Aggregatore di feed

Tim McGraw wrote:

HI Lew,

Thanks for publishing my stories and articles, links, and comments. You are very kind. Your cause is good at Mises and LRC. I hope you can continue the fight. I find myself losing interest in DC antics, media lies, and especially Trump’s insanity. It makes me almost miss Biden’s senility. The circus, the barkers, the clowns, the athletes, and the freaks are all starting to bore me and drive me kinda crazy. Will someone please turn off that Circus Calliope? It is giving me a headache.

The post Circus Calliope? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Tim McGraw.

Timmy Tae’s Thoughts

 

The post Fleet Week, Seattle, 1980s appeared first on LewRockwell.

Joy Reid warns Americans of MAGA plans: “No income tax, no regulations, earn as much as you want, and leave it to your children with no taxes, that’s the world they want.” That actually sounds like a free society. Unfortunately, it is not a MAGA society, which also includes high tariffs, increased military action at home and abroad, and a doubling down of the drug war.

The post Too Bad This Is Not What MAGA Republicans Really Want appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Bill Madden

See this and this.

 

The post Bill Extraordinarily Bullish for Gold & Silver -Craig Hemke appeared first on LewRockwell.

Ricordo a tutti i lettori che su Amazon potete acquistare il mio nuovo libro, “Il Grande Default”: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0DJK1J4K9 

Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato fuori controllo negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

di Lance Roberts

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/la-morte-del-dollaro-e-notevolmente)

La narrazione sulla “morte del dollaro” come valuta di riserva mondiale è praticamente sulla bocca di tutti. Questo accade ogni volta che si deprezza rispetto ad altre valute. Abbiamo già scritto in precedenza delle false affermazioni sulla “morte del dollaro” nel 2023 (si veda qui, qui e qui). Il suo recente calo rispetto ad altre valute rientra ampiamente nella norma storica. In particolare, i cali precedenti erano stati molto più ampi senza l'“allarmismo” degli “esperti di sventura”.

La “morte del dollaro” ricorre spesso nei dibattiti finanziari. Naturalmente questo accade quando aumentano le tensioni geopolitiche, le perturbazioni economiche, o le fluttuazioni del mercato. Certo, ci sono valide preoccupazioni circa il predominio a lungo termine del dollaro, tuttavia l'idea che la sua morte sia imminente, portando a un catastrofico crollo economico, è ampiamente sopravvalutata. Il dollaro rimane la pietra angolare della finanza globale a causa di fattori strutturali, economici e geopolitici che difficilmente cambieranno bruscamente. Di seguito delineo cinque motivi per cui la narrazione sulla morte del dollaro è esagerata.

Cinque motivi per cui la narrazione della morte del dollaro è sopravvalutata 

1. Mancanza di una valuta alternativa valida – Lo status di riserva del dollaro persiste perché non esiste un rivale credibile. L'euro, che detiene il 20% delle riserve globali rispetto al 58% circa del dollaro (FMI, secondo trimestre 2024), è vincolato dalla frammentazione dei mercati obbligazionari e dalla volatilità politica dell'Eurozona. Nonostante il crescente utilizzo (2-3% delle riserve), il renminbi cinese è limitato dai controlli sui capitali e dalla convertibilità limitata, il che lo rende inadatto allo status di riserva globale. Altre valute, come lo yen giapponese (6%) o quelle più piccole come il dollaro canadese o australiano, non hanno la portata economica o la liquidità necessarie per competere con il dollaro. Senza una valuta all'altezza della profondità e della liquidità dei mercati del dollaro e della fiducia globale, la sua scomparsa rimane improbabile nel breve termine.


2. Forza dell'economia statunitense – L'economia statunitense, che rappresenta il 26% del PIL mondiale, consolida il predominio del dollaro. La sua ampia e dinamica economia, sostenuta dallo Stato di diritto e da solidi mercati dei capitali, posiziona il dollaro come un rifugio sicuro, in particolare durante periodi di instabilità mondiale. Mentre i critici sottolineano l'aumento del debito statunitense ($35.000 miliardi, circa il 120% del PIL), lo status di riserva del dollaro consente di indebitarsi a tassi più bassi, sostenendo i deficit senza crisi immediate. Rispetto ad altre economie – la lenta crescita del Giappone, i mercati ristretti della Cina, o la frammentazione dell'Europa – gli Stati Uniti offrono stabilità, rendendo improbabile la scomparsa del dollaro nel futuro prossimo.


3. Effetti di rete e inerzia finanziaria mondiale – Gli effetti di rete perpetuano il predominio del dollaro: il suo utilizzo diffuso ne accresce il valore. Costituisce circa l'88% delle transazioni valutarie globali (dati SWIFT) e circa il 60% della fatturazione internazionale del debito e del commercio. La transizione a un'altra valuta richiederebbe un ampio coordinamento tra banche centrali, stati e mercati, con conseguenti costi e rischi significativi. Le transizioni monetarie storiche, come quella dalla sterlina al dollaro, hanno attraversato decenni e hanno richiesto importanti cambiamenti geopolitici, oggi assenti. Questa inerzia rende la scomparsa del dollaro una prospettiva remota.


4. Portata limitata degli sforzi di de-dollarizzazione – Sebbene Paesi come Cina, Russia e i BRICS sostengano il commercio in valute locali (ad esempio, il renminbi cinese rappresenta il 56% del suo commercio bilaterale), questi sforzi hanno un impatto mondiale limitato. La quota di riserve in dollari è diminuita gradualmente (dal 67% al 58% in due decenni), tuttavia ciò riflette la diversificazione, non la scomparsa del dollaro, spesso in valute alleate come il dollaro canadese o australiano. La Cina detiene circa $2.000 miliardi in asset denominati in dollari, a dimostrazione della sua dipendenza. Le mosse geopolitiche, come il passaggio della Russia all'oro o al renminbi, sono limitate dalla piccola scala dei sistemi non basati sul dollaro (ad esempio, il CIPS cinese rispetto allo SWIFT). Questi sforzi frammentati non riescono a innescare la scomparsa del dollaro.


5. Resilienza a fronte di sfide politiche – I critici sostengono che le politiche statunitensi, come dazi, sanzioni, o azioni della Federal Reserve, indeboliscono la fiducia nel dollaro. Ad esempio, i dazi di Trump nel 2025 hanno causato un calo del dollaro di circa il 9%, alimentando i timori di una sua possibile morte. Tuttavia tali fluttuazioni sono cicliche, non strutturali, con il dollaro ancora robusto rispetto al suo picco del 2011-2022 (in rialzo di circa il 40% rispetto a un paniere di valute). Le sanzioni, come quelle alla Russia nel 2022, non hanno ridotto significativamente le riserve mondiali in dollari, poiché la maggior parte di esse è detenuta da alleati degli Stati Uniti che hanno aderito alle sanzioni. Le linee di swap e il supporto di liquidità della Federal Reserve rafforzano ulteriormente il ruolo del dollaro durante le crisi.

Come si può notare, il dollaro domina la composizione delle transazioni monetarie mondiali.

Tuttavia c'è un motivo per cui il recente calo del dollaro potrebbe essere prossimo alla fine.

Perché il dollaro potrebbe riprendersi con forza

Non è la prima volta che la “morte del dollaro” fa notizia. Nel 2022 le narrazioni sulla “de-dollarizzazione” hanno gonfiato le tesi ribassiste, con tutti che affermavano che la morte del dollaro fosse imminente. Ciononostante quella “frenesia di sventura” ha segnato il minimo del dollaro prima di un robusto rally. Potremmo prepararci per un altro simile per due motivi.

In primo luogo, dal punto di vista tecnico, la vendita del dollaro è diventata piuttosto estrema. Utilizzando i dati settimanali, esso è ora ipervenduto su base del momentum, come lo era all'inizio del 2021 e alla fine del 2018. Queste precedenti condizioni di ipervenduto lo prepararono a un forte rally in controtendenza.

Inoltre tutti, dal “lustrascarpe” al venditore ambulante, stanno vendendo allo scoperto il dollaro. Secondo il sondaggio dei gestori di fondi di BofA, la posizione short contro il dollaro è al livello più alto degli ultimi 20 anni. Pertanto qualsiasi inversione di tendenza del dollaro potrebbe essere sostanziale se questi “short” fossero costretti a invertire le loro posizioni.

La domanda è: cosa deve cambiare per un'inversione di tendenza del dollaro? Questo ci porta alla seconda ragione per cui potrebbe riprendersi: i tagli dei tassi della BCE.

In quanto valuta di riserva, le nazioni straniere detengono riserve in dollari per facilitare gli scambi commerciali. Se è troppo debole, o troppo forte, rispetto a un'altra valuta, può avere un impatto negativo sull'economia di quella nazione. Pertanto quando il dollaro si allontana troppo da un'altra valuta, quel Paese può intervenire per stabilizzare la propria di valuta. Tale intervento si ottiene aumentando, o diminuendo, le riserve in dollari. Può farlo acquistando, o vendendo, titoli del Tesoro statunitensi, oro, o altri asset denominati in dollari. Nella maggior parte dei casi si tratta di titoli del Tesoro statunitensi, o di oro.

La BCE ha tagliato i tassi in modo aggressivo, otto volte nell'ultimo ciclo, mentre la Federal Reserve statunitense ha mantenuto la sua politica monetaria pressoché invariata. Il risultato è una divergenza che si sta sviluppando tra i rendimenti dei titoli del Tesoro statunitensi e, ad esempio, quelli tedeschi.

Ci sono tre motivi principali per cui è fondamentale che gli investitori comprendano questo aspetto.

1. Rendimenti più elevati attraggono afflussi di capitali – Storicamente l'aumento dei rendimenti dei titoli del Tesoro statunitensi ha attratto investimenti esteri grazie ai rendimenti più elevati rispetto alle obbligazioni di altre principali economie. Ad esempio, i rendimenti dei decennali americani sono saliti dal 3,65% a settembre 2024 al 4,8% all'inizio del 2025; i rendimenti obbligazionari europei (ad esempio, i decennali tedeschi) sono rimasti bassi a causa dell'allentamento monetario della BCE. Questo differenziale di rendimento incentiva gli investitori esteri, comprese le banche centrali e gli investitori istituzionali, ad acquistare titoli del Tesoro americani. Tale acquisto aumenta la domanda di dollari e ne sostiene l'apprezzamento.


2. I titoli del Tesoro come riserva privilegiata rispetto alle riserve monetarie – Come accennato in precedenza, i titoli del Tesoro statunitensi costituiscono la spina dorsale delle riserve monetarie mondiali. Rendimenti più elevati offrono ai gestori delle riserve rendimenti migliori senza sacrificare la sicurezza, a differenza di asset più rischiosi come azioni o obbligazioni dei mercati emergenti. Ad esempio, la domanda estera di titoli del Tesoro americani è rimasta stabile nonostante i tagli dei tassi della BCE. Questa domanda sostiene il dollaro, poiché le banche centrali devono acquistarlo per acquistare poi titoli del Tesoro americani, rafforzandone lo status di valuta di riserva.


3. Apprezzamento del dollaro guidato dai differenziali di rendimento – La divergenza nella politica monetaria, la posizione più accomodante della BCE rispetto a quella della FED, ha ampliato il divario dei tassi di interesse, favorendo il dollaro. I rendimenti statunitensi più elevati, in particolare sui decennali (4,4-4,8% all'inizio del 2025), contrastano con i rendimenti europei più bassi, che potrebbero stimolare flussi di capitali verso gli Stati Uniti. La domanda per i rendimenti è in linea con i modelli storici in cui i tassi statunitensi più elevati sostengono il DXY, come si è visto durante il periodo post-elettorale del 2016, quando l'ottimismo fiscale ha spinto i rendimenti e il dollaro al rialzo. Nonostante la volatilità legata ai dazi, il recente apprezzamento del dollaro suggerisce che i differenziali di rendimento siano un supporto chiave.

Il punto cruciale è che questa sarebbe una situazione interessante per stati, fondi comuni di investimento e investitori esteri. Poiché gli afflussi esteri vengono inizialmente utilizzati per catturare rendimenti obbligazionari più elevati, gli investitori beneficiano anche di un duplice vantaggio: guadagni monetari e prezzi obbligazionari più elevati (rendimenti più bassi).

Tuttavia la narrazione della morte del dollaro persiste a causa delle recenti tendenze di disaccoppiamento. I rendimenti sono aumentati con l'indebolimento del dollaro all'inizio del 2025, trainato dalle preoccupazioni fiscali e dall'incertezza sui dazi. Queste recenti preoccupazioni passeranno, ma il ruolo del dollaro come valuta di riserva per il commercio mondiale no.

Affrontare la narrativa della morte del dollaro e le implicazioni economiche

La narrazione della fine del dollaro nasce spesso da preoccupazioni sul debito statunitense, l'inflazione, i dazi, o l'uso geopolitico del dollaro come arma (ad esempio, sanzioni). Questi rischi esistono, ma l'impatto a breve termine viene sopravvalutato. La perdita dello status di riserva potrebbe aumentare i costi di indebitamento degli Stati Uniti, alimentare l'inflazione attraverso importazioni più costose e ridurre l'influenza geopolitica. Tuttavia la portata dell'economia statunitense, la sua forza militare e la sua stabilità istituzionale rendono improbabile la fine del dollaro senza un evento sismico mondiale (ad esempio, la perdita di una guerra importante come quella della Repubblica di Weimar). Nonostante un graduale declino, il dollaro probabilmente rimarrebbe una valuta leader insieme ad altre e non scomparirebbe del tutto.

Questa narrazione viene spesso amplificata su piattaforme e organi di stampa che fanno affidamento su “tesi ribassiste” per ottenere clic e visualizzazioni. Sebbene alcuni post esagerino la “morte del dollaro” per promuovere alternative come l'oro o le crittovalute, queste tesi sono spesso fuorvianti. Economisti come Barry Eichengreen e James Lord di Morgan Stanley sostengono che la morte del dollaro sia “notevolmente esagerata”, citando il suo ruolo radicato e l'assenza di alternative valide, come discusso in precedenza. Certo, l'economia statunitense potrebbe affrontare le sfide di un dollaro più debole, ma un crollo devastante è improbabile grazie alla sua adattabilità e all'integrazione finanziaria globale.

In particolare, come discusso nell'articolo Le narrazioni cambiano, i mercati no, è essenziale guardare oltre le narrazioni per evitare i pregiudizi emotivi che influenzano i risultati dei nostri investimenti. Vale a dire:

Il bisogno di una narrazione è profondamente radicato nella nostra psicologia. Come creature che cercano schemi, bramiamo coerenza e prevedibilità. Il caos scatena l'ansia. Ci sembra pericoloso, incontrollabile e inquietante. Negli investimenti questa ansia è amplificata dall'impatto diretto sulla nostra ricchezza e sulla nostra sicurezza finanziaria. Ritroviamo una parvenza di controllo aggrappandoci alle narrazioni, per quanto tenue. Esse ci dicono perché le cose stanno accadendo e cosa potrebbe succedere dopo, il che placa la nostra naturale paura dell'incertezza.

Gli esseri umani sono programmati per dare priorità alle informazioni negative rispetto a quelle ottimistiche. Da una prospettiva evolutiva, questo pregiudizio è stato essenziale. I nostri antenati hanno imparato a riconoscere le minacce (come i predatori) per sopravvivere.

Questo istinto, noto come “bias della negatività”, influenza il modo in cui elaboriamo le informazioni, comprese le notizie finanziarie e le narrazioni di mercato. Ecco perché  podcast e articoli con un orientamento “ribassista” generano il maggior numero di clic e visualizzazioni.

• La paura è un fattore motivante più forte dell'avidità: mentre la speranza di fare soldi spinge gli investitori, la paura di perderli è più potente.

• Le previsioni ribassiste sembrano più “razionali”: il pessimismo spesso trasmette maggiore sicurezza e prudenza. In periodi di volatilità dei mercati, una previsione ribassista può sembrare più analitica e responsabile.

• I media amplificano i titoli negativi: le testate giornalistiche sanno che la paura vende. Titoli sensazionalistici come “MERCATI IN TURBOLENZA” o “CRASH IN ARRIVO?” generano clic e coinvolgimento.

• Comportamento di gregge e camere di risonanza: gli investitori si affidano a opinioni ribassiste per ottenere conferme quando i mercati sono instabili. Se altri sono cauti o timorosi, questo  rafforza l'idea che una recessione sia imminente. Questo vale anche se i fondamentali sottostanti rimangono solidi. I social media e le notizie finanziarie creano camere di risonanza che amplificano questi timori.

La cosa più importante per gli investitori è che il mercato assorbe tutte le narrazioni negative dei media nel lungo termine. La recente raffica di narrazioni su debiti, deficit, dazi e “morte del dollaro” alimenta il vostro pregiudizio negativo. Tuttavia allargando lo sguardo, gli investitori che si sono tenuti lontani dai mercati finanziari per “evitare la perdita” di potenziali esiti negativi hanno pagato un caro prezzo in termini di riduzione della ricchezza finanziaria.

In altre parole, c'è sempre una “ragione” per non investire. Tuttavia la narrativa attuale cambierà, ma il mercato no.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

Supporta Francesco Simoncelli's Freedonia lasciando una mancia in satoshi di bitcoin scannerizzando il QR seguente.

David Martin wrote:

Got nothing against eye candy, but it is a bit inconsistent with the TPUSA Erika, I should say. She could be illustrating “I Like My Women a Little on the Trashy Side.”  

But as they say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” except that it’s on a YouTube video.

 

The post The REAL Erika Kirk appeared first on LewRockwell.

BREAKING: Tyler Robinson CONFIRMED To Be In A CIA Advanced Program For College Students- The Center For Anticipatory Intelligence- As His Defense Considers Waiving The Preliminary Hearing

“If His Lawyers Waive The Preliminary Hearing, Then I Would Say That Tyler Robinson Is In A… pic.twitter.com/Hfzsku6Uf9

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) September 29, 2025

The post Tyler Robinson was CIA appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Infowars

 

The post Alex Jones now showing video of brown shirted assassin appeared first on LewRockwell.

Chun Pan wrote:

I have been following the progress of the “Global Sumud Flotilla” with intensity. 

The Global Sumud Flotilla is a flotilla of 47 ships sailing to Gaza with humanitarian supplies.  It is within 3-4 days of reaching Gaza.

The confrontation with the Israeli military is imminent.  However, the flotilla is currently protected by warships from Spain and Italy.  Hopefully, these two naval warships will increase the likelihood of success of this mission.

I am truly amazed by the courage of the over 600 humanitarians on these vessels.

To follow the progress of this mission, please go to their website at:

https://globalsumudflotilla.org/

 

The post The Global Sumud Flotilla is a flotilla of 47 ships sailing to Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

The news has been filled with reports of assassinations, attempted assassinations, and shootings targeted against law enforcement. The spate of political violence has seriously eroded America’s legitimacy as a moral and decent state. How did we get here?

U.S. state violence on the world stage may help explain the rise of political violence here at home.

The idea of political assassination gained traction with the U.S. intelligence services during World War II, which was viewed (somewhat understandably) as an existential struggle that justified any act, however illegal, that was necessary for the cause.

During the Cold War, that mindset continued, but the illegal killing was hidden because it was inconsistent with the shining-city-on-the-hill propaganda. Certain intelligence agencies secretly supported a number of high-profile political assassinations, such as the 1961 killing of Prime Minister Patrice Lamumba of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the 1963 killing of President Diem of South Vietnam, not to mention a number of attempts to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba. These killings were presented as organic local forces rising up against “corrupt” leaders. Then and now, any leader who was disobedient to the U.S. regime was by definition “corrupt.”

Because of embarrassing press reports of the CIA and FBI’s illegal operations in and out of the United States, the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations With Respect to Intelligence Activities was formed in 1975 to investigate the abuses of power and direct harm to U.S. citizens. It was conveniently called the Church Committee after the chairman, Frank Church of Idaho.

The nation was shocked by what was revealed, including operations such as MKULTRA, a mind control experiment on unwitting U.S. citizens who were subjected to destabilizing drug exposure and other abuse. It is believed that much of the really appalling MKULTRA information was hidden and destroyed. Americans also learned about COINTELPRO (acronym for Counter Intelligence Program), a series of  FBI operations aimed to disrupt and harm American anti-war and civil rights groups. The committee also uncovered operations performing illegal assassinations.

For two years, the Church Committee uncovered many disgusting abuses and recommended oversight and controls to end them. But it was not long before the oversight and controls faded.

In 1986, the Iran–Contra scandal exploded and exposed the Reagan administration, which had funneled arms through Israel to our “enemy” Iran to provide funds for anti-communist guerrilla  operations in Central America. It was a huge scandal, and there were indications that it was also a money laundering operation to support other illegal behavior by intel agencies. These embarrassing revelations caused the agencies to be more careful.

The first Gulf War led to the U.S. stationing troops in Saudi Arabia. This was a long term goal of the ZioCons and a provocation to many Muslims in the region.

Then came the big enchilada: The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington birthed the Global War on Terror.

The previous existential threat of the Cold War had fizzled out with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This new existential threat provided the excuse to invade and wreck a number of nations the ZioCons had had in their sights for decades. Who could argue against fighting terrorists?

Since the GWOT was deemed existential, the George W. Bush administration saw fit to torture and kill suspected terrorists without any due process. Not wanting to be accused of sympathy for terrorists, many politicians and media figures held their tongues or even actively supported the White House. As a result, the U.S. regime’s policy morphed from secretly murdering people to bragging about the number of suspected terrorists killed.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Normalization of Assassination appeared first on LewRockwell.

How do you find your way home when you’re lost and far away? Where do you start? In wilderness survival training, it’s “head downhill.” That will bring you to water, and water will bring you to civilization.

Let’s look at the last two weeks:

1. Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
2. Bombing alleged fentanyl boats heading to the US.
3. Copycat (from Kirk’s assassin, bullet writing) shootings at ICE.
4. Acetaminophen (in some 500 brands, most prominently Tylenol) links to autism.
5. National Guard deployed to cities for crime control.
6. National reading studies: half of Americans are functionally illiterate.
7. AI partners induce psychosis and suicide.
8. Illinois honors student sues a public high school for her illiteracy.
9. RFK, Jr. fires and reorganizes the ACIP board.
10. Florida stops ALL vaccine mandates.

I irritated conservative friends a few days ago by disagreeing with Trump’s bombing of alleged fentanyl boats. What happens when the government decides compost-grown tomatoes are dangerous? Bombing compost piles? A government that can keep me from ingesting fentanyl and methamphetamine can keep me from ingesting raw milk or homemade charcuterie.

As I head downhill in this societal wilderness, I find commonalities in our lostness. More than 80 percent of first-time illicit drug use occurs in public schools. We’re paying $16,000 per student per year and getting a 50 percent functional illiteracy rate. And now we have pregnant women jiving on TikTok binging on Tylenol, and my taxes are supposed to pay for the consequences of that irresponsible behavior? And I’m supposed to pay for the dysfunction of failing public schools? And AI-induced psychosis? And assassins inspired by “gestapo” and “Nazi” and “Fascists” spewed from the mouths of Godless pagans?

How do we find our way home? I suggest it starts by changing our governmental obligations from care to responsibility. How do you develop responsible people? You do it by making them bear the consequences of their decisions. You don’t exercise discernment muscles by making decisions for them or promising to pick up the pieces for bad-decision collateral damage.

My heart breaks for dysfunction, but as terrible as it is, we can’t find our way home if we keep wandering without a plan. So here’s a plan.

1. Eliminate all government funding for education, from kindergarten to college; no college grants; that drops 80 percent of first-time drug use. Colleges have to fund themselves.
2. Eliminate all government health advice; let folks find their own path. Yes, eliminate the Dept. of Health and Human Services; let us find our own way, thank you very much.
3. Eliminate all government involvement in health care; folks can decide what they want and shop, learn, and share their own findings. Wouldn’t it be neat if TikTok shared various positives and negatives about competing therapies? Think how informed we’d become.
4. Legalize all drugs; if you mess up your life with drugs, you can suffer the consequences. No government agency will help you pick up the pieces. No Medicare; no Medicaid; no doctor licensing; it’s all privatized on the free market; no government manipulation, corruption, fraud, and extortion, no prescription licenses.
5. Eliminate the IRS and go to a 10 percent flat tax. If 10 percent is good enough for God’s tithe, it should be good enough for society.
6. Cut the federal government by 90 percent; pay off the debt; bring back sound money backed by gold; no more government borrowing, period. Like a business, the government must live within its means.
7. Eliminate prisons and institute Singapore’s caning punishment; fast and cheap.
8. Shut down every foreign military base; bring our boys and girls home.
9. Food Emancipation Proclamation–let neighbors transact food commerce without asking the government’s permission.
10. Eliminate zoning laws so folks can generate income from their properties without bribing government officials.
11. Eliminate all government grants, loans, aid, etc. Foreign and domestic, from agriculture to ammunition.
12. Extend voting privileges ONLY to folks who pay more to the governnment (taxes) than they receive in benefits; these are the true stakeholders of a culture and the only ones truly invested in its overall functionality.

This is not a comprehensive list, but you get the overall drift. What we need is MARA–Make Americans RESPONSIBLE Again. How do we do that? We make ourselves live with the consequences of our decisions. That’s the way home. America was great when the government was smaller. The bigger the government, the smaller we as a people become.

What I see instead are rabbit trails of little tweaks here and there, but the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the sick get sicker and the have-nots proliferate because nobody ever told them it’s up to them. Sometimes the best hand up is a swift kick in reality’s seat of the pants. No free lunch. Make your own destiny. I’m glad to help you, but pick up your feet if I’m carrying you. God don’t make no junk, so quit acting like you’re junk. And government, quit incentivizing junk behavior and junk decisions.

What do you consider the first “downhill way home” path?

This article was originally published on Brownstone Institute.

The post The Way Home appeared first on LewRockwell.

President Trump has said on several occasions that he supports the death penalty for drug dealers. His recent actions show that the death penalty he seeks is not the result of an arrest, prosecution, trial, conviction, and sentencing. He prefers the death penalty by extrajudicial murder.

Back in 2018, Trump said during a phone call with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte: “I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem. Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

This is the Rodrigo Duterte who was just charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with “violent acts including murder to be committed against alleged criminals, including alleged drug dealers and users.” He is now being held at an ICC detention facility in the Netherlands.

On September 2, Trump ordered the U.S. military to conduct “a kinetic strike” against “terrorists” in “international waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States.” Eleven “terrorists” were killed, but “no U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike.” Trump declared: “Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”

On September 15, Trump announced that the U.S. military destroyed a second boat in international waters “trafficking illicit narcotics.” A third lethal strike was carried out on another boat on September 19.

Regardless of how one feels about whether marijuana or other drugs should be legal for medical or recreational use, Trump’s actions are simply extrajudicial murder. There was no search, seizure, arrest, indictment, arraignment, prosecution, trial, conviction, or sentencing. There is no proof of what exactly was on the boat. Neither the boat nor its occupants posed any threat to the United States. The boat was in international waters and nowhere near American territory. Violating drug laws is not a death-penalty offense. Nevertheless, Trump took it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner.

Oh, but Trump didn’t kill anyone. Correct. He just ordered his personal attack force of the U.S. military to kill for him. But drug smuggling is a criminal offense, not an act of war that requires a response by the U.S. military.

If Trump can order the execution of people in international waters who are not even violating U.S. drug laws, then what is to stop him from ordering the execution of people in the United States who are actually violating U.S. drug laws?

Conservatives—including many conservative Christians—generally support Trump’s extrajudicial murder because they have the simplistic mindset of drugs: bad, military: good.

Trump’s actions are excused by the vast majority of conservatives because he labeled the people murdered by the U.S. military as “narco-terrorists.” But the war on drugs is just as bogus as the war on terrorism. They are both reasons why Americans increasingly live in a national security, police state instead of a free society. The real narco-terrorists are the military personnel who murder for Trump.

This is yet another reason why Americans—and especially American Christians—should not join the military. If you join the military, there is no guarantee that you won’t be ordered to murder for Donald Trump. Just like there was no guarantee that you wouldn’t have been ordered to murder for George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, or Joe Biden.

If you join the military, you will be expected to unconditionally follow orders and to help carry out a reckless, belligerent, and interventionist U.S. foreign policy. You will not be defending the country, the Constitution, or American freedoms. You will be part of the president’s personal attack force and a pawn in the hands of Uncle Sam.

Yet, criticism of the military is seen by most Americans as criticism of America itself, as Jeffrey Polet, director of the Ford Leadership Forum at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation recently said:

In contemporary America, one complains about the size and status of the military to one’s own peril. We are constantly asked to defer to the militarization of our daily lives, from flyovers at ball games to military salutes at public concerts to allowing military personnel to board planes before us—throughout even our daily lives, we are slowly bent at the knee. We now find ourselves in a world where to criticize the military is to criticize America itself, and thus it goes with empires.

I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

The post Murderers for Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. The real question we need to be asking ourselves is who’s shaking the jar… and why?”

The above observation by Shera Starr cannot be improved upon.

And yet, the answer to the question is fairly simple.

But let’s first take a look at this anomaly. It’s natural to identify with some individuals more than others. That tendency occurred before Homo sapiens came into being. In addition, the tendency for animals to group into families or packs also predates humans.

We tend to want to be around those who behave the way we do and have the same perceptions as we do. That only makes sense. We wish to surround ourselves with those who are unlikely to surprise and possibly even endanger us by behaving in a fashion that we would not ourselves choose.

This is the basis of trust – an essential in group or herd mentality. And being a part of a group or herd brings to us increased safety.

So, what then, of those who are not within our group or herd? How do we relate to them?

Well, any nature programme that covers animals gathered around a water hole can provide that answer.

We see a small group of wild pigs drinking alongside a group of wildebeests. Neither species is predatory, so they learn to recognise that, even though one group is made up of savannah-living grazers and the other are forest-living foragers, they can easily co-exist, which will increase the ability of both species to use the water hole at the same time.

We might also see a group of hyenas using the water hole, but we notice that the prey animals all seek to keep a distance between themselves and the predatory hyenas. Everyone understands that they are all at the water hole for the same reason and it makes sense to share, even if, in another situation, they are natural enemies.

In fact, in most of nature, we see that species adapt to a condition of mutual tolerance in order to be able to coexist.

No surprise, then, that Homo sapiens got on the mutual tolerance bandwagon in its formative stages and, for the most part, has remained that way.

But it is also true that predators develop dual habits. They may exercise tolerance at the water hole, but at some point, they mean to make a meal of their water hole neighbours.

And when doing so, many species create associations with others of their kind to hunt.

This, too, is true of humans. Most of humanity seeks to live in a spirit of cooperation with others.

In the countryside, people erect walls and fences to establish boundaries, then find it expedient to respect such divisions in order to live in peace. Even in cities, people who live cheek by jowl in the same building respect each other’s privacy for the most part. Even if they do not become friends, they either remain polite or ignore each other.

Although there are always exceptions, for the most part, mankind behaves in a manner that is based upon “getting along.” He might argue with others, but for the most part, he understands that cooperation generally should be the objective, as it’s in his best interests.

But why, then, are we seeing in so many of the countries of the First World, a rapidly increasing polarity amongst people. Ms. Starr is exactly correct. Those who would be most inclined toward mutual tolerance have, in recent years, become so polarised that they cannot so much as get together with their own families for the holidays without getting into heated arguments.

Why are people of today so solidly in one of two camps?

Can this be blamed on the rise of the internet? Well, no, the internet has become the source of a plethora of opinions and perceptions. And more than closing people off to polarised “A” and “B” choices, the internet has served to broaden public discourse.

Of course, most people express distrust for the media, particularly those networks that purportedly deal in “news.” What passes for news today is far from objective information that the viewer can then assess at his leisure.

On one network, we view unceasing diatribes against one political party. Then we turn the channel and view unceasing diatribes against the opposing party.

In turning on the News, we arrive at Indoctrination Central.

But if we really pay attention objectively, we discover that the same programmes are dictating to us that it is either our humanitarian duty to vax, or that vaxxing will enslave us to globalists who will inject us with microchips.

They are also our source for the opposing beliefs that warfare is essential to protect us against those who seek to destroy us, or that it will be the wars themselves that will destroy us.

In fact, all of Ms. Starr’s concerns find their source in the media. When we ask the question, “Who is shaking the jar… and why?” we find that those who control the media are at the source of the polarisation of people, especially in the First World.

As to the “Why?” the answer is so simple that it’s often overlooked. Like the ants, the more a people can be made to fight each other, the easier it is to subjugate them.

And since the effort to polarise people has become so massive, we can only conclude that the ultimate objective will be to implement a far greater level of subjugation, in an abnormally short period of time.

Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. white. Man vs. woman. Divide and conquer.

In such a socio-political climate, the challenge will be to keep your wits about you. As the jar is shaken on a daily basis, it will be vital to recognise that those who control the media are creating a war between the pigs and the wildebeests. This is something that is not desired by either species, but as Hermann Goering stated, “Why, of course the people don’t want war.” They must be goaded into it if those who are pulling the stings are to achieve greater subjugation.

In the coming years, this trend can be expected to become far worse than at present. The challenge will be to escape the jar if you can. Find a location where the state of warfare is less pronounced, or if this is not possible, seek a location within the jar that’s away from the fray.

Those who fall for the bait – who buy into rabidly supporting one political party or another, or who allow themselves to be angered at an entire race, or who are conned into hatred of an entire gender – will prove to be the greatest casualties of subjugation.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

The post Learning From Ants appeared first on LewRockwell.

Comments open on YouTube

The post The 9/11 Files: The CIA’s Secret Mission Gone Wrong – Part ! and Part II appeared first on LewRockwell.

In “Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment” Raoul Berger argues that the Fourteenth Amendment is treated by activist judges as a platform for “social and political revolution.” In theory, the role of the courts is to interpret the Constitution not to amend it. Nevertheless, by treating the Fourteenth Amendment as a “vague and elastic” tool designed to forge a brave world of racial equality, progressive judges have conferred revolutionary powers on themselves.

Progressive courts, while purporting merely to enforce the equal protection of the law, have reasoned that in order to give effect to equality it is necessary to “incorporate” the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment. This then allows the Bill of Rights to be litigated in anti-discrimination cases brought by civil rights activists against state governments. For example, the incorporation doctrine was relied on in the recent federal court ruling that schools named after Confederate generals violate the First Amendment free speech rights of black students by constituting a form of “compelled speech”.

David Gordon has also pointed out that the incorporation doctrine is not found in the Constitution itself, but has been crafted by activist judges as a way of centralizing federal power in a manner that is inimical to individual liberty. As Gordon observes,

Critics of incorporation such as Raoul Berger have persuasively argued that the doctrine has scant basis; additionally, it strikes at the states as independent sources of authority to the federal government. Is it not likely that more is lost to individual liberty by the increased subordination of the states to federal courts than is gained by decisions that on occasion strike down bad state laws?

Berger notes that the Fourteenth Amendment began life as political measure in the tumult of the Reconstruction Era but soon grew in such leaps and bounds that it is now “probably the largest source of the [Supreme] Court’s business and furnishes the chief fulcrum for its control of controversial policies.” This is a far cry from the original intention of the amendment. It was originally “intended only to protect the freedmen from southern Black Codes that threatened to return them to slavery” by ensuring that freedmen would have “the right to contract, to own property, and to have access to the courts.”

It is certainly true that these basic liberties, which are protected at federal level by the Fifth Amendment due process clause, struck many observers in 1865 as essential to give effect to the abolition of slavery. As an originalist, Justice Clarence Thomas has emphasized this aspect of the amendment, but he argues that it has extended over time far beyond its original purpose. In Medina v. Planned Parenthood, he commented on the misuse of the procedural provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (the Ku Klux Klan Act) which were intended to enable freedmen to protect their constitutional rights from violation by states in order to ensure that the equal protection clause could be meaningfully enforced. Justice Thomas outlined the legislative history of this law in Medina, further observing that

The 1871 Act was designed “to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment … in response to an ongoing pattern of violence and intimidation” against former slaves … [to provide] a means by which private plaintiffs could obtain redress from state and local officials for certain constitutional violations.

This is a classic example of laws being enacted to resolve an emergency, which subsequently continue in force long after the emergency is over, being put to various new uses that were never originally contemplated. When the Ku Klux Klan Act was passed to deal with the violence of the Reconstruction Era, it created emergency powers that would not usually be accepted by citizens. For example, it gave the President power to suspend habeas corpus. These emergency powers were temporary, and it was never contemplated that this law would leave behind in its wake a permanent new source of ever expanding power to be wielded by the federal courts over state legislatures. Yet, as Berger shows, “for the better part of a century the Supreme Court had been handing down decisions interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment improperly, willfully ignoring or willfully distorting the history of its enactment.”

In his foreword to the second edition of the book, Forrest McDonald observes that although Berger’s interpretation was predictably contested when it was first published in 1977, those who favor the centralization of constitutional authority soon decided that it does not matter anyway even if the courts have willfully distorted constitutional history. As they see it, it has all been distorted for a good cause – in the service of creating a better world. Progressives see that as a salutary effort on the part of the activist courts. They regard all this power-mongering by federal judges as indeed exemplary, as they believe federal oversight of state authorities is to be welcomed – in their view, credentialled federal judges fresh out of the Marxist law schools are far more trustworthy than the unreconstructed state legislators that the voters of the South might elect. It is an example of a pattern of progressive strategy which is becoming all too familiar – they begin by denying that they have subverted the law, but, when their protestations fail, they soon begin arguing that the subverted law is actually good. It’s not happening, but if it’s happening that’s very good! McDonald explains:

From the outset, the law reviews teemed with attacks on Government by Judiciary, some of them cautious and considered, many slipshod and semihysterical … So thoroughly did Berger rout his critics that, after a decade or so, they virtually stopped trying. Instead, advocates of judicial activism began to assert that neither the words of the Constitution nor the intentions of the framers are any longer relevant.

As McDonald argues, Berger’s analysis, first published in 1977, has stood the test of time in showing that the Supreme Court uses the Fourteenth Amendment as a method of “continuing revision of the Constitution under the guise of interpretation.” In doing so, the courts stray far from their constitutional role and take upon themselves the mantle of social and political revolutionaries.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post How the Fourteenth Amendment Empowers Judicial Activism appeared first on LewRockwell.

This exploitation is indeed profitable, but there is a very high price to be paid for abusing our trust.

Price and Value–now there’s a twisted tale. We’ve been trained to compare price and buy the lower priced option as the better value, but price doesn’t reflect value, and we’re paying a very steep price as individuals and as a nation for confusing the two.

In economic theory, price is a signal, a flow of information between the producer, seller and buyer. Like all economic theory, this sounds nice, but what’s left out of this information flow is the value of the product or service, which is opaque / unknowable to the buyer.

Price can be low, but value can be lower–or even negative. Consider the aggregate / lifetime “value” of a diet of junk food, fast food, sugary beverages and ultra-processed snacks and foods. The price was presented as “a good value,” but what’s the “value” of a diet that generates chronic diseases that degrade our lives and cost a fortune to treat?

The “value” of a diet of junk food, fast food, sugary beverages and ultra-processed slop is extremely negative, for the aggregate health consequences are extremely negative and the eventual price of treating the chronic diseases is extremely high.

Every single-use plastic product was a “good value,” and now there’s micro-plastics everywhere, including our bodies. The full consequences have yet to be tallied, but it’s already clear that the “value” of single-use plastic products is extremely negative.
Microplastics Could Be Weakening Your Bones, Research Suggests: The review of more than 60 scientific articles showed that microplastics, among other effects, can stimulate the formation of osteoclasts, cells specialized in degrading bone tissue. (WIRED.com)

What is the “value” of an appliance that breaks down in a few years compared to the “value” of an appliance that lasts for decades? I’ve often noted the collapse of durability in appliances and other products that has tracked globalization and corporations’ exploitation of the fact the value of their products are unknown and therefore a matter of trust: we trust there’s value, and that trust can be easily exploited.

So 20 years ago we could buy an appliance that would last 20 years, and now we can no longer do so. The warranties are now one year, and appliances routinely fail in a few years.

This is a catastrophic collapse in value, so what “signal” is price telling us? What price is telling us is that we’re chumps, marks conned by corporations who exploit our naive trust that the products and services they’re selling have some sort of value that doesn’t turn out to be negative.

The nation is paying a steep price for the “low prices” of offshoring critical industrial supply chains. Corporations rushed to offshore production to reduce quality and durability (i.e. value) as the easy way to boost profits: the consumer, unable to discern the actual value of the product, was conned by the “low price” into believing it was therefore a “good value.”

So now the nation is dependent on frenemies for essentials–a catastrophic collapse of national security, something whose value is incalculable.

Reducing value and jacking up prices has done wonders for corporate profits. That these profits are the direct result of obscuring the decline of value–or the negative value over a longer time-frame–who cares, for all the matters now is corporate profits are rising and so the stock market bubbles higher.

What economists don’t dare say is that corporations boost profits by exploiting their reduction of value and obscuring the negative value of their products and services. This exploitation is indeed profitable, but there is a very high price to be paid for abusing our trust: the eventual collapse of trust in a system that glorifies exploitation because it’s so profitable.

There’s another price to be paid: the eventual cost of all the negative value is far greater than the initial price paid. Rebuilding our national security is not cost-free, and all the horrific health consequences of a negative-value diet and lifestyle have price tags so high no nation can possibly afford them.

Read the Whole Article

The post Price Doesn’t Reflect Value, and We’re Paying a Steep Price for Confusing the Two appeared first on LewRockwell.

A former Trump administration national security advisor suspects that people near the president are pushing him into a war with Russia.

Retired Gen. Michael Flynn said in a social media post on Monday that people within President Donald Trump’s orbit may be luring him into “a trap” that could cost American lives. Recent public rhetoric from high-ranking administration officials appears to support Flynn’s analysis.

On Fox News Live’s Sunday Briefing, U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Gen. Keith Kellogg told White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich that Trump is giving Ukraine permission to launch long-range missiles into Russia. At first, Kellogg walked around Heinrich’s question about long-range strikes, prompting the host to ask for clarification. “Are you saying, though, that it is the president’s position that Ukraine can conduct long-range strikes into Russia — that that has been authorized by the president?” Heinrich asked. Kellogg answered:

I think reading what he has said, and reading what Vice President [J.D.] Vance has said as well as Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio, the answer is yes. Use the ability to hit deep. There are no such things as sanctuaries.

President Trump has authorized long-range strikes into Russia, Special Envoy to Ukraine General Keith Kellogg says — but occasionally Ukraine has not been granted authority by the Pentagon to carry them out.

KELLOGG: “Everybody should follow what the President says. He’s the… pic.twitter.com/Zx36foTgnP

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) September 29, 2025

Ukraine Needs Western Permission

Ukraine needs American approval to launch U.S. weapons deep into Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has in the past asked the U.S. for long-range missiles so he can take the fight directly to the Kremlin. He has asked for Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can hit targets more than 1,500 miles away. Before Kellogg’s statement to Fox, Vance said that Trump was “certainly looking” at another Ukrainian request for U.S.-made Tomahawks.

The Russians said they would “carefully analyze whether any American Tomahawk missiles that might be supplied to Ukraine were fired using targeting data supplied by the United States,” according to reports.

Russian head of state Vladimir Putin has said that if Western nations allow Ukraine to strike deep within Russia, it will be considered an act of war. Putin said a year ago:

This [lifting of restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range Western missiles] will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.

Kellogg’s comments came in the midst of intense fighting between these sibling nations. “Russia launched more than 600 drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine on Saturday night and Sunday morning,” according to reports. The Ukrainians volleyed back a strike of their own, on Moscow. “The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted 84 Ukrainian drones across several regions between late Sunday and early Monday,” Russian media reported.

Trump Pressuring the Kremlin?

Last week, Trump posted a statement on social media suggesting he had shifted his stance in support for continued fighting in Ukraine. “With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, [Ukraine’s reclaiming] the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option,” Trump said September 23. Trump also insulted the Kremlin’s military might, calling Russia a “paper tiger.”

The statement prompted the question of whether the president’s comments were part of a strategy to pressure the Kremlin into being more open to a peace deal, or the true sentiments of a president who is frustrated that, despite the talks, despite rolling out the red carpet for Putin, the fighting has only intensified.

Flynn: Work Harder at Seeking Peace

Regardless, Gen. Flynn is worried that his former boss is being led down a disastrous path. In a social media post on Monday, Flynn asked: “Is Ukraine is a foreign policy dead end or a trap?” He also said that someone near the president suggested that another nation’s leader be eliminated, presumably Russia’s. And he addressed Trump directly: “Donald Trump we want you to be the PEACE PRESIDENT.”

In his post, Flynn implied that the Eurocrats are pushing for escalation. “The NATO & EU need this war to shift their internal problems away from themselves and place it on an enemy who has massive physical capabilities and will use them (don’t underestimate this guidance),” he said. He has made similar accusations in the past.

Flynn also opposes selling weapons to NATO:

Selling weapons to “NATO” may make us feel good but never forget, we are NATO. if NATO gives those weapons to Ukraine, are we not in a PROXY WAR against Russia? Are we not now directly involved? Who provides the guidance systems, the intelligence, the information operations, cyber, space — warfare is multi-domain activity and not a simple bullet or missile flying through the air.

The longtime general then issued the reminder that “there remain peaceful solutions to ending this war” and that “we must work harder at seeking these.” He added that those who are pushing for war aren’t offering all the options.

Hegseth’s Gathering

This is all happening as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is bringing hundreds, if not thousands, of the top generals and admirals in the U.S. military to a Marine Corps base in Virginia for a meeting on Tuesday. Trump is also attending.

The unusual summoning has prompted a lot of questions. The president said there’s nothing ominous about the gathering. He told NBC, “It’s really just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things.” One official told news outlets that Hegseth plans to “highlight military accomplishments and to discuss the future of the Defense Department under his leadership.” But skepticism abounds, as this kind of information is usually communicated via memos or teleconferences.

“Is It Our Fight?”

Just days before Russia invaded Ukraine, TNA asked in our Feb. 14, 2022 print issue, “Russia vs. Ukraine: Is It Our Fight?” We noted that the eastern regions of Ukraine that Russia occupies either completely or partially are overwhelmingly ethnically Russian, and the local sentiment has been “decidedly in favor of either independence from the corrupt, kleptocratic, and discriminatory Ukrainian government, or of outright annexation by ‘Mother Russia’.” We also acknowledged that Russia is being encircled by NATO nations. The point of NATO, we noted, is to “prepare for the eventual consolidation of regional military alliances into a global military,” which we dubbed an “indispensable ingredient of a consolidated global government.”

But Russia and China, we said, might not be willing to go along with a Western-led global government:

Russia and China, their other deficiencies aside, remain extremely nationalistic and resistant to assimilation into existing international systems. Both countries are very reluctant to enter into any type of binding agreement or treaty with other countries or with any international authority, and typically flout the rules of any international organization that they do end up joining. And both countries are large enough and well-enough armed that even a Gulf War-style international coalition might not be able to compel them to accede to the demands of the “international community.” Thus the ultimate objective of the so-called international community, i.e., the internationalists whose policies and priorities completely dominate the foreign-policy agenda in the West, including the United States, is the establishment of a single world government — by consent if possible, but by force if necessary.

The globalists followed both 20th-century world wars with attempts at world government, first via the League of Nations, then, with more success, the United Nations, which continues to pose a threat.

People Learning About Globalism

But over the last decade, anti-globalist sentiment has grown exponentially around the world. A large reason for that is that more people have simply learned about the globalist threat. And an effective teacher was the Covid-19 experience. As the governments of “free” societies imposed overtly tyrannical measures, it prompted citizens to ask questions. And that asking led many to realize that an international infrastructure of control had been in the works for a long time, and that what they were experiencing was a result of it.

So, perhaps, the globalists are working to foment an event that brings devastation of a level so disastrous that it will render people desperate enough for order and security that they’ll accept anything — even globalism, which will be pitched as a way to prevent another world war. And perhaps they’ve encircled Trump with warmongers who flatter the president while egging on insane moves that could result in a hot war with Russia.

As we said back in 2022, “Risking a third world war, complete with nuclear weapons, over a territorial dispute in Ukraine might seem to be the very definition of insanity.”

This article was originally published on The New American.

The post Ex-Trump Official Says Advisors Are Pushing War With Russia appeared first on LewRockwell.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) safety review of the abortion drug mifepristone that could lead to restrictions on the lethal pill.

Kennedy shared earlier this year that President Donald Trump requested he conduct a study of the pill’s safety for women. As Lila Rose of Live Action has noted, “A drug designed to starve preborn babies to death can never be considered “safe.”

RFK: President Trump has asked me to study the safety of mifepristone (aka the abortion pill).

A drug designed to starve preborn babies to death can never be considered “safe.” pic.twitter.com/mecIqHBLD7

— Live Action (@LiveAction) January 29, 2025

Kennedy announced the safety study together with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in a September 19 letter to Republican attorneys general, writing, “Through the FDA, HHS will conduct a study of the safety of the current (safety protocol), in order to determine whether modifications are necessary,” Axios reported.

Given that about two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. are now chemical – the vast majority using a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol – if further restrictions on the abortion pill are enacted, abortions in the country could significantly drop.

Kennedy pledged earlier this year to ask Makary to conduct a safety study of the abortion pill when pressed by lawmakers. Sen. Hawley asked if Kennedy was aware of the Ethics and Public Policy’s recent study that showed nearly 11 percent of women in the U.S. who take mifepristone suffer serious adverse events, a rate 22 times higher than what is reported on the drug label.

“It’s alarming,” Kennedy replied, adding that it “validates” previous studies and “at the very least, the label should be changed.”

Twenty-two state attorneys general recently urged Kennedy to carry out this study, stating, “Based on that review, the FDA should consider reinstating safety protocols that it identified as necessary as recently as 2011 in its issuance of a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for mifepristone, but which were removed by the Obama and Biden administrations.”

Safety protocols that were dropped included requiring that the abortion pills be prescribed by a doctor and that their adverse effects be reported.

The prevalence of chemical abortions in the U.S. has rapidly increased since 2000, when the abortion pill was first approved for use by the FDA, and especially as recent administrations have rolled back abortion pill regulations.

In 2011, the drug was placed under a safety system known as REMS after serious adverse events – including multiple deaths – were reported. REMS allows the FDA to monitor these adverse events. But under the Obama FDA in 2016, requirements to report all abortion pill complications were removed. Going forward, only deaths were to be reported, significantly hampering safety data.

In 2020, a new “no-test” deregulation removed requirements for labs, testing, and blood work used to accurately date a pregnancy and rule out deadly ectopic pregnancies before dispensing abortion pills.

By December 2021, the Biden FDA axed the requirement that the abortion pill be dispensed in person and allowed them to be permanently shipped by mail.

Advocacy groups have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of the abortion pill to women – to say nothing of its lethal danger to unborn babies – since its safety data has been coming to light. A 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths.”

This article was originally published on Lifesite News.

The post RFK Jr. Directs FDA To Study the Safety of Abortion Pills appeared first on LewRockwell.

All human societies are led by a confined group of especially influential people. These are the elites, and like them or not, they are unavoidable because humans are hierarchical chimps and they build the same social structures over and over again wherever they flourish.

The elites are not necessarily always and everywhere the wealthiest people, or the most persuasive people or the strongest people – although being wealthy, persuasive and strong certainly helps. They simply enjoy some combination of attributes that grants them social prominence. Lesser people take direction from them, imitate their habits and value their attention.

Knitting circles, learned societies, hunter-gatherer tribes and religious communities all have their own elites. Nations do too, and in politics the uppermost tiers of the national elite invariably form oligarchies. In the premodern era, oligarchs bestowed upon themselves special costumes and elaborate titles and they took substantial steps to ensure that their children could inherit their share in power. In the liberal West the very word “oligarchy” makes us uncomfortable, but that does not mean we have done away with the oligarchs. They are still with us. They no longer bear fancy titles and they have ditched their fur-trimmed robes. They determine their successors via institutional processes rather than descent. All of this makes our oligarchs a little harder to see, but that does not mean they are not oligarchs.

Oligarchs command the loyalty of the violence professionals who enforce things on the ground. Some may command this loyalty directly, but others do so indirectly, through intermediaries. They are (some portion of) elected politicians and (some portion of) the judiciary, but they do not all have formal political roles or titles. Only a minority of them have ever stood for election. De facto oligarchs are also to be found in media organs, non-governmental organisations, various areas of academia and of course large swathes of the state bureaucracy. These oligarchs are embedded within a broader elite class, not all of whose members necessarily have a say in government, but all of whom share a similar outlook and regard themselves as being on the same side.

Because the oligarchy aims above all to stay in power, a great part of politics involves the struggle of the reigning oligarchy to maintain their position and fend off incursions from the outside. These struggles are often camouflaged as disagreements over specific policies or as moral outrage over ostensibly impermissible political views. The entire German elite establishment, for example, claims to hate Alternative für Deutschland because of their alleged fascism. In fact, their real quarrel with the AfD is that their very existence and the reforms they demand threaten the oligarchy’s hold on power. Once upon a time, in the earliest years of the Federal Republic, there really was substantial overlap between those whose views might have fairly been called fascist (in some sense of the term) and potential rivals to power. Now the rivals have totally different political views but they must be forced into the fascist mould anyway, because “fascism” for our oligarchy has come to mean “unwelcome upstart.”1

Mere wealth, by itself, does not an oligarch make. Especially in heavily bureaucratised Western nations, money does not magically give you sway over the all-important rough men with guns. It can, however, be used to fund opposition parties, to buy favourable (or unfavourable) media coverage and to win the friendship of influential people. Money is also extremely useful for that most threatening of all activities, namely political organisation. You might notice that many of the wealthiest personalities in the West mire themselves in goofy charitable activities and give flabby media interviews in which they mouth whatever banal political orthodoxies happen to be the flavour of the month. They do this by way of advertising to the oligarchs that they are not a threat. “I am on your side, please do not arrest me or have me shot.”

So, money is not everything, but it is something. And money is very often a product of economic productivity, which is another probably even more important something. A great part of Western politics, since economic growth returned in the eleventh century, can be explained by the tensions that arise between a settled, closed and defensive oligarchy on the one hand; and the New Men whom economic success brings to the fore on the other hand. These New Men, because they have achieved their status and resources independent of the oligarchy, threaten the settled way of things. They make the oligarchs nervous.

The rabble harbour all manner of impulses, feelings, delusions and desires. Elites are wont to cultivate some of these for political purposes. Perhaps no single popular impulse has proven more explosive, powerful and useful to political elites than resentment of the wealthy. Since the Industrial Revolution, two groups in particular have seen in this resentment a powerful weapon to be wielded against enemies. Communist counter-elites used this resentment to fuel revolutions; the wealthy to be resented were the old oligarchs, and when they were ousted the communists simply established themselves as a new elite. Settled oligarchies, too, can find it useful to direct this resentment against threatening New Men. Counter-elite would-be revolutionaries on the one hand and threatened oligarchs on the other hand are most of the reason why we have had to hear so much about how bad the wealthy are, even as industrialisation and mass society have made us all vastly more prosperous and collapsed the vastness that once divided the nobility from the serfs.

Sending the peasants to storm the villas of the industrialists is only one very narrow tactic for dealing with the perennial threat of the New Men. A look at modern history will illustrate some of the grand strategies at work in this area. The National Socialists muscled the economic elite with threats, while granting those industrialists willing to play ball special favours, licenses and contracts. In this way they built a patronage economy rife with benefits for the ideologically aligned who agreed to toe the line. The Communists eliminated the threat of the New Men entirely by nationalising everything, effectively replacing the “capitalist” elite with a permanent managerial class. This resulted in poor economic conditions, which is exactly what the managers wanted: If your economy is in the toilet there will be precious few New Men to worry about. The lesson is that settled oligarchies often fear economic growth as a destabilising factor.

Liberal democracy has experimented with two strategies. Through the Cold War and for about ten years afterwards, states like Germany cultivated a very open elite and accordingly tried to align policy with the interests of economic heavyweights, believing that prosperity could be a stabilising force in itself. The oligarchs let the New Men into the fold and in many cases tried to govern on their behalf, while the left complained (not always without justification) about lobbyists and malign corporate influence. This was a period in which West competed with alternate political and economic systems and tried to construct itself as the superior option. There was, in other words, external pressure on the oligarchs to behave, even if they did not always get the balance right.

That pressure has long since vanished. Since Merkel, our oligarchs have revived various doctrines from the political left to keep the New Men away from power. Increasingly, their goal is to squeeze the dreaded “capitalists” by undermining economic growth and thereby cutting off the supply of New Men at the source. Frequently they have overreached, targeting also farmers and small businessmen, as they come to fear everybody who is not an institutionally approved and promoted political actor. It is a light version of the Communist strategy from the Cold War. Our present oligarchs believe there are no viable political alternatives and they need no longer worry so much about comporting themselves well.

This is what I think climatism is for, fundamentally. It is one of the primary instruments used to sap the economy and forestall the rise of New Men. All of the apparent drawbacks of Net Zero policies are in fact features rather than bugs when seen from this perspective. Chasing industry overseas means that other people have to deal with the New Men; our oligarchs are free of them. In a fully developed climatist regime like that which prevails in the Federal Republic, many businesses cannot operate without special subventions, tax breaks or other subsidies, which allows the oligarchs and their institutional apparatus to control who rises and who falls. And naturally, reconstructing the entire energy sector via heavily subsidised Green initiatives allows the reigning oligarchs to choose ideologically aligned winners.

Socialism-lite turns out to be a very delicate balancing act. The oligarchs need to constrict the economy sufficiently to mute the rise and influence of rivals, but not so much that they cause economic collapse or specific catastrophes that would result in them being discredited and thrown out. They were managing this balance fairly well until the Ukraine war messed it up for them, and now their backs are against the wall. At the same time, they have turned their gaze towards the Atlantic with trepidation. They see in Trump’s election a vision of the dark future that awaits them if they let New Men like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and whoever else get out of hand. They’ve also noticed that key actors in the American tech sector played some role in Trump’s victory, and this is yet another reason for them to hate the whole world of technological innovation, from the internet in general to social media and large language models and everything in between. It is a very worrying source of New Men.

Please don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think our oligarchs sat down at a table somewhere and hashed out climatism to mess up the economy. The oligarchy is very large and diffuse, but like everybody else they are inclined to believe things that redound to their practical benefit. Climatism emerged via a confluence of interests, but the oligarchs’ enthusiasm was decisive. As an ideological system, however, it is beginning to break down. New Men, after all, are not the only problem an oligarchy may face, and the rising populist right has become a much more immediate threat not only in Germany, but across Europe. For this the oligarchs need new narratives, about the evil Putler abroad and his fifth-columnist sympathisers at home. They might even need a halfway functional economy, but I doubt any of them have yet thought that far ahead.

1 A similar phenomenon once attended ancient and medieval theological disputes, where it often became expedient to brand one’s intellectual opponents “Arians” or “Nestorians” or whatever, even though their actual theological views had zero to with anything actual historical Arians or Nestorians ever espoused.

This article was originally published on Eugyppius.

The post Climatism as an Oligarchic Strategy To Cement Power and Preempt Rivals appeared first on LewRockwell.

Earlier today, I had headlined “Trump Now Considers a U.S. Invasion of Russia”, and readers were incredulous; one commented “In what world do you imagine America having enough troops to invade Moscow without the logistical problems to make such happen?” to which I replied “Sending U.S. troops into Russia would be unnecessary in order to do this. You are thinking in old-technology terms like during WW2, but a WW3 would be entirely different and be over within an hour or two — none of it would entail invading troops.” Later in the day, Stephen Bryen, now retired but who has been the CEO of one of America’s biggest armaments-producers, and a top official at the Pentagon (which is that corporation’s main customer), headlined “Tomahawks for Kiev: A Dangerous Idea”, and he provided in greater depth of detail, from his own extensive expertise on weaponry, the historical background and technological details on why a U.S. President would need to be insane in order to even consider to allow Tomahawk missiles to become posted in Ukraine. So, I shall now quote from his excellent unquestionably expert account:

The US is poised to “sell” Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. US special envoy to Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg, says only the final decision has to be made. The US has already agreed, Kellogg said, for deep attacks on Russian territory, and only the release of the Tomahawks is pending, a decision left to US President Donald Trump. While it may be regarded as an open and shut case by Washington, that does not take away the decision as reckless and escalatory. It puts the US on a direct collision-course with Russia, one that could lead to a war in Europe.

The Tomahawk cruise missile was originally intended to give the US nuclear triad a system that could successfully deliver nuclear weapons against the USSR. The idea was to create a system that was nearly impossible for Soviet air defenses to counter, after it became clear that conventional bombers, especially the B-52, could not operate from high altitude over Soviet territory.

Tomahawk was designed to fly “nap of the earth: missions. That is, once it was over Soviet airspace, it was designed to drop down to near tree-top heights and follow the contours of the earth, making timely detection difficult if not impossible. …

Should the US deliver Tomahawks to Ukraine, the missiles would have to be operated either by US or UK technicians and would need to be supported by US overhead intelligence to select targets and program the missiles to hit them. Russia will regard the Tomahawks as a direct US intervention, and in fact there is no convenient way the US could deny it is operating the weapons. This means that if Trump authorizes the missiles, he also is directing the US military (or surrogate British) to use them against Russia. …

The Trump administration is operating on the assumption that Russia’s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse and the Tomahawks could help “seal the deal” and force the collapse of the Putin regime. …

One of the reasons why the US is seeking to try for a knock-out blow on Putin and Russia is Washington’s fear that Russia may launch a new, devastating offensive in Ukraine aimed at regime change there. …

How far Russia would go when provoked directly by the United States should be carefully assessed in Washington before it embarks on a venture that could backfire and lead to a wider war in Europe.

I would point out here that though Dr. Bryen is warning about “a wider war in Europe,” what is actually involved is a war between the U.S. and Russia, because the U.S. would be a direct participant in the usage of these missiles — as Bryen himself noted, “the missiles would have to be operated either by US or UK technicians and would need to be supported by US overhead intelligence to select targets and program the missiles to hit them. Russia will regard the Tomahawks as a direct US intervention, and in fact there is no convenient way the US could deny it is operating the weapons. This means that if Trump authorizes the missiles, he also is directing the US military (or surrogate British) to use them against Russia.”

Yes, America’s participating allies (such as UK) would also be involved in this invasion of Russia — and Ukraine itself, naturally would be — but no such war would encompass ONLY “a wider war in Europe”: it would instead be the world-annihilating WW3 that until recent decades was considered to be unacceptable even by the American Government (which has now gone entirely batty in its neoconservatism — its conviction that the U.S. Government must rule the entire world).

Dr. Bryen also points out that Trump’s objective, if he okays this proposal, would be regime-change in Russia, and that this goal by the White House is based on “Washington’s fear that Russia may launch a new, devastating offensive in Ukraine aimed at regime change there.”

In short: the U.S. Government is considering to do this because it opposes regime-change in Ukraine. Think about that for a moment: It is saying that the U.S. Government is considering to force a regime-change in Russia so as to prevent a regime-change in Ukraine. It is ignoring that the result, if Washington decides to do this, will be no mere “regime-change” in one country but the destruction of the entire world (something that Dr. Bryen provides no hint that he recognizes to be involved here).

Consequently, Dr. Bryen’s headline “Tomahawks for Kiev: A Dangerous Idea” vastly understates what this would be: the destruction of our entire planet. And the purpose of this venture, if Trump decides to authorize it? If Dr. Bryen is correct here, the purpose of it would be to prevent regime-change in Ukraine.

This article was originally published on Eric’s Substack.

The post Trump’s Considering To Invade Russia Is Insane appeared first on LewRockwell.