come. They have more important things to do. They even mistreat his servants, killing some. The king then musters his army and destroys the murderers and their city.

Then he instructs his servants to go out into the crossroads and invite everyone they can find. That they do, and the feast is set. But the king discovers that one man there isn’t wearing a wedding garment. When the king asks him why not, he has nothing to say in reply. So the king orders him to be cast out into the darkness, where there is wailing and grinding of teeth.

We must assume here that poverty is not an issue. The man does not say what would certainly come to his lips in such a case, and Jesus’ heart is always with the poor. That leaves two possibilities: negligence and contempt. These two shade into each other so that it is hard, in our experience, to tell where the one ends and the other begins. If we hold something in contempt, we are apt to be careless about it; and the more careless we are about something, even if we do not begin by looking down upon it, the more likely we will be to believe that it does not warrant our care anyway.

Thus, the man who is badly dressed at the wedding feast is like those who refused the invitation. He is violating both the solemnity of the occasion and its mirth; and he does so in a pointed way, too, so that his punishment fits the crime. He has already cast himself out of the feast; what the king does is to give him his wish, in a clear and final form.

I am not here going to complain about how people dress for Mass, although I think that what we wear is a sign to others and a self-influencing sign to ourselves. “Clothes make the man,” the saying goes; and there is a truth in it, if we consider that as we dress, so we become—we conform ourselves to the sign. Instead, I want to look at how we celebrate Mass, not in its total form, as others have done well, but in some of the actions and gestures that accompany it.

Here I am thinking of what I experienced at Mass two days ago, in a small (but it used to be a lot larger) parish in Canada, where we live during part of the year. There was no music at all because the choir, which means six or seven ladies and a man on a guitar or a woman on a keyboard, takes the summer off. That is a tacit sign that the singing is a bit of a chore. My ears were grateful for the lack of it because the hymns they sing are pretty awful stuff, but my heart wasn’t grateful. When I hear rotten hymns, I may roll my eyes or slap my head, but I try to remember to ask God to bless the singers, who usually don’t know any better.

There was not one male in the church under the age of 60. There was a small girl and, I believe, two youngish women; otherwise, all the women were elderly, too. The priest is a gentle old fellow with a good heart. But I don’t think he’s up to the task of lighting the fire of religious love and zeal in that old town. Because it’s been unusually warm lately, the people asked him to keep his sermon short, and he did, speaking for less than 60 seconds. He spent a good deal more time before the dismissal talking about a tennis championship.

The Canadian bishops as a group seem to be allergic to wedding garments, that is, to signs of devotion and intellectual depth. In the United States, the Nicene Creed is the standard. So it has been wherever I’ve heard Mass abroad—in Italy, Germany, England, Austria, and Sweden. But not in Canada; there what’s typical is the Apostles’ Creed.

I have nothing against the Apostles’ Creed, but I do not see why the longer and fuller and more precise Creed is set aside. If I had to guess, I’d say that the Canadian bishops wished to suppress the Nicene Creed because of the high theological term “consubstantial” and because in that Creed you have to use the term “man” twice to refer to all mankind. But that is, as I say, a guess. Negligence might be a better explanation—not that negligence is an excuse, either.

In our diocese, we have been instructed to stand at all times, except for the brief period during the first part of the Eucharistic prayer, from the calling down of the Holy Spirit, to the blessing of the chalice. That means, practically, that there’s a loud rumbling of bodies and kneelers after the prayer has begun, drowning out the following sentence. The faithful do not kneel after the Agnus Dei.

They used to kneel after receiving Communion, but word went out that we are supposed all to stand till the last person has received, supposedly as a sign of our solidarity. The practical effect of that is to turn the period after Communion into a waiting game. The people stood till the priest sat down, and then they sat down. Nobody knelt. Of course, I don’t know and can’t tell how much praying was going on, but the posture of quiet meditation was missing because everybody was watching for their signal to sit.

Read the Whole Article

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It’s so revealing how Israelis keep begging Trump to end the killing in Gaza, because they understand that the US president has the power to force Israel to stop. It seems like Israelis understand this far better than Americans do.

Six former Israeli hostages and the widow of a slain hostage have released a video pleading with President Trump in English to support a comprehensive deal to make peace in Gaza so that the remaining hostages can be freed.

“You have the power to make history, to be the president of peace, the one who ended the war, ended the suffering, and brought every hostage home, including my little brother,” implores one of the hostages.

“President Trump, please act now before it’s too late for them, too,” pleads the widow.

Freed Israeli Hostages Ask Trump to Stop Netanyahu’s Assault on Gaza#Gaza #Israel #hostages #Netanyahu #Trump https://t.co/Uwu4NuV7JQ

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) August 18, 2025

This is not the first time Israelis have begged Trump to force an end to the slaughter. Earlier this month more than 600 former senior Israeli security officials from Mossad and Shin Bet sent Trump a letter urging him to compel Netanyahu to make peace in Gaza. They did this because they understand something that many Americans do not: that the US president has always had the power to end the Gaza holocaust.

It’s crazy how many times I’ve encountered Americans telling me that this is “Israel’s war” and there’s nothing the president can do to end it. It was mostly Democrats doing this back when Biden was president and I was slamming Genocide Joe for continuing this mass atrocity, and now that Trump is in office it’s his supporters who show up in my comments section white knighting for the president.

“It’s not our war and we should stay out of it,” they sometimes claim, mistakenly thinking that critics of the US-backed genocide are asking for some kind of US intervention.

But the call isn’t for the US to intervene, it’s for the US to stop intervening. To end the US interventionism that has been underway for two years. The Gaza holocaust can be ended by the US simply ceasing to add wood to the fire.

600 Former Israeli Senior Officials Ask Trump to Force Netanyahu To End War in Gaza#Gaza #Israel #Netanyahu #Trump #Palestinians https://t.co/MRiKGPvUMn

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) August 5, 2025

Israeli military insiders have been saying again and again that the onslaught in Gaza would not be possible without US support.

A senior Israeli air force official told Haaretz last year that “without the Americans’ supply of weapons to the Israel Defense Forces, especially the air force, Israel would have had a hard time sustaining its war for more than a few months.”

In November 2023 retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brick told Jewish News Syndicate that, “All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the US. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote the following last year:

“The entire Israel Air Force relies completely on American aircraft: fighter planes, transport planes, refueler planes and helicopters. All of Israel’s air power is based on the American commitment to defend Israel. We have no other reliable source for essential supplies of equipment, munitions and advanced weapons that Israel cannot manufacture on its own. In recent months, hundreds of American transport planes have landed at IAF bases carrying thousands of tons of advanced, vital military equipment and munitions.”

Israeli Official: Without US Aid, Israel Couldn’t Sustain Gaza Operations for More Than a Few Months
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Gaza #Israel #Palestinians #militaryindustrialcomplex https://t.co/q5NX7G4E83 pic.twitter.com/0y0uQbo0Bb

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) September 3, 2024

The Israelis clearly understand that they’ve been entirely dependent on the US for the IDF’s acts of butchery in Gaza this entire time, and they clearly understand that the US president has the ability to turn off the tap whenever he wants.

And now they are begging the president to do so with increasing urgency, because it’s been made clear to them that their own government isn’t going to stop until it is forced to stop. They can’t stop the gunman, so they’re turning to the man who’s feeding him the ammo.

It would be good if Americans understood this as well. Trump is committing genocide in Gaza, just as surely as Netanyahu is, and he could end it at any time. The fact that he still has not chosen to do so makes him one of the most evil people on earth.

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There’s a funny story about a Pennsylvania farmer traveling to Washington D.C. during the Civil War to complain to President Lincoln that his Union Army was wrecking his fields and harassing his livestock.

Lincoln replied by telling the story of a Mississippi riverboat pilot who was once trying to steer his vessel through a particularly hazardous stretch of river when a boy pulled on his coat and said, “Excuse me, captain, I accidentally dropped my apple overboard, can we go back and get it?”

It was a witty reply, and illustrative of the broader fact that, once the state has committed to a major project such as a war or a mass vaccination program, it’s not going to reverse course in response to citizens’ complaints.

President Lincoln committed his administration to stopping the succession of Southern states, and it didn’t matter how many men died or how many farmers’ fields were trampled. His administration was determined to prosecute the war to the end.

The Trump administration currently finds itself encumbered with two Sacred Cows that it is unwilling to slaughter.

1). Insistence that Russia is the enemy of the West and must be defeated.

2). Insistence that Operation Warp Speed was a success.

Many of my readers will likely point out that the Trump administration is also encumbered with the Sacred Cow of unquestioning and uncritical support for the State of Israel, but that Sacred Cow goes back to the Johnson administration, and no subsequent administration has even considered touching it. Touching that Sacred Cow is akin to the experience of a man urinating into a 180 mph hurricane wind or running into a concrete wall.

Many in the medical freedom movement have expressed their frustration to me that Jay Bhattacharya and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have not slaughtered what is—within the federal halls of power— the Sacred Cow of COVID-19 vaccines.

I feel confident in stating that they do not have enough executive power to do this — not even close.

The best Kennedy can do is weaken his agency’s allegiance to the mRNA vaccine platform, but he’s not in a position to kill the COVID-19 vaccines outright.

Removing the COVID-19 vaccines from the market would be an official admission that they are unsafe. Such an admission could open a Pandora’s Box of liabilities for the U.S. government—liabilities that astronomically exceed the (already broke) Uncle Sam’s ability to pay. Uncle Sam definitely falls within the category of entities that are “too big to fail.”

The same is true of the Autism Omnibus Proceeding that was held in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims between 2002-2009. It is no wonder that the process was manipulated by outside interests and beset with all manner of intrigue and fraud, because there is NO WAY the U.S. government could have afforded to pay damages to the 5,617 petitioners.

Recognizing that the U.S. government’s liability was astronomical, the DOJ attorneys in the Proceeding were compelled to deny the causal link between children receiving multiple vaccines and autism.

Those who know about the proceeding have expressed shock and dismay at the deceptive conduct of DOJ attorney Vincent Matanoski. His deceptive behavior followed the logic of his assignment to deny the causal link by all means, no matter how crooked. Indeed, the Proceeding reads like something out of a mafia thriller, only instead of Don Corleone manipulating the process, it was DOJ attorneys.

Regarding the COVID-19 vaccines: I suspect that Secretary Kennedy’s greatest consolation is that most Americans are doing what prudent citizens in a Constitutional Republic are supposed to do—namely, choosing not to get the shots. Those who are still getting the shots are doomed to enter the battle of wits unarmed and probably can’t be helped anyway. They remind me of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

I think it was Henry James who once remarked that “Sacred cows are never slaughtered; they’re just slowly forgotten.”

Sacred Cows tend to be slowly forgotten only after the powerful men who erected them retire and die.

This article was originally published Courageous Discourse.

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“Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings? … Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”— U.S. Army Psychological Operations recruitment video

From viral memes to military-grade influence operations, the government is waging a full-spectrum psychological war—not against foreign enemies but against its own citizens.

The goal? Compliance. Control. Conformity.

The battlefield is no longer physical—it is psychological—and the American people are the targets.

From AI-manipulated narratives and National Guard psyops to loyalty scorecards for businesses, the Deep State’s war on truth and independent thought is no longer covert. It is coordinated, calculated, and by design.

Yet while both major parties—long in service to the Deep State—have weaponized mass communication to shape public opinion, the Trump administration is elevating it into a new art form that combines meme warfare, influencer psyops, and viral digital content to control narratives and manufacture consensus.

In doing so, President Trump and his influencers are capitalizing on a propaganda system long cultivated by the security-industrial complex.

What we’re witnessing is not just propaganda. It is psychological warfare.

Psychological warfare, as defined by the Rand Corporation, “involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups.”

Today, those “opposition groups” include the American public.

For years, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda and psychological operations aimed at conditioning us to be compliant, easily manipulated and supportive of the police state’s growing domestic and global power.

The government is so confident in its Orwellian powers of manipulation that it’s taken to bragging about them. For example, the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

This is the danger that lurks in plain sight: a government so immersed in the art of mind manipulation that it no longer sees its citizens as individuals, but as targets.

Of all the weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare may be the most insidious.

As the military journal Task and Purpose explains, “Psychological warfare is all about influencing governments, people of power, and everyday citizens.” PSYOP soldiers aim to influence “emotions, notices, reasoning, and behavior of foreign governments and citizens,” and “deliberately deceive” enemy forces.

Yet increasingly, these operations are being used not just abroad—but at home.

The government has made clear in word and deed that “we the people” are domestic enemies to be targeted, tracked, manipulated, micromanaged, surveilled, viewed as suspects, and treated as if our fundamental rights are mere privileges that can be easily discarded.

Aided by technological advances and behavioral science, the U.S. government has become a master manipulator of minds, perception, and belief—an agitator of the masses.

As J. Edgar Hoover once observed: “It is the function of mass agitation to exploit all the grievances, hopes, aspirations, prejudices, fears, and ideals of all the special groups that make up our society, social, religious, economic, racial, political. Stir them up. Set one against the other. Divide and conquer. That’s the way to soften up a democracy.”

Here are just a few ways psychological warfare is being waged against the American people:

Weaponizing violence. Recurring mass shootings, domestic unrest, and acts of terrorism traumatize the public, destabilize communities, and give the government greater pretext to crack down, lock down, and clamp down—all in the name of national security.

Weaponizing surveillance and pre-crime. Digital surveillance, AI threat detection, and predictive policing have created a society in which everyone is watched, profiled, and potentially punished before any crime occurs. The government’s war on crime has also veered into the realm of social media and technological entrapment, with government agents adopting fake social media identities and AI-created profile pictures in order to surveil, target and capture potential suspects. It has all the markings of a digital panopticon optimized for psychological control.

Weaponizing digital tools and censorship. Digital censorship is just the beginning. Tech giants, working with the government, now determine who can speak, bank, travel, or participate in society. Digital currencies (which can be used as “a tool for government surveillance of citizens and control over their financial transactions”), combined with social credit systems and surveillance capitalism create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society and punish individuals for moral lapses and social transgressions (and reward them for adhering to government-sanctioned behavior).

For example, the Trump White House recently rolled out a pilot program using a loyalty scorecard to evaluate businesses, echoing China’s social credit system. Businesses deemed “non-compliant” with patriotic messaging or flagged for “ideological extremism” based on their social media posts, public statements, or advertising content are at risk of being barred from federal contracts.

Weaponizing compliance. From the war on terror to COVID mandates, nearly every government “crisis response” has been weaponized to normalize surveillance and control, and demand obedience in exchange for perceived safety.

Weaponizing entertainment. Hollywood and the Pentagon have a long, symbiotic relationship. The military provides equipment, personnel, and funding in exchange for favorable portrayals of war, surveillance, and state power. As Elmer Davis, a CBS broadcaster who was appointed the head of the Office of War Information, observed, “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”

Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. The government’s “nudge units” use psychology and data science to steer public behavior. It may begin with paperwork, but it ends with worldview manipulation—conditioning the population to think and act as the state prefers, all while maintaining the illusion of free will.

Weaponizing desensitization. Lockdowns, SWAT raids, and threat alerts desensitize us to authoritarianism. What once shocked is now routine. That’s by design. The more accustomed we become to surveillance, policing, and crisis, the more willingly we embrace it.

Weaponizing fear. Fear is the preferred tool of totalitarians. It divides the public into factions—persuading them to see each other as the enemy, empowers the government, and numbs rational thinking. The more frightened the population, the easier it is to control. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset.

Weaponizing genetics. Fear doesn’t just condition us—it can alter us. Trauma and fear responses can be encoded in DNA and passed on to future generations, as studies in epigenetic inheritance have shown.

Weaponizing the future. The Pentagon’s chilling Megacities training video predicts that by 2030, armed forces would be used against civilian populations to solve domestic political and social problems. Under Trump’s expanded domestic security powers, the National Guard has been increasingly deployed in civil contexts—most recently to address squalor and crime in Washington DC and other parts of the country.

None of this is speculative. It’s well-documented.

In 2022, the Pentagon was forced to investigate reports that the military was creating fake social media profiles with AI-generated photos and fictitious news sites to manipulate users.

These are the modern tools of psychological warfare. But the blueprint goes back decades.

The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in re-shaping the country in the image of a totalitarian police state.

In the 1950s, the CIA’s MKUltra program tested LSD, electroshock, hypnosis, and other behavior modification techniques on civilians and soldiers—American citizens—often without their knowledge or consent. CIA agents hired prostitutes to lure men into bugged rooms, then dosed them with drugs and observed their behavior. Some detainees were interrogated to death in efforts to erase memories or induce compliance.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that a portion of the CIA’s criminal activities under MKUltra came to light. Congress’s Church Committee investigations revealed that the CIA had spent over $20 million attempting to control human thought and behavior, reportedly as a means of programming people to carry out assassinations (i.e., national defense).

Similarly, the top-secret Montauk Project allegedly was working to develop mind-control techniques that could trigger crime waves.

These were not fringe experiments—they were official policy.

As journalist Lorraine Boissoneault noted, “The same methods that had once been used to train American soldiers ended up being used to extract information from terrorists in Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.”

Fast forward to the present day, and it’s clear the government’s psyops warfare has not ended—it has simply gone digital.

Today’s psyops rely on mass media, AI, algorithmic censorship, and behavioral economics—not LSD. But the goal remains the same: shape thought, induce obedience, silence dissent.

In 2014, for example, a Fusion Center in Washington State mistakenly released records detailing government interest in “psycho-electronic” weapons—remote mind control tactics allegedly capable of controlling people or subjecting them to varying degrees of pain from a distance.

More recently, COVID-19 gave the government a global platform to deploy fear-based compliance strategies. Science writer David Robson explains: “Fears of contagion lead us to become more conformist and tribalistic… [we] value conformity and obedience over eccentricity or rebellion.”

That is precisely the point.

By constantly invoking crisis, the government keeps us reactive, not rational. Fear shuts down the brain’s prefrontal cortex—our center for reasoning and critical thought. A population that stops thinking for itself is one easily led.

This is how the government persuades people to surveil themselves, police their neighbors, and conform to shifting norms: through fear, repetition, and psychological fatigue.

It’s classic Orwell: through censorship, disinformation crackdowns, and hate crime laws, speech becomes thoughtcrime and conformity becomes patriotism.

Edward Bernays, the father of modern propaganda, warned of this nearly a century ago: “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”  They are, he concluded, “the true ruling power of our country.”

This “invisible government”—the Deep State—has perfected the art of psychological control.

With the approach of the 2026 midterm elections, this psychological warfare will only escalate: more fear-based narratives, more digital manipulation, more pressure to conform.

But the battlefield is not lost—not yet.

As I stress in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the first step in resisting tyranny is recognizing its tools: fear, deception, division, and control.

We must reject the Deep State’s mind games in order to reclaim sovereignty over our mental space and remind the government that “we the people” are not puppets to be manipulated or threats to be neutralized.

We are the rightful rulers of a free republic, and that starts with the right to think for ourselves.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

The post The U.S. Government Is Waging Psychological War on Its Citizens: Inside the Deep State’s PsyOps Machine appeared first on LewRockwell.

Zohran Mamdani, a self-identified democratic socialist, was asked directly whether “billionaires have a right to exist” and he responded to Kristin Welker on Meet The Press: “I don’t think we should have billionaires because frankly it is so much money in a moment of such inequality.”

Meanwhile, the stock market is so en fuego, the last hot stock is the IPO of a company called Bullish (BLSH). The name says it all. Joe and Jane Lunch Bucket are borrowing and punting on stocks attempting to get rich. “Guess what the biggest driver of this stock market rally has been? Leverage. For the first time ever, margin debt has topped $1 trillion and has ballooned +25% over the past year. Fully one-fifth of all the leverage supporting the stock market has been built up just in the past year alone; almost half of the outstanding margin debt has come in the past five years alone. That is quite an achievement. It’s also pretty scary,” posted David Rosenberg on X. What could go wrong?

Mr. Mamdani must be dismayed by the latest from CNBC, “AI is creating new billionaires at a record pace.”

“Going back over 100 years of data, we have never seen wealth created at this size and speed,” said Andrew McAfee, principal researcher at MIT. “It’s unprecedented.”

But is it wealth really?

Back when a billion dollars was something, not just inflated stock prices and depreciated currency, Murray Rothbard told us in class “billionaires are kooks.” He had just visited Forrest Mars (at Mars’s invitation) and complained of having to listen to the billionaire’s crazy ideas.

In a piece about Ross Perot for the Rothbard–Rockwell Report (RRR), Murray wrote, “the billionaire becomes a candid and independent crank, often a crackpot, a monomaniac rattling off his cranky views to those who are paid to nod sagely at his greatness. And thus, the billionaire allows himself to get cut off from reality, and his yes-men feed into the problem. So now we get: the billionaire with ideas, with social views.”

What Murray describes may remind you of someone or various someones.

He continued,

Being masterful entrepreneurs, they are supremely confident in their own ability to tackle tough tasks and to conquer them. But like all tragic heroes, they suffer from the failings of their very virtues. Bright and independent, they tend to scorn advice, a particular problem when they apply their entrepreneurial expertise to new and unfamiliar fields. Worse, they tend to become arrogant and thin-skinned, and brush away all criticism as the flea bites of lesser men. And being billionaires, they suffer from the same problem as the Emperor Caligula or, often, the President of the United States.

According to Statista, there were 66 billionaires in the US in 1990. That number grew to 748 in 2023. Over the same period the value of the dollar fell 59%. To candidate Mamdani’s point, Ludwig von Mises wrote, “Inflation and credit expansion, the preferred methods of present day government openhandedness, do not add anything to the amount of resources available. They make some people more prosperous, but only to the extent that they make others poorer.”

The divide between rich and poor will grow to unprecedented levels And more candidates like Mamdani will appear with an unworkable solution that doesn’t address the real problem.

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