Aggregatore di feed

In Routh’s case, prosecutors presented evidence that he used an encrypted messaging app while communicating with “someone he believed to be a Ukrainian contact with access to such powerful military weaponry”. Reports indicate that Routh’s exchange with the Ukrainian contact showed that he requested “an RPG or ‘Stinger'” and that he would “see what we can do… [Trump] is not good for Ukraine”.

Last year was one of the most intense in recent memory. The Deep State was determined to prevent Trump’s return to the Oval Office and it used virtually any means at its disposal, including his physical removal after media smear campaigns and the so-called lawfare failed. The second half of 2024 saw several assassination attempts and similar security incidents that could’ve possibly changed history. The first assassination attempt happened on July 13, when Trump narrowly escaped death after a bullet fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks grazed his face and ear. The involvement of the Deep State was pretty obvious from the get-go, as evidenced by the sheer number of blatant security blunders.

Just two months later, on September 15, Ryan Wesley Routh, a rabid Russophobe and an ardent supporter of the Neo-Nazi junta, tried to assassinate Trump at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Less than a month later, an unnamed 49-year-old resident of Las Vegas was arrested near a checkpoint at a Trump rally in Coachella, California. He was driving an unregistered black SUV with a “homemade” license plate and was in possession of multiple firearms (including a loaded gun), ammunition, several fake passports with different names, etc. He claimed to be a journalist but had no proper credentials. Inexplicably, the suspect was released the same day after posting a $5,000 bail.

Once again, so many security flops of this kind can be anything but. There’s simply no other logical explanation as to how relevant special services can make so many consecutive “mistakes”. The latest findings effectively confirm this. Namely, it turns out that the second would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, had some “very peculiar” contacts with foreigners who “might’ve” been interested in seeing Trump die. As previously mentioned, he was an ardent supporter of the Kiev regime and there was even evidence that he helped recruit mercenaries for its forces. However, it turns out that his connections were far more dangerous than initially thought, as he tried to acquire heavy infantry weapons from the Neo-Nazi junta.

Namely, in Routh’s case, prosecutors presented evidence that he used an encrypted messaging app while communicating with “someone he believed to be a Ukrainian contact with access to such powerful military weaponry”. Reports indicate that Routh’s exchange with the Ukrainian contact showed that he requested “an RPG or ‘Stinger'” and that he would “see what we can do… [Trump] is not good for Ukraine”.

According to Zero Hedge, the new texts were revealed in a Monday DOJ filing which admitted evidence in the cast. Obviously, powerful weapons such as rocket launchers would’ve been a virtual death sentence for Trump, as the would-be assassin wouldn’t have to worry as much about accuracy.

The sheer firepower of an RPG rocket would’ve ensured the death of both Trump and anyone in his vicinity. It’s unclear how exactly a “Stinger” MANPADS would help Routh, as it’s an air defense weapon, but there have been reports about its use against ground targets through the so-called “direct fire” mode. On the other hand, there’s also a strong possibility that Routh was planning to shoot down an aircraft with Trump onboard, so a “Stinger” would certainly make sense in that regard. According to the prosecutors, his efforts to obtain these weapons in August 2024 constitute “direct evidence of his assassination attempt against Trump”. In other words, Routh was engaged in long-term planning and had help.

The report also shows that he said “I wish” via an encrypted messaging app while discussing the first assassination attempt on Trump. In another message, Routh said that he needed “equipment so that Trump cannot get elected”. What’s more, in one of the texts to his Ukrainian contact, he suggested that “those items [US/NATO-supplied weapons] are lost and destroyed daily” and that “one missing would not be noticed”, adding that “no one would get caught in the transaction”. Thus, he wasn’t only planning an assassination, but also how to conceal the Kiev regime’s involvement. It’s difficult to imagine that such a plot would’ve been lost on the Neo-Nazi junta leadership, particularly as Zelensky endorsed Kamala Harris.

Routh himself repeatedly argued that having Trump in the White House would be “bad for Ukraine”. Expectedly, the Kiev regime is frantically trying to distance itself from him, with many of its officials calling Routh “delusional”. This is certainly “unpleasant” for them, as the Trump administration’s relations with the Neo-Nazi junta aren’t exactly the best, to put it mildly. What’s more, even in the unlikely case that the entire scandal was initiated by rogue groups or individuals, it still proves that the Kiev regime is an unreliable partner (at best), as its endemic corruption nearly killed Trump. It should be noted that numerous independent media from around the world have been warning about this for years.

This includes reports about the dangers of unchecked deliveries of weapons to the Neo-Nazi junta, as evidenced by the growing black market for otherwise unobtainable military-grade systems. The evidence presented by the prosecution confirmed the warnings InfoBRICS published several years ago, including the dangers for air travel. Namely, evidence shows a message with a photo of Trump’s plane and the following caption by Routh: “Trump’s plane, he gets on and off daily.”

“Attempting to purchase a destructive device to blow up President Trump’s airplane lies squarely within the realm of an attempt on his life, and Routh’s statements about the purpose of the purchase—that he ‘need[s] equipment so that Trump cannot get elected’ — drives home his intent, ” the prosecutors concluded.

Although Routh never managed to acquire either an RPG or a “Stinger”, the very fact that he came close shows that nobody is really safe, especially when even a US president (or a presidential candidate, at the time) was so close to dying. This is also a clear message to the American public – supporting extremists and terrorists for whichever geopolitical or any other reason cannot be justified and can always backfire, as such people are very difficult to control (if possible at all).

It also shows the deep involvement of US proxies in its domestic affairs, as the Deep State demonstrated willingness to use the said proxies for internal political purposes. Prominent US figures are even openly talking about this issue on TV. Namely, former Trump administration official Mike Benz commented that he’s “95% certain” that “rogue cells” within the corrupt federal institutions were working with Routh to assassinate Trump. He still insisted that this is “not to say the CIA did it or the Pentagon did it”, but that it was done by these “rogue cells” which set up “informal networks” for this very purpose. In other words, the anti-Trump Deep State is still “alive and well”, not just in the US, but also within its massive intelligence apparatus.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

The post Did Kiev Regime Plot To Kill Trump? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Over the last six months, I’ve worked to bring the public’s attention to dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) a forgotten natural therapy which rapidly treats a wide range of conditions and that many studies have shown is very safe (provided it’s used correctly), and, most importantly (thanks to the 1994 DSHEA act which legalized all natural therapies) is now readily available. Since I believe DMSO has an immense amount to offer to the medical community and individual patients, I’ve thus diligently worked to compile the evidence that would best make the case for its rediscovery. As such, throughout this series, I’ve presented over a thousand studies that DMSO effectively treats:

Strokes, paralysis, a wide range of neurological disorders (e.g., Down Syndrome and dementia), and many circulatory disorders (e.g., Raynaud’s, varicose veins, hemorrhoids), which I discussed here.

A wide range of tissue injuries, such as sprains, concussions, burns, surgical incisions, and spinal cord injuries (discussed here).

Chronic pain (e.g., from a bad disc, bursitis, arthritis, or complex regional pain syndrome), which I discussed here.

A wide range of autoimmune, protein, and contractile disorders such as scleroderma, amyloidosis, and interstitial cystitis (discussed here).

A variety of head conditions, such as tinnitus, vision loss, dental problems, and sinusitis (discussed here).

A wide range of internal organ diseases such as pancreatitis, infertility, liver cirrhosis, and endometriosis (discussed here).

A wide range of skin conditions such as burns, varicose veins, acne, hair loss, ulcers, skin cancer, and many autoimmune dermatologic diseases (discussed here).

Many challenging infectious conditions, including chronic bacterial infections, herpes, and shingles (discussed here).

Fortunately, much in the same way DMSO’s caught on in the 1960s, providing that evidence again has allowed it to make a rapid resurgence (e.g., I’ve now received over 2000 stories from readers who’ve often had remarkable improvements from using it).

Of the myriad of uses for DMSO, the least appreciated one is its applications in cancer due to the politics around “unproven” cancer therapies:

Dr. Stanley Jacob [the pioneer of DMSO] also is acquainted with Tucker’s work. In fact, he telephoned Tucker a few days before the Mike Wallace 60 Minutes show on CBS-TV to check out progress on the cancer treatment. Jacob plays down the DMSO-cancer connection, because he has enough trouble getting the substance recognized for all of its other special uses. He doesn’t want to have to fight off the label of “cancer quackery” as well.

As such, I recently published an article on DMSO’s remarkable properties for treating cancer and cited hundreds of studies showing that:

•DMSO causes a wide range of cancer cells to transform back into normal cells.
•DMSO slows the growth of many cancers.
•DMSO allows the immune system to target and eliminate cancers it previously was unable to remove.
•DMSO treats many challenging complications of cancer such as cancer pain and amyloidosis from multiple myeloma.
•DMSO protects tissue from radiation and chemotherapy injuries.
•DMSO makes many cancer therapies (e.g., radiation or chemotherapy) more potent, thereby ensuring both a higher treatment success rate and far less complications (as less toxic doses are being used).

Remarkably, despite DMSO’s anticancer properties routinely being used in lab experiments (including those seeking to find anticancer agents with those same anticancer properties), the cancer field has a striking blind spot to DMSO’s use, so in the existing literature, it is almost never discussed as a potential therapeutic.

Of these many uses, I believe the two most noteworthy are DMSO’s ability to mitigate the challenging complications of cancer (e.g., cancer pain or protecting healthy tissue from radiation therapy) and its ability to potentiate other anti-cancer agents.

Combination DMSO Therapies

One of the major advantages and risks of DMSO is that it can bring substances through the skin and significantly increase their potency in the body. On one hand, this is quite advantageous as it makes it possible to administer things which would otherwise require injections through the skin and for much lower doses of them to be needed to get results (e.g., as I showed here, antimicrobials mixed with DMSO are often able to treat a wide range of chronic infections which otherwise resist antimicrobial therapy). However, on the flip side, it greatly increases the risk of toxicity, either by accidentally bringing toxic compounds (e.g., pesticides) into the body that were on the skin prior to applying DMSO (or that were touched afterwards), or increasing the potency of a drug taken in combination with it.

Note: it is well known that healthcare workers who routinely administer chemotherapy periodically have accidental exposures to it (e.g., via vapor inhalation), so organizations like the CDC and NIOSH have worker guidelines about it (as these exposures increase the risk for a variety of issues including cancers). Since DMSO will cause chemotherapy drugs it is mixed with to be absorbed through the skin, it is crucial to be extremely cautious when administering it with chemotherapy drugs (particularly when applying it topically).

Since natural therapies are typically much less toxic than conventional pharmaceuticals and easily available (rather than requiring a prescription) over the years, people have tried combining DMSO with many of them and frequently found significant advantages from mixing them together DMSO.

This also holds true in the field of cancer care, and from reviewing all of the ways in which DMSO has been used to treat cancer, I believe the most promising applications (and which had the strongest data supporting their human use) came from DMSO being used in combination with another natural therapy. Unfortunately, the number of substances DMSO can be combined with is almost endless, and as such, the DMSO field has only scratched the surface of what it can be combined with to treat cancer. Many highly potent cancer treatments are likely waiting to be discovered once the right things are combined with DMSO.

Note: somewhat analogously, in the hundreds of studies I identified that examined if DMSO could differentiate a specific tumor type or improve a particular cancer-related gene (or protein), most of them found DMSO did create an improvement. As such, many other aspects of cancer would likely also be seen to improve following DMSO if they were to be tested.

Hematoxylin

Hematoxylin is a powder obtained from the logwood tree (e.g., grinding the heartwood up, boiling it in water to dissolve the hematoxylin present, and evaporating that mixture so only the powder remains). That tree is native to Central America and was originally used by the Mayans to stain cotton and as a medicinal (e.g., to treat diarrhea and dysentery). After its discovery by the Spanish in 1502, a massive market for it quickly developed due to the textile industry’s need to establish a dependable dye. Before long it began to be mixed with a variety of metal salts so it would remain in fabric (and not wash out).

Since many cellular processes are transparent and hence difficult to see without dyes that can stain them, much later (around 1830) hematoxylin began to be used in pathology where it was discovered (once oxidized into hematein and attached to a metal salt) it was remarkably effective for staining many components of cells including DNA. In turn, because of how well it works, almost two hundred years later, it remains one of the primary stains used in pathology to evaluate tissue (it’s the “H” in H & E stains).

Note: like hematoxylin, DMSO is also obtained from trees. Because each of these compounds is so widely used, they are also very affordable.

Tucker’s Discovery

Currently, most of the drugs we use are developed by a mechanistic system where biologically relevant targets in the body (e.g., receptors or enzymes) are identified through research, then compounds are mass screened through for their ability to affect those targets, with the ones that can elicit some type of pertinent change then run through a funnel (which can involve animal and then sometimes human testing) to identify which from that large pool of candidates elicits a benefit.
Note: compounds are sometimes custom-designed to affect receptors or identified through AI systems rather than physically testing a broad swathe of them.

In contrast, previously, drug design was much more of a hit or miss process, and frequently incredible discoveries would happen either by luck or under a completely mistaken assumption.

For example, the first antibiotic was developed by mixing a substance known to be toxic to bacteria (arsenic) with a dye that stained bacterial cell walls under the theory that the dye would allow arsenic to selectively target bacteria rather than the body (with almost all the attempts failing). After decades of attempts were made to replicate this approach, another dye that functioned as an effective antibiotic was found, but before long it was discovered that the antimicrobial agent was not the dye itself but rather a colorless metabolic product of it, sulfanilamide.

Similarly, one of the most remarkable therapies I know of (Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation) was originally developed under the belief that exposing the entire circulation to UV light would sterilize the bloodstream and hence treat a lethal infection. This did not work (it killed the test dogs) but before long, the inventor accidentally only irradiated a small fraction of the dog’s blood and got a remarkable results as inputting a small amount of UV light into the circulation transforms human physiology and allows the self-healing capacity of the body to treat a wide range of illnesses (e.g. UVBI is a highly effective treatment for bacterial and viral infections, circulatory disorders and autoimmune diseases).

Hematoxylin likewise follows a similar journey. Eli Jordon Tucker, Jr., M.D. was a highly respected orthopedic surgeon in Texas (with many awards and honorary status in a numerous medical societies) who had a wealth of surgical experience and had discovered a variety of pioneering orthopedic techniques from bone research he conducted as a hobby (e.g., he gained renown for discovering how to graft bones from one species to another). Tucker’s bone research required him to purchase cattle from a meat packing company, and in the process, he noticed many of the cows butchers (and meat inspectors) were accepting for slaughter had large cancers covering their faces.

Observing those cancers made Tucker wonder if there was some type of cancer-resisting antibody in those cows, so he began administering extracts of their blood into lab rats and mice with cancers and observed anticancer activity for certain cancers. Since it was unclear how much of a change was occurring, Tucker looked for a dye that could stain the tumors, and eventually realized hematoxylin was the perfect dye because it stained the cancers one color and normal cells another color. Unfortunately, hematoxylin had poor solubility and could not dissolve in normal laboratory solvents or enter solutions, so his ability to use it in his experiments was limited.

So, once DMSO (a potent solvent), came into use around 1963, Tucker tried using it and quickly discovered DMSO not only dissolved hematoxylin but could dissolve a very high concentration of it (e.g., 25g of hematoxylin could be dissolved in 62mL of DMSO). Furthermore, this mixture was excellent for staining cancers and making them visible (e.g., they stood out under the microscope and in gross dissection) as it concentrated in the cancers, but DMSO simultaneously did not stain any other tissues in rats. Most importantly there was a “marked increase in central necrosis of the neoplasm” indicating this mixture could potentially eliminate cancers while sparing normal cells.

Note: hematoxylin (dissolved in carboxymethylcellulose), like many other compounds, had previously been screened for its anticancer activity and in the absence of DMSO, had none, which I suspect was in part due to hematoxylin rather than hematein (which hematoxylin rapidly turns into within the body) being used.

Tucker then decided to conduct toxicity studies (initially in dogs) where he found high concentrations of IV DMSO mixed with hematoxylin had no toxicity to any of the tissues or organs he examined (and did not accumulate in any non-cancerous tissue). Curiously the mixture he made was far less toxic than IV DMSO alone (which is extremely safe and only had toxicity issues at fairly high concentrations), with roughly four times as much IV DMSO being possible for animals to tolerate once it was mixed with hematoxylin.
Note: the only physiologic change he observed from D-hematoxylin was that blood urea nitrogen would typically drop by around 50%, indicating this mixture improved kidney function.

He then began treating spontaneous cancers in animals (e.g., in horses, dogs and cows), which included terminal cases with massive tumors (e.g., a large-cell lymphosarcoma, a small-cell lymphosarcoma, generalized malignant melanoma, a squamous cell carcinoma) along with an osteogenic sarcoma. In all of these cases, there was a prompt response, and the animal subsequently recovered.

Note: Tucker found that hematoxylin alone had no effect on cancer cells (as did previous researchers who tested iton a carcinoma, sarcoma and leukemia cell lines) while subsequent investigators found DMSO alone had a minimal anticancer effects compared to the mixture, whereas they could not administer hematoxylin alone (as without DMSO it is essentially not soluble in an IV solution). Going forward (for brevity) I will refer to the DMSO hematoxylin mixture as “D-hematoxylin” (which is a term I made up while writing this).

William Daniel, former Governor of Guam, one of Tucker’s friends, phoned and told the doctor: “E.J., I have a cancerous dog on my ranch who is suffering terribly. Could you do anything to help him, or should I have him put to death?”

“I’d love to try,” answered Tucker. “I’ll send my technician to pick up the dog right away.”

The technician brought the animal to Tucker’s veterinarian, Dr. Collins, for examination. The vet diagnosed that large-cell lymphosarcoma was permeating the dog’s body. “The poor animal is choking to death from the tumors in his throat, and he has large tumors all over his body,” said Dr. Collins over the telephone. “I don’t think he’ll live long enough to be transported to your laboratory.”

Tucker said, “Transfuse him, give him some blood fast, and let me have him for treatment.”

The physician took the dog, which was barely alive, into the laboratory and injected DMSO-hematoxylon solution intravenously. His technician took over the work and gave the injections daily. Within two weeks, all the tumors had disappeared. It seemed like a miracle to the technician.

Upon Tucker’s examination of the dog, he found that all the large-cell lymphosarcoma tumors had completely regressed. The huge masses in the neck and over the whole body of the animal had gone away, and the dog came out of the treatment completely cured.

The dog was thriving at the laboratory when an unlucky accident caused his death. He ate a large quantity of some meat contaminated with Malathion, an insecticide poison. Tucker performed an autopsy, which revealed no active cancer cells in the vestigial remains of the previously large lymphomatous nodules. Many ghost cells—cells that were formerly cancer but weren’t any kind of cells anymore —appeared in the microscopic sections. Not a single distinguishable cancer cell remained in the dog.

Additionally, in 2019, long after Tucker conducted his toxicity experiments, to help the Ecuador team, Roger Tapia, a veterinary student conducted his own LD50 study as a graduation thesis by giving intraperitoneal injections of D-hematoxylin to 70 mice and determined that:

•The D-hematoxylin LD50 was 1257.16 mg/kg of hematoxylin (± 159.10 mg/kg), which is very safe (and between 10 to 100 times less toxic than many commonly used cancer drugs).
Note: the LD50 of hematoxylin alone is also fairly low (e.g., the oral LD50 is over 2000mg/kg), but relatively little data exits on its actual LD50 as it is not intended for human consumption (e.g., data only exists for the oral LD50 and the actual LD50 is unknown as a high enough dose to be lethal to half of those exposed was never tested).

•At lower doses (e.g., 5.5mg/kg to 550mg/kg) low activity, tremors and accelerated breathing were observed that regressed after an hour, while at higher doses, spasms, suffocation and eventually death occurred (likely due to respiratory collapse).
Note: the authors of the study suspected these symptoms were likely due to the shock of an intraperitoneal injection and it being injected too quickly (all of which can be avoided with a careful IV administration).

•In rats that died, the presence of fluid accumulation was observed in the abdominal cavity and surrounding the lungs which was attributed to vasodilation and increased vascular fragility.

•At all doses (including lethal ones), the mixture did not produce any changes in the shape, weight, or size of the internal organs (which I assumed was due to the fact D-hematoxylin does not accumulate in normal tissues).

The full study can be read here:

Note: while Tucker found IV DMSO with hematoxylin was a fourth as toxic as DMSO alone, when I compared the IP (intraperitoneal) LD50 value this study obtained to the recognized LD50 values for DMSO, I found DMSO alone was less toxic.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Forgotten Cancer Cure Hiding in Plain Sight appeared first on LewRockwell.

According to press accounts, the Trump administration, which some right-wing libertarians have humorously described as being “antiwar,” is now contemplating dropping bombs on Mexico. Yes, real bombs that kill people and destroy things, just like the bombs that U.S. national-security state officials used to kill people in Iraq, which, like Mexico, never attacked or invaded the United States. More specifically, such a bombing campaign would target drug cartels in Mexico.

Make no mistake about it. When one nation-state drops bombs on another nation-state, that is an act of war. When the first bomb drops, the United States will initiating another war of aggression — that is, the type of war that was condemned as a war crime at Nuremberg.

Before then, U.S. officials will undoubtedly try to pressure Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum into agreeing to their bombing campaign. That way, they can say that they are not really waging war on Mexico with their bombs because Mexico’s president has agreed to the U.S. Empire’s bombing of her country.

Scheinbaum has already gone to tremendous lengths in an effort to appease President Trump. She has agreed to surveillance over Mexican skies by U.S. government drones. She has sent Mexican drug dealers to Trump in what had the appearance of human tribute being paid to an emperor. She has sent 10,000 Mexican troops to the U.S. Mexico border in an ostensible effort to help Trump enforce the U.S. drug war and U.S. immigration controls. And she has had her own drug warriors bust several Mexican drug-dealing operations.

As of now Sheinbaum has said that Mexico will not agree to a military attack on the country. Time will tell whether she caves and give Trump officials the fig leaf they need to launch bombing attacks on Mexico.

Notice something important here: federal officials have now conflated the much-vaunted “war on terrorism” with the much-vaunted “war on drugs.” Why is that important? Because it enables them to treat a criminal-justice matter — i.e., violations of drug laws — as a military matter, which empowers them to treat drug-war violators as “illegal enemy combatants” who don’t wear uniforms.

The war on terrorism came into existence as a result of the 9/11 attacks. The terrorists replaced the communists as America’s official enemy, and the “war on terrorism” replaced the Cold War’s “war on communists.” “The terrorists are coming!” replaced “The Reds are coming!” to keep Americans afraid and eager to trade their liberty for the pretense of “security.” That’s how we got the Patriot Act, TSA, illegal mass secret surveillance, and other destructions of American liberty and privacy.

The war on terrorism exposed vast omnipotent powers that had long been wielded by the U.S. national-security state. Kidnappings, military custody, torture, indefinite detention, extra-judicial execution, mass secret surveillance, and state -sponsored assassinations — all to keep us “safe” of course.  While many fear-filled Americans were excited about the fact that their government was wielding such powers against “the terrorists” (and against the Muslims), what they didn’t notice in their fear was that the government could now legally wield omnipotent powers against American citizens as well.

Throughout the war on drugs, however, it was always assumed that the drug war would be operating independently of the war on terrorism. After all, drug prohibition is strictly a criminal-justice matter, one that involves a process of arrest, indictment, prosecution, and possible punishment. It’s also a matter that involves constitutional procedural protections, such as due process of law, trial by jury, right to counsel, and the presumption of innocence.

Thanks to the principle of posse comitatus, it also means that the military is absolutely prohibited from involving itself in the drug war. That’s because the American people do not want the military to be involved in matters relating to criminal justice. They want regular law enforcement personnel to enforce criminal laws and they want the regular criminal-justice system to handle violations of criminal laws. (Hypocritically, however, the U.S has long sent U.S. military forces into foreign countries to enforce the drug war. Moreover, it encourages other countries to use their own militaries to wage the drug war. )

The Trump administration has now conflated the “war on drugs” and the “war on terrorism” by designating drug cartels or drug gangs as “terrorist” organizations. That enables U.S. officials to now use the military and “wartime” military powers against violators of drug laws.

Don’t forget also that the war on terrorism is the “global” war on terrorism, which, in the minds of U.S. officials, empowers the U.S. Empire to do whatever is necessary to eradicate terrorism everywhere. That’s undoubtedly why people within the Trump administration feel like the U.S. can bomb Mexico even without the consent of Claudia Sheinbaum. Of course, if they get away with bombing Mexican drug-war violators under the rubric of the “war on terrorism,” there is nothing to prevent them from doing whatever is necessary to kill and destroy drug-war violators here in the United States under the same “war on terrorism” rubric, including assassinating them or sending them to Guantanamo Bay or El Salvador for torture and indefinite detention. After all, don’t forget that it is a “global” war on terrorism.

Finally, it is important to note that what all too many Americans fail to realize, despite decades of drug-war failure and violence, is that nothing that U.S. officials do, including bombing Mexico, will win their war on drugs. All they will succeed in doing is accelerating the destruction of American liberty, while wreaking ever more death and destruction.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

The post Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Mexico? appeared first on LewRockwell.

There are a number of discussions about a potentially imminent U.S. war on Iran. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism concludes that a war is more likely than not. Crooke, Mercouris and Diesen are ambivalent (vid) but also seem to expect a conflict.

President Trump (or, more correct, Netanyahoo behind him) has made demands towards Iran that are designed to be rejected:

• End all nuclear programs
• Destroy medium range missiles which can reach Israel
• Stop support for all ‘resistance’ movements in the Middle East

Iran will of course reject those demands.

It is willing to put its nuclear program back into the parameters of the JCPOA nuclear agreement, which Trump previously discarded, IF sanctions against it are lifted. It is also willing to do lucrative business with the U.S. But that is about it.

The U.S. is trying to impress Iran with military arrangements. Several B-2 bombers were sent to Diego-Garcia, two airforce carriers are in the Middle East, Israel has been supplied with more THAAD and Patriot air defense missiles.

I find that to be a mere show of force mostly for the audience in the U.S. It is not enough for a sufficiently strong attack that aims to defeat Iran. Iran’s abilities to retaliate require a much larger force for the opening campaign and many more forces to handle all the calamities which would inevitably follow.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was in Oman today for talks with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi. The first reactions are positive but there are no words (yet) of any results:

“Talks were held in a constructive atmosphere, based on mutual respect,” and the delegations exchanged the views of their respective governments about “Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions relief with the mediation of Oman FM,” says the MFA statement.

The talks will continue next week.

It is hard to assess what Trump might do. If he does not give a f*** he will attack Iran no matter what. If he still cares for his legacy he will avoid a war that would let energy prices explode and pull the U.S. into another large war without end which it can not possibly win.

My current line of (wishful?) thinking is similar to Larry Johnson’s:

My hope is that Trump is smarting from the beating he has taken over the tariff fiasco and that he is eager to score a diplomatic win. If my assumption is correct, Trump will embrace JCPOA 2 as his creation and proclaim himself as the one who stopped Iran from building a nuke.

Then again, as Alastair Crooke reminds us, the current volatile international situation may make random events more relevant than politicies in creating the outcome. Simple moves, from potentially many sides, (an Israeli attack on Iran?) could easily have snowball effects.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

The post War With Iran? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Three wise monkeys are perfectly aware of what a pigeon posing as eagle is really up to.

The Toddler Temper Tantrum-style Trump Tariff Tizzy (TTT), now accelerated to 145% – and counting – is yet another thunderous trademark pigeon smashing the chessboard gambit.

It won’t work. Trump claimed that China would call him to “make a deal”. That’s reality show territory. Reality is more like the statement by the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council: “Given that U.S. exports to China already have no market acceptability under the current tariff rates, if the U.S. further imposes additional tariffs on Chinese goods, China will simply ignore them.”

Translation: keep vociferating/tariffing. We don’t care. And we will stop buying from you. Anything.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry: A “tariff-wielding barbarian can never expect a call from China.”

Basic numbers. China’s GDP for 2025 is projected at 5%. U.S. imports account for at best 4% of Chinese GDP. China’s share of total exports to the U.S. dropped to 13.4 per cent in 2024.

Goldman Sachs – not exactly a CCP “mouthpiece” – has just projected that TTT will cost China only 0.5% of GDP in 2025, while costing no less than 2% of U.S. GDP. Talk about blowback.

Still, from now on, what matters most for Beijing is to keep diversifying the supply chain.

Asia-wide, the extra wheels are in motion. President Xi Jinping will soon start an ASEAN mini-tour (Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia). The Shanghai Cooperation Organization – increasingly focused on geoeconomics – is about to meet. The EU, for all the mendacity of its “elites”, is absolutely itching to strike trade deals with China.

Zhao Minghao, deputy director at the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University, in Shanghai, refers to the current incandescence as “a game of strategic resolve.”

Previously, the eminent Wang Yiwei, international relations star professor at Renmin University in Beijing and an expert on the New Silk Roads, noted that the current tariff rate already made China’s exports to the U.S. “almost impossible”.

This analysis noted how China started to deal with TTT with a “courtesy before force” approach, then turned to “we don’t care”, while cultivating “the art of timing” in its asymmetric attack on U.S. stocks.

A fascinating window on the real wheels of Chinese trade is offered by a timely visit to the vast Yiwu International Trade City,

the largest concentration of small traders on the planet.

Less than 10% of Yiwu’s phenomenal amount of business involves the U.S. Among the 75,000 business operators in Yiwu Small Commodity City, only a little over 3,000 do business with the U.S.

Two Sinophobes meet one mirage

TTT is largely the product of two crude Team Trump arrogant/ignorant Sinophobes, economic advisor Peter Navarro and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who know less than zero about all things China.

In fact it was Bessent who right at the start gave the game away:

“This was driven by the president’s strategy… You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors, and we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.”

A crude trap. With the sole focus on China. That had nothing to do with the initial tawdry plot line: tariffs, Mafia-style, on most of the planet, penguins included. If you don’t retaliate, fine. If you do, we hit harder.

of the so-called “Miran mirage” – after Trump’s alleged economic brain Stephen Miran. What is actually happening, fast, bypassing the stupid notion that tariffs will be paid for by current depreciation elsewhere (see Miran’s white paper here), is the uncontrolled demolition of the U.S. as a world trade center.

Asked why he paused the tariffs, Trump answered: “I thought people were jumping a bit out of line. They were getting a little bit yipee. They were getting afraid.”

Nonsense. Trump cannot possibly admit on the record that the U.S. oligarchy, Jamie Dimon and co., freaked out big time; and that, plus the debacle in the bond market, forced him to backtrack.

Nobody in neoliberal heaven and earth can mess with the Goddess of the Market.

As for the long-term strategy of several nations of the Global Majority caught in TTT’s crossfire hurricane, not to mention big players like China and the EU, they will all avidly reduce their dependence on U.S. markets.

Once again, the elaborate “deal” offered by Trump and his illiterate advisors boiled down to a Mafioso “offer you can’t refuse”: blow up, or significantly diminish, your trade with China – the largest trading partner of nearly all of these nations – and trade with Exceptionalistan, plus 10% tariffs. To hell with your economic sovereignty and strategic flexibility. Once again: it’s our way or the – tariff – highway.

Reality instead will dictate that the U.S. will increasingly import Chinese products from third countries – while China will continue to get paid for it. China will export even more to ASEAN and other Global Majority actors.

As it stands, Trump’s “plan” – if there is any – remains to “stabilize” his allies while concentrating all the firepower on China, in theory to drive China’s complex supply chains to chaos and force companies to move production lines to, for example, Vietnam or India.

Shakedown leading to breakdown

China containment will be on overdrive. Expect a tsunami of technological restrictions, investment red lines and, of course, extra sanctions. Sinophobe Bessent does not rule out delisting Chinese stocks from U.S. exchanges: “I think everything’s on the table (…) That will be President Trump’s decision.”

Beijing, for its part, can easily go nuclear, deciding for a sell-off of its U.S. Treasuries en masse, with catastrophic cascading consequences. As of January, Beijing held $760 billion in U.S. debt. With a delightful diplomatic touch, Yang Panpan and Xu Qiuyan, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, note that what happens next with U.S. Treasury bonds remains “highly uncertain”.

Bridgewater billionaire investor Ray Dalio, for his part, while incisive, was also heavy on diplomacy: “We are seeing a classic breakdown of the major monetary, political and geopolitical orders.”

There’s no more “cooperative world order” led by the U.S. (in fact that was anything but cooperative”); Dalio at least recognizes the unilateralism manifest in “the U.S.-led trade-war, geopolitical war, technology war, and, in some cases, military wars.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian de facto synthesized Beijing’s position. No more Mr. Nice Guy, which was the default Chinese position until recently: if the U.S. insists on fighting a tariff war and a trade war, China will fight to the end.

So here we are. And once again, it’s the Empire of Chaos against BRICS.

The Empire of Chaos embarks on a hot geoeconomics war against its peer competitor China; contemplates a hot military war against sovereign Iran; and at the same time tries to appease nuclear/hypersonic power Russia into a sort of hazy deal to somewhat freeze the Forever War by proxy in Ukraine.

The new Primakov triangle, RIC (Russia-Iran-China) is perfectly aware of these moves. Putin had metaphorically characterized the Russian position in the U.S.-China trade war when he mentioned that the Chinese have a good proverb: when tigers fight in the valley, the smart monkey sits and watches how it ends.

Now is more the case of three wise monkeys perfectly aware of what a pigeon posing as eagle is really up to.

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

The post Why China Won’t Call a ‘Tariff-Wielding Barbarian’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

Trump gives in to the military/security complex, renews weapons to Ukraine and extends sanctions on Russia for a year.

On April 10 Trump declared a continuation of the national emergency with Russia and renewed President Biden’s April 2021 executive order declaring Russia to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the United States.”

By renewing Biden’s executive order, Trump even buys into the Russiagate charges against himself:

Among the “harmful” activities ascribed to Russia in the document are “efforts to undermine the conduct of free and fair democratic elections and democratic institutions in the United States and its allies and partners.”

Russia is also blamed for a Washington specialty:  “undermining security of countries and and violating principles of international law.”

Trump has already cluttered the peace negotiations with his demand for Ukrainian rare earth minerals.  Now he has introduced another extraneous issue–his demand for control of the pipeline through which Russian natural gas is delivered to Europe.  Yes, Putin is still supplying Russia’s active enemies with energy.  What sense does it make to help your enemies make war against you?

The Kremlin remains unable to read the writing on the wall.  Kremlin spokesman Peskov said that “our dialogue with the American side is ongoing,” and that Moscow remains open to resolving the Ukraine conflict diplomatically.  The Kremlin thinks it is building relations with Washington by being the only party to keep the ceasefire on energy infrastructure. It is not succeeding.  Trump has already threatened Russia with more sanctions unless Russia agrees to a total ceasefire.  What incentive does Russia have to do that when Zelensky? US? NATO? won’t even keep a partial ceasefire?

It leaves one to wonder if Putin has convinced Washington that he is so averse to war that he will eventually surrender.

It is now completely clear that Putin made a strategic mistake not to quickly win the conflict. Instead, the Kremlin valued reaching an agreement with the West higher than it valued Russian national defense. See this.

The post Trump Backs Away From Improving Relations With Russia appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump says he want to “go back, probably, to a 2020 standard” as regards federal mandatory miles-per-gallon edicts – the latter being the right word because it’s the honest word.

A “standard” is an objective value of some kind, used to evaluate whether a given thing rises to that standard. Federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) “standards,” on the other hand, are nothing more than the federal government decreeing that all new vehicles must average an arbitrarily laid down minimum miles-per-gallon. Those that do not average say 35 miles per gallon – the standard in force in 2020 – are considered “noncompliant” and their manufacturer is punished for this via fines that are imposed for offering such “noncompliant” cars for sale.

Note the offering part.

It often – it almost always – passes without comment that no one is forced to buy a vehicle that does not average 35 MPG. People are free not to. But they aren’t free to buy a vehicle that averages less than 35 MPG in that it’s not “free” when you’re made to pay more for something. Sure, you can buy a new car with a six cylinder engine. But you probably can’t afford to – because CAFE fines have made six-cylinder-powered cars luxury-priced cars and most of them no longer come standard with sixes anymore, either.

The fundamental discussion about whether the federal government has any legitimate business decreeing how many miles-per-gallon new vehicles must deliver is the one that needs to happen.

Trump’s comment to John Elkann, the new chairman of Stellantis, about “going back, probably, to a 2020 standard” is of a piece with the promises of Republicans to “mend” – but not end – Social Security and to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. With – of course – a Republic version of Obamacare. Statism always advances. Its “retreats” – when they occur – are merely slower advances.

Trump was correct when he told Elkann that the federal fuel economy fatwas – which have been framed as being as much about “emissions” (of the dread gas carbon dioxide) as about gas mileage – don’t “mean a damn bit of difference for the environment” but wrong when he added that they “make it impossible for people build cars.”

Not so.

CAFE just makes it hard to sell vehicles that are not devices – i.e., electric or partially electric vehicles – and engines that are larger than small fours. They make it extremely expensive to offer for sale large vehicles with large engines. There are plenty of medium-small look-alike crossovers with one-point-something (maybe two-point-o) liter engines available. These are the ones that are “compliant” with the 2020 standards – and these are the ones we’ll continue to get if Trump “goes back” to the 2020 standards.

Trump himself understands this. “We’re going to be bringing it back to a standard that is a very good environmental standard, but it makes it possible to build a car,” he said.

So there you go.

And note the part about the “very good environmental standard.” It suggests Trump agrees that there ought to be “standards” – just more reasonable ones (according to his standard).

We are supposed to be grateful that Trump is opposed to the near-doubling of the 2020 standard – to about 50 miles-per-gallon – that was decreed by the Scranton Sniffer. This “standard” would have effectively forced the manufacturers to make almost nothing other than electric and partially electric cars – because those are the only kinds of vehicles that can be made to average 50 MPG. It would still be legal to sell vehicles with engines – even V8s – but they would become so expensive (as a result of CAFE fines) as to be available only to the small handful of people in a position to be able to afford them.

Read the Whole Article

The post Less Is Still Too Much appeared first on LewRockwell.

There can be no justification at all for the view expressed widely in the twentieth century and into our own, that the very existence of truth is contingent on somehow being able to define the term in human languages for a group of people! This astounding exercise in hubris tries to make us believe that “your truth” or “my truth” is always relative and is dependant upon the finite workings of the mortal organ known as the human brain!

Immortal and absolute truth that lies beyond the ability of our finite minds to fully grasp is actually a much more rational conclusion. Such a conclusion also acknowledges the fact that inherent within all of  us is the moral code and ethic that is written in the stars and in our hearts and which in some parts of the world is referred to as “conscience”.

As the German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote, “two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”

The latter has a lively existence in cultures as diverse as the geographies from which they hail. Nor is it resident only after a period of learning has embedded it in our minds. Rather, as an entity that has its independent existence in the consciousness of all those that belong to the fraternity of nations, it has surprised many readers of comparative history and literature with its essential unity.

For, separated as they are by oceans and mountains and land and sea, these people of varying hue and shape have aspired broadly to a set of rules which are remarkable in their consistency from time to time and place to place.  These rules may or may not be called “truth” and may or may not all be expressed in similar terms by those who recorded their history, but where in the histories of all these peoples have valour and selflessness and honour and gentleness and kindness not been held up as beacon lights for the aspiring soul?

And we can all sense, if we will, that the workings of science and the unraveling of beauty in poetry and dance and song are truth. The images of the stars that we can now gaze at if only from a distance is also truth.

There cannot be a rigid confinement of truth to a particular time and place. To impose such a rigidity would be to impose a limitation upon truth and truth thus fettered would not belong to eternity, but rather to a confined time, a restricted space. It was not made to be limited in this way. Rather it administers its transcendent judgements from the portals of the forever and may thus encompass all times and all places within its realm. It straddles the heavens, but is able to descend to the deep recesses of our infinitesimal lives. It ministers to the heavenly bodies and keeps them in tow, and yet can minister equally well, perhaps better, to our souls. It is at once mightily clad with splendor and clothed in beggar’s garb.

As witnessed by the turbulent, unsettled lives of the existential philosophers for example, the pursuit of truth can be a frightening thing both for the pursuer and for those who are around him or her at the time. Such a pursuit is not like pursuing a wild beast, not even a dangerous wild beast, not even one which may turn round and attack the pursuer; all these are tame perils compared to the benevolent peril of being pursued at every turn by the very thing you seek to pursue. Truth can be a relentless pursuer of those who seek it out – and it can stretch like a mighty and encompassing shadow over the pursuer as he speeds across the wilderness in search of the thing that in fact lurks always at his shoulder. The English poet Francis Thompson’s magnificent, tender, poem, “The Hound of Heaven” describes God as the Truth, as the pursuer, the hound: (excerpts):

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me’.

Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateway of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;
With thy young skiey blossom heap me over
From this tremendous Lover—
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!

Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat—
‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’

Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noisèd Feet
A voice comes yet more fleet—
‘Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me.’

Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou has hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.

‘Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught’ (He said),
‘And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited—
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’

Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’

The Gospels describe the trial of Christ at the palace of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Pilate questions Jesus and in the traditions of Greece and its progeny, Rome, he had likely thought long and hard, with the poets and the philosophers, about truth and its meaning. When he asked Jesus Christ “what is truth?”, perhaps he was hoping to get a final answer to his own doubts and fears about the meaning of truth.

In this detail of the painting by the celebrated Hungarian painter Mihály Munkácsy, Pilate is pensive, reflective, fearful, perplexed, transfixed:

The eternal and the temporal became one in the person of Jesus Christ. This is the majestic significance of the words – “the Word became flesh – and lived among us.”  The nature of truth as we can know it and the nature of the person of Christ have so many things in common that only the deliberate denier can miss asking the question – is Jesus the Truth? Do all the quests of the centuries find their final fulfilment in Jesus?

When Pilate questioned Christ, he received no answer. Instead Pilate was invited silently, to witness the life that he was now trying – how it had lived out its time on earth, and to make up his own mind as to whether that Life was Truth itself.  Perhaps Pilate realized that it was. Hence the scripture records – “and Pilate marvelled at his silence.”

In what the great French artist Gustave Doré, called “the work of his life”, (the painting “Christ Leaving The Praetorium,”) the trial of Christ is over and He is leaving the Roman governor’s palace (praetorium). He is about to bear His own Cross to the hill called Calvary – there to be crucified for you, for me. Even in the painting, a poor imitation though it must be of the most momentous, the most consequential trial in human history, it is resplendently obvious that Jesus is indeed the Truth. As Jesus leaves the praetorium, it must have been obvious to Pilate too:

This originally appeared on Francis Christian’s Essays.

The post What Is Truth? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

Brought to you by Rockefeller/Carnegie in 1934 to create a NWO by dumbing down our children through the.school system from Grade 1.

See here.

The post Brainwashing Our Children appeared first on LewRockwell.

Gail Appel wrote:

Here’s a clue: When was Pope Francis “elected”?

See here.

The post Who is the largest NGO recipient of USAID from 2013-2022? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Gail Appel:

She is a college freshman at the University of Connecticut , majoring in “Public Policy”.

Given her exceptional qualifications, I imagine sitting on a bus bench holding a tin cup is considered “ Public Policy”. Or collecting a welfare check and food stamps.

See here.

The post Graduated HS With Honors-Can’t Read Or Write appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

NBC News

The post 130 Jewish Georgetown members slam Trump for ‘weaponizing’ faith in Badar Khan Suri arrest appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm.

FOX Business

The post Here’s how China could retaliate against US tariffs appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Ben Bartee

The post Public Health™ Criminals Convene For Wildly Delusional Circle-Jerk appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

The Daily Beast

The post Trump Backs Conservative Author Who Confronted Joe Rogan to His Face appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm. 

The Daily Signal

The post FEC Investigating Rep. Jasmine Crockett on ActBlue Donations appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm

LeoHohmann.com

The post DNI head Tulsi Gabbard drops bombshell: U.S. elections open to being tampered with due to compromised electronic voting machines appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

Bill Maher Reveals How His Perception of President Trump Changed After Eating Dinner With Him: 

Bill Maher says his “mind was blown” to come to the realization that Trump is much more self-aware and personable than he ever imagined.

“Everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent,” Maher said.

“He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public. Look, I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking as a positive that this person exists, because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent.

“At least on this night with this guy, Bob, Kid Rock told me the night before, he said, ‘If you want to get a word in edgewise, you’re going to have to cut him off. He’ll just go on.’ Not at all. I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected.

“People who don’t look you in the eye, people who don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing. People whose response to things you say just doesn’t track. Like what? None of that with him. And he mostly steered the conversation to, ‘What do you think about this?’

“I know your mind is blown. So is mine.”

Mr. Maher Goes to Washington | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

The post Bill Maher Reveals How His Perception of President Trump Changed After Eating Dinner With Him: “My Mind Was Blown” appeared first on LewRockwell.

David Martin wrote:

Will the Trump administration try to deport Alice Irby for undermining “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United Stares”?

Pressed for evidence against Mahmoud Khalil, government cites its power to deport people for beliefs 

A Country They Own 

The post “A Country They Own” Hits 100k appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm. 

Gateway Pundit

The post British Author Tries to Shame Joe Rogan Into Deplatforming Anti-War Voices appeared first on LewRockwell.