Aggregatore di feed

A prominent libertarian is calling Trump’s tax proposals to eliminate taxes on tips and Social Security benefits “goofy.” What’s so goofy about eliminating these taxes and letting Americans keep more of their money?

Said Trump about tip taxation: “For those hotel workers and people that get tips, you’re going to be very happy, because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips. You do a great job of service. You take care of people, and I think it’s going to be something that really is deserved.”

According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS): “All cash and non-cash tips an received by an employee are income and are subject to Federal income taxes. All cash tips received by an employee in any calendar month are subject to social security and Medicare taxes and must be reported to the employer.” Tips include:

• Cash tips received directly from customers.
• Tips from customers who leave a tip through electronic settlement or payment. This includes a credit card, debit card, gift card or any other electronic payment method.
• The value of any noncash tips, such as tickets or other items of value.
• Tip amounts received from other employees paid out through tip pools, tip splitting, or other formal/informal tip sharing arrangement.

Said Trump about Social Security taxation: “Seniors should not pay taxes on Social Security and they won’t.”

According to the Social Security Administration (SSA):

Fifty percent of a taxpayer’s benefits may be taxable if they are:

• Filing single, head of household or qualifying widow or widower with $25,000 to $34,000 income.
• Married filing separately and lived apart from their spouse for all of 2020 with $25,000 to $34,000 income.
• Married filing jointly with $32,000 to $44,000 income.

Up to 85% of a taxpayer’s benefits may be taxable if they are:

• Filing single, head of household or qualifying widow or widower with more than $34,000 income.
• Married filing jointly with more than $44,000 income.
• Married filing separately and lived apart from their spouse for all of 2021 with more than $34,000 income.
• Married filing separately and lived with their spouse at any time during 2021.

(Income here is “provisional income” — adjusted gross income + nontaxable interest income + half of Social Security benefits.) Congress has never adjusted the income thresholds that subject Social Security benefits to taxation. They have never even been indexed for inflation.

Would eliminating taxes on tips and Social Security give the federal government less money to spend and increase the deficit? It certainly would. But consider this: according to the IRS Data Book:

• During Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, the IRS collected nearly $4.7 trillion in gross taxes, processed almost 271.5 million tax returns and other forms, and issued about $659.1 billion in tax refunds.
• In FY 2023, the IRS closed 582,944 tax return audits, resulting in $31.9 billion in recommended additional tax.

The federal government takes an obscene amount of money from American taxpayers. And it spends even more money than it takes in. In fiscal year 2023, the federal government spent $6.13 trillion, resulting in a deficit of over $1 trillion. And of course, more taxes will be collected and more money will be spent this year.

Any elimination of taxes or reduction in taxes collected should be welcomed, no matter how “goofy” it is.

As usual, Ron Paul gets it right:

It is common to describe tax cuts as “costing” the government. Saying tax cuts cost the government assumes that the government has a moral claim over an individual’s earnings, so anytime those running the government allow individuals to keep more of their money the rulers are being generous. The truth is that income belongs to the people who earn it and that saying tax cuts cost the government is like saying burglar alarms cost thieves. Therefore, any legislation that cuts taxes is a victory for liberty.

What’s so goofy about eliminating certain taxes and letting Americans keep more of their money in their wallets, purses, and bank accounts instead of handing it over to the profligate Congress to spend on unconstitutional government programs, government boondoggles, and U.S. military adventures around the world? I don’t see anything goofy about it at all.

The post What’s So Goofy About Eliminating Taxes? appeared first on LewRockwell.

United Sates President Joe Biden has spent most of his presidency refusing to talk with Russia President Vladimir Putin. This is despite — or maybe because of — the fact that such discourse could have led to an agreement ending the US government’s proxy war against Russia.

Instead of talking out a resolution to the fighting, Biden has kept pumping dollars, weapons, and intelligence to the Ukraine government, resulting in a rising death toll and expanding war. Also advanced has been the risk of drawing the US and Russia directly into a war against each other that could go nuclear.

Still, Biden will not pick up the phone or fly on a plane to talk things over with the president of Russia. “I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now,” said Biden on July 11, 2024 in response to a reporter’s question at one of Biden’s rare press conferences. We know Biden loves his vacation time, but, really, isn’t ending the Ukraine War and preventing its further escalation a good enough reason to start chatting with Putin? How about putting in a little effort to give peace a chance?

Long, long ago, during the presidency of George W. Bush, a US president not only regularly talked with Putin, including in in-person meetings, he even had an affectionate nickname for the Russia president. For Bush, Putin was Pootie-Poot. How things have changed.

Not every American president before Biden had a cute nickname for counterparts among the long line of Russia leaders, and Soviet leaders during the decades when Russia was subsumed in the Soviet Union. Yet, they all were willing to talk. This includes Ronald Reagan who called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and pushed for increased US military spending to counter what he presented as a Soviet threat. Reagan met with and kept in regular contact with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, succeeding in putting in place arms control deals between the nations. Other US presidents, while directly and by proxy militarily countering the “red spread” and “Soviet expansion,” kept in communication with Soviet leaders. They wanted to be dedicated cold warriors while minimizing the risk of outright war between the US and Soviet Union.

Biden should give Putin a call. And when Biden makes that call, why not give Putin a nice nickname too? Doing this may run counter to Biden’s nature, but it could be the first step down the path to peace.

Unfortunately, there is little indication that seeking peace is even a small component of the Biden administration’s agenda.

Reprinted with permission from The Ron Paul Institute.

The post When Vladimir Putin Was Pootie-Poot appeared first on LewRockwell.

Last week Peter appeared on Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu to discuss inflation, Federal Reserve policy, wealth taxes, and a whole host of other economic subjects. This is the latest in a string of recent interviews Peter has appeared in. If you missed them, check out his appearance on Bankless and a David Lin debate with Jack Mallers.

Peter argues that it is absolutely critical that Americans see inflation as a deliberate, albeit subtle, tax:

“The best way to look at inflation is a tax. Inflation is what we pay for the government that we don’t pay for with the income tax or the Social Security tax or a sales tax. Basically, the deficits, the Federal budget deficits– we end up funding them by inflation. And those deficits are about to skyrocket. They’ve been skyrocketing. And so the inflation tax is going to be much bigger in 2025 than it was this year regardless of what the Fed is trying to tell us.”

Technical economic jargon like “quantitative easing (QE)” is used to obscure intentional inflationary policy:

“QE is just another word for inflation, just that it’s a euphemism. But that’s really what it is. But the Fed has to pretend that it’s finished the job on inflation. It can’t, you know, be honest and say, ‘Look, we still have high inflation and it’s going to go up. But, we don’t care.’ So they have to pretend that the 3% inflation that we have now is going to go down to 2%.”

From the jargon to the statistics, the entire monetary system is biased to facilitate and hide (both intentionally and unintentionally) inflation:

“If you are trying to track inflation yourself, if you’re trying to understand how prices are going up, there is a lot of manipulation that’s happening behind the scenes to control the public’s perception of the CPI number. … The government is doing sleight of hand. They’re manipulating the numbers, they’re doing sleight of hand so that they can basically– I’ll be aggressive here and use the word–  steal money from the people, not have to get people to vote so that they can keep doing just absolutely outrageous amounts of spending because they can get your dollars from you without having to ask for them.”

Even if there was honest political will to stop inflation, it would be political suicide:

“We are stuck with inflation because the alternative is a political non-starter, because if the Fed actually got rid of inflation, you would have a financial crisis that would make 2008 look like a Sunday school picnic.”

This policy can’t last forever, since it’s propped up by other countries’ willingness to participate and hold dollars:

“The problem is now, yes, they’re earning interest, but the Fed is also losing a fortune on its bond portfolio right now. So, the Fed is not making money anymore to pay the U.S. Treasury like they used to, but they do get the interest back. … But the real problem though, is going to be the dollar’s status as the reserve currency, because as the rest of the world wakes up to the reality of endless inflation and endless money printing … there is no justification for the dollar to be the reserve currency, and it won’t be.”

Understanding the inflation machine is key to understanding current sentiment around the economy. Most people sense the system is rigged, but they can’t necessarily articulate why:

“The public already knows that things are wrong. That’s why they just know something feels wrong, but they don’t know what it is. The politicians and a lot of the people in the financial media who still don’t get it, you know, they look at these phony statistics and accept them on face value. And then they look at the public and the public is so pessimistic. You know, Biden’s approval rating is so low. People are pessimistic. And they don’t understand why.”

This is a big week for monetary policy, as the Fed prepares to announce a likely rate cut. Stay tuned for Peter’s analysis later in the week.

This originally appeared on SchiffGold.com.

The post Inflation Is an Intentional Tax appeared first on LewRockwell.

I’ve been an observer of national politics since I was eleven years old. I cried when they killed Robert F. Kennedy. I was a die hard Democrat. I thought they were the good guys. Then I became an independent, and have grown more radical as I age. I know the process is rigged, and yet I continue to follow it, like a heroin addict.

Donald Trump was recently the victim of yet another assassination attempt. Apparently. The same people who believe the first attempt, in Butler Pennsylvania two months ago, was staged, naturally believe this one was fake, too. And they both might very well have been. After all, everything they do is seemingly scripted. No improvisation allowed. But the response is what really grabs my attention. As I’ve noted, those on the Left who are skeptical of the Trump assassination attempts aren’t skeptical about anything else. They believe in Russian collusion. They think “Climate Change” is a tremendous threat to us all. They accept the transgender lunacy. And despite the vast majority being White themselves, they are fully on board with the anti-White agenda. So they’re certainly predisposed to accept things at face value.

The alleged would-be assassin is supposedly one Ryan Wesley Routh. Another three namer- who could have predicted that? As you can see from the photo above, when Routh was apprehended, his shirt was oddly pulled up, revealing his A-cup man boobs, and his pants were pulled down lewdly, in big hair, rock star fashion. Did he do this himself? I don’t know, maybe that’s the latest fashion trend for potential patsies? It certainly is an attention grabber. Or did law enforcement pull his shirt up, and his pants down? That takes us into more bizarre territory. Perhaps their resistance got weak, and they absolutely had to see if this fifty eight year old had six pack abs. It’s a suppressed homosexuality thing, you wouldn’t understand. However you look at it, I don’t believe we’ve seen another arrest photo like it.

But Ryan Wesley Routh is far more than man boobs and almost exposed crotch. We are told that the FBI and Interpol were “warned” about him. We are told this, after the fact, about most of the accused perpetrators of high profile crimes. We understand how corrupt and incompetent the FBI has always been, so it makes sense that they would ignore “warnings” about any potentially dangerous individual. I suppose Interpol is no better. Maybe they can hire more people, with better lone nut detectors. The brave Secret Service detail was evidently denied the opportunity to stand down at Trump’s own golf course in Palm Beach, Florida. I feel confident they would have been exemplary once again, in not doing their job, if the patsy wearing the makeshift tank top had been able to get close enough to fire at Trump.

Routh is also an author. Just like me, and many others who have never fired shots at any politician. Or pulled our shirts up and pants down so provocatively in public. Routh’s self-published book Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the end of Humanity, is an impassioned plea for World War III. Wow- nobody ever tell me that the subtitles for my books are too wordy. He is documented as a fervent leftist, having formerly supported Bernie Sanders, and having contributed financially many times to ActBlue. He tried to recruit foreign soldiers to help Ukraine defeat Russia. You’d think that, with all this information, it would be obvious that Routh was motivated by the same kind of irrational hatred for Donald Trump that has infected millions of formerly rational Americans with TDS.

But instead of acknowledging this, and perhaps issuing one of their standard lectures to the insane “Woke” Left, the mainstream media, and high profile Democrats themselves, are telling Trump to “tone down” his rhetoric. If you just stop saying “hateful” things, no one will try to assassinate you! What is most remarkable about Routh is the fact that he was inexplicably interviewed by Newsweek in 2022. His only claim to fame was his self-published book, touting the official state controlled media line on Ukraine. People who write self-published books don’t usually get to be interviewed by huge media outlets like that. I have legitimate publishers, and I couldn’t get Newsweek to notice me, even if I walked into their headquarters with a “9/11 Wasn’t an Inside Job” tee shirt pulled up past my nipples. So the FBI not only knew about Routh, but Newsweek thought he was worth an interview, two years ago?

Now I am fully aware that many are dubious about this attempt, just as they are about the incident in Pennsylvania. I am, too. Why would we believe anything that is reported, by a media that is simply regurgitating talking points from “authorities” that lie to us about everything? How did Routh know Trump was going to be at the golf course, the skeptics are asking. Good question. Initially, the New York Post went with a story that claimed two men had fired shots at each other, and it was all totally unrelated to Trump. Well, that sounds plausible. I used to golf regularly, very badly, back in the misty days of America 1.0. I guess I was lucky not to have encountered two men shooting at each other on any of the courses I played. Where else would you hold a gun battle, other than a golf course? Regardless, as in the Steve Scalise shooting, the victim’s motives are never political if he’s a leftist, only if he’s a right-wing extremist.

However real either or both Trump assassination attempts were, the response to them is even more telling. Trump has to be the only politician that survived at attempt on his life, and actually went down in the fake public opinion polls afterwards. You’d imagine that the second attempt would ensure his victory. But I think we can predict that he’ll plunge even further after the failed efforts of Ryan Wesley Routh. I’m sure the Republicuck leaders will leave no stone unturned in finding out the truth here. Sure, they haven’t managed to call a single one of the Secret Service agents who stood down completely in Butler, but these things take time. They’re still searching for photos of Thomas Matthew Crooks taken after he graduated from the eighth grade. That makes sense; few of us have our pictures taken after middle school. It’s all downhill from there.

And their task won’t be made easier by the fact that the Secret Service is unwilling to cooperate in any investigation. Well, to be fair, any real investigation would make the Secret Service look really bad. The Biden administration, Homeland Security, all of them, are urging the Secret Service not to comply with Congress. What is Congress going to do if they don’t? Remember Hunter Biden’s taunting press conference? Maybe if Peter Navarro was one of the Secret Service agents in question. And, in keeping with their appearance of upright honesty, the Secret Service is also rejecting Freedom of Information Act requests about the Butler incident. Nothing evokes innocence better than that. So we’ll never find anything out. If it was real, who was actually behind it? Or if it was staged, as millions believe, why it was staged, and by who? Was Trump in on it? Why stage a shooting, and then stop reporting on it?

Melania Trump, one of the least visible of modern political wives, recently put out a heartfelt video where she talked about the first assassination attempt, and supported the “conspiracy theorists” who feel there is more to it than a loner walking around for thirty minutes carrying a rifle, and then scaling the wall of a building, while witnesses tried in vain to get the attention of law enforcement. If only Crooks would have committed an illegal U-Turn; those cops would have apprehended him before he could U-Turn again. At any rate, Don Lemon, the gay White hater who is married to a White man, played Melania’s emotional video and ridiculed it. Made fun of it like a sixth grade bully. A gay, racist bully. Lemon can freely mock Mrs. Trumpenstein, and millions of Americans believe the Giant Orange Man is orchestrating the whole thing. I think it is all orchestrated, but Trump isn’t doing the orchestrating.

Read the Whole Article

The post It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Fake Presidential Race appeared first on LewRockwell.

As an illegal immigrant, if you enter the US under one of the countries deemed to be hostile, you may apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).  This status allows an illegal immigrant from specific countries to file for TPS as a safety precaution given their own country is in turmoil.  It is a temporary status. It does not confer on them a green card, or a legal status, in essence they are in limbo.   The status must be updated regularly as circumstances in their country change.   

This is what the Haitians coming across the border illegally are directed to do by immigration.  They are NOT legal.  They are ‘temporary’ illegals living under a protected status.

During this temporary stay, the US Government provides:  Supplemental Security Income, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance, the women, infants and children program, free school lunches, subsidized housing, and Medicaid.

The government estimates of the number of persons in the US not legal but protected ranges between 850,000 to 1.2 million.   The fact that the Agency has no idea how many – SHOULD be a bit worrisome.  There is currently an additional 450,000+ applicants awaiting the approval of their TPS applications.

When the ‘government’ doles these freebies and charity out – they don’t ask permission from The People – they make a unilateral decision and voila your money is Gone Baby Gone.

This is the argument being levied by democrats regarding Springfield Ohio.  The Haitians are there legally via the TPS, but they are NOT legal residents – they can’t buy homes, cars, or anything else that would benefit the economy.  When immigration finds them employment they are paid minimum wage, not union wages, and the government subsidizes the EMPLOYER to hire them.  More associated taxpayer costs.   More US unemployment.

This status was added to the Immigration Act in 1990 within the Department of Homeland Security under Big Daddy Bush.   In 2021, the courts reiterated that if the person came into the country illegally but was given TPS status, they could not apply for permanent residency.

Currently there are numerous lawsuits in US Courts regarding HHS determination that some country’s should be removed from the designation particularly in California.   Given the requirement for continued renewal, California is arguing the renewal should be automatic.

When arguing the illegal immigration status, the typical democrat response is to assert the tax revenue that is generated.    According to Reuters, the cost of illegal immigration is $151 billion annually.  According to a study from IDEP, illegals contribute $11.7 billion in tax revenue.  Roughly 50% of them pay no taxes.  Of course, these numbers are statistical estimates/guesses because the government doesn’t actually account for people or money in real time.

Stats: 

• Of the foreign born legal Haitians in the US 69% have become naturalized citizens. 36% of Haitian immigrants and their children live in poverty.
• 7% are on some source of welfare.
• 48% lived in owner occupied homes.
• The Trump administration attempted to end many existing designations while the Biden regime expanded protections to include – Venezuelans among others.
• The crime rate in Springfield, Ohio is 34.51 per 1000; the crime rate in Ohio is 2.78 per 1000.

Immigration confused with illegal immigration has splintered America.   Crime, gangs, safety, particularly in urban environments is spectacularly high.  No amount of falsified FBI crime reports can hold up to the eyes, ears, and attacks levied on American citizens daily.   No manner of falsified statistics can allay the vast number of businesses physically destroyed.  Lying has become a national crisis with pathological overtones.  

A disease perpetrated by OUR GOVERNMENT. 

Reprinted with permission from HelenaGlass.net.

The post Temporary Protected Status For Illegal Immigrants appeared first on LewRockwell.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

“We adore Thee, O Christ, and we praise Thee, because by Thy Holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.” This familiar prayer offered as part of the Stations of the Cross is familiar to Catholics, and well it should be. It succinctly expresses our faith, and the unique reality of Jesus Christ – God’s Divine Son – as the one Savior of all humanity.

We are obliged to adore and praise Jesus Christ because He is God’s Son, and because He has brought salvation to our fallen state. We must cling tenaciously to the truth that only Jesus Christ is Savior, and that He lived, suffered, died, and rose for all humanity for all time. His loving sacrifice of His Own life in order to redeem us is the greatest gift that humanity has ever received.

This simple prayer expresses the core of our faith that we are obliged to proclaim to the world if we wish to live as His disciples. The Church exists to proclaim this Truth in order to point the human family, from every nation and race, to the means of our salvation. There is no other name by which we can be saved, and no other movement, religion, or human endeavor will save us. Christ alone is our Savior. We truly can gain the whole world and still find ourselves lost if we do not embrace Jesus Christ and His Cross.

As you read this, I can imagine that your reaction might be that I am merely stating the obvious by expressing the basic kerygma of our glorious faith in Jesus Christ, our loving Lord and Redeemer, and you are correct. But we must open our eyes to the reality that too many within the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, are rejecting this most basic expression of our faith and, in fact, rejecting Jesus Christ Himself. We must also acknowledge that leaders in the Church of the highest rank are leading the world, not towards but away from Jesus Christ.

Pope Francis, recently speaking to a group of young people in Singapore, made this statement:

“One of the things that struck me about all of you here is your ability to engage in interreligious dialogue, and this is very important. If you, in the beginnings of your conversations and debates, start to say things like, ‘My religion is more important than yours,’ ‘No, mine is more important than yours,’ that sort of thing, where will this lead us? Because if we start to fight amongst ourselves and say, ‘My religion is more important than yours,’ ‘My religion is true, yours is not,’ where will that lead us? Someone respond. Where would it lead us? It’s okay to discuss. Every religion is a way to arrive at God. To make an example or a comparison, they are like different languages in order to arrive at God. But God is God for all – and if God is God for all, then we are all sons and daughters of God. ‘But my God is more important than your God.’ Is that true? There is only one God, and each of us is a language, so to speak, in order to arrive at God. Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian – they are different paths.”

This statement is theological heresy – it is called indifferentism. Indifferentism makes the claim that all religions are of equal value and all lead to the same divine truth. This directly contradicts the Church’s doctrine that there is one true faith and that the Catholic Church is the only path to salvation.

Although tolerance and religious freedom are important, we in the Church must defend our faith with conviction and share the truth with certainty. As Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh to the Father, but by Me.” (John 14:6)

In 1928, Pope Pius XI discussed indifferentism in his papal encyclical Mortalium Animos. He stated:

“For since they hold it for certain that men destitute of all religious sense are very rarely to be found, they seem to have founded on that belief a hope that the nations, although they differ among themselves in certain religious matters, will without much difficulty come to agree as brethren in professing certain doctrines, which form as it were a common basis of the spiritual life. For which reason conventions, meetings and addresses are frequently arranged by these persons, at which a large number of listeners are present, and at which all without distinction are invited to join in the discussion, both infidels of every kind, and Christians, even those who have unhappily fallen away from Christ or who with obstinacy and pertinacity deny His divine nature and mission. Certainly, such attempts can nowise be approved by Catholics, founded as they are on that false opinion which considers all religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different ways manifest and signify that sense, which is inborn in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient acknowledgement of His rule. Not only are those who hold this opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of true religion they reject it, and little by little, turn aside to naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly follows that one who support those who hold these theories and attempt to realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely revealed religion.”

Pope Gregory XVI in his papal encyclical Mirari Vos (1832) condemned the idea that one could attain salvation in any religion. Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemned the proposition that “every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”

I have often, at various times, expressed my deep concern regarding the occurrence of heresy and the atmosphere of apostasy as it emanates from the Vatican in Rome, but I must now ask this question: “Where is the outcry of the shepherds? Where is the courage and conviction to defend our faith?”

When Pope Pius X was worried that Modernism would wed the Church to the world with its emphasis on humanism, he mandated that every bishop must hunt down this heresy and crush it, and he required an oath as a prerequisite of receiving Holy Orders, which was in effect until 1978. Once, when Pope Pius X was asked whether he should perhaps adopt a more conciliatory tone and perhaps seek more dialogue, he stated: “You want them to be treated with oil, soap, and caresses. But they should be beaten with fists. In a duel, you don’t count or measure the blows, you strike as you can.” Pope Pius X saw the extreme danger in allowing heresy to stand unchallenged and uncorrected, as unchecked heresy will surely lead a great many souls away from Christ, and away from the fullness of the true and authentic faith, which is found and safeguarded in its entirety in the Catholic Church alone. And so, I ask again: “Where is the outcry of the shepherds?”

Read the Whole Article

The post Pope Francis’ Comments on All Religions Being Paths to God Are ‘Heresy’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

The death toll has risen to 12 from Israel’s terror attack in Lebanon on Tuesday which detonated explosive materials hidden in thousands of pagers. Another 20 people were then killed in another attack on Wednesday with a second wave of explosions, this time using walkie talkies and home solar energy systems.

The total death toll now sits at 32. Two children and four healthcare workers are among the dead. Thousands have been injured.

As you would expect, western empire managers are getting really squirmy about this. White House spokesman John Kirby adamantly refused to answer any questions involving Israel’s responsibility for the attacks during a press conference on Wednesday, despite Israel being widely reported as the responsible party, with outlets like The New York Times citing US officials as their source.

“I’m not gonna speak to the details of these incidents,” Kirby said repeatedly when questioned about Israel’s role and what the US response will be.

Hypocrisy and contradiction are not great moral evils in and of themselves, but they often run cover for great moral evils. The fact that we are trained to think about the world by people who facilitate great evils perpetrated by their own side when they’d condemn identical evils committed by their enemies shows that they do not stand against evil, and are deeply evil themselves.

Recognizing the problems in our world is the first step to solving them. That’s what the propagandists and empire managers work to prevent us from doing, and that’s what we try to do by pointing out the glaring plot holes and inconsistencies in their narratives over and over again.

The correct thing to do when western leaders talk about human rights or denounce abuses by enemy governments is to mock them and dismiss them. They’re not saying anything true about their actual values and beliefs; if they were there wouldn’t be so much hypocrisy in the way they denounce governments they don’t like for offenses they ignore and make excuses for in governments they do like. They’re never saying what they’re saying to stop human rights abuses or make the world a better place, they’re only saying what they’re saying to undermine their enemies so that the western empire can rule the world and be the only one administering abuse.

Western media are primarily responsible for the ability of Western politicians to commit war crimes and acts of terrorism unchecked pic.twitter.com/wA7E8dwJxy

— Tiberius (@ecomarxi) September 18, 2024

And the same is true of the mainstream western press. You’ll see them completely ignore the abuses of US-aligned governments while showing immense interest in alleged abuses by empire-targeted groups, often on very flimsy evidence. Mock them and dismiss them when they act like they care about human rights abuses. They don’t care. They just want to make sure the abusive power structure they conduct propaganda for is the one in charge.

__________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. If you’d prefer to listen to audio of these articles, you can subscribe to them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud or YouTube. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

The post On War Crimes and Western Hypocrisy appeared first on LewRockwell.

di Francesco Simoncelli

Nell'annuncio della BCE della scorsa settimana sono stati a malapena notati un paio di dettagli contraddittori. La BCE è impegnata, a prescindere da tutto, ad avere un obiettivo per l'inflazione al 2%. Raggiungibile come? Dal basso verso l'alto. Invece adesso, magicamente, è un obiettivo da raggiungere dall'alto verso il basso senza che nessun pianificatore centrale abbia addotto alcuna spiegazione a riguardo. Bernanke, nel suo libro The Courage to Act, ha praticamente creato l'impalcatura accademica per la ZIRP e la NIRP, adesso, però, non c'è nessuno che ha il “coraggio” di farsi avanti per spiegarci com'è possibile che si debba fare il contrario quando era la “deflazione” la fonte di tutti i guai economici. Ma questo, cari lettori, è solo teatro. Le sciocchezze sui dati della scorsa settimana includevano le previsioni di una maggiore crescita del PIL e di un ammorbidimento ulteriore dell'inflazione l'anno prossimo. Non ha senso promettere adesso tassi di prestito più bassi, poiché l''inflazione è ancora al di sopra dell'obiettivo ufficiale. Senza scomodare la percezione comune di quando “si va a fare la spesa”, o la cavalcata dell'indice IPC, o la semplice cumulazione dell'effetto dell'inflazione dei prezzi che sebbene rallenti nel tempo non indietreggia (o per meglio dire sale più lentamente), basta dare un'occhiata alla misura che fino al 2020 era la più sbandierata dai banchieri centrali per giustificare la loro linea di politica anti-deflazione: la misura di base dell'inflazione dei prezzi, quella che esclude dal computo cibo ed energia. L'ultima misurazione la pone al 2,8%.

La cosa importante, quindi, è continuare a far fluire il denaro; tutto il resto è una recita. I tassi d'inflazione annui sono stati in media del 6% negli ultimi tre anni e del 3% negli ultimi dieci anni. Non c'è traccia di un'inflazione del 2% che la BCE afferma di cercare; tale obiettivo è solo una finzione.

RAGGIRATI DAI NUMERI

I numeri dell'inflazione e del PIL sono semplicemente “inventati”. “Aggiustato all'inflazione” è una di quelle espressioni come “stavamo solo eseguendo degli ordini”; può nascondere una montagna di menzogne. Negli ultimi due anni abbiamo spesso confrontato l'inflazione del periodo '22-'23 con quella degli anni '70. Ci è stato detto che il tasso d'inflazione odierno ha raggiunto il picco del 10% nel 2022 e poi è sceso rapidamente, ma se misurassimo gli aumenti dei prezzi odierni come facevano negli anni '70, vedreste che la nostra inflazione è peggiore di quanto non fosse allora. State pensando quello che sto pensando anche io? Se la lettura dell'inflazione è fasulla, lo è anche quella del PIL, e lo è anche l'intero quadro finanziario.

Cominciamo con la misura dell'inflazione stessa. Secondo l'ISTAT, ad esempio, il cibo è aumentato (a un ritmo annuo) del 4,8% nell'ultimo anno; i servizi sono aumentati del 3,3% e gli affitti sono aumentati del 3%. Tra rate di mutui più elevate e prezzi delle case più alti, poi, questi numeri sembrano quasi sconfessare le difficoltà generali e percepite da chi deve far quadrare i conti a fine mese, il che è solo la prova che, sebbene i numeri possano non mentire intenzionalmente, se li torturate abbastanza diranno tutto ciò che volete che dicano. E se si usasse il metodo di calcolo degli anni '80, l'intero quadro economico diventerebbe improvvisamente cupo: aggiustare all'inflazione il PIL nominale, quindi, risulterebbe in una crescita negativa spaventosa. E che dire del mercato azionario? Quando si ottiene un “guadagno”, o un “profitto”, dalle azioni, si pensa di stare meglio e ora tutti pensano che il mercato azionario si sia “ripreso” dopo i ribassi nel 2022. Ma è così? Una stima ragionevole è che i prezzi al consumo siano più alti (come minimo) del 25% rispetto al picco del Dow Jones nel 2021. Se così fosse il Dow dovrebbe arrivare a 45.000 solo per andare in pareggio.

Conviene guardare all'oro per cercare di mettere ordine in tutta questa storia. Dal suo picco alla fine del 2021 a oggi il Dow è salito di quasi 4.000 punti, ma aggiustato al prezzo dell'oro è ancora in calo di quasi il 10%. Indietro? Avanti? In che direzione stiamo andando?

Un'altra curiosità della storia della crescita del PIL è il ruolo dei deficit fiscali. Se lo stato spende soldi, anche se sprecati in armi, l'ammontare è incluso come avanzamento nel PIL. Quindi più si spende, più alto è il PIL... almeno nel breve periodo. I deficit sono particolarmente importanti: se lo stato incassa 100 in entrate fiscali e li spende, rimuove quei soldi dall'economia. Nessun aumento netto del PIL. Ma se prende in prestito i soldi, la spesa extra viene conteggiata come se “uscisse dal nulla” e viene aggiunta al totale. Non c'è alcun prelievo compensativo nell'economia dei consumatori, quindi il PIL sale.

L'anno scorso il deficit pubblico italiano è stato del 7% del PIL. Erano soldi che sono stati spesi, ma non raccolti dalle tasse. Devono essere andati da qualche parte, quindi ecco una semplice domanda: come si è potuto pompare un ulteriore 7% (del PIL) nell'economia, con quasi €100 miliardi aggiunti al debito pubblico, ma ottenere solo un aumento dell'1% del PIL?

Cosa è successo all'altro 6%? Dove sono finiti i €135 miliardi mancanti? Dove sono andati a finire i soldi?

Ciò significa che l'economia reale, non statale, si sta contraendo a un ritmo così allarmante da spazzare via gran parte delle nuove immissioni di denaro? Oppure questi numeri sono così “falsati” da essere privi di significato?

INSOSTENIBILE A OGNI LIVELLO

Spendere per il semplice scopo di spendere, sostanzialmente era questo lo scopo dietro i vari programmi di QE attivati dalla BCE e dal resto del caravanserraglio delle banche centrali. L'azzardo morale derivante è stato dirottato nel mercato finanziario, andando a gonfiare gli asset finanziari delle varie industrie che in questo modo hanno potuto aprire a giri sempre più rischiosi di ingegneria finanziaria. Questo ha fatto in modo che i numeri finanziari salissero, permettendo di conseguenza a suddette aziende di assumere personale. Ma tutto questo processo non era basato su una situazione sostenibile di allocazione di capitale, bensì sull'imputazione che questa manna sarebbe durata per sempre. Peccato che fosse una tantum, peccato che abbia causato supply shock a ripetizione, peccato che abbia saturato i bilanci delle aziende... peccato, in conclusione, che fosse tutta una illusione. La considerazione dell'economia “nominale” è diventata il nuovo dio da pregare.

Ora, però, la cruda realtà di quella “reale” sta facendo pagare lo scotto di tutte quelle distorsioni e deformazioni che si sono moltiplicate nel tempo. Il settore automobilistico è solo la punta dell'iceberg di un doloroso processo di normalizzazione che, diversamente dal presunto “effetto ricchezza” alimentato dalle politiche delle banche centrali, parte dal basso e va verso l'alto.

The defining feature of the apparent endless decline in Germany's industrial production is how broad-based it is across industry groups. During the pandemic and its aftermath, it was mostly intermediates and capital goods (cars missing chips). Now the malaise is much wider. https://t.co/t0hJCocXVX pic.twitter.com/102Dluuwem

Le aziende, soprattutto quelle automobilistiche, hanno poche vendite e molte perdite. Meriterebbero un valore di mercato di circa... zero. Eppure gli investitori ci vedono valore, puntando le loro scommesse su quel poco di illiquidità che riescono a racimolare grazie al rinnovato lassismo della BCE. Nel frattempo il ritmo di crescita del PIL dipende interamente dal calcolo dell'inflazione, che è incostante come l'impasto della pasta: gli statistici stendono la sfoglia e lo cuociono in forno, finché non ottengono il sapore e la consistenza desiderati. Se misurassero l'inflazione come si faceva durante gli anni ottanta, ad esempio, il PIL reale non sarebbe cresciuto affatto bensì risulterebbe sgonfiato come una torta fatta male. E, se misurate in oro, le azioni sono ancora in calo del 13,6% rispetto ai massimi del 2021. C'è qualcosa di reale, indiscutibile, di cui vale la pena preoccuparsi? Ahimè, sì: il debito. Non se ne va, anzi sta crescendo.

Ci sono molte incognite note nelle cifre del debito, ma quasi tutte portano allo stesso punto: si possono eseguire un milione di simulazioni per vedere cosa potrebbe accadere, ma in quasi tutte il “rapporto debito/PIL” si rivela instradato lungo un “percorso insostenibile”. Cosa succede quando il percorso insostenibile giunge al termine? Man mano che diventa sempre più grande (rispetto all'economia che lo sostiene) e diventa “insostenibile”, deve succedere qualcos'altro... ma cosa?

La vera domanda è se il cambiamento avviene intenzionalmente o involontariamente. La soluzione “intenzionale” è ovvia, ma irraggiungibile. Richiederebbe una chiarezza politica e una volontà che non esistono: la spesa dovrebbe essere tagliata, ma poiché chi decide è anche chi spende, e poiché i loro amici e sostenitori sono coloro che prendono i soldi, è molto improbabile che si arrivi a una soluzione volontaria. È la risoluzione “non intenzionale” che causerà il vero danno.

CONCLUSIONE

I tassi d'interesse artificialmente bassi sono un problema di per sé: distorcono il costo reale del capitale, inducendo le persone a prendere in prestito troppi soldi. Il debito aumenta portando a una crisi di qualche tipo. In parole povere, man mano che il debito cresce, aumenta anche la spesa per gli interessi. A nessuno importa davvero quanto diventerà grande, ma il costo del suo servizio dev'essere dedotto dalle entrate fiscali e ogni centesimo che bisogna pagare per gli errori di ieri è un centesimo in meno di cui possiamo godere oggi. A un certo punto ci rimarranno pochi centesimi... Da qualche parte lungo questo percorso il mercato obbligazionario si romperà, i tassi d'interesse saliranno alle stelle e il costo del debito, o dell'aggiunta di nuovo debito, sarà troppo da sopportare. Usando come proxy il differenziale di rendimento tra il decennale tedesco e quello statunitense, possiamo vedere che le criticità dell'Eurosistema sono di gran lunga peggiori di quelle statunitensi.

Per tutto questo tempo, infatti, l'obiettivo della BOE e della BCE era l'affossamento del mercato obbligazionario statunitense tramite l'eurodollaro e la trasmissione del malessere economico risultante sulle spalle dei contribuenti statunitensi. Una sorta di socializzazione delle perdite causate dall'overleveraging nel sistema bancario ombra. Con la fine del LIBOR, l'entrata in scena del SOFR e il prosciugamento della liquidità ombra dettato dal cambio di passo della FED, i nodi stanno venendo al pettine. E il sopraccitato differenziale ci spiega chi davvero è nei guai.

Il secondo taglio dei tassi da parte della BCE è un bluff, un finto tentativo di progressione rispetto alle altre banche centrali. I mercati dei cambi non vedono il bluff, ma gli obbligazionisti sì. Il piano dell'UE è sempre stato quello di evitare di tagliare qualsiasi pasto gratis che aveva precedentemente stabilito attraverso finanziamenti presumibilmente illimitati tramite l'eurodollaro. La lotta a livello di megapolitica verte tutta su questo duplice scenario: ridimensionamento, o salvezza attraverso la morte di qualcun altro. O si tagliano drasticamente i presunti pasti gratis e si sconfessa l'illusione di monopsonio dell'Europa (con la conseguente rottura dell'Unione) ragionando con freddo criterio logico su quanto sbagliato in passato, oppure si cede al panico, si stampa e si scaraventa l'intera economia mondiale in una vera e propria catastrofe inflazionistica.

Tutte le emergenze finora sperimentate, sin dalla crisi del debito greco, sono state usate come arma per forzare un mercato obbligazionario comune in Europa. L'insostenibilità della tragedia dei beni comuni richiede un nuovo livello di ridistribuzione, soprattutto adesso che i rubinetti dell'eurodollaro sono chiusi. A tal proposito, infatti, la spinta verso l'unione fiscale si è fatta sempre più pressante sin da quando le obbligazioni SURE hanno fatto capolino e i salvataggi straordinari (es. PNRR) avevano come postilla la tassazione diretta dell'UE su parte dei prestiti erogati. Anche la guerra nell'Europa orientale è stata fomentata per tale scopo: far pagare il proprio default agli altri. Ma non basta, perché un default significa sempre sfiducia, soprattutto nel mercato obbligazionario, e se tutti non remano all'unisono il bluff viene scoperto.

La Germania ha vissuto sulla sua pelle cosa significa questo processo e non vuole ripeterlo, in particolare la Bundesbank. La demolizione controllata dell'economia tedesca serve sostanzialmente a fiaccare la volontà dei banchieri centrali tedeschi affinché accettino questa “nuova normalità”. Il recente piano Draghi è solamente l'ennesimo avvertimento mafioso per integrazione fiscale e obbligazionaria.

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

The Media Firestorm Over Holocaust Denial

For years, Tucker Carlson had been the highest-rated host on television, courageously covering the important, controversial topics that few others dared to touch. After his forced departure from FoxNews in April 2023, he soon launched an even bolder interview show on Elon Musk’s Twitter platform, now completely free of the timorous corporate oversight and time constraints that have always crippled network TV.

His most remarkable achievement came in February of this year, when he traveled to Moscow and conducted a two hour sit down interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, allowing many tens of millions worldwide to watch the unfiltered responses of one of the top global figures of our young twenty-first century. A media coup of such historic significance might have left Walter Cronkite green with envy during the heyday of network television, and with today’s cable news ratings in free fall, Carlson’s former TV colleagues could only sputter with envious rage and denounce their hugely successful competitor as “a Russian stooge.”

Carlson’s September 2nd interview with Darryl Cooper was hardly in the same category, given the relative obscurity of his guest, an amateur historian and podcaster. I’d never heard of Cooper nor had most others, but the explosive subject matter of the discussion partly made up for that lack. The lead item was the Jonestown Cult that had perished in a notorious 1978 mass suicide, and perhaps a half-hour of the 140 minute session was devoted to that. But much of the remainder dealt with World War II, Adolf Hitler, and Winston Churchill, and the candid and controversial treatment of those momentous topics soon set off fireworks all across the Internet.

I don’t use Twitter myself, but within 24 hours that platform was apparently ablaze about the interview, with former Rep. Liz Cheney among many others Tweeting out her outrage, and ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt endorsing and amplifying her attack. Twitter owner Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, promoted the interview as “Very interesting. Worth watching” to his nearly 200 million followers but a blizzard of attacks soon forced him to delete that Tweet. By the 5th, the Washington Post had broken its own rules to publish an editorial denouncing both Carlson and his guest, as did a conservative columnist in the same publication, along with various other prominent commentators.

On September 6th, the New York Times heavily weighed in, publishing two very negative news stories as well as an opinion column on the swirling controversy, which was how I first learned about what had transpired. Although the history of World War II has been a topic of great interest to me, I was busy with my own work, so I merely glanced at the headlines and completely missed the dozen or two dozen other articles that soon appeared in a variety of different publications.

Most of those headlines were certainly explosive and easily explained the vast outpouring of heated words that soon blazed across social media and the rest of the Internet. The ones appearing in the Times were fairly typical of the rest:

• Tucker Carlson Welcomes a Hitler Apologist to His Show
• Tucker Carlson Criticized for Hosting Holocaust Revisionist
• Vance Declines to Denounce Carlson After Interview With Holocaust Revisionist

The term “Holocaust Revisionist” is usually little more than a euphemistic version of the much harsher term “Holocaust Denier,” and a large majority of the other articles adopted that latter formulation, both in their titles and in their text. Based upon all this news media coverage, the White House issued a statement fiercely attacking both Carlson and Cooper:

…[G]iving a microphone to a Holocaust denier who spreads Nazi propaganda is a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans, to the memory of the over 6 million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler, to the service of the millions of Americans who fought to defeat Nazism, and to every subsequent victim of antisemitism…. Hitler was one of the most evil figures in human history and the ‘chief villain’ of World War II, full stop…. The Biden-Harris administration believes that trafficking in this moral rot is unacceptable at any time, let alone less than one year after the deadliest massacre perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Holocaust and at a time when the cancer of antisemitism is growing all over the world.

Just over six years ago, I had published a very lengthy article analyzing the origins and history of that extremely controversial ideological movement, and towards the beginning I’d described the role it played in today’s world:

For decades, Hollywood has sanctified the Holocaust, and in our deeply secular society accusations of Holocaust Denial are a bit like shouting “Witch!” in Old Salem or leveling accusations of Trotskyism in the Court of the Red Czar.

Such sentiments remain just as strong, and according to the huge wave of media stories a real, live Holocaust Denier—something almost as rare as the fabled unicorn—had not only been featured on Carlson’s enormously popular podcast show, but had even been favorably highlighted by Elon Musk. Under these circumstances, the vast media furor that resulted was hardly unwarranted.

A few days later I finally had some time to watch the long interview, which has now attracted more than a million views on YouTube, while the Tweet separately providing the same video has been viewed nearly 35 million times.

Video Link

Just as I had half-expected, what I actually saw was quite different than what most of the news coverage had suggested, once again completely affirming my belief in the total incompetence of our mainstream media.

Most of the writers had fiercely attacked Carlson for giving an admiring interview to a Holocaust Denier, yet when I carefully listened to the more than two hours of discussion, I heard not a single mention of that topic, nor any denial of the Nazi slaughter of Jews during World War II. It seemed that nearly all the journalists denouncing the show had just been too lazy to bother listening to what Cooper actually said, or perhaps too emotionally agitated to understand the plain meaning of his words.

A few of Cooper’s angry critics seemed to have avoided such a gigantic blunder and were properly circumspect. But anyone reading the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post, listening to CNN, or crediting the public statements issued by the White House would have been absolutely convinced that a fervent Holocaust Denier had been given a huge global media platform to promote his diabolical views.

As far as I could tell, virtually all the published reactions to the Carlson-Cooper discussion were intensely hostile, and this was true across every website and publication, whether written by liberals or by conservatives, running as news stories or as opinion columns.

However, the mission statement of our own publication is to provide “Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media,” and this unbalanced situation provided a perfect opportunity for us to fulfill that mandate. So within a few days we had published or republished three pieces providing a very different perspective on the controversy, each of them considerably more substantial than nearly all the heated but rather vacuous denunciations on the other side. The author of the first of these was actually a prominent Holocaust Denier, while the other two largely avoided that particular issue while expressing their strong support for Cooper’s views and being very encouraged by the enormous attention he had now received.

• Tucker Carlson’s Non-Denial Denialism of the Holocaust
  Thomas Dalton • The Unz Review • September 6, 2024 • 2,100 Words
• The Carlson-Cooper Podcast: A Major Step Forward
  Kevin MacDonald • The Occidental Observer • September 7, 2024 • 3,900 Words
• Blaming Churchill
  Jim Goad • Counter-Currents • September 9, 2024 • 2,200 Words

Although the central focus of almost all the attacks on Cooper had been the belief that he was a Holocaust Denier, there seemed no evidence of this, or at least my cursory examination of his previous body of work found nothing. For example, in 2022 he had hosted an “Ask Me Anything” session on his Substack which provoked more than 600 Q&A comments, and when I did a CTRL-F for the word “Holocaust” nothing appeared. His English-language Wikipedia page seems to have disappeared and reading the German one in automatic translation merely provided a laundry-list of the media accusations but without any evidence that they were accurate.

Indeed, after receiving the first wave of those angry denunciations and attacks, he almost immediately released a half-hour podcast entitled “My response to the mob” in which he recounted with considerable emotion some of the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust. He heavily cited the very mainstream scholarship of Prof. Timothy Snyder and also told the story of the notorious Babi Yar massacre of some 30,000 Jewish civilians near Kiev by the fiendish Nazis. Cooper’s actual World War II podcast series will not be released until next year, but given all of this material and his actual statements in the Carlson interview, there seems no particular reason to believe that his coverage of the Holocaust will differ significantly from the standard orthodox narrative.

The likely trigger for the apparently erroneous and almost deranged attacks against Cooper by so many journalists is not hard to understand. In his interview, he discussed the historical reality that the Germans had initially captured some three million Soviet POWs during the enormously successful initial stages of their Barbarossa invasion and lacking the necessary resources to feed them, a majority soon starved to death in the huge camps to which they were confined. Although Cooper severely blamed Hitler for not having properly prepared for such a situation, he also emphasized that their deaths were entirely unintentional.

I suspect that few of those agitated media pundits were aware of this unfortunate but solidly-established history of the Soviet POWs, and they instead automatically assumed that any mention of “millions of deaths” during World War II must necessarily refer to Jews, so the claim that those deaths were unintentional was seen as blatant Holocaust Denial. Combine that with Cooper’s argument that Churchill rather than Hitler was the main villain responsible for the war, and that mistaken conclusion appeared obvious. When most journalists are total ignoramuses, with hair-trigger reactions to any deviation from the usual narrative of the “Good War,” this sort of error can only be expected.

Read the Whole Article

The post Tucker Carlson, Darryl Cooper, and Holocaust Denial appeared first on LewRockwell.

Decades ago I stumbled across a passage from the biography of Rudolf Höss in which he wrote about the idyllic life of his family at the villa near the Krakow, Poland. “Every wish that my wife or children expressed was granted to them. My wife’s garden was a paradise of flowers.” Over the years, many have wondered if Höss’s wife and kids were aware of just precisely he was overseeing as the director of the nearby Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

I sometimes think of this terrifying moment in history when examining the horror of so-called “gender-affirming care” for teenagers. For decades our society has generally believed that adolescents are lacking sufficient awareness and judgement to make major decisions that will have serious consequences for themselves and others. In the State of Texas, humans cannot consent to sexual intercourse or be tried as an adult until the age of 17. They cannot vote until the age of 18 and they cannot drink an alcoholic beverage until the age of 21.

And yet, by some stupendous miracle of mass psychosis, much of our society has, in recent years, accepted the proposition that children may decide to receive puberty blocking hormones and even radical surgical procedures in a Frankensteinian fantasy of “transitioning” to the opposite sex. Most people, it seems to me, have no idea of the horror suffered by countless kids as they become fully aware of the irrevocable damage that has been done to them with the approval of their idiot parents.

Here I am fully aware that I am using very harsh language. I do so not to insult, but out of my conviction that nothing shy of a verbal slap in the face could possibly awaken people from their deranged trance.

Thank God Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opposed this atrocity and the Texas state legislature finally mustered the decency to ban it—a ban that was recently upheld by the Texas Supreme Court.

Amid growing scrutiny of the practice of mutilating children, I saw the news that Texas Children’s Hospital CEO Mark Wallace will soon retire. Like Dr. Peter Hotez, who also holds a senior position at Texas Children’s, Wallace’s actions indicate a strong preference for ideology and profit over serious and prudent consideration of what is best for children and adolescents. We can only hope that Texas Children’s will, in Wallace’s replacement, find a CEO who is animated decency, common sense, and prudence.

As the conservative Texas Values organization characterized Wallace’s retirement in a recent press release:

Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) announced last Friday, that its current President & CEO Mark Wallace, will retire on October 4th, 2024. This announcement comes as Texas Children’s Hospital continues to receive public and private scrutiny by Texas parents and Texas lawmakers, related to the scandal from allegations that it secretly and wrongfully performed sex-change surgeries and hormone treatments on children and engaged in medicaid fraud. Rep. Tom Oliverson made mention of the TCH leadership change while speaking at the Texas Values “Texas Faith Fest” event this weekend in Austin.

Jonathan Covey, Director of Policy, Texas Values released the following statement:

“It’s clear that CEO Mark Wallace’s commitment to radical gender ideology and liberal causes have been a constant source of trouble and distraction for the core mission of Texas Children’s Hospital. New leadership would be well advised to get back on task by helping the most vulnerable – not pushing unscientific and unlawful gender interventions that give false hope to children.”

TCH has undergone scrutiny for running covert gender intervention procedures and surgeries since Dr. Eithan Haim, former TCH Resident, blew the whistle on TCH in 2023 for continuing to perform these operations on children after they claimed to have shut down the clinic. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office has an ongoing investigation of these claims.

Texas Values was the leading statewide organization who worked tirelessly this past legislative session to pass SB 14, the Ban on Child Gender Modification Bill, a new law protecting children from harmful gender modification procedures and surgeries. Learn more about SB 14 on our website: Stop Child Gender Modification Law

Texas Values law and policy team are available for comment.
Email Ashley or call/text 737-314-2450 to schedule an interview.

This originally appeared on Courageous Discourse.

The post CEO of Texas Children’s Hospital To Retire Amid Growing Scrutiny of Child Mutilation appeared first on LewRockwell.

From the Tom Woods Letter:

Well, Steven Crowder is out with another video that embarrasses a public official, and this one is so over the top you almost can’t believe it’s real.

Dr. Jay Varma, who ran the New York City Covid response for then-Mayor Bill de Blasio for a year and a half, told an undercover reporter that during that time he and others engaged in drug-fueled sex parties — as other people watched their relatives die alone.

Every morning at 10:00am, for a year and a half, Dr. Varma sat next to the mayor for a daily press conference.

In fact, Dr. Varma reports that he “was the one who convinced the mayor to make [the Covid shots] a mandate.”

“It’s so funny, because I did like all this deviant sexual stuff while I was on TV,” he recalls.

Had New Yorkers found out he was having “sex parties during Covid,” he admitted it would have been a “big deal” and “a real embarrassment.”

Yeah, you could say that.

“My wife and I had one with our friends in August of that first summer. It wasn’t so much sex as like, ‘I need to get this energy out of me’ and stuff like that….

“So we rented a hotel. We had to be kind of sneaky about it because hotels didn’t want people gathering there.”

(You will be relieved to know that everyone had had a Covid test.)

“And it was fun! We all took like, you know, molly [Ecstasy/MDMA]… and everybody had a blast.”

Then he gives details of a wild 200-person party in the first half of 2021 that was “not Covid-friendly” where everyone was high — at a time when the proles were allowed to participate in gatherings of no more than 50.

The whole thing is bizarre. He takes glee in, and is excited about, telling the undercover reporter that the Wall Street Journal wrote a whole article about him being the one person responsible for why Kyrie Irving, who declined the shots, had not been allowed to play basketball.

He is very open: people are too stupid to make decisions, so we have to make them for them. Education is not going to persuade them. The education is so that after they finally give in and get the shots, they can comfort themselves with, “Well, I’ve heard it’s safe and I guess it was the right thing after all.”

“The way we do it in public health,” he said, “is we make it very uncomfortable to be unvaccinated…. They didn’t get vaccinated because they heard it was safe; they gave in because it was really hard.”

Now Crowder’s point in releasing this video isn’t so much to say this man is a hypocrite.

His point instead is to say: these people manifestly did not fear the thing they energetically urged you to fear.

Nobody wants to hear about creepy Jay Varma and his sex parties. But for obvious reasons, they are a very telling and important part of the history of New York City in 2020-2021, and when the court historians tell the story of those years they will be (as usual) willfully deceiving people by leaving them out.

Now, it’s true: Diary of a Psychosis, my book smashing the Covid madness, doesn’t discuss sex parties, but that just means anyone of any age can read it without scandal.

Some people say: I can’t bear to read it because the subject is so depressing.

I get that. But by that measure we would never read about totalitarianism or genocide — and yet we must.

If it makes you feel better, you can listen to the audiobook version, with Woods’s soothing broadcasting voice and his unique blend of sarcasm and contempt:

https://www.tomwoods.com/diaryaudiobook

The post Covid Enforcer Just Got Exposed appeared first on LewRockwell.

Last week, I was talking with three people about the Scamdemic. One said that, given government’s and media’s plainly dishonest and strategic orchestration of an extreme viral overreaction over the past 54 months, nearly any conspiracy—past, present or future—seemed at least remotely possible.

None of us disagreed with that dark notion. For those who apprehended the Covid Scam, any prior faith they had in the government and media has been broken.

This now-permanent scam alert derives both from the top/down and the bottom/up. Not only have governments and the media brazenly revealed their willingness to deceive and manipulate the populace, the masses have reciprocally shown their gullibility and passivity. If, five years ago, you had told me that hundreds of millions of Americans would freak out over a respiratory virus that threatened only a tiny fraction of the very sick and old and would not only accept, but aggressively support, lockdowns, school closures, masks, testing/tracing, shots and mandated experimental shots, I would have waved my hand and derisively dismissed your prediction.

I would have been wrong.

Post-Scamdemic, the plainly visible, unholy alliance of Democrat politicians and media, combined with popular credulity and passivity during an extreme disruption of everyday life, potentiates and portends a wide array of additional, government-driven scams. Though a minority have seen and admitted they’ve been had, I doubt there are enough Covid-forged skeptics to successfully oppose the next, “novel” crisis. Hearing recent news snippets and people I know continue to justify the NPIs and shots, it feels as if the American government and media are Lucy and the public is Charlie Brown, ready to kick a disappearing football again. And again.

—

The 9/11 incidents occurred 23 years ago last week. For weeks, months and years thereafter, news watchers heard ceaselessly about a cadre of shadowy Saudi Al Qaeda operatives who conducted mass killings at the behest of some furtive, evil mastermind named Osama bin Laden. Labels like “Ground Zero” and “heroes” and slogans such as “If you stay home, the terrorists win” were repeated ad nauseam.

Analogously, during the Scamdemic, news consumers heard non-stop about a “novel virus,” “Doctor Anthony Fauci,” “spiking cases,” an “heroes,” but this go-round with the opposite exhortation to “Stay home, save lives!” Every publicized crisis has its formulaic buzzwords, slogans, villains and heroes; though the 9/11 firemen seemed more heroic than were the TikTok-dancing Covid nurses.

Just as some people say viruses don’t exist, some 9/11 skeptics questioned if jet-piloting terrorists killed office workers. I watch very little TV and consume very little legacy print/screen news. I question the small amount of news that I see or read; the content is plainly designed to mislead. Sometimes, the media lies outright. More often, they withhold the truth and refuse to ask obvious questions.

I still believe viruses exist. Seeing normally healthy family members fall ill consecutively, and only briefly, on several occasions has been persuasive. I suspect that the vast majority of those said to have been killed by the latest virus really died from other causes. I never thought a respiratory virus was so dangerous that it justified locking down a society. Not even for two weeks, nor even one day. We had never locked down before.

In comparison, I believe that, on 9/11, many vital people had decades stolen from them and that these victims’ families and friends suffered profound losses. But after the government and media’s Scamdemic conduct, I’m not sure who caused the 9/11 deaths. I’m now willing to consider the possibility that 9/11 was some kind of inside job with an ulterior motive.

—

Aside from the above-noted differences between 9/11 and the Covid responses, I see at least three common themes.

To illustrate the first, here’s an excerpt of my 9/11 memory:

That morning, I walked, in perfect weather, twelve minutes from the train station to my Trenton office. Shortly after 9:00, I tried to call someone but found my phone line dead. I asked a co-worker what was up. She said some small plane—a Cessna type—had crashed into one of the buildings and the antenna on top had been damaged.

The news soon sharply worsened and created an office stir.

One of my colleagues, a Harvard grad, declared he was going home because our nine-story building was the tallest structure between New York City and Philadelphia and, in his mind, a potential target for a weaponized plane. I was sure he was overthinking the situation. Aside from Trenton seeming very unlike a strategic target, there were two residential towers twice as high as our building right across the street. I said so.

Nonetheless, my colleague embraced the illusion of Life During Wartime. Whether discussing terrorism or a virus, people like to consider themselves victims, or potential victims. Victimhood has become engrained in our culture via news coverage and book, TV and movie plots, and institutionalized in intersectionalism studies and DEI programs that afford preferences based on demographic characteristics, even when those classified as victims have been comparatively privileged. It feels good to perceive oneself as an underdog, surviving against the odds.

Hypochondria and exaggerated personal risk, as during Covid, are forms of appropriated victimhood. If you can’t be an actual victim, you can at least see yourself as a potential victim. Feeling like a potential victim is much easier than being an actual victim; potential victims don’t actually have to suffer.

These numbers were the only statistics one needed to confirm that the one-size-fits-all Covid reaction was a scam. These figures comported with what I and every one of the many people I asked were directly observing: no remotely healthy person under 90 was dying from The Virus. Only a tiny fraction were dying with it.

Nonetheless, during Coronamania, many people eagerly characterized themselves as at grave viral risk. A PhD/jogger/medical researcher I know asserted that he would certainly die if he got Covid because he had some seemingly mild form of asthma. I heard others at very low risk express similar, overstated fears.

Those healthy and under 65—i.e., the vast majority of the population—faced functionally zero risk. They shouldn’t have been restricted, or restricted themselves, in any way.

Those over 65 were repeatedly told, and most believed, that they had crossed some distinctly perilous threshold and were at greatly elevated risk of dying from a respiratory virus. This was false. Even between 65 and 75, 99.88% of reasonably healthy people survived the virus. Only about .12% of the population should rationally see themselves in the bottom .12% of any demographic.

Those declaring potential victimhood didn’t know that the official death tolls were greatly exaggerated. Of the legions whose 2020 deaths were falsely, opportunistically attributed to Covid, many were really caused by medical mistreatment: ventilators, powerful sedatives and kidney-impairing antivirals.

The Covid fearful failed to take basic biology into account: with each passing year, the bodies of those over 60 wear down and develop health problems that incrementally raise their risks of dying from a variety of causes. At advanced ages, death becomes slightly more likely, virus or no virus. Actuarially, it makes incrementally less sense each year to restrict one’s movements, simply to avoid infection. Seize the day. Go as hard as you can for as long as you can.

Moreover, peoples’ baseline health at any given age often varies compared to their same-aged peers. Many healthy people lumped their risk in with same-age people who were in markedly worse baseline health, i.e., those with multiple comorbidities. Laying claim to peril allowed many to self-identify as potential victims and thereby added desired drama to their lives and provided an excuse to “work from home” or avoid contact with unpreferred others.

Read the Whole Article

The post 9/11 and the Scamdemic appeared first on LewRockwell.

And Russia is fighting an existential war for the survival of the Motherland – what it has done repeatedly over centuries.

This ain’t no party
This ain’t no disco
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancin’
Or lovey-dovey
I ain’t got time for that now

Talking Heads, Life During Wartime

First we had action: President Putin – cool, calm, collected – warns that any attack on Russia with long-range NATO missiles will be an act of war.

Then we had reaction: NATO rats scurrying back to the gutter – in haste. For now.

All that was a direct consequence of the Kursk debacle. A desperate gamble. But the state of things in the proxy war in Ukraine was desperate for NATO. Until it became crystal clear it’s all basically non-recoverable.

So there are two options left.

Ukraine’s unconditional surrender, on Russia’s terms, tantamount to NATO’s complete humiliation.

Or escalation to all-out war (italics mine) with Russia.

The U.S. – but not the UK – ruling classes seem to have registered the essence of Putin’s message: if NATO is at war with Russia, “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.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov was ominously more precise: “The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given [to Kiev), so we [Russia] are ready for everything. And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.”

NATO de facto at war with Russia

For all practical purposes, NATO is already at war with Russia: non-stop reconnaissance flights, high-precision strikes on airfields in Crimea, forcing the Black Sea Fleet to relocate out of Sevastopol, these are only some instances. With “permission” to strike as far as 500 km deep into Russia, and a list of several targets already submitted by Kiev for “approval”, Putin has clearly stated the obvious.

Russia is fighting an existential war for the survival of the Motherland – what it has done repeatedly over centuries.

The USSR suffered 27 million losses and emerged from WWII stronger than ever. That demonstration of willpower, in itself, scares the collective West to death.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – whose Taoist patience seems to be exhausting – added some color on the Big Picture, drawing from English literature:

“George Orwell had a rich imagination and historical foresight. But even he could not imagine what a totalitarian state would look like. He described some of its contours, but failed to penetrate the depths of the totalitarianism that we now see within the framework of the ‘rules-based order.’ I have nothing to add. The current leaders in Washington, who suppress any dissent, have ‘outdone’ him. This is totalitarianism in its purest form.”

Lavrov concluded that “they are historically doomed.” Yet they don’t really have the guts to provoke WWIII. Trademark cowards can only resort to a War OF Terror.

Here are some instances. The SVR – Russian foreign intel – discovered a Kiev plot to stage a Russian missile attack on a hospital or kindergarten on Kiev-controlled territory.

The objectives include raising the – collapsed – morale of the AFU; justify the complete removal of any restrictions on deep missile strikes inside the Russian Federation; and attract support from the Global South – which overwhelmingly understands what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

In parallel, if this massive false flag works, the Hegemon would use it to “increase pressure” (How? Screaming at the top of their lungs?) on Iran and the DPRK, whose missiles would likely be the perpetrators of the carnage.

As much as this seems far-fetched on a Maximum Stupidistan level, considering the Deep Dementia ranging from Washington and London to Kiev it does remain possible, as NATOstan de facto retains the strategic initiative in this war. Russia for its part remains passive. It is NATO that is choosing the method, the place and the time for its key, choice strikes.

Another classic instance of War OF Terror is jihadi outfit and al-Qaeda spin-off Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria receiving 75 drones from Kiev, in exchange for a promise to send a batch of experienced fighters from the post-Soviet space to Donbass.

Nothing new on the terror front here: Ukrainian spy honcho Kirill Budanov – lionized in the West as some sort of Ukrainian James Bond – is always in close touch with the jihadis in Idlib, as reported by the Syrian newspaper Al-Watan.

Preparing for the Operation Barbarossa remix

In parallel, we had U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell – the Russophobe/Sinophobe who invented the “pivot to China” during the first Obama administration – briefing senior EU and NATO bureaucrats about the military cooperation of the new Empire-coined axis of evil: Russia-China-Iran.

Campbell focused mostly on Moscow assisting Beijing with advanced submarine, missile and stealth know-how, in exchange for Chinese supplies.

It’s obvious that the combo behind the zombie who can’t even figure out a way to lick an ice cream is unaware of the interlocking military collaboration of the Russia-China-Iran strategic partnerships.

Blind as a thousand bats, the combo interprets Russia sharing its so far heavily guarded military know how with China as “a sign of increasing recklessness”.

The real troubling story behind this mix of ignorance and panic is that nothing originates from the zombie who can’t even lick an ice cream. It’s the “Biden combo” that is in fact hard at work to pre-set the trajectory of the proxy war in Ukraine beyond January 2025 – no matter who is elected to the White House.

War OF Terror should be the overall paradigm – while preparations for the real war on Russia continue, with the horizon set for 2030, according to NATO’s own internal deliberations. This is when they believe they will be at peak power to advance a remixed version of 1941’s Operation Barbarossa.

These clowns are congenitally incapable of understanding that Putin does not bluff. If there is no option left, Russia will (italics mine) go nuclear. As it stands, Putin and the Security Council – Medvedev’s incendiary rhetoric notwithstanding – are deep in the difficult business of absorbing blow after blow to prevent Armageddon.

That takes unbounded Taoist patience – shared by Putin, Lavrov, Patrushev – coupled with the fact that Putin plays Japanese go, much more than chess, and is a formidable tactician.

Putin reads NATOstan’s demented playbook as if it was a children’s story book (in fact it is). At the fateful moment of maximum benefit across the spectrum for Russia, Putin will order, for instance, the necessary decapitation of the Kiev snake.

The non-stop, raucous debate on Russia using nuclear weapons essentially hinges on how the Kremlin will consider a NATO missile attack as an existential threat.

Neocons and Zio-cons as well as NATO vassals may desire a nuclear war – theoretically – because in effect this would generate massive depopulation. One should never forget that the WEF/Davos gang wants and preaches a reduction of human population globally at a humongous 85%. The only path for it is of course a nuclear war.

But reality is way more prosaic. Cowardly neo-cons and Zio-cons – mirroring the example of the Talmudic genocidals in Tel Aviv – at best want to use the threat of a nuclear war to bully especially the Russia-China strategic partnership.

In contrast, Putin, Xi and selected Global Majority leaders such as Malaysia’s Anwar continue to display intelligence, integrity, patience, foresight and humanity. For the collective West and its appallingly mediocre political and bankster elites, it’s always about money and profits. Well, that may also be about to change drastically on October 22 in Kazan at the BRICS summit – when major steps towards building a post-unilateral world should be announced.

The talk of the town in Moscow

There is a raging discussion across the board in Moscow on how to end the proxy war in Ukraine.

Putin’s Taoist patience is heavily criticized – not necessarily by informed observers with inside knowledge of hardcore geopolitics. They don’t understand that Washington will never accept key Russian demands. In parallel, when it comes to full denazification of Ukraine, Moscow eventually settling for a mere “friendly” regime in Kiev does not cut it.

There seems to be a consensus that the collective West will not by any means recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea as well as everything conquered in the battlefields of Novorossiya.

In the end, the prime evidence is that all nuances of Russia’s negotiation plan will be decided by Putin. And that changes all the time. What he proposed – quite generously – on the eve of that pathetic peace summit in Switzerland in June is not on the table anymore after Kursk.

Everything hinges, once again, on what happens in the battlefields. If – rather when – the Ukrainian front collapses, the running joke around Moscow will be in effect: “Peter [the Great] and Catherine [the Great] are waiting.” Well, they won’t be waiting anymore, because these were the Greats who happened to de facto incorporate what is eastern and southern Ukraine into Russia.

And that will seal NATO’S cosmic humiliation. Hence the perpetuation of Plan B: no WWIII, but a relentless War OF Terror.

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

The post This Ain’t No WWIII: This Is a War of Terror appeared first on LewRockwell.

Comments open on YouTube

The post JD Vance: The Immigration Crisis, How Polls Are Used to Fool You, and the Left’s Plan to Stop Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

Remember: illegally appointed special counsel Jack Smith is prosecuting President Trump in D.C. for exercising his constitutional right to free speech after the 2020 election.  Smith’s case essentially claims that Trump was not entitled to question the legitimacy of the mail-in ballot–tainted election and that his refusal to concede to Joe Biden directly led to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.  The fact that Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, are using the imprimatur of the criminal justice system as a smokescreen to railroad and possibly imprison the leader of the opposition party is bad enough.  By treating President Trump’s speech as the “proximate cause” of other alleged crimes (consisting mostly of questionable trespass violations reimagined and inflated into felonies) committed by strangers, the Biden-Garland-Smith Triumvirate of Tyranny has turned every American’s opinion into a potential criminal act.

Should this bother all those rabid leftists who desperately want to see President Trump behind bars?  I would say so.  President Trump has now survived two assassination attempts, and although the FBI has done its best to muddy the waters concerning the motivations of the first gunman (trying to kill the Republican nominee for president seems like a pretty good clue, does it not?), the social media history of the second gunman (as well as the Biden-Harris bumper sticker on his truck) clearly exposes him as a Ukraine War–obsessed, anti-MAGA, Kamala Harris–supporting zealot who believes that President Trump is a civilizational threat.

Where would he get that crazy idea?  Oh, I don’t know — maybe from the constant stream of contributors on networks such as MSNBC who call Trump a “dictator,” another “Hitler,” and a “Nazi.”  Maybe the would-be assassin took Democrat politicians seriously whenever they showed up on news shows these last eight years to claim with utmost sincerity that Trump is a “threat to democracy.”  Maybe the man who turned an AK-47 on the president read one of the numerous opinion columns featured in the nation’s factually shoddy but stubbornly prominent publications, all universally libeling President Trump as a “rapist,” a “white supremacist,” a “fascist,” and a “dangerous” leader of the “far right.”  Should fake journalists who regularly claim that America will “literally end” if Trump returns to the White House be surprised when someone stumbles upon their neurotic rantings and subsequently attempts to “save” the country from the specter of their shared delusions?

Have we not also reached our “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” political moment?  If President Trump must spend millions of dollars defending himself against mercenary prosecutors intent on locking him up for the remainder of his life because of the “dangerous” words that come out of his mouth, then surely those people who use their speech to beg for someone — anyone — to rid the country of the once and future president should be held similarly liable.  How many times can a Democrat politician or credentialed propagandist falsely compare Donald Trump to mass murderers and dictators such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini before those inflammatory slanders rise to the same level of “proximate cause” that prompted the Department of (in)Justice to put Trump in its crosshairs over January 6?

Jack Smith is prosecuting President Trump for somehow threatening the peaceful transfer of power from a legitimately elected president to an illegitimately installed stooge.  Even though Trump correctly believed (and still does believe) that the 2020 election was rigged in Biden’s favor (mail-in ballots stuffed into unsecured drop boxes in the dead of night, the use of Zuckerbucks to increase ballot collection in Democrat neighborhoods, and the Intelligence Community’s efforts to defraud the American people with regard to Hunter Biden’s “laptop from Hell” all amply support this conclusion), he left office as legally required on January 20.  Trump never called for violence against Joe Biden or the U.S. government.  He never urged Americans to revolt against their country.  Even on January 6 — the half-day of protest that leftist pundits and politicians say was worse than 9/11 and the Civil War combined — President Trump calmly urged his supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”  In other words, he defended his First Amendment right to speak his mind and the First Amendment right of all Americans to speak theirs — but he never, ever called for violence against his political enemies.

For the crime of speaking truthfully about the tremendous deficiencies and suspicious vote-counting activities surrounding the 2020 election, Jack Smith and the rest of the Triumvirate of Tyranny have thrown President Trump in the dock to defend his life.  And as atrocious as the Triumvirate’s political persecution of an American president has been, it pales in comparison to the way it has harassed, hunted, imprisoned, and even tortured thousands of ordinary Americans for showing up at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 to protest for free and fair elections.

Read the Whole Article

The post Leftists Deserve the J6 Treatment appeared first on LewRockwell.

This is another chapter in the Before Time series of articles (here’s the last one) written by those who experienced those times for the sake of the edification of those who are too young to have experienced them and so have no knowledge of how things were, once.

My parents bought their first house in 1969 – in Stamford, CT. It was a split level in a nice suburban neighborhood, sitting on about a half-acre of land. They paid about $33,000 for it, equivalent in today’s devalued currency to about $300,000. I decided to check what the old house would cost today.

First, though, how about what it costs to not be evicted from it, today.

According to the latest public records data I could find, the annual property tax on the old house is currently $10,530. In other words, three years of property taxes on the old house in our time amounts to as much as my parents paid for the house back in the Before Time of 1969. In inflated-equivalent currency, it would come to about $2k per year, if my parents had been obliged to pay this rent (on top of their mortgage) with 1969 money. In five years’ time, they’d have had to pay a third again in rent – which is what “property taxes’ amount to – than they paid for the house.

As in the whole thing.

But they didn’t have to pay that much because it was 1969 – the Before Time – and both the taxes on the house and the house were affordable in those times.

Neither are today.

You have just read about the taxes on the house. How about the cost of house, itself? In these times, that is.

According to the latest Redfin estimate, the old house would list for $1.3 million if it were put on the market today. If that’s how much the house cost in 1969, my parents would have had to come up with about $150,000 in 1969 dollars, a or somewhere in between four and fives time as much as they had to come up with when they actually bought the house in ’69.

Which they were able to do because the house didn’t cost 4-5 times as much then as it does now.

Fast forward about 27 years to the time when I bought my first house, in the suburbs of Washington, DC.

It was possible for me to buy a house because it was still possible at the time – the 1990s – to buy a small house in the DC suburbs for around $170,000 or so. More finely, because it was possible for a young person to save up the 10 percent down payment that’s generally necessary to qualify for a home loan. In my case, this amounted to about $17,000. Not a small sum but also not an impossible sum. Save about $2,500 per year for about six years and you had enough to put down on the $170k house and that’s exactly what I did.

Because I could.

I looked up my first house on Redfin and discovered that if it were to be put on the market today, the asking price would be in the vicinity of $630k. That is an increase (unadjusted for devaluation) of $460k – nearly half a milion dollars – over about 28 years. Adjusted, it is a real-money (well, buying power of money) difference of about $300k, now vs. then.

Ten percent down today would mean $63,000 – an all-but-impossible sum for anyone who isn’t already the owner of a home (who can tap the inflated equity of their home to swing the down payment on a new home) to come up with on their own. It would take saving $10k for six years or $5k for 20, by which time a person in their 20s would be well into their 40s.

And then you’d have to pay the mortgage on a $630k first house. Plus the rent styled “property taxes.”

Read the Whole Article

The post Before Time Home Costs appeared first on LewRockwell.

“In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”—Thomas Jefferson

Public trust in the government to “do what is right” understandably remains at an all-time low.

After all, how do you trust a government that continuously sidesteps the Constitution and undermines our rights? You can’t.

When you consider all the ways “we the people” are being bullied, beaten, bamboozled, targeted, tracked, repressed, robbed, impoverished, imprisoned and killed by the government, one can only conclude that you shouldn’t trust the government with your privacy, your property, your life, or your freedoms.

Consider for yourself.

Don’t trust the government with your privacy, digital or otherwise. In the more than two decades since 9/11, the military-security industrial complex has operated under a permanent state of emergency that, in turn, has given rise to a digital prison that grows more confining and inescapable by the day. Wall-to wall surveillance, monitored by AI software and fed to a growing network of fusion centers, render the twin concepts of privacy and anonymity almost void. By conspiring with corporations, the Department of Homeland Security “fueled a massive influx of money into surveillance and policing in our cities, under a banner of emergency response and counterterrorism.”

Don’t trust the government with your property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Hard-working Americans are having their bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash seized by police under the assumption that they have allegedly been associated with some criminal scheme.

Don’t trust the government with your finances. The U.S. government—and that includes the current administration—is spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford, and “we the taxpayers” are being forced to foot the bill for the government’s fiscal insanity. The national debt is $35 trillion and growing, yet there seems to be no end in sight when it comes to the government’s fiscal insanity. According to Forbes, Congress has raised, extended or revised the definition of the debt limit 78 times since 1960 in order to allow the government to essentially fund its existence with a credit card.

Don’t trust the government with your health. For all intents and purposes, “we the people” have become lab rats in the government’s secret experiments, which include MKULTRA and the U.S. military’s secret race-based testing of mustard gas on more than 60,000 enlisted men. Indeed, you don’t have to dig very deep or go very back in the nation’s history to uncover numerous cases in which the government deliberately conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins. Unfortunately, the public has become so easily distracted by the political spectacle out of Washington, DC, that they are altogether oblivious to the grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions that have become synonymous with the U.S. government, which has meted out untold horrors against humans and animals alike.

Don’t trust the government with your life: At a time when growing numbers of unarmed people have been shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety, even the most benign encounters with police can have fatal consequences. The number of Americans killed by police continues to grow, with the majority of those killed as a result of police encounters having been suspected of a non-violent offense or no crime at all, or during a traffic violation. According a report by Mapping Police Violence, police killed more people in 2022 than any other year within the past decade. In 98% of those killings, police were not charged with a crime.

Don’t trust the government with your freedoms. For years now, the government has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the American people, letting us enjoy just enough freedom to think we are free but not enough to actually allow us to live as a free people. Freedom no longer means what it once did. This holds true whether you’re talking about the right to criticize the government in word or deed, the right to be free from government surveillance, the right to not have your person or your property subjected to warrantless searches by government agents, the right to due process, the right to be safe from militarized police invading your home, the right to be innocent until proven guilty and every other right that once reinforced the founders’ belief that this would be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.” On paper, we may be technically free, but in reality, we are only as free as a government official may allow.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.

Remember the purpose of a good government is to protect the lives and liberties of its people.

Unfortunately, what we have been saddled with is, in almost every regard, the exact opposite of an institution dedicated to protecting the lives and liberties of its people.

“We the people” should have learned early on that a government that repeatedly lies, cheats, steals, spies, kills, maims, enslaves, breaks the laws, overreaches its authority, and abuses its power at almost every turn can’t be trusted.

So what’s the answer?

For starters, get back to basics. Get to know your neighbors, your community, and your local officials. This is the first line of defense when it comes to securing your base: fortifying your immediate lines.

Second, understand your rights. Know how your local government is structured. Who serves on your city council and school boards? Who runs your local jail: has it been coopted by private contractors? What recourse does the community have to voice concerns about local problems or disagree with decisions by government officials?

Third, know the people you’re entrusting with your local government. Are your police chiefs being promoted from within your community? Are your locally elected officials accessible and, equally important, are they open to what you have to say? Who runs your local media? Does your newspaper report on local events? Who are your judges? Are their judgments fair and impartial? How are prisoners being treated in your local jails?

Finally, don’t get so trusting and comfortable that you stop doing the hard work of holding your government accountable. We’ve drifted a long way from the local government structures that provided the basis for freedom described by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, but we are not so far gone that we can’t reclaim some of its vital components.

As an article in The Federalist points out:

Local government is fundamental not so much because it’s a “laboratory” of democracy but because it’s a school of democracy. Through such accountable and democratic government, Americans learn to be democratic citizens. They learn to be involved in the common good. They learn to take charge of their own affairs, as a community. Tocqueville writes that it’s because of local democracy that Americans can make state and Federal democracy work—by learning, in their bones, to expect and demand accountability from public officials and to be involved in public issues.

To put it another way, think nationally but act locally.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, there is still a lot Americans can do to topple the police state tyrants, but any revolution that has any hope of succeeding needs to be prepared to reform the system from the bottom up. And that will mean re-learning step by painful step what it actually means to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

This originally appeared on The Rutherford Institute.

The post Don’t Trust the Government. Not with Your Privacy, Property or Your Freedoms appeared first on LewRockwell.

~10 minute read

First, I will start with a disclaimer.  I do not advocate violence in any manner.  The reasons for the calling forth of military force, in a proportional response or otherwise, are valid in few instances as the framers of our Republic understood.  Those values hold true even in today’s complicated and technologically advanced societies, and we would do well in practicing our religious objections to such things, and also as atheists (as the case may be) in adhering to the principals put forth in the adoption of our nation sans any religious parts objected to (some will argue they cannot be separated, but we had better find some common ground somewhere to help save our Republic).

In analyzing this event from the recently available news stories compared to my experiences, it seems premature (and likely very incorrect) to suspect the pager manufacturer as being involved in any way with the planting of explosive devices within their manufactured units.  In assembly, it seems there would be inherent dangers beyond the expertise of the workers.  Additionally, I cannot imagine a neutral manufacturer being in any way complicit with a state sanctioned manufacture of weapons of war, especially without lawful conformance to being a weapons manufacturer in the nation of assembly.  I can see how they could have been commissioned by contract and payment to cause a pager to be manufactured with a little extra room for post-manufacture modifications without knowing the true source or reason for the change.  If the contract/request had been lucrative enough, they would make the change.  Who would notice a little wider pager which is delivered in its own carrying case designed to be worn on a belt?

The explosive modifications likely were made in a re-routed shipping scheme.  Some of you reading this have probably purchased electronics on-line and have watched your shipping progress via tracking numbers.  This author has seen several of his electronic purchases suddenly rerouted even from being in one of the last steps to normal delivery in my home town to hundreds of miles away.  These could easily have received a shipping ‘inspection’ that was actually a center designed to add a little something to a device to aid in non-4th Amendment approved monitoring.  Of course, one would have to be involved in something that was contrary to what might be termed government approved actions, or active in the kinds of things that might lower our social scores in the eyes of the powers-that-be.  I have been involved in more than one (including an active one now).  One thing I have noticed over the years of research and behind-the-scenes activism is that ‘they’ do not like it when you catch them violating one of their own rules; or, to paraphrase Voltaire, it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

The Wall Street Journal asked the question of how all of these pagers could be set to go off at the same time (probably in acknowledgement of pagers being more low-tech than our portable computer/cell phones).  A short course in paging technology will make this clear.  Paging is a sequential data stream service that is conducted on frequencies that have more limited bandwidth than high speed cellular services (thus, some of our cell phones are way up in the microwave frequency bands, and thus the concerns of their health affects to users).  Since the paging sequential data rate is slow, as paging came into such widespread use in the 1980s, 90s and beyond, their response time would slow during peak activity times of the day; it is like waiting to get into a ballpark to get to your seat, single file, for the game of the year.

Sometimes you might get your page in a few seconds, but it could be in minutes due to the radio network load at the time.  If you wanted to alert multiple people with the same message, one way to do that is to send individual messages to each one, but with the undesired result that they would get them at different times (which in a medical situation might be critical).  Each pager had their own “address” to receive messages, but they also had the capability of having numerous addresses within them to receive messages as well.  So, if you had a heart “code blue” team of first responders in a hospital, those responders could all have the same address for the group in addition to their individual/unique address.  So, a page sent to the group would be received by everyone at the same moment.  In fact, you could have had millions of pagers with the same address, and it is no additional load on the network to get the same message at the same time to all of those units.  Just one data stream for the one address is sent out the network and they all would alert at the same moment.  This particular ‘group’ address was probably unknown to the users and their suppliers/sponsors, whoever that may have been.  The extra group address could have easily been added to the pagers in question today at the shipping ‘center’ used to plant the explosive portion of the final device.  It is easy to add or change internal addresses with a fixture that the pager sets in tied to a laptop or desktop computer.

Insofar as I know (though my wireless experience was limited in cellular carrier capabilities/services) cell phones cannot have separate ‘addresses,’ but their advantage is that they are on high speed networks and can receive the same message quicker even though they are sent individually to each unit (and I would love for any cell phone carrier services technicians/engineers to chime-in in the comments to educate us further if there’s anything left out or misrepresented here).

For example, you may have been in the same room with someone who received a severe weather or Amber Alert just before yours did the same thing.  Additionally, even though there can be millions of cell phones in the same area for the alert, they are grouped in different transmitter cell areas that they are physically close to that act like networks that are independent from each other, and can therefore proficiently handle those sequential messages to the ones located only in the area of coverage for that cell.  It is a very efficient way to deliver our texts and alerts.  But, because they are so ubiquitous, they are also ripe for government monitoring, even if just to know that your cell phone was in a certain area at a certain time on a specific day.  So, if you are guilty of running over a pedestrian and leaving the scene, c’est la vie (as things stand today), and you will likely become a person of interest if the investigating agency can pry the information out of the NSA et al.  If you are on your way to something private, legal and does not in anyway involve the loss of freedom to any other person, it’s none of their business (ideally), but they can still know of your movements.

Read the Whole Article

The post Understanding the ‘How’ of the Hezbollah Pager Explosions appeared first on LewRockwell.

Introduction by Peter Koenig

Dr. Rima Laibow, co-founder and medical director of Natural Solutions Foundation, makes an urgent appeal to the world population which may not be aware of what the United Nations have in store for the us, the People, during their ongoing General Assembly in New York.

September 22 and 23 are reserved for “debating” this topic to which in anticipation several governments, including Canada, have already given their approval. It is a plan for a borderless digital control in the future. In other words, towards a digital gulag — the first step towards a One World Order.

See also these two recent articles on the same subject: this and this.

As Dr. Laibow correctly points out, it is important that this information reaches as many people as possible and as soon as possible. Time is of the essence.

These are the various links, displaying the same video message – in case one or the other of the links has been censored out.

And below is the transcript of Dr. Rima Laibow’s video speech.

***

Surviving the UN Is Exiting the UN

by Dr. Rima Laibow, Presentation at the Chisinau, Moldova Forum 25-26 May 2024 (12 September 2024)

You may also watch the video here, here, and here.

See also this, Canada Threatened – Stop Bill C-293 – Emergency Action (4 September 2024)

If this bill is not stopped, Canada could become one of the first countries to adopt the UN Agenda for the Future of the World – A digital Gulag

Transcript of Dr. Laibow’s presentation is below.

*

Hello, I am honoured and pleased to be with you today in the Chișinău Forum. This is a very important project bringing information and options and depth of understanding to people around the world and I’m honoured to be among the participants.

I want to talk as a physician.

The body politic is ailing and is under attack. There is a death machine which has been constructed slowly, carefully, beautifully, brilliantly with endless resources and the ability to create propaganda to a really unprecedented degree so that the angst of the tyranny through deep village enslavement and it’s an enslavement that is so profound that it begins with the deepening and then proceeds outward preaching subhuman species, not just suppressed. That process has been in play for at least 100 years.

Now, as a physician, I have because my goal as a doctor chose to come what the root cause of whatever their symptom was and to solve the root cause of the problem then the symptoms be alleviated. Now, if the symptoms were lethal and overwhelming, I would work to solve the symptoms but my goal was to find the root cause of the problem, fix that and then let the problem fix itself. In 2004, after having been alerted by a patient to the fact that a great culling was about to begin and the culling was to be of the useless eaters and after doing a great deal of research to find out what that meant, I realized that the patient was quite correct and that the culling of the useless eaters had been prepared for over a very long time and what I learned was that with Tory philanthropy, which we should have as the Rockefeller had used sources starting with John D. Rockefeller Sr., the world’s first billionaire and wealthiest person ever have lived on the planet.

The visionary and truly John D. Rockefeller Sr. was a great science of eugenics, getting rid of the people who live on this planet. It’s a great idea and in fact, it was John D. Rockefeller Jr. who introduced eugenics, setting up the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute to study the science of eugenics before, during and after the Second World War. Approximately 36, I’m sorry, approximately 36 scientists, scientists, even bringing them to the United States after the Second World Scholars Program.

Now at the same time, Rockefeller created the discipline of public health to take over the decision-making of countries and their subsidiary units down to individuals and created the structure that we now call the United Nations with its subsidiary organization, the World Health Organization and UNESCO and all of the other bits and pieces of the United Nations, each of which is robed in light and beauty and propaganda that says that this death machine called the United Nations, which is really a country club of unelected nobodies, it’s a private club, nothing more. And the World Health Organization, which is a nascent global tyranny through medical issues, basically a business plan to take over resources at every level, nothing more. And each of the other pieces is also robed in glory of education and humanitarian capture and so on.

What If – John Lennon Was the Ultimate Visionary Predicting the Times of Globalization and the Doctrine of Globalism

And of course, all of it is nonsense. It’s all about tyranny. It’s all about a tyrannical system, which is so profound and so complete that it is in essence the apotheosis of what every dictator in the world has ever hoped for.

So laying their plans for about 140 years, these uber wealthy tyrants who believe that like Bill Gates and George Soros and Oprah Winfrey and the other modern predatory philanthropists, that they have the right because of their wealth to determine who lives, who dies and under what conditions and with what genetic makeup, these people live and die. The predatory trap is about to be fully sprung. Unfortunately, most of the attention that has been given to this geopolitical threat has been given to the World Health Organization.

Now, two and a half years ago, I thought that we had time for gradualism, that we could start with getting out of the World Health Organization and we could then take the momentum of our success and get out of the United Nations next. Seven months ago, however, I realized that that was a political, strategic and tactical error. And by the way, in 2004, I closed my practice of medicine in order to create with my husband, Major General Albert N. Sebelbaum III, the Natural Solutions Foundation, to deal with the disease of the body politic, which was the death intention being brought about by a death machine known as the UN.

And I urge you, whenever you hear the phrase UN, to think about its real meaning, which is unelected nobodies. We realized that there was indeed a plan to cull the population and to diminish it genetically and in every other way and compress it into transit villages, take away property rights, parental rights, human rights, the right of informed consent, judicial rights, the age of consent concept, and so on. And we decided that we had to help derail that process.

And that is the purpose of the Natural Solutions Foundation. My husband, a brilliant strategic analyst, was murdered in the course of doing this work, so we know that we’re on the right track. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any point to that, would there? So the point is, now, if we focus on the United Nations, we can solve the problem, the underlying problem.

If, on the other hand, we focus entirely on the Pandemic Prevention Preparedness Accord, on the international health regulations, even if we were to get our countries out of those organizations tomorrow, even if we were to cancel our participation in the World Holocaust Organization, which would be a name for it, we are still facing Agenda 2030. We are still facing the digital gulag. We are still facing the Great Reset.

We are still facing the C40 program, where you own nothing, where you are happy because you’re drugged, where your biological activity is captured through piezoelectric farming, and you make the patent holder of your now transmuted genetic structure wealthy through your biological continued existence. That’s a kind of slavery that we’ve never, never encountered before. The biochemical genetic enslavement and destruction of an entire species dominant on the planet, for good or ill, for a very long time, until the predatory philanthropist said, well, no, I believe that I can be God, and articulate that, as Yuval Harari does, and decide what you will be, starting first with the two discriminators of alive or dead, and then moving second to the discriminator of master or subhuman delta in the brave new world sense.

Now, it was published by Algis Huxley of Fabian Socialist, which is the older name for globalists, in 1932, as a blueprint for where we are going. Recently, Klaus Schwab, now the former head of the World Economic Forum, said that all human reproduction would take place outside of the human body by 2030. That’s very close to the basic premise of brave new world, in which everyone is synthetically created and controlled externally.

After the details of how that is being enacted, what I can tell you is that we are wasting our time, but the World Health Organization, pushing back against atrocities, and they are atrocious, absolutely, World Health is unthinkably horrendous. We need to debate that. So is the pandemic, of course.

So all the things the World Health Organization does, including the public health emergency of international concern, those are atrocious. You’re playing out of what the patient was created to be, which is a global medical tyranny, but infection, the real cancer, is not done on the derriere of the monster, the Michigan, in the United Nations. Now, your country, in order to think of everything that the United Nations intends to do to your sovereignty, to your country, and to any decisions about your life whatsoever, including your life, the real question is, can your country leave the United Nations? And here’s where I bring you good news.

Every country in the world has fallen prey to a deception, and the deception is that it has treaty obligations with the United Nations, and because of those treaty obligations, they must do what the United Nations says they must do, in terms of health, in terms of land use, in terms of migration, in terms of economics through the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, and so on, and so on. It’s all a lie. It’s a deceit, and here’s why.

If you check out the Vienna Conference on the Law of Treaties, which had two main findings in 1961 and in 1969, you will find explicitly stated the treaties can only take place between sovereign states, parties, countries. That means that Moldova, for instance, which has in its constitution that it must participate in the United Nations, and the United States, which has in its constitution that the president can sign a treaty with the advice and consent of the Senate. Neither of those nations, nor any other nation in the world, is in a treaty relationship with the United Nations.

They are in a fraudulent deceit relationship, because the United Nations is a private country club, both in the sense of the old boys sitting around having fun and deciding what happens next, and in terms of an association of countries. That’s all that it is. It’s not a sovereign nation.

The United States is currently considering a bill in its Congress, both in the House and the Senate, called Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle Act of 2023, H.R.6645 and H.R.3428. Those two bills, I beg your pardon, which comprise the Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle Act of 2023 must pass both the House and the Senate with enough of a majority, a super majority, to override the inevitable veto that whoever happens to be sitting in the chair in the Oval Office will issue. Once the United States leaves the unelected nobody’s death machine, all of its parts and pieces, including the World Health Organization, once that happens, other countries will be free to do so. It is my prediction that the globalists will allow that body to collapse, and they’ll come back around again with something else, trying once again.

But the destruction of agriculture ceases. The uncontrolled migration ceases. The requirement for the comprehensive sexuality education, making sure that every child is confused and traumatized and degraded in their ability to move forward on a psychosexual developmental level, that ceases to be a requirement.

In fact, it is critically important that countries remove themselves from the non-treaty obligation that they never had in the first place. If you know anyone in the United States, I urge you to support their going to preventgenocide2030.org and take the action there to demand that the members of their Congress, whether they’re corrupt, whether they’re not corrupt, whether they’re intellectually in line with what we’re talking about or not, really doesn’t matter. We simply have to force them to act on our behalf.

I urge you to send anyone you know who has a residence or an address in the United States to take that action at preventgenocide2030.org, and then I urge you to force your country out of this death machine before September 23rd of this year, 2024. Why before then? Because on that day, the United Nations General Assembly is slated to approve the pact for the future, which makes absolutely and abundantly clear that the world tyranny will be enacted and will be irreversible thereafter.

This is a message of great urgency, and I thank you for the opportunity to deliver it.

Please feel free to contact me at Dr. Rima at naturalsolutionsfoundation.com if I can be of assistance to you, and please visit https://preventgenocide2030.org/ to learn more and to take action.

Thank you.

The original source of this article is Global Research.

The post Surviving the UN Is Exiting the UN. Otherwise the Ways Are Charted Towards a Digital Gulag appeared first on LewRockwell.

Watch the media run as quickly as they can from the second attempt on Trump’s life in 65 days, just as they did from the first one.

I have no doubt that even if either of the two attempts had been successful, our cultural leaders would have moved on in short order.

Nothing to see here! Democracy saved! Karma for fascists! By the way, Taylor Swift, Alyssa Milano, Megan Thee Stallion, Ibram X. Kendi, and Jonathan Van Ness to be named to senior policy-making positions in Harris cabinet! Utopia is almost here!!! Be joyful!

Oh, no! X/Twitter is a “Pro-Trump Machine”!!

(Please do refrain from noticing that everything else in the media is a Pro-Harris Machine, including the “moderators” at last week’s debate…)

A guide for your next eight years:

Although the president of the United States is a demonstrably underqualified black female far leftist, this is not—I repeat, NOT!—evidence that America has in any way shape or form become less racist than it was in 1860.

Au contraire, mon frère/ma soeur/my gender-neutral sibling of indeterminate sex!

Remember how it worked under Obama? The very fact that there will be disagreement with Comrade Harris’s policies is itself hard evidence that THERE IS STILL SO MUCH RACIAL JUSTICE WORK TO BE DONE ™1, and white supremacy is still stalking the land!

Only when all leadership positions in the country are occupied by far leftist non-whites can we even begin thinking about the possible tip of Utopia’s nose barely showing on the horizon. And even then, we will have to be rigorously on the lookout for the insidious and evil influence of people who kind of liked the America of 1976 more than the America of now.

Hate has no home here!

Trump had only two jobs in the debate last week:

1. Note every Harris lie (and there were a lot of them) and call them such in his response, and then
2. Explicitly remind the audience in each case how the “moderators” endlessly fact-checked him and never once indicated to the audience when Harris lied, which was essentially every time she opened her mouth.

He had only this to do, and he failed to do it.

Even just one extended commentary along these lines would have been enough: “You insist on lying constantly, Vice-President Harris, on saying things that anyone who just looks at the world or does 10 seconds of online research will know are not true, and you are completely confident in your cynicism that many, many people will not make even a minimal effort to evaluate the truth or falsity of what you say, and you know full well that the entire mass media apparatus—including the two people serving as “moderators” tonight—is complicit with you in this campaign of lies, and you want to govern the country based on this regime of lies and media complicity in lies. How do you sleep at night, knowing that you are contributing to the demolition of a formerly great country?”

He’d better get himself far away from crazy people like this, and quickly if he has any designs on winning in November. A lot of Americans—this one included—are not going to consider voting for somebody who pals around with “9/11 was an inside job” crackpots.

I’m sorry. I want neither a Vice President nor a President who sits down for a TV interview wearing what appear to be black jeans and Chuck Taylors. This is not how a serious person projects seriousness. (And why is the interviewer wearing house slippers? What the hell has gone wrong with this society? Is the end game everybody in pajamas all the time?)

Just listen to the content here. She’s got nothing. It’s just repetition of the same cliches and empty rhetoric (“ambitions”! “opportunity!”), and a firm commitment to make no cuts to the existing massive government payouts while adding still more spending (to e.g., pay off student loans and to publicly subsidize the building of many millions more houses that buyers will purchase with the aid of a $25,000 federal grant, with the guarantee that many of those people purchasing these homes will be in no financial condition to pay off a mortgage and so will eventually default—see 2009).

So the deficit will continue to swell astronomically. The left’s refusal ever to consider what comes eventually from spending far more than the country makes would be a fatal flaw in a population of informed and competent voters. In the US, though, it’s going like gangbusters. “Look, one of the candidates says she will give me a bunch of free stuff! I guess I know who I’m voting for!”

Note too the Comrade’s manner, facial expressions, the utter calm she exudes. This is of course not because she knows what she is talking about. I doubt even she believes that. It’s because she knows there is not the slightest chance she will ever be challenged by these people.

Read the Whole Article

The post Two Assassination Attempts Against Same Former President in Two Months, But It’s Trump, So No Big Deal appeared first on LewRockwell.