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It’s amazing how aggressively free speech in the United States is being torn apart in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing.

Jimmy Kimmel was fired after President Trump’s FCC threatened ABC when the late night comic suggested that Kirk’s killer was a Trumper. I personally dislike Kimmel, but this is about as naked a government assault on free expression as you could possibly imagine.

Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has been ordered deported to Syria or Algeria after the Trump administration targeted him for political speech critical of Israel.

Trump has brokered a deal allowing TikTok to be purchased by a consortium that includes his billionaire buddies Larry Ellison and Marc Andreesen. US officials have acknowledged that Washington’s push to grab control of TikTok was because of the opposition to the Gaza holocaust that was circulating on the platform.

Oracle co-founder Ellison is a fanatical Zionist oligarch who has expressed support for the idea of a massive surveillance network to control all of society, and his son David just purchased Paramount, which owns CBS News. The younger Ellison has reportedly installed pro-Israel propagandist Bari Weiss to a senior leadership position within the network.

Trump says he has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to look into bringing “criminal RICO charges” against Code Pink activists who chanted anti-genocide slogans at him while he was dining at a restaurant. Like pro-Palestine demonstrators are mafia kingpins or something.

Bondi said during a podcast that the Trump administration is going to start prosecuting “hate speech” against conservatives, alleging that such speech was responsible for Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

When asked by the press about Bondi’s comments, Trump said “We’ll probably go after people like you, because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe I’ll come after ABC.” Again, ABC was the network Jimmy Kimmel was fired from.

To be clear: It’s not “ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel after comments about Charlie Kirk,” it’s “ABC pulls Jimmy Kimmel after threats from Trump FCC chair”

The distinction matters here.

— Theo Baker (@tab_delete) September 17, 2025

Trump henchman Stephen Miller said on a podcast that the White House is going to start targeting leftist “terrorist networks”, claiming on no basis whatsoever that Kirk’s assassination was the fault of a “vast domestic terror movement” which foments the kind of violence which led to Kirk’s death. Trump himself said that “a lot of people that you would traditionally say are on the left … [are] already under investigation,” and that he plans to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.

Vice President JD Vance has publicly been encouraging Trump supporters to try to get ordinary members of the public fired for saying mean things about Charlie Kirk, saying, “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out, and hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”

Trump’s Truth Social account recently shared a video calling for state censorship of media outlets and online influencers who share “propaganda”, falsely framing this authoritarian notion as a reboot of the Smith-Mundt Act and suggesting that it should be called the “Charlie Kirk Act”.

For chanting at him and inflicting “harm and terror” on his dinner, Trump and his Deputy Attorney General say they can charge activists with RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) crimes. All week, the administration has floated designating activist groups as… pic.twitter.com/WABtedBCwR

— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) September 18, 2025

When you see me refusing to play along with the campaign to canonize Charlie Kirk or respect the emotional hysteria around his killing, this is the main reason why. His death is already being used to manufacture consent for sweeping acts of tyranny, and it was clear from day one that it would be.

The empire managers are always seeking excuses to suppress free speech, crush the left, and stomp out opposition to Zionism and the US war machine. They’ll use any chance they get to advance these goals, which are all ultimately about expanding power and control.

Many pre-existing agendas are being shoved forward by those in power, as always happens when emotions run hot over a traumatic event. I’ve said it many times before and I’ll surely say it many times again: it’s precisely when we are most tempted to abandon rationality and play along with the emotionality of the moment that we need to be thinking most clearly and critically.

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The post Assaults on Free Speech Go Into Hyperdrive After Charlie Kirk Killing appeared first on LewRockwell.

Bundeswehr planners now want to increase German military presence in virtually all of Eastern Europe, including Poland. In other words, German tanks will be moving through Poland and Ukraine to fight Russia. Does this sound familiar by any chance? It’s almost as if something like this happened already, but we can’t really put our finger on it. Jokes aside, anyone with a primary education would certainly know and understand that this is a patently bad idea.

The war hysteria in the European Union is reaching new levels virtually on a daily basis. In the aftermath of the supposed “Russian” drone incident, the troubled bloc is increasingly militaristic, with its eyes set on “the evil Kremlin”. Although Polish officials are yet to explain how and why these “Russian” drones ended up in Poland, their statements already suggest that the incident is most likely a false flag. Namely, it would make little sense for Moscow to send unarmed reconnaissance drones. Such a move accomplishes nothing of value for Russia, but (rather conveniently) gives the political West the perfect pretext to get directly involved in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. For the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel, this is a matter of “protecting the investment”, as it’s crystal clear that the Russian military will eventually defeat the Kiev regime forces.

To prevent this, the political West needs to prepare for war. The issue of motivating the populace remains, so the EU/NATO needs to fabricate a narrative that it’s supposedly “defending”. And for God knows which time, Germany seems to be among those leading the charge. Namely, the Bundeswehr (German military) is looking to increase its land component by at least 100,000 soldiers. Lieutenant-General Alfons Mais, the Inspector of the Army (effectively the highest ranking officer in the land forces, better known as Heer), wants the service branch to grow by nearly three times its current strength, stressing that Berlin “must be ready to fight a war with Moscow by 2029”. At present, the German Army has around 60,000 active-duty troops, with plans to increase that to at least 160,000. According to Reuters, confidential military documents confirm that this plan is already underway.

“It is imperative for the army to become sufficiently ready for war by 2029 and provide the capabilities Germany pledged (to NATO) by 2035,” General Mais wrote on September 2.

However, even this isn’t enough, as the Army Chief argues that the actual number of troops needs to be 260,000 active-duty and at least 200,000 reserve personnel (at present, it’s approximately 60,000 for each).

“According to a first rough estimate, a total of around 460,000 personnel (from Germany) will be necessary, divided into some 260,000 active troops and around 200,000 reservists,” he wrote.

In effect, this would quadruple the current number, bringing the size of the German Army to the levels not seen since the (First) Cold War. What’s more, Berlin also keeps expanding its “expeditionary” troops, particularly in the Baltic states, where 5,000 German soldiers are now stationed (specifically in Lithuania). The last time they were there, things didn’t go exactly as planned. What’s more, this was before Russia had the largest thermonuclear arsenal on the planet, in addition to a plethora of long-range strike systems (including hypersonic weapons that the entire NATO simply lacks due to technological inferiority). Still, this doesn’t seem to be a concern for the Bundeswehr planners as they now want to increase German military presence in virtually all of Eastern Europe, including Poland. In other words, German tanks will be moving through Poland and Ukraine to fight Russia.

Does this sound familiar by any chance? It’s almost as if something like this happened already, but we can’t really put our finger on it. Jokes aside, anyone with a primary education would certainly know and understand that this is a patently bad idea. What’s more, it’s highly questionable whether Berlin will be able to pull this off. Namely, back in 2018, the Bundeswehr’s land component was supposed to number over 200,000 troops, but this target was never reached. Worse yet, a Financial Times report published back in March showed that the German military was faced with record dropouts, with 25% of new recruits leaving after only six months of service. In other words, not only is Berlin faced with a nearly impossible task of increasing the size of its armed forces, but it cannot even retain the current numbers. The situation is so bad that Germany will likely need to reintroduce conscription.

On the other hand, neighboring Poland seems to be taking it up a notch, as it’s now training mothers to fight a war with Russia. Namely, after the aforementioned “Russian” drone incident, Warsaw decided to sponsor military training for 20,000 civilians, including Polish mothers “who want to protect their children”. Needless to say, deploying female civilians with toddlers for war against the deadliest fighting force on the planet is anything but sensible. And yet, here we are. This sort of “logic” is what pushed NATO-occupied Ukraine into a perfectly avoidable bloodbath that wiped out an entire generation of Ukrainian men, exacerbating their country’s already disastrous demographics. The latest data suggests that approximately 1.8 million Ukrainians are now dead and/or “missing” (i.e., almost certainly killed in action, but the Neo-Nazi junta refuses to acknowledge this).

NATO is undoubtedly aware of this, which is why it conducts studies on the potential number of casualties in a war with Russia. Namely, back in September last year, German Lieutenant-General Alexander Sollfrank gave an interview to Reuters, explaining how a conflict with the Kremlin would be completely different from the illegal NATO invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the time, Sollfrank was the head of NATO’s logistics command and certainly understood the peculiarities of waging war with an opponent that can actually shoot back and obliterate critical infrastructure in the rear.

“The challenge will be to swiftly ensure high-quality care for, in the worst case, a great number of wounded,” he said, adding: “For planning reasons, all options to take a great number of wounded to medical installations need to be considered, which includes trains, but potentially also buses.”

Sollfrank also admitted that NATO would be unable to maintain air superiority over the frontlines in a conflict with Russia, which is the cornerstone of the political West’s military strategy. Namely, it boils down to destroying the opponent’s air power, so that NATO could then bomb the country it attacks with impunity. However, such a scenario in a war with Russia would be a complete fantasy. The Kremlin operates some of the best fighter jets in the world, armed to the teeth with the most advanced types of missiles that completely outclass anything in NATO’s arsenal.

In other words, the world’s most aggressive racketeering cartel would be forced to fight in ways it’s simply not used to, resulting in enormous casualties. Namely, Russia’s conventional long-range strike capabilities far eclipse any other nation on the planet (with the notable exception of its ally China which possesses similar systems). The Russian military has demonstrated time and again that it can take out virtually any high-value target far behind the frontline, making it nearly impossible for its enemies to conduct basic operations, such as maintaining supply lines or rotating frontline troops. This is particularly true for weapons such as the 9M723 hypersonic missile of the 9K720M “Iskander-M” system. In recent days, Moscow demonstrated at least two MZKT-7930 TEL (transporter, erector, launcher) trucks in the Kaliningrad oblast (region) that NATO threatened to invade.

Source infobrics.org

The post EU Supercharges for War: Bundeswehr to Quadruple, Poland Training Mothers appeared first on LewRockwell.

The FBI is currently investigating the possibility that dozens of other individuals may have known about the planned murder of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk through their participation in an online chatroom.

Kirk, the head of campus outreach group Turning Point USA, was fatally shot on September 10 while speaking at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. Two days later, authorities apprehended and accused 22-year-old Robinson of the shooting and detailed how he was motivated by his view of Kirk as “hateful.” Robinson was in a romantic relationship with his male roommate, who is in the process of “transitioning” to female.

On Monday, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Newsmax host Rob Schmitt that investigators are looking at a chat room on the platform Discord in which Robinson participated and a “potential broader network of people who may have known” what he was planning. He cautioned that the investigation was still in the early stages, and were not yet certain of who knew what when.

“The only question is the timeline that other people knew about the incident. Did they know before? Did they know afterward?” Bongino said. “When you read some of the traffic, it’s unclear if that message was received before or after.”

BREAKING: Dan Bongino confirms authorities know Charlie’s assassination wasn’t the act of one man — others were involved, and knew beforehand. pic.twitter.com/iAC4zjgxt6

— John-Henry Westen (@JhWesten) September 16, 2025

The next day, FBI Director Kash Patel testified before Congress on a wide range of topics, during which the state of the investigation came up.

“I see the public reports that the Discord thread had as many as 20 additional users,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said, to which Patel said it was a “lot more than that,” and “we’re running them all down.”

Patel would not go so far as to say definitively that more individuals than Robinson were involved in the assassination, but said it remains a possibility. “There are a number of individuals that are currently being investigated and interrogated — and a number yet to be investigated and interrogated related to that chatroom,” he said.

Discord has issued a statement insisting there is “no evidence that the suspect planned this incident or promoted violence” on the platform. Robinson announced to his chat room that he had done it roughly two hours after the shooting.

“Hey guys, I have bad news for you all,” Robinson told the 30-some members of the chat. “It was me at [Utah Valley University] yesterday. i’m sorry for all of this […] Im surrendering through a sheriff friend in a few moments. thanks for all the good times and laughs, you’ve all been so amazing, thank you all for everything.”

Turning Point USA will be holding a public memorial for Kirk on Sunday, September 21, which will feature remarks by President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other members of the Trump administration, as well as his widow Erika Kirk, populist podcaster Tucker Carlson, and others.

This article was originally published on Lifesite News.

The post FBI Says ‘a Lot More’ Than 20 People ‘May Have Known’ Charlie Kirk Was Going To Be Shot appeared first on LewRockwell.

Why Hasn’t Biden prosecutor Jack Smith Been Arrested and Indicted?  The Answer is that Republicans Are Wimps.  They are scared to actually fight.

The Democrats Tried to Indict and to Destroy the Entire Republican Party.

Will the Wimp Republicans do anything about it?  

Scope of FBI probe into Trump revealed:

The Biden-era investigation into alleged 2020 election interference turned out to have been far wider than originally thought…

At least 92 Republican-linked people and organizations were the focus of a Biden-era FBI investigation into alleged attempts by Trump to overturn the 2020 election, newly unclassified files show.

The trove of documents was unveiled by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) during a panel hearing on Tuesday.

The probe, dubbed “Arctic Frost,” kicked off in April 2022 and was jointly conducted by the FBI and other agencies, becoming the foundation for former Biden special counsel Jack Smith to bring criminal charges against now-President Donald Trump.

The investigation focused on an alleged “multifaceted conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election so that former President Trump could remain in office,” the documents show.

The records reveal that “Arctic Frost” was much broader than just an electoral matter” and that the probe promptly “expanded to Republican organizations,” including the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA group. Kirk was killed on September 10, 2025, while speaking to an audience at Utah Valley University. One thousand of the students were accessories to Kirk’s murder, because they protested his appearance on campus, thereby creating a climate of hate that resulted in Kirk’s murder.  We should despise those students even though they are the typical products of American education today. American education produces anti-Americans.

Senator Grassley reports that some of the Republicans “the FBI sought to place under political investigation included the Republican National Committee, Republican Attorneys General Association, and Trump political groups.”  In other words, it was an effort to destroy the Republican Party.

“Arctic Frost wasn’t just a case to politically investigate Trump,” the senator reported. “It was a vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and Department of Justice prosecutors could achieve their partisan ends and improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus.”  Grassley should have added that the corrupt “investigation” had the full support of the American whore media.

Shortly after the release of the documents, Trump took to Truth Social to slam Smith and the Biden administration over their corrupt investigation.

“They tried to force Charlie [Kirk], and many other people and movements, out of business. They Weaponized the Justice Department against Sleepy Joe Biden’s Political Opponents, including ME!” Trump wrote.

Smith resigned from his role ahead of Trump’s inauguration but defended his politically motivated probe and his decision to bring the false charges. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the ultimate purpose of the investigation was to derail his 2024 presidential bid. Actually, the purpose was to imprison Trump and to destroy the Republican Party.  But this is too scary for even Trump to acknowledge. 

Aleksandr Dugan, one of Russia’s top intellects, concludes that “Charlie Kirk’s murder is the beginning of a liberal, globalist attack against all ordinary people.”

Dugin is correct. Every Western European government has turned against its ethnic base because it is white and, thereby, racist. The members of the Western governments were taught that they are racists by their elite universities.  Western governments no longer protect their own ethnic citizens.  The governments protect the immigrant-invaders.  In Britain and Sweden, and I believe the entirety of Western Europe, immigrant-invaders by virtue of their dark skin have the de facto right to rape white women, even children.  The scandal of the mass gang-rapes of ethnic British women and children that the British government, regardless of party, has been covering up for 30 years has finally resulted in the mass protests by ethnic British. The protests are ongoing as I write.  

The British Prime Minister, Starmer, and the Muslim female Home Minister both made it clear that the UK government represents the invaders, not the ethnic British citizens.  The British Prime Minister declared that the “racist protesters” could not use the British flag to symbolize their protest, because the British flag represents multiculturalism, diversity, and a Tower of Babel, not ethnic British.  Starmer declared that the protest from what was once the British nation was a racist rebellion against “diversity”and sicced the British police on the ethnic British citizens. Today if you are a citizen of Great Britain, you are subject to oppression by your own government in addition to the crimes and gang-rapes of your women by the immigrant-invaders.  The ethnic British have failed to resist an invasion, and they have been conquered.

Little information about the protests comes from the whore Western media other than the whore media’s assurances that the protesters are racists and far-right. The American and Western European media’s position on the invasion of their countries by the Third World millions is identical to the position of the French and European media and governments in Jean Raspail’s book, The Camp of the Saints:  The immigrant-invaders deserve our country and we must let them have it to make up for our sins against non-white peoples. Colonialism, slavery, all that sort of thing. In Raspail’s book there is no will to resist the immigrant-invaders destruction of European civilization and population. 

The growing protests in Britain against being ruled by a government that represents immigrant-invaders is pointless, because it is non-violent. The British police unleashed by the Muslim Home Minister on the protesters– ethnic Britishers–the British government’s protection of gang-rapists, the British government’s imprisonment of ethnic British for protesting in defense of the English, indicates the direction of the fate of every Western country.  They are doomed, because they are white and comprise a tiny minority of the world population that has been taught to hate them for their oppression of non-whites. The irony is that the hatred was taught to the non-whites by the whites themselves at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and so on.

Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge are accessories to the murder of Western Civilization.

Karl Marx, a reviled person by those who never bothered to read him, concluded that violence is the only effective force in history.  Formerly I opposed this view, but historically it seems to be essentially correct.  

If the besieged white ethnicities care to save themselves–and by now they might be too brainwashed and indoctrinated into their guilt to have the will to resist–they will have to resort to a lot of violence.  The longer they wait, the less their chances.  I expect that in the future the white race will exist only in a few zoos as examples of racist exploiters who were overthrown.

There is a chance that Charlie Kirk’s murder and the opposition of ethnic British to the British government that denies them and their women and children the protection of law, will wake up the insouciant white ethnicities that are marked for extermination.  But there are only a few signs of white people waking up.  Below are two:

Here is Scott Adams working his way into the possibility that only violence can save white ethnicities.

White people either fight for their lives or they don’t.  The question is whether whites are already conquered by their educational indoctrination.

The other example is a social media post that I cannot find at this moment.  It asked the point of Trump sending the National Guard to blue cities defying the US government.  Instead, send the US Air Force.  In other words, obliterate the anti-American blue cities just as Israel has done to Palestine.  The social media posts suggest that some white people are beginning to wake up and recognize reality.  The enemies of traditional Americans are internal. The attacks on family, white people, sexual morality, Christianity, free speech, the Constitution, equal protection of law, and truth all come from the Democrat liberal-left, not from Russia, China, and Iran.  By focusing on alleged external enemies, the Trump regime keeps the focus off of the real threat.

If Netanyahu had Kirk assassinated in order to avoid losing his brainwashed American conservative supporters who were being awakened by Kirk to Israel’s criminality, the Israel Lobby will  use the American media  to control the narrative, and Kirk’s assassination will be blamed on the NRA for defending the Second Amendment.  By controlling the narrative, Kirk’s assassination can be eliminated as a rallying cry.

Currently, Trump, on whom the aware Americans place hope, is in England assuring the solidity of the US/UK alliance as the UK government turns England over to immigrant-invaders.

Can Americans really expect any different outcome?

In Jean Raspail’s 1973 prediction of the fate of guilt-ridden white people, not even the tough Soviet communists survive.  They, also, succumb to the white disease of self-doubt, and white people cease to exist.

I have been watching Raspail’s prediction come true step by step for 52 years.  The Camp of the Saints is now upon us.

The post The Twilight of the White Ethnicities appeared first on LewRockwell.

Here we are, back in the good old US of A, and nothing has changed, or so it seems at first. The war against Christianity continues; the destruction of the family is encouraged by subversives such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the main networks; and the ripping-apart of national identity is ongoing, as is the violence and the tyrannical wokeism in our universities.

The reasons for these disasters are obvious: More than 90 percent of the media—legacy, network, social, and state—is left-wing. Ninety percent of the professoriate is left-wing and activist, which explains why American campuses believe they are above the rules and laws. The horrible irony is that everything the vast majority of Americans and their elected representatives do not want becomes the new culture of America.

“Charlie Kirk believed in civilized debate, but the left does not.”

And then there’s Trump. His answer to the above is messy and a drag-out ding-dong collision with the media, the latter going nuts because he’s doing what the majority of Americans want done. The absurdity, of course, being that by dragging the country back to the middle where it once was and where the Founders believed it should remain, the usual suspects are outraged. There are those who believe that what the majority of Americans wish to happen will happen, but I’m not so sure. I’m a pessimist by nature who believes the bad guys always win because they cheat. There are, of course, good signs. And then there are leftist-inspired murders of the good guys like Charlie Kirk, a saint in my and many others’ book.

What comes to mind following the horror of Charlie Kirk’s murder is the aftermath of the death of a career criminal who died from an overdose while legally pinned down by a policeman. George Floyd’s drug death had the Times, the networks, The New Yorker, and the usual suspects up in arms, cheering on the bloodthirsty mobs to burn the place down, which they did. Cops and innocents lost their lives and livelihoods during the riots, egged on by the left and celebrated by the media. I write this on the day after the foul murder of Charlie Kirk and am ready to bet my bottom dollar that nothing like that will take place. Why? That, for me, is the big question: Why aren’t we out there burning down the offices of MSNBC, beating up the owners of those subverting grub sheets, the Sulzbergers and Newhouses? One thing is certain: If the Sulzbergers and Newhouses were held responsible by a mob, their subversive sheets would certainly change their tune, and that’s a guarantee from Taki.

There is also something very wrong when a Christian, civilized, and gentle person like Charlie is gunned down, while a genocidal maniac like Netanyahu is given a standing ovation in Congress. Charlie’s foul murder is the latest manifestation of the hateful rhetoric aimed at The Donald and his MAGA movement. And it will continue unless something’s done about it. The left openly claims that assassination culture is on, with 48 percent of liberals saying that it is somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent say the same about Trump. Can we say the same about Sulzberger and Newhouse?

Cackling Kamala encouraged the Antifa-BLM riots back in 2020, and I’m wondering if she would still be cackling if someone burned her place down this coming weekend. But we don’t do this sort of thing, do we? Charlie Kirk believed in civilized debate, but the left does not. Any speech they don’t agree with is “hate speech.” And people who use “hate speech” have to be cut down. And, always according to the left, people who exercise their right to free speech are “literally killing people.”

This is what the lefty media and academy preach and teach nowadays. While the right tends to believe that the left is simply wrong, the left also thinks the right is wrong but is also evil. Reading a theater listing in the Times about a TV play on Mussolini, there’s an added remark that the Italian began a career that resembles that of Trump. Although the violence in this country mostly comes from the left, the media does not acknowledge it. Needless to say, the media is unwilling to take an ounce of responsibility for it.

And it gets worse: Everything one reads or hears about Trump and any conservative is accompanied by references to Hitler. Ironically, Stalin is never mentioned, but always the Führer. So people begin to believe it. It’s like an ad on TV that constantly repeats itself. After a while you automatically reach for it in a store. The president of the Oxford Union, a debating society replete with idiots, had this to say after the murder: “Kirk got shot. Let’s fucking go party.” His name is George Abaraonye, most likely born under a bluer sky than the Brit one. If someone shot that son of a bitch they’d get fifty years. It’s almost worth it.

The lies that the Democrats and the media told about George Floyd’s death in 2020 have gotten many people killed. Including that poor white girl from Ukraine, by a black scumbag on the train. The CEO of a health company by a rich left-wing crap-spouter, ditto. It’s time we of the right hit back.

This article was originally published on Taki’s Magazine.

The post Fire With Fire appeared first on LewRockwell.

Hardly anyone in the mainstream press addresses the mystery of how Trump went from what was supposedly a secret agent of the Russians to an ardent opponent of Russia in the Ukraine-Russia war. My hunch is that the commentators in the mainstream press are so excited that Trump has turned pro-Ukraine that they don’t care that they were, not so long ago, accusing him of being a secret agent of Russia.

After all, who can forget the daily refrain during Trump’s first term in office. “Robert Mueller is going to save us!” We had to be subjected to that refrain from both Democrats and the mainstream press for more than a year. The notion was that Trump was, as president of the United States, secretly serving the interests of Russia. Democrats and most of the mainstream press were convinced that Robert Mueller, a lawyer who had been appointed as special counsel to investigate the matter, was going to save us all by concluding that Trump was, in fact, serving as a secret agent of Russia, which would then result in Trump’s removal from office though impeachment.

As we all know, Robert Mueller ended up not saving us because there was nothing to save us from. The entire matter was one great big ridiculous conspiracy theory on the part of the mainstream press and Democrats. After a year of extensive investigation by a huge and very expensive staff of lawyers, Robert Mueller ended up concluding that the allegation was bogus.

Nonetheless, most everyone thought that Trump was going to do everything he could to establish friendly and peaceful relations with Russia. Such a policy, of course, wouldn’t make him a secret agent of Russia, any more than President Kennedy’s efforts in that direction made him a secret agent of Russia.

Yet in his first term in office, Trump ended up taking a fairly adversarial stand toward Russia. It was reasonable to conclude, however, that one reason he did that was an effort to bend over backwards to show that the secret-agent accusations were entirely bogus.

This time around as president, however, there was nothing that Trump had to prove. During his 2024 campaign, he made it clear that he intended to bring an end to the Ukraine-Russia war as soon as he took office. Of course, the easiest and fastest way to have done that was to immediately cut off all U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine. For a while, it appeared that that was precisely what Trump was going to do. When Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited Trump and Vice President Vance in the White House, both of them berated, insulted, humiliated, and dressed down Zelensky in public. Zelensky ended up leaving that meeting with his tail between his legs. Trump even stated that it was Ukraine that had started the war. The message seemed clear — U.S. aid to Ukraine was going to terminate, which would, of course, have been the logical course of action given Trump’s conviction that it was Ukraine that started the war.

However, sometime afterward, Trump did an about-face and began berating Russia and Russian president Vladimir Putin for not doing enough to end the war. He began threatening Putin with more economic sanctions. He made it clear that the U.S. government would continue supporting Ukraine, especially with weaponry. He has also taken an increasingly aggressive position toward Russia and Putin.

The mainstream press treats all this as perfectly normal. I myself find it extremely mysterious. How does a guy who is accused of being a Russian agent go all the way to becoming a Russian adversary? For me, that’s quite a switch.

The following is my opinion as to what has happened to bring about this very radical turnaround. As longtime readers of my blog know, I have long maintained that it is the national-security branch of the federal government — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — that is in charge of the federal government, especially in foreign affairs, and that the other three branches simply operate in support of the national-security branch.

It was the national-security branch that used NATO to successfully provoke Russia into attacking Ukraine. It did that by having NATO, an old relic from the Cold War racket, to move eastward toward Russia’s borders knowing full well that Russia would object and ultimately invade Ukraine, after which they could condemn Russia for its “aggression.” The objective was to use a war with Russia to “degrade” Russia, give Russia its own “Afghanistan,” and bring about regime change within Russia. The U.S would supply the weaponry and cash to Ukraine to accomplish this. It would only be Ukrainian soldiers, not American soldiers, who would be dying and so the American people wouldn’t care about what the national-security branch had done to bring about the war.

What the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA failed to confront was the distinct possibility that Russia would end up winning the war, which would necessarily mean a defeat of the United States. After the deadly 20-year U.S. fiasco war in Afghanistan and the installation of a pro-Iranian regime in the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq, the last thing the national-security branch wants is the humiliation of another military defeat, especially at the hands of Russia — its adversary in its old Cold War racket.

So, it’s my opinion that the national-security establishment has put the squeeze on Trump and made him see how important it is to “national security” that Russia not be permitted to win this war. It is my opinion that Trump has caved in to such pressure, just like Congress and the federal courts have long deferred to the national-security branch. That, to me, is a logical explanation for Trump’s about-face on Russia and also why he no longer heavily emphasizes the need to “drain the swamp” and bring an end to the “deep state.”

Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The post The Mystery of Trump, Ukraine, and Russia appeared first on LewRockwell.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee cut the target policy rate by 0.25 percent, bringing the target down to 4.25 percent. This cut is the first since the Fed implemented a cutting cycle last year that reduced the target rate from 5.5 percent to 4.5 percent. That series of cuts began with a 50 basis-point cut in September of last year, ending with a 25 basis-point cut in December.

This month’s meeting is among the most-watched meetings of recent years with the FOMC now being expected to “do something” in response to a clear slowdown in job growth in recent employment data. Since January, the Fed has faced immense public pressure from the White House, from Wall Street, and from many financial-sector pundits demanding that the Fed cut the target interest rate and adopt an even more dovish stance. A frequent criticism of the Fed through this period—made by those who believe more monetary inflation can somehow strengthen an economy—is that the Fed is “too late” in implementing additional rate cuts to stimulate the economy.

The pressure to cut rates gained additional strength in the wake of new jobs reports, released earlier this month, showing that job growth had substantially weakened during June, July, and August of this year. Moreover, the release of revised benchmark employment data for much of 2024 and early 2025 showed that job growth had not been nearly as strong as previously reported.

Those pushing for more easy money used this jobs data as an opportunity to demand more rate cuts from the Fed. So, not surprisingly, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the FOMC this week voted to lower the target rate, and the Fed will accelerate its open market operations, using newly created money, to intervene in the marketplace to further reduce short-term interest rates.

In this, we also see what really concerns the Fed. The Fed’s concern is not reducing prices and improving the cost of living for ordinary people. What really concerns the Fed is ensuring rising asset prices for Wall Street while pushing cheap credit to finance federal deficits.

Does the Fed Care about Price Inflation? 

Generally, the mainstream narrative around Fed policy works like this: when inflation is “too high”—as defined by the Fed itself—then the Fed will allow interest rates to rise. This will slow monetary inflation and prices will stabilize. On the other hand, when employment is not sufficiently robust—again, as defined by the Fed itself—then the Fed will lower the target interest rate. That will lead to more monetary inflation which will “stimulate” job growth. This narrative, however, depends on the idea that when employment growth is weak, price inflation will also be weak, and vice versa.

If a weakening employment situation were the only thing going on right now, then it would be very easy for the Fed to claim right now—using the popularly accepted narrative—that it is necessary for the Fed to cut the target rate to stimulate employment. But, the Fed face a complicating factor right now in that price inflation has been rising in recent months, and shows no signs of returning to the Fed’s arbitrary two-percent inflation target.

Specifically, core CPI in August rose 3.1 percent, well in excess of the two-percent target. Moreover, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, personal consumption expenditures, rose by 2.9 percent in July. Powell recent stated that their estimate for PCE growth in August is also 2.9 percent. In other words, price inflation isn’t going away, and by lowering the target rate, the Fed is pushing more monetary inflation which will put further upward pressure on prices.

Moreove,r the FOMC’s members now don’t expect the Fed to hit its target price-inflation rate until 2027. At least, that’s what the members are saying according to the Fed’s summary of economic projections (SEP). The SEP, however, can always be counted on the portray the economy as stable and generally improving. It’s the best scenario that Fed voting members think they can get away with predicting. So, if the SEP is telling us that price inflation will not fall to 2 percent until 2027, we can expect that there is plenty of monetary inflation in the works.

The scenario projected by the SEP is this: that the Fed will wisely manage the economy back to a state of growing employment and moderating price inflation, as the Fed threads the needle of discovering just the right target interest rate to optimize economic conditions. That’s what they want the public to believe.

If price inflation does come in coming months and years, the more likely scenario is this: the economy will weaken, just as is now suggested by recessionary trends in the index of leading economic indicators, in new home construction, in stagnating job growth, and in delinquency rates. Prices will fall as demand collapses in the face of rising unemployment, falling real wages, and overindebtedness.

The downside of a recession, of course, is temporary unemployment. But the upside—in the absence of central-bank meddling—is that the many inflationary bubbles that have grown as a result of monetary inflation finally pop and prices fall. Zombie companies that only existed thanks to cheap credit go bankrupt and more efficient owners take over and build a more productive economy out of the rubble of the old Fed-created inflationary economy. This is all to the good in terms of the cost of living because the bubble economy has become unaffordable for ordinary people who are forced to deal with incessantly rising prices and unaffordable homes.

That’s what would happen if the Fed actually cared about reducing price inflation. Unfortunately, the Fed isn’t going to let that happen. Rather than allow prices to fall substantially, and allow for a new, less wasteful, less frothy and bubbly economy to arise, the Fed will instead continue to force down interest rates and push more monetary inflation as the economy slows. This will prevent a reset in prices, and it will help ensure that the same, wasteful bubble enterprises continue to dominate the economy.

The Fed will say, as it is already now saying, that it must “balance” its efforts to combat inflation against the need to stimulate employment.

In other words, as the economy slows, American policymakers have the opportunity to allow home prices to fall and to make homes available to millions of Americans who have been priced out thanks to decades of easy-money-fueled asset price growth. Americans policymakers have an opportunity to allow a flowering of new competition and new efficiency in the economy as the old incumbent firms that now subsist on debt and speculative manias actually make way for new entrepreneurs and new dynamic economy.

But, as we saw this week, the Fed will do everything it can to stop that from happening. Even as price inflation continues to grow, the Fed is telling us it has to print more money to ensure that “number go up” in terms of asset prices and GDP.

Sure, the Fed will frame all this as a service to ordinary people, and as a prudent means of ensuring a vibrant job market. In truth, the central bank is serving its most important clients: Wall Street and the US regime. On the one hand, the Fed is intervening to make sure that asset prices—i.e., stocks—continue to rise for the benefit of existing wealthy asset owns. On the other hand, the Fed is lowering interest rates to ensure the Treasury can borrow at low interest rates as the federal debt continues to climb to $40 trillion. 

In contrast to all this central planning from the central bank, what the Fed should be doing right now is nothing. The Fed could simply refrain from taking any action toward meddling in the private economy at all. The Fed could end its open market operations which employ monetary inflation to manipulate interest rates. The Fed could allow markets to function, and could allow the economy to heal. Unfortunately, the Fed was created to do anything but allow the private economy to function. It has always been an instrument of central planning, and we should not expect anything different from it now.

The post With Its Latest Rate Cut, the Fed Serves Wall Street and the Regime appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Frahm. 

The European Conservative

The post Charlie Kirk, Viktor Orbán, and the Lies of Gender Ideology appeared first on LewRockwell.

Rick Rozoff wrote:

Part of a growing chorus of conservatives demanding she be canned.

My comments: “Bravo. She shifted discussion of the most egregious political assassination in the nation since 1968 and the extensive terrorist network responsible for it to banning alleged hate speech. And guess who will define that? The likes of the ADL and the so-called SPLC. Just as she did an abrupt about-face on the Epstein case. One would not be unjustified in asking who she’s taking orders from.”

The post Boot Bondi appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Rick Rozoff:

RT News

The post Charlie Kirk’s murder is the beginning of a liberal, globalist riot against all ordinary people: Russian philosopher appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tim McGraw wrote:

The documentary focuses on the moral ambiguity of the German scientists and the horrors of the slave factory that built the missiles. The narrator downplays the effects of the V-2 rocket campaign on British morale. Nine thousand dead civilians is a large number. Look at how America reacted to the deaths of three thousand civilians on 9/11.

By the end of WWII, Americans were no longer buying War Bonds. The Japanese were killing more American soldiers on Iwo Jima and Okinawa than the Japs were losing. The British, who had been at war longer than the Americans, were exhausted. A silent death from above was psychologically damaging. A V-2 would wipe out a city block or more.

The narrator says the material and manpower used for the V-2s could have built thousands of jet fighters for Germany. Yeah, but Germany was out of pilots. The U-boats were being sunk by the Allies. Hitler’s last hope was psychological warfare on the Allies…terrorism.

Psychological warfare is being used on us today.

The post V-s2 Rocket: Nazi Germany’s Deadliest Secret Weapon appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

Great American Digest

The post A Hollywood Starlet’s New ad Just left Democrats’ Mouths Agape appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post What Everyone’s Missing On The Jimmy Kimmel Firing appeared first on LewRockwell.

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

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/perche-i-possessori-di-bitcoin-trarranno)

La recente approvazione del GENIUS Act al Senato e l'imminente “Crypto Week” della Camera segnano un cambiamento epocale nel mondo finanziario. Il disegno di legge, approvato con 68 voti favorevoli e 30 contrari, stabilisce un quadro normativo federale per le stablecoin, il quale include requisiti di riserva, informativa agli emittenti e tutela dei consumatori. Questa legge getta le basi affinché il sistema finanziario statunitense si liberi dal monopolio che le banche hanno a lungo detenuto sul denaro, creando spazio per l'innovazione e la concorrenza nei servizi finanziari.

Al centro di questa transizione c'è l'adozione delle stablecoin, crittovalute progettate per mantenere un valore stabile ancorato a un asset di riserva. Le stablecoin offrono un mezzo di scambio stabile e una riserva di valore, consentendo al contempo transazioni digitali più fluide e una più ampia adozione della tecnologia blockchain.

Ma perché i sostenitori di Bitcoin, che da tempo sostengono una forma di denaro decentralizzata, trarranno vantaggio dalla legge sulle stablecoin? Dopotutto sono emesse da società private e sono ancorate a una valuta fiat.

L'ascesa delle stablecoin non diminuisce il valore o l'importanza di Bitcoin, o di altre crittovalute.

In realtà le due cose si completano a vicenda.

La chiarezza normativa in questo ambito consente agli imprenditori nel settore delle crittovalute di valutare il rischio, minaccia il monopolio che le banche hanno sul denaro e crea una domanda aggiuntiva per i dollari.

Per molti imprenditori nel settore delle crittovalute, qualsiasi legge è meglio di nessuna legge. Il mondo delle crittovalute sta attualmente soffrendo di una sorta di paralisi causata dall'incertezza normativa.

Questo è stato uno dei temi centrali della Bitcoin Conference di maggio, il più grande incontro al mondo dedicato a Bitcoin, che ha visto gli interventi di J. D. Vance, Michael Saylor e Donald Trump Jr. Molti leader nel settore delle crittovalute hanno sostenuto l'approvazione di normative per gettare le basi per regole più formali nel loro settore.

La codifica delle normative sulle crittovalute, di cui il GENIUS Act e lo STABLE Act sono centrali, consente agli imprenditori di valutare con sicurezza il rischio nel settore. La legge può sempre essere modificata in futuro, ma disporre di una struttura normativa chiara incoraggia gli imprenditori a investire con fiducia in questo settore in rapida espansione.

Attualmente le banche decidono di fatto chi ha accesso al capitale e a quali condizioni, attraverso il loro controllo dominante su conti correnti, conti di risparmio e prestiti. L'ascesa delle stablecoin offre una via d'uscita da questo sistema centralizzato. Le stablecoin consentono a privati ​​e aziende di aggirare il sistema bancario tradizionale facilitando transazioni dirette peer-to-peer su reti blockchain decentralizzate, eliminando gli intermediari bancari.

Grazie alla stabilità dei prezzi legata a un asset, all'accessibilità globale (chiunque abbia una connessione Internet può accedervi) e all'integrazione con smart contract, le stablecoin rappresentano un'alternativa efficiente e conveniente ai sistemi finanziari tradizionali.

L'adozione delle stablecoin riduce la capacità esclusiva delle banche di controllare l'offerta di moneta. Con l'utilizzo delle stablecoin, persone e aziende non contribuiscono più ai profitti delle banche sotto forma di commissioni, prestiti o depositi. Le stablecoin possono sostituire strumenti finanziari come i conti correnti, che rappresentano la parte più redditizia del bilancio di una banca. Creando un modo più efficiente e trasparente per gestire le transazioni, le stablecoin riducono i costi complessivi dei servizi finanziari, minacciando di sovvertire la morsa che le banche hanno sul denaro.

Con l'adozione delle stablecoin da parte di un numero sempre maggiore di persone a livello globale, la domanda di dollari e titoli del Tesoro statunitensi aumenterà. L'entità di questo aumento della domanda è sconosciuta, tuttavia essa riduce i rendimenti obbligazionari e facilita l'aumento del debito statunitense. Se la convinzione dei bitcoiner che lo stato abbia scarso autocontrollo sulla politica fiscale si rivelerà vera, trarranno vantaggio dall'ascesa delle stablecoin. Maggiore è la domanda di dollari, più lo stato sarà incoraggiato a stampare e indebitarsi per soddisfare tale domanda. Ciò potrebbe portare a pressioni inflazionistiche, che a loro volta aumenterebbero il valore delle crittovalute, in particolare di Bitcoin, come copertura contro l'inflazione.

L'ampia accettazione delle stablecoin apre la strada a una maggiore chiarezza normativa nel settore delle crittovalute. Con regole chiare per l'emissione e l'utilizzo delle stablecoin, aziende e consumatori avranno maggiore fiducia nell'utilizzarle per le transazioni quotidiane. Per i bitcoiner la chiarezza normativa sulle stablecoin contribuirà a garantire che l'intero ecosistema delle crittovalute abbia leali possibilità di competere con la finanza tradizionale.

Il futuro delle crittovalute è in continua evoluzione e le stablecoin rappresentano una parte importante di questa evoluzione.

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

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

Saleh Abdullah wrote:

Tucker Carlson said that Charlie Kirk told him at a TPUSA Student Action Summit last July to highlight Epstein’s connections to Mossad.

Distinguishing between Netanyahu and the State of Israel, Carlson claimed that Kirk hated Netanyahu and his war against Gaza despite loving.

https://x.com/AFpost/status/1968145408523485271

https://nypost.com/2025/09/16/us-news/george-zinn-old-man-who-falsely-claimed-he-shot-charlie-kirk-arrested-on-child-porn-charges/

https://x.com/grok/status/1966908298852266159

The post Tucker Carlson said that Charlie Kirk… appeared first on LewRockwell.

My fellow Americans, my critical voice has finally been heard inside the Oval Office. No, not my voice against the $1.7 trillion this country is planning to spend on new nuclear weapons. No, not my call to cut the Pentagon budget in half. No, not my imprecations against militarism in America. It was a quip of mine that the Department of Defense (DoD) should return to its roots as the War Department, since the U.S. hasn’t known a moment’s peace since before the 9/11 attacks, locked as it’s been into a permanent state of global war, whether against “terror” or for its imperial agendas (or both).

A rebranded Department of War, President Trump recently suggested, simply sounds tougher (and more Trumpian) than “defense.” As is his wont, he blurted out a hard truth as he stated that America must have an offensive military. There was, however, no mention of war bonds or war taxes to pay for such a military. And no mention of a wartime draft or any other meaningful sacrifice by most Americans.

Rebranding the DoD as the Department of War is, Trump suggested, a critical step in returning to a time when America was always winning. I suspect he was referring to World War II. Give him credit, though. He was certainly on target about one thing: since World War II, the United States has had a distinctly victoryless military. Quick: Name one clear triumph in a meaningful war for the United States since 1945. Korea? At best, a stalemate. Vietnam? An utter disaster, a total defeat. Iraq and Afghanistan? Quagmires, debacles that were waged dishonestly and lost for that very reason.

Even the Cold War that this country ostensibly won in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union didn’t lead to the victory Americans thought was coming their way. After much hype about a “new world order” where the U.S. would cash in its peace dividends, the military-industrial-congressional complex found new wars to wage, new threats to meet, even as the events of 9/11 enabled a surge — actually, a gusher — of spending that fed militarism within American culture. The upshot of all that warmongering was a soaring national debt driven by profligate spending. After all, the Iraq and Afghan Wars alone are estimated to have cost us some $8 trillion.

Those disasters (and many more) happened, of course, under the Department of Defense. Imagine that! America was “defending” itself in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere, even as those wars killed and wounded significant numbers of our troops while doing far more damage to those on the receiving end of massive American firepower. All this will, I assume, go away with a “new” Department of War. Time to win again! Except, as one Vietnam veteran reminded me, you can’t do a wrong thing the right way. You can’t win wars by fighting for unjust causes, especially in situations where military force simply can’t offer a decisive solution.

It’s going to take more than a rebranded Department of War to fix wanton immorality and strategic stupidity.

We Need a Return of the Vietnam Syndrome

Hey, I’m okay with the Pentagon’s rebranding. War, after all, is what America does. This is a country made by war, a country of macho men hitching up their big boy pants on the world stage, led by the latest (greatest?) secretary of war, “Pomade Pete” Hegseth, whose signature move has been to do pushups with the troops while extolling a “warrior ethos.” Such an ethos, of course, is more consistent with a War Department than a Defense Department, so kudos to him. Too bad it’s inconsistent with a citizen-soldier military that’s supposed to be obedient to and protective of the Constitution. But that’s just a minor detail, right?

Here’s the rub. As Trump and Hegseth have now tacitly admitted, the national security state has never been about “security” for Americans. Rather, it’s existed and continues to exist as a war state in a state of constant war (or preparations for the same), now stuffed to the popping point with more than a trillion dollars yearly in taxpayer funds. And the leaders of that war state — an enormous blood-sucking parasite on society — are never going to admit that it’s in any way too large or overfed, let alone so incompetent as to have been victoryless for the last 80 years of regular war-making.

And count on one grim reality: that war state will always find new enemies to attack, new rivals to deter, new weapons to buy, and a new spectrum of warfare to try to dominate. Venezuela appears to be the latest enemy, China the latest peer rival, hypersonic missiles and drone swarms the new weaponry, and artificial intelligence the new spectrum. For America’s parasitic war state, there will always be more to feed on and to attempt (never very successfully) to dominate.

Mind you, this is exactly what President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against in his 1961 Farewell Address. Sixty-plus years ago, Ike could already see that what he was the first to call the military-industrial complex was already too powerful (as the Vietnam War loomed). And of course, it has only grown more powerful since he left office. As Ike also wisely said, only Americans can truly hurt America — notably, I’d add, those Americans who embrace war and the supposed benefits of a warrior ethos instead of democracy and the rule of law.

Again, I’m okay with a War Department. But if we’re reviving older concepts in the name of honesty, what truly needs a new lease on life is the Vietnam Syndrome that, according to President George H.W. Bush, America allegedly got rid of once and for all with a rousing victory against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 (that would prove to be anything but).

That Vietnam Syndrome, you may recall, was an allegedly paralyzing American reluctance to use military force in the aftermath of disastrous interventions in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the 1960s and early 1970s. According to that narrative, the U.S. government had become too slow, too reluctant, too scarred (or do I mean scared?) to march speedily to war. As President Richard Nixon once said, America must never resemble a “pitiful, helpless giant.” To do so, he insisted, would threaten not just our country but the entire free world (as it was known then). America had to show that, when the chips were down, our leaders were up for going all-in, no matter how bad our cards were vis-à-vis those of our opponents.

If nothing else, no country had more chips than we did when it came to sheer military firepower and a willingness to use it (or so, at least, it seemed to Nixon and crew). A skilled poker player, Nixon was blinded by the belief that the U.S. couldn’t afford to suffer a humiliating loss on the world stage (especially when he was its leader). But the tumult that resulted from the fall of Saigon to communist forces in 1975 taught Americans something, if only temporarily: that one should hasten very slowly to war, a lesson Sparta, the quintessential warrior city-state of Ancient Greece, knew to be the sign of mature wisdom.

Spartan wannabes like Pete Hegseth, with his ostentatious displays of “manliness,” however, fail to understand the warrior ethos they purport to exhibit. Wise warrior-leaders don’t wage war for war’s sake. Considering the horrific costs of war and its inherent unpredictability, sage leaders weigh their options carefully, knowing that wars are always far easier to get into than out of and that they often mutate in dangerously unpredictable ways, leaving those who have survived them to wonder what it was ever all about — why there was so much killing and dying for so little that was faintly meaningful.

What Will Trump’s “Winning” War Department Look Like?

Perhaps Americans got an initial look at Trump’s new “winning” War Department off the coast of Venezuela with what could be the start of a new “drug war” against that country. A boat carrying 11 people, allegedly with fentanyl supplies on board, was obliterated by a U.S. missile in this country’s first “drug war” strike. It was a case where President Trump decided that he was the only judge and jury around and the U.S. military was his executioner. We may never know who was actually on board that boat or what they were doing, questions that undoubtedly matter not a whit to Trump or Hegseth. What mattered to them was sending an ultimate message of toughness, regardless of its naked illegality or its patent stupidity.

Similarly, Trump has put the National Guard on the streets of Washington, D.C., deployed Marines and the National Guard to Los Angeles, and warned of yet more troop deployments to come in Chicago, New Orleans, and elsewhere. Supposedly looking to enforce “law and order,” the president is instead endangering it, while disregarding the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits a president from deploying active-duty troops as domestic law enforcers.

If America isn’t a nation of laws, what is it? If the president is a lawbreaker instead of an upholder of those laws, what is he?

Recall that every American servicemember takes a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution and bear true faith and allegiance to the same. Warriors are driven by something different. Historically, they often just obeyed their chieftain or warlord, killing without thought or mercy. If they were bound by law, it was most often that of the jungle.

Knowingly or unknowingly, that’s exactly the kind of military Pete Hegseth and the new Department of War (and nothing but war) are clearly seeking to create. A force where might makes right (although in our recent history, it’s almost invariably made wrong).

I must admit that, from the recent attack on that boat in the Caribbean to the sending of troops into Washington, I find I’m not faintly surprised by this developing crisis (that’s almost guaranteed to grow ever worse). Remember, after all, that Donald Trump, a distinctly lawless man, boasted during the Republican debate in the 2016 election campaign that the military would follow his orders irrespective of their legality. I wrote then that, with such a response, he had disqualified himself as a candidate for the presidency:

“Trump’s performance last night [3/3/16] reminded me of Richard Nixon’s infamous answer to David Frost about Watergate: ‘When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.’ No, no, a thousand times no. The president has to obey the law of the land, just as everyone else has to. No person is above the law, an American ideal that Trump seems neither to understand nor to embrace. And that disqualifies him to be president and commander-in-chief.”

If only.

In retrospect, I guess Trump had it right. After all, he’s won the presidency twice, no matter that his kind of “rightness” threatens the very foundations of this country.

So, color me more than worried. In this new (yet surprisingly old) age of a War Department, I see even more possibilities for lawlessness, wanton violence, and summary executions — and, in the end, the defeat of everything that matters, all justified by that eternal cry: “We’re at war.” At which point, I return to war’s miseries and how quickly we humans forget its lessons, no matter how harsh or painful they may be.

Someday, America’s soon-to-be War Department, led by wannabe warrior chieftains Trump and Hegseth, will perhaps seem like the ultimate blowback from this country’s disastrous wars overseas since its name changed to the Defense Department in the wake of World War II. In places like Iraq and Afghanistan, this country allegedly waged war in the name of spreading democracy and freedom. That cause failed and America’s own grip on democracy and freedom only continues to loosen — perhaps fatally so.

In harkening back to a War Department, perhaps Trump is also channeling a nostalgia for the Old West, or at least the myth of it, where justice was served through personal bounties and murderous violence enforced by steely-eyed men wielding steel-blue pistols. Trump’s idea of “justice” does seem to be that of a hanging judge on a “wild” frontier facing hostile “Injuns” of various sorts. For men like Trump, those were the glory days of imperial expansion, never mind all the bodies left in the wake of America’s manifest destiny. If nothing else, that old imperial Department of War certainly knew what it was about.

Whatever else one might expect from America’s “new” Department of War, you can bet your life (or death) on a whole lot of future body bags. Warriors are, of course, okay with this as long as there are more boats to blow up, more people to bomb, and more foreign resources to steal in the pursuit of a “victory” that never actually arrives. So hitch up those big boy pants, grab a rifle or a Hellfire missile, and start killing. After all, in what might be thought of as a distinctly victoryless culture, it seems as if America is destined to be at war forever and a day.

Reprinted with permission from TomDispatch.com.

The post The Department of War Is Back! appeared first on LewRockwell.

“If money isn’t loosened up, this sucker could go down.”

– President George W Bush

Three disasters have defined this century. Each was precipitated, perpetuated, and exacerbated by people who used the crisis to accrue more power.

One calamity occurred as the millennium opened. The next as its first decade ended. And the third as this one started.

Our last installment discussed the initial catastrophe. Today, seventeen years after the Lehman Brothers collapse, we examine some causes and consequences of the second.

Predictable Pile-Up

The multi-decade fight against “terror” has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives. Congress never declared these wars, which were funded by fake money counterfeited by the Fed.

This financial finagling precipitated a predictable pile-up on this century’s road to perdition. As with any economic event afflicting billions of people, the 2008 financial crisis had many causes. But the main impetus was the Federal Reserve.

Under sound money, business cycles always occur within specific companies or industries. But they’re relatively contained.

For a given product or particular market, desire ebbs and favor flows. Supply and demand wax and wane with resource constraints, competitive pressure, customer preference, and price extremes that cure themselves.

But for the entire globe to crest and crash on the same wave means an exogenous force caused a raucous wake. Widespread booms and busts… including the Great Depression and the stagflationary Seventies… have been more extensive and severe since the founding of the Fed.

But the two decade “Great Moderation” after the early ‘80s “Volcker shock” seemed to tame the business cycle. With his Black Monday bailout in 1987, Alan Greenspan created his eponymous “put” that made him the “maestro”.

The Fed has repeatedly reprised his tune throughout this century. That makes sense. Counterfeiting is the only song they know. Like day drinking, speaking two languages, and tax avoidance, ripping people off is cool if you’re rich but can cause problems if you’re poor.

As David Stockton notes, the Fed balance sheet (the amount of money it’s conjured) increased 35-fold since the advent of the “Greenspan put”. Nominal GDP merely quintupled, with real GDP up only half that much.

After the tech bubble burst, the Fed did what it always does: created a new one. Greenspan again rode to the “rescue”.

Primary Accomplices

Like a beach ball under water, the Fed forced interest rates below the level at which they’d have naturally floated. When markets made them let go, everyone got soaked.

In a startling move at the time (tho’ in retrospect it seems like quaint restraint), Greenspan held rates at one percent for over a year. The result was the only recession on record in which house prices didn’t fall. From that “lesson”, politicians and bureaucrats encouraged borrowers to believe they never would.

During the first seven years of this century, more dollars were created than in the previous two centuries combined. In subsequent years, that ignominious record would be repeatedly eclipsed.

Much of this money flowed into mortgages, precipitating an unnatural rise in real estate prices (which was the idea). Easy credit attracted marginal speculators who had no business being in the market.

Not that the Fed didn’t have help. Among its primary accomplices were a couple privileged, state-sanctioned ambiguities known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These “Government Sponsored Entities” (GSE) purchase mortgages on the secondary market. With an implicit taxpayer backstop, they buy loans from originators, which provides those lenders additional funds to extend new loans.

This process prompts more mortgages than would otherwise exist, making it easier for people to “buy” homes they can’t afford. Government laid the bait that lulled buyers into this trap.

The tax and regulatory benefits GSEs enjoy, plus an essentially unlimited line-of-credit from the U.S. Treasury, diverted resources and distorted markets by allowing these entities to raise money and buy mortgages more easily than private competitors could.

Under political pressure to increase home “ownership” among “disadvantaged” groups, GSEs also enabled lower lending standards by easing requirements on mortgages they bought. This encouraged more reckless loans, as originators knew they could offload them from their books.

Much as student loans and lower admission standards enticed millions into college who had no business being there, the Fed, GSEs, and crony legislation like the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and Equal Opportunity Credit Act attracted borrowers into mortgages they would never be able to afford.

“Generally Sound”

As Tom Woods noted in Meltdown, his definitive overview of the financial crisis, even the New York Times conceded these warped interventions “changed homeownership from something that secured a place in the middle class to something that ejected people from it.”

Loose money and low standards (a natural consequence of loose money) affected prime loans too. In many cases it infected them first, and more quickly… which undermines the notion that lenders “preyed” on subprime borrowers.

Adjustable rate mortgages enticed creditworthy speculators and “flippers” to borrow more than they otherwise would. This allowed them to bid up prices, enjoy appreciation, and sell the property before teaser rates rose… all of which attracted more speculation.

This is what the government wanted. For two decades, both political parties, including President George W Bush, urged down payment requirements be subsidized, reduced, or ditched.

As these wishes were increasingly accommodated, Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, assured us “lending standards are generally sound.” The year George Bush asked lenders to dispense with down payments, the Fed dismissed the idea there was a housing bubble.

Former Chairman Greenspan encouraged borrowers to take advantage of adjustable rate mortgages (without warning that the adjusted rates would eventually take advantage of them).

And why not? For two decades the Fed had implicitly enticed (and explicitly backstopped) reckless behavior its counterfeiting encouraged. As the housing bubble inflated, the people pumping air lamented a lack of affordable homes.

When the burst bubble finally offered the remedy, lower prices became the one tonic that wasn’t allowed. The people who caused the problem promptly pumped more of the debt and bailouts that produced the binge.

To the extent these “saviors” were criticized, it was for being too slow and stingy pouring the booze. As the hangover intensified, the bartenders decided to open the taps.

Read the Whole Article

The post A Brief History of the 21st Century: Part II appeared first on LewRockwell.

Contrary to the assertions of Scofield-duped Christian Zionist evangelicals, God gave NO everlasting unconditional promise of national perpetuity to the Old Covenant nation of Israel. God’s promises of blessings to Old Covenant Israel were conditional to Israel’s obedience to God.

An unconditional everlasting promise was given to the man Abraham. And this promise was fulfilled in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Galatians 3:16, 28, 29) But to the nation of Old Covenant Israel was no such promise given.

In my third Prophecy Message from Romans 11, I provided much Scripture that delineated the differences between the unconditional everlasting seed promise given to Abraham (fulfilled in Christ) and the conditional land promise given to the Old Covenant nation of Israel—a covenant that Israel broke—and God then cursed Israel and took the land away from them forever.

Prophecy Message Three is entitled God’s Chosen People, and we have that message in both a DVD and PDF format.

Moses, the man through whom God gave Israel its conditional covenant, made it crystal clear to the nation just how conditional God’s covenant was to them.

But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.

The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people.

And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.

Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.

Moreover all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed; because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee:

And they shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever.

Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;

Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.

And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.

(See Deuteronomy 28:15 – 68)

In these and many other passages of Scripture, God promised to remove the children of Israel from the promised land (Canaan) forever, because of their disobedience. In this chapter in Deuteronomy, Moses predicted the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians, the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians and the destruction of the Judahite remnant by the Romans.

In short, Old Covenant Israel violated its covenant with God, and God did what Moses declared He would do: He expelled them from the promised land and destroyed their nation forever. The Israelis in Palestine today are NOT Biblical Israelites; they are NOT the biological descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and they are NOT God’s chosen people.

The Israelis are the children of Japheth, not Shem, as are the rest of the Eastern Europeans from which they descended. They have ZERO God-given land covenant in Palestine. They have ZERO promise of national perpetuity from God; there is ZERO promise from God for anyone who attempts to bless, assist, aid or support the Zionist state.

In truth, from its very inception in 1948, the State of Israel has proven itself to be a devilish, murderous, barbaric people—a plague of racism, hatred, ethnic cleansing, war and genocide upon the world. And the more the United States has entangled itself economically, militarily, morally and spiritually with Israel, the more America has invoked the curse of God upon it to the point that today America is little more than a vassal state of the most vile, wicked and bloodthirsty country on the planet.

And after two years of supporting Israel’s maniacal genocide in Gaza, the people of the entire world hold both Israel and the United States in utter contempt. And for good reason. America’s financial and military support for Israel’s crimes against humanity in Palestine are contemptible.

Donald Trump has proven himself to be as much or more of a lackey for Israel as Joe Biden. He is the one man in the world that has the capability to put an end to Israel’s slaughter of innocents in Gaza and the West Bank, but he refuses to do it. As with almost the entire Congress in Washington, D.C., Trump is nothing more than a pimp for Israel. They are all bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. They are the worst kind of prostitutes. They make street walkers look like Sunday School teachers by comparison.

But, ladies and gentlemen, Israel is doing more than murdering hundreds of thousands of innocents; it is expediting its own destruction. Israel has passed the point of no return. Its collapse is certain—and probably imminent.

As it always does, the Western media ignored it, but Yemen’s Houthis delivered a devastating missile attack against Israel, after Israel assassinated Yemen’s civilian prime minister and 12 of his cabinet members.

Here is a YouTube technical analysis from Conflict Skies & Steel of the attack:

Today we are witnessing a historic escalation in the Middle East that is shaking the foundations of regional security. Yemen’s Houthis have launched a daring strike against Israel, targeting the heart of Tel Aviv with a combination of long-range missiles and advanced drones.

This is not just a headline, it is a demonstration of reach, precision and the growing boldness of non-state actors in the modern battlefield. The world is now watching closely as the Houthis challenge one of the most technologically advanced nations in the region, sending a clear and shocking message to Israel and its allies.

Tel Aviv, a city known for its bustling economy and dense population, is now under fire with emergency sirens blaring and streets evacuated in panic. Smoke rises from multiple districts, while Israel’s air defense systems scramble to intercept incoming threats.

The scale of this attack is unlike anything seen in recent years, highlighting a new phase in asymmetric warfare, where precision and surprise trump sheer size and firepower. Citizens report sudden explosions, shaking windows and streets filled with confusion, a stark reminder that modern conflict can reach civilian centers with devastating speed.

The Iron Dome has successfully neutralized a large portion of the attack, but gaps in coverage were exposed, demonstrating that even the most sophisticated defense networks are not infallible.

Streets once crowded with civilians now appear deserted, as emergency sirens and warnings drive people into shelters. This attack is remarkable for its precision, with missiles targeting strategic locations rather than random destruction, showcasing the Houthis’ intelligence and tactical planning.

For Israel, this is a psychological blow as much as a physical one. The population’s sense of security is shaken, and the government must quickly reassess its defensive posture.

Conflict Skies and Steel [YouTube Channel] has been closely analyzing the data, and what stands out is the speed, coordination and audacity of this operation, reflecting a level of sophistication that goes far beyond what many had expected from Houthi capabilities.

The interior of this operation, though brief in visible details, tells a story of meticulous planning and technological evolution. The Houthi appear to have synchronized multiple missile launches with drone operations to overwhelm Israel’s defenses. Open-source satellite imagery suggests that launch sites were strategically positioned and camouflaged deep inside Yemeni territory. Real-time intelligence likely guided the drones to ensure maximum accuracy. The operation reflects a calculated approach, balancing the need for impact with operational security to avoid exposing critical assets.

Even with limited resources compared to a conventional army, the Houthis demonstrated that precision, timing and adaptability are force multipliers capable of challenging the world’s strongest defenses.

Performance of the strike has been extraordinary. Missiles reportedly traveled over 100 to 200 kilometers, demonstrating a significant extension of Houthi range capabilities. The simultaneous use of drones adds an unpredictable element, complicating interception strategies.

The attack successfully stressed Israel’s air defense systems, creating gaps that allowed some missiles to reach their targets. Analysts are evaluating the types of missiles used, with indications of modified scud variants and precision-guided munitions.

Drones provided real-time reconnaissance, potentially allowing operators to adjust trajectories mid-flight. This combination of missiles and UOV highlights the Houthis’ ingenuity, blending traditional long-range attacks with modern drone technology to create a complex battlefield problem.

The unique selling points of this Houthi operation are clear and remarkable.

First, the ability to strike Tel Aviv from Yemen demonstrates a significant leap in operational reach and capability.

Second, the synchronized use of multiple weapons systems, including missiles and drones, showcases an integrated approach rarely seen from non-state actors.

Third, the psychological impact on both Israel and the international community is immense, sending a signal that the Houthis can operate far beyond their traditional theater of conflict.

In conclusion, Yemen’s Houthi strike on Tel Aviv is both shocking and strategically significant. It exposes vulnerabilities in advanced air defense systems, demonstrates the evolution of non-state actors into formidable military threats and emphasizes the psychological and political dimensions of modern warfare.

Civilians are facing unprecedented threats, militaries are forced to reconsider their strategies and analysts are left re-evaluating the assumptions of regional power dynamics.

Israel is hemorrhaging economically, militarily, culturally, politically, psychologically, emotionally and internationally.

The Zionist experiment is over.

Almost every country in the world sees Israel for the satanic monster that it is, and they are enraged. The only major government in the world that remains unconditionally supportive of Israel is the United States—and among the population of the U.S., opposition to Israel is two to one. And Donald Trump’s favorability rating is now worse than was Joe Biden’s—mainly due to his sycophantic support for Israel.

Geopolitical, academic, military and intelligence experts such as Col. Douglas Macgregor, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Major Scott Ritter, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Professor John Mearsheimer, intelligence officers Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern and Phil Giraldi are unanimous in the opinion that Israel’s collapse will come sooner than later.

Netanyahu and his fellow fascists in Israel are possessed with the intention of slaughtering or removing all 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. They really do intend to turn Gaza into Trump’s Riviera of the Middle East. Then, they fully intend to ethnically cleanse the West Bank. Then, they intend to conquer Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Then, they intend to liquidate the Palestinians and Arabs in Jordan and Eastern Egypt (including Cairo) and seize those land areas, including a large segment of Saudi Arabia.

But their devilish designs for a Greater Israel are falling apart. The little country of Yemen is showing the world that Israel—even with the military support of the United States—is ripe for destruction. After decades of missile attacks from Saudi Arabia and the United States (under both Biden and Trump) the Houthis are still standing toe-to-toe against Israel with much mental acumen and military aptitude.

If Israel is stunned and frightened by Yemen, wait until they attack Iran again and see what happens. Plus, the money-worshipping Arab states in the Persian Gulf that have sat back like scared little pussycats and done NOTHING to help their Arab brethren in Palestine know that history is going to forever shine the light of truth on the Arab monarchies for the moneygrubbing cowards they are, while the Houthis will go down in history as the brave little David who stood courageously against the Zionist Goliath—and won.

Israelis by the thousands are fleeing the country. They know the nation is on its last legs. Netanyahu knows his only hope for staying out of prison (or maybe even staying alive) is to keep Israel at war. He doesn’t care one whit how many innocent people he kills, as long as it keeps him in power. He is a demon-possessed madman. And he is trying his best to drag the United States into all-out war along with him.

And given Trump’s slavish devotion to the Jewish billionaires that have been his financial benefactors throughout his entire life, he is proving to be in no mood to put America first, all of his campaign rhetoric notwithstanding. After all, Trump started seven businesses, and all seven went bankrupt. And all seven times the Zionist billionaires bailed him out. It is a fantasy to think that Trump would put the interests of the United States above those of Israel. Trump is Zionist-owned lock, stock and barrel.

But the question might be: Who will die first, Donald Trump or Israel? Because both are on life support.

Reprinted with permission from Chuck Baldwin Live.

The post The Zionist Experiment Is Over appeared first on LewRockwell.

History’s wheel is turning. China builds, India rises, BRICS surpasses the G7—while America punishes allies and empowers its Enemies.

In the West, the year 1492 is remembered for two episodes: Columbus’s arrival in the Americas and the fall of Granada, last stronghold of Moorish Spain. But its larger consequence was geopolitical: the compass needle swung westward, ushering in a centuries long reversal in global fortunes.

Wealth that once streamed toward Asia turned into rivers feeding Europe’s ascent.

Silver, gold, sugar, and spices from the Americas acted like jet fuel. They powered science, industry, and empire. Spain, France, Britain, and the Netherlands—naval and commercial predators—rose on the tide, hollowing out the Ottoman world and diverting trade from India and China to the New World.

Today another hinge of history is swinging. Washington’s unspoken fear of a 21st century turn is no less dramatic: economic gravity shifts eastward, led by China and—critically—India.

Beijing’s gamble in the 1990s—to let capitalism breathe, to draw in foreign capital, and to pour trillions into domestic infrastructure—proved as consequential as a century of US industrial growth.

The Belt and Road Initiative, worth more than $1 trillion, is less an infrastructure plan than a circulatory system of steel and concrete veins, designed to redirect the lifeblood of trade back across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

In contrast, Washington failed to invest in fast sealift or high speed rail, leaning too heavily on military power.

For the last 25 years, America exhausted itself in deserts and mountains, fighting costly wars that drained trillions, cost thousands of U.S. lives—yet delivered little of enduring strategic value.

Worse still, the technology of war is no longer America’s private domain. Precision strikes, robotics, artificial intelligence, persistent surveillance from seabed to space—once rare advantages—are now widely available, even to mid range powers.

The oceans that once carried American commerce and projected US power have become potential minefields. To move lumbering, World War II style forces across the Pacific, Atlantic, or Indian Oceans today is not just dangerous. It borders on suicidal behavior.

History’s cruel truth remains: the last major war seldom looks like the next.

The battle-space of the future is uncharted, yet America’s Armed Forces and its National Military Strategy remain deeply mired in the past.

The erosion of U.S. military advantage cannot be viewed in isolation; it reflects the widening gap between Washington’s appetite for global hegemony and America’s declining economic strength.

Partly because of Washington’s exhaustion, India has been forced to pick up the slack as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean.

At the same time, India has borne the brunt of fighting Pakistan backed insurgents, incurring heavy casualties just as America did.

India is a member of the Quad alliance with the US, Japan, and Australia, and the United States conducts more military exercises with India than with any other country.

Yet Washington recently imposed duties of 50% on Indian goods—more than double the 15% rate applied to Taliban run Afghanistan and far higher than the 19% levied on Pakistan.

This, even though both regimes sheltered and enabled militant networks that killed American soldiers for twenty years. The paradox is beyond belief: the firefighter is fined more heavily than the arsonist.

At the same time, India carries an outstanding $35 billion order book for Boeing passenger jets supporting 150,000 American manufacturing jobs in Charleston, South Carolina, and Everett, Washington. Yet India is penalized at America’s border.

The deeper problem for the United States is structural. Military dominance can no longer disguise economic erosion. According to the IMF, BRICS now outweighs the G7 in global GDP.

Measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), China’s economy is worth $40.7 trillion, India’s $20.5 trillion, while the U.S. stands at just $29 trillion.

China and India together: $61.2 trillion — more than double the U.S. total. This is not a forecast. It is today’s reality.

The turning point came in 2022, when Washington responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with sweeping sanctions.

The effect of weaponizing the Dollar was profound. The dollar looked less like a safe harbor and more like a trapdoor.

From Riyadh to Delhi, from Brasília to Beijing, capitals saw the risk of conducting commerce in a currency that could be switched off at will. De-dollarization, once a theoretical debate, became urgent strategy.

No surprise, then, that nations across Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America line up to join BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

They are dissatisfied with a Western order they view as inequitable and extractive. India straddles both worlds—deepening its bond with Washington through the Quad while cultivating ties with Moscow and Beijing in BRICS and the SCO.

Prime Minister Modi’s presence at the recent SCO summit in Beijing alongside President Xi and President Putin reminded Washington that India’s compass will not lock on one direction.

History’s lesson is clear. Trade routes form habits: habits build markets; and markets endure longer than armies. Empire is not lost in a single battle but in the slow corrosion of those habits.

The Ottomans discovered this too late. Nations that consume more than they produce, that intimidate rather than innovate, ultimately sow the seeds of their own decline.

The dollar’s dominance is already eroding. Trade settlements in yuan, rupees, and other currencies increase by the month. The shift is not only monetary: it is strategic.

But the world should remember what American innovation can achieve. From the heartland came inventions and technologies that transformed global life in the last century—from aviation to semiconductors, from biotechnology to the digital revolution.

These capacities still command respect, and if revitalized, they can once again help anchor U.S. prosperity in a multipolar age.

History’s wheel is turning again. Some nations will rise with it. Others risk being crushed beneath its weight.

If Washington seizes the opportunity to adapt—if it makes its business inside the new global order one of commerce and trade rather than unrelenting military intervention—Americans may yet avoid the fate of the Ottomans. But the course correction cannot come soon enough.

Reprinted with author’s permission from X.

The post Global Wealth and Power Are Pivoting to the East appeared first on LewRockwell.

“That was when they suspended the Constitution… There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.”—Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

What we are witnessing is not a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; it is a government over the people.

Call it what it is: political gaslighting—the regime says one thing while doing the opposite, and insists on the citizenry’s trust while dismantling the very checks and balances that make trust possible.

So when the powers-that-be claim to be protecting the Constitution, they’re dismantling it at every turn. In this way, the mechanisms of constitutional government—separation of powers, federalism, due process, and the Bill of Rights—are being hollowed out in plain sight.

Although this dismantling did not start with President Trump, it has accelerated beyond imagining.

What was once a slow bleed is now a hemorrhage—and it is not random. The damage is unfolding on two parallel tracks: a steady, methodical, bureaucratic erosion (rule changes, executive orders, new databases) paired with shock-and-awe surges (National Guard deployments, mass round-ups, headline-grabbing prosecutions).

The words may say “freedom” and “order,” but the deeds smack of tyranny.

Attorney General Pam Bondi vows to punish “hateful” speech even as the administration normalizes hateful rhetoric and violent imagery. Vice President JD Vance promises to “go after” those with a “leftist” ideology while preaching free-speech absolutism for allies.

The Trump administration denounces “hate speech” even as it excuses and downplays the Jan. 6 riots; pledges fiscal restraint while shoveling billions into surveillance, prisons, and domestic deployments; wraps itself in law-and-order while tolerating lawlessness by cronies; sermonizes about faith and morality while normalizing cruelty as governance; and peddles outrage over waste while spending lavishly on the trappings of office.

Rights are framed as absolute for friends and privileges for critics. That is the opposite of constitutional government, which holds everyone—especially those in power—to the same rule of law, applied evenly.

If the government can police ideas, deploy troops at home, run dragnets by algorithm, disappear people into distant prisons, build spectacle cages, and amass power in one office, then no American is safe—including those who cheer these efforts today.

If you believe in limited government, equal justice, and due process—whatever your party—these double standards should alarm you most, because the precedents being cheered today will be wielded against you tomorrow.

What follows is a running ledger of the gaslighting playbook and its constitutional costs.

The Gaslight: “We’re Restoring the Constitution.”
Reality: The “temporary” powers created after 9/11 have hardened into a permanent police-state architecture—Patriot Act surveillance, secret FISA processes and National Security Letters, DHS fusion centers, a diluted Fourth Amendment “border zone,” civil-asset forfeiture, Pentagon 1033 militarization, Real ID, facial-recognition and geofence warrants—now run at full throttle across administrations.
The Cost: A police state.

The Gaslight: “We Value Law and Order.”
Reality: The administration deployed Marines and the National Guard into American streets to police protests protected by the First Amendment. On September 2, 2025, a federal judge ruled that the administration’s deployment of thousands of Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles—ostensibly for immigration protests—violated the Posse Comitatus Act, describing a “top-down, systemic effort” to militarize civil law enforcement. The Constitution’s framers feared standing armies and military occupations of American communities.
The Cost: The death of Posse Comitatus.

The Gaslight: “We Defend Free Speech.”
Reality: Dissent is criminalized, expressive conduct is relitigated, and disfavored groups face terror labels and IRS pressure. Protest is a right, not a privilege, yet the government increasingly recasts organized dissent as conspiracy. After the Charlie Kirk shooting, the White House floated designating “antifa” and other liberal groups as domestic terrorists, bringing racketeering cases against funders, and targeting nonprofits critical of the administration—all while downplaying right-wing violence. Fold in Bondi’s vow to target “hateful” speech and Vance’s pledge to eradicate “leftist ideology,” and power slides from punishing unlawful acts to policing ideas.
The Cost: A weaponized First Amendment.

The Gaslight: “We’re Protecting You from Extremists.”
Reality: Watchlists without due process, elastic “material support” theories, politicized “extremism” labels, and donor targeting that treat journalists, whistleblowers, activists—even parents at school boards—as suspects first and citizens second. Speaking truth to power is reframed as a security risk. In free societies, the state fears the citizen; in unfree ones, the citizen fears the state.
The Cost: Dissent rebranded as extremism.

The Gaslight: “We’re Ending Federal Censorship.”
Reality: On Day One, the President signed an order to “end federal censorship.” Read closely, it asserts sweeping control over how agencies interact with media platforms and broadcasters, rebranding ordinary outreach and fact-checking as First Amendment violations, while positioning the Executive as referee of the private square. By centralizing power over the flow of information in the Executive Branch, it threatens the independence of the very private forums where Americans speak. The test of free speech is whether the government stays out of the marketplace of ideas—not whether it curates it to the President’s liking.
The Cost: The state as speech referee.

The Gaslight: “We Use Smart Tech, Not Dragnet Surveillance.”
Reality: The administration is fusing government databases and outsourcing “intelligence” to private vendors in such a way that data becomes the warrant. ICE’s new $30 million deal with Palantir to build “ImmigrationOS” promises to identify, track, and deport people using AI-driven analytics and cross-agency data sharing. Add in geofence warrants, face-scan dragnets, and fusion-center “suspicious activity” pipelines, and you get a domestic intelligence system that presumes guilt by data trail.
The Cost: Probable cause replaced by algorithms.

The Gaslight: “We’re Tough on Crime.”
Reality: This year, U.S. agencies financed the transfer of migrants to El Salvador’s mega-prison (CECOT), where families and lawyers lost contact with detainees for months. Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” detention site whetted the government’s appetite for scaled-up incarceration, converting state prisons into immigration jails nationwide. These attempts by the Trump administration constitute an end run around longstanding constitutional protections for anyone accused of a crime. The common denominator is spectacle over justice, expansion over restraint.
The Cost: The death of due process.

The Gaslight: “We’re Compassionate, Not Cruel.”
Reality: The push to clear homeless encampments combines criminalization with expanded involuntary commitments. A July 24, 2025 executive order encourages states to funnel people into institutions and mental-health courts, tying funding to “maximum” use of commitments—an end-run around the presumption of liberty that undergirds due process.
The Cost: Bureaucratic coercion over compassion.

The Gaslight: “We’re Streamlining Government.”
Reality: The separation of powers was intended to serve as a check against any one government agency becoming too powerful. Yet the administration has pressed an aggressive unitary-executive theory to encroach on independent agencies, such as the Federal Reserve. Scholars warn this could erase the independence of agencies designed to check the White House.
The Cost: Checks and balances gutted.

The Gaslight: “We’re Keeping America Safe Overseas.”
Reality: Killing by assassination, not authorization. Twice in recent months, U.S. forces have launched unannounced attacks on Venezuelan boats, killing crews without warning or due process, on the mere assertion that they were drug traffickers.
The Cost: War powers and judicial oversight bypassed.

The Gaslight: “We’re Fixing Wasteful Spending.”
Reality: Having poured billions into surveillance, prisons, and domestic deployments, the “police-state budget” unravels the economy while eroding liberty.
The Cost: A debt-funded police state.

Many who cherish ordered liberty, limited government, fiscal restraint, and constitutional morality would normally recoil at these tactics under any other administration, so why not now?

Principles should not change because the party in power has changed, and yet that’s exactly what continues to drive the double standard.

If there’s a constitutional scorecard, “we the people” are on the losing team right now.

The First Amendment is buckling as protest is chilled, expressive conduct is targeted, opponents are threatened with terror labels, and the Executive Branch expands control over the speech ecosystem.

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments have been weakened by AI surveillance and cross-agency fusion that normalize suspicionless tracking, while offshore detention and coerced commitments compromise due process.

The Eighth Amendment is mocked by harsh, theatrical detention regimes.

Federalism and the Tenth Amendment give way when federal troops step into local policing.

Separation of powers erodes as an inflated unitary-executive theory encroaches on independent agencies.

War powers are skirted by extrajudicial killings abroad. And fiscal responsibility is inverted as surveillance and prison appropriations swell while liberty contracts.

What must happen now?

Congress must codify guardrails against domestic military use—tighten Posse Comitatus, narrow Insurrection Act exceptions, and mandate transparency for any domestic mission. Courts and prosecutors should reaffirm expressive rights, rejecting end-runs around Texas v. Johnson and refusing cases that criminalize symbolism.

Lawmakers must impose bright-line limits on data fusion, bar cross-agency pooling for generalized surveillance, and require algorithmic transparency and adversarial testing before any tool touches liberty. The U.S. must prohibit outsourcing detention to abusive regimes, close loopholes, and apply human-rights scrutiny to every foreign arrangement.

The independence of watchdogs and the Fed needs protection through clear “for cause” standards. States and cities should decriminalize homelessness and fund housing-first approaches instead of coercive commitments.

Congress must reassert war powers, requiring explicit authorization before any attack abroad. And fiscal sanity must be restored: sunset emergency outlays for surveillance and prison build-outs, mandate GAO audits of domestic deployments and fusion contracts, and attach civil-liberties impact statements to major security spending.

Our job as citizens is not to trust the government but to bind it down with the Constitution. “In questions of power,” Thomas Jefferson warned, we must “bind [government] down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

Whatever you do, don’t trust the government with your privacy. Don’t trust it with your property: no-knock raids and forfeiture turn “private” property into whatever authorities permit you to keep.

Don’t trust it with your finances: Washington spends money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford. Don’t trust it with your life: force without accountability is not protection.

Above all, don’t trust it with your freedoms: on paper, rights endure; in practice, they are rationed by policy memos, watchlists, and shifting lines in the sand.

This should never be a right-vs-left debate; it’s the State vs. your liberty.

If you wouldn’t trust your worst political enemy with these weaponized tools, you shouldn’t trust your favorite politician with them either.

So think nationally, act locally.

Rebuild the habits of self-government where you live: know your neighbors and officials; know your rights and your city charter; ask who runs the jail and demand transparency; vet the people you entrust with power; and hold officials to account—show up, file requests, appeal, document, organize.

This is the work in front of us—not knee-jerk outrage, but persistent, consistent work to fortify the “chains of the Constitution.”

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we let emergency rule become ordinary rule—military troops as beat cops, protest as crime, data as warrant, assassination as policy, money as politics—there won’t be a Constitution left to defend.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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