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If you’re serious about emergency preparedness, one topic that should be on your radar is EMP-proof vehicles. An EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, can disrupt or even destroy electronic devices, leaving modern cars inoperable. Imagine cruising down the road when suddenly every electronic device in your car goes kaput—no more radio, no more navigation, and worst of all, no more engine.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the various phases of an EMP, like E1, E2, and E3, is important. Each phase has its own challenges and vulnerabilities, impacting electronic devices and infrastructure in distinct ways.
• EMPs can have catastrophic effects on modern vehicles, which are heavily reliant on electronic systems.
• EMP-proof vehicles incorporate essential features like Faraday cage protection, redundant systems, manual controls, shielded wiring, and simplified electronics.
• Modifying a vehicle for EMP resilience involves steps like installing Faraday cages, surge protectors, shielded wiring, and manual overrides.

This article explains what makes a vehicle EMP-proof, how to modify your ride for resilience, and the options available. By preparing your transportation to withstand EMPs, you ensure a key aspect of your readiness strategy remains intact, enabling you to maintain autonomy in the face of unpredictable threats.

Understanding EMP and Its Phases

An EMP stands for Electromagnetic Pulse. It’s a burst of electromagnetic radiation that can disrupt, damage, or destroy electronic devices and systems.

EMPs can be caused by natural events such as solar flares or by human-made devices like nuclear weapons detonated in the atmosphere.

The pulse can induce current and voltage surges in electronic circuits, damaging or destroying sensitive components such as microchips and transistors.

This disruption can have widespread effects on telecommunications, power grids, transportation systems, and other critical infrastructure.

The 3 Phases of EMPs

EMP events are often discussed in terms of three phases:

The E1 phase is the initial, extremely fast pulse of electromagnetic energy that occurs within nanoseconds after a nuclear detonation or other high-energy event.

This phase is characterized by its high intensity and ability to damage or destroy electronic components by inducing high voltages and currents. It primarily affects semiconductor devices like integrated circuits and transistors.

The E2 phase follows the E1 phase and typically lasts for microseconds to milliseconds. It consists of a slower pulse of electromagnetic energy, similar to a strong burst of lightning.

While the E2 phase is less intense than the E1 phase, it can still cause damage to electronic equipment, particularly power lines, and long conductors.

The E3 phase lasts from seconds to hours and results from the Earth’s magnetic field interacting with ionized particles from a nuclear explosion. It causes a geomagnetic storm effect, disrupting power grids and transmission lines.

Unlike the E1 and E2 phases, which directly affect electronic devices, the E3 phase focuses more on the power infrastructure itself.

To give you a better and clearer idea, here’s a table comparing the different phases of EMPs.

Comprehensive List of EMP Proof Vehicles

While a true “EMP-proof” vehicle might be a myth, understanding which ones are more resilient can be a game-changer in your preparedness plan. Here’s a breakdown of the different categories of vehicles known for their EMP resilience.

Military Vehicles with EMP Protection

Military vehicles are often designed with EMP protection in mind, incorporating features like Faraday cages, metal shielding, and EMP hardening initiatives.

These measures aim to ensure that the vehicles maintain operational integrity during an EMP attack.

Studies show that modern military vehicles with high electronic and electrical integration face significant threats from EMPs. Design strategies should enhance electromagnetic protection by configuring around electrical discontinuities like windows and gaps.

Notably, military vehicles like Humvees have undergone rigorous testing and include upgraded chassis and protection systems to withstand EMPs to a certain extent. However, they are not completely impervious to such threats.

Military vehicles are often designed with EMP protection due to the nature of modern warfare. Here are some key features of these robust machines:

1. HMMWV (Humvee): Designed with EMP resilience in mind, potentially including features that enhance their ability to function after an EMP event.
2. MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected): Due to their role in modern warfare, MRAP design might incorporate features that offer some degree of electromagnetic shielding. This could include strategic use of metal in the chassis or compartments housing critical systems.
3. JLTV (Joint Light Tactical Vehicle): The design of JLTVs may incorporate features that enhance their ability to function after an EMP event, potentially including some level of electromagnetic shielding and surge protection for critical systems.
4. Stryker Armored Vehicle:The design of Stryker vehicles likely prioritizes EMP resilience, potentially including hardened communication and control systems to improve their chances of functioning after an EMP event.
5. M1 Abrams Tank:  The M1 Abrams tank design likely prioritizes EMP resilience to protect critical electronic warfare systems and core operational controls, potentially including features that enhance their ability to function after an EMP event.

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The post The Ultimate Guide to EMP Proof Vehicles for an EMP Attack appeared first on LewRockwell.

What does it say about a society when its scholars turn increasingly to studies of the downfall of civilizations, the end of empires, the concept of human extinction, and even “existential risk”?  That scholarly attention in both Europe and America turned to something that was labeled “collapsology” in 2015, and an academic volume of Futures in January 2023 listed the existing literature on “societal collapse” as 361 peer-reviewed articles and 73 books since 2010? That the Wikipedia entry on “Existential Risk Studies” has 670,000 links?  And that JSTOR, the basic digital library of academic journals worldwide, in 2020 listed 66,809 results for articles on “human extinction”–and in 2025 listed 153,885.

I don’t know about you, but to me it suggests that a lot of smart folks are worrying about something the majority of people sense is in the deep background of life but most don’t want even to think about,  much less confront:  Western civilization, and perhaps the whole of the world, faces an imminent end, with one possibility being a tragedy so vast—nuclear warfare, global overheating, overwhelming disease pandemics—that it ends human life on earth.  And only scholars care.

One branch of this new wave of intellectual attention has been the study of the reasons for societal collapse, including a close study of the lifespan of empires and civilizations in the past.  One exhaustive search by Luke Kemp, a BBC correspondent and a professor at the Cambridge University—get this—Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, was published in 2019, and he found an average lifespan, of societies from the Akkadian empire of the 24th century BC down to the modern age, of 336 years.  It is very difficult to find an exact date for the “rise” of anything so complex as a civilization and often of its “fall,” though in the case of coinciding empires it is sometimes easier to find the date when one king or emperor comes to the throne and when the last such office existed, so such an exact figure must be taken as suggestive only.

That 336 figure suggests that underlying each civilization is an inherent fragility, and many scholars, following Joseph Tainter, whose definitive Collapse of Complex Societies came out in 1990, suggest that it is the inevitable complexity of such societies that leads to their fall.  Civilizations begin with an aggregation of traits, each with some complications, and as they develop they tend to create larger societies, more developed governments, greater bureaucracies, multiple armies, and still a wider array of problems, until the whole edifice begins to stretch and crack. Collapse, says Kemp, is “a normal phenomenon for civilizations, regardless of their size and shape,” and greater size is not a defense “against societal dissolution.”

Or, taken another way, there are inevitable limits to the growth of civilizations, and once those limits are passed—a condition modern ecologists call “overshoot”—there is no survival possible.  An interesting study on exactly those lines, Limits to Growth by a team of MIT scientists in 1972, showed by computer analysis that “if the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime in the next one hundred years,” probably around 2020—30.  An update by this group in 2004 found no reason to change this prediction—indeed, it argued that the case for overshoot was even stronger than before. Obviously there has been no change since then in humankind’s “growth trends,” so the limits are very near to being reached right now.

And how long do we have?  Well, that 336 years figure for the duration of civilizations doesn’t help us much.  In our society, what we may call Western civilization, 336 years ago was 1689,  not a very significant year for either European or American history, and nothing about it to suggest the beginning of a fixed society.  And if we regard our civilization as beginning in, say, the 16th century with the rise of nationhood, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the beginnings of capitalism, we overshot 336 years a century ago in the late 19th-century.  So that’s a meaningless number for us today.

It does suggest, however, a different number: the reformation began with the Lutherean theses in 1519; the high Renaissance may be dated from Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in 1512 and his Laurentian Chapel in 1525; nationalism may be dated to the battle of Pavia in 1525 creating the Spanish state and the simultaneous end of the Peasants’ War; Durer’s Course in the Art of Measurement in 1525, the first book on mathematics written (in German) for the general public; Durer in 1516 celebrated the rise of European scholarship with a copper engraving of Erasmus, “the Prince of Humanism”; and the first publication of Galen’s classical book on treating diseases was published by the Aldine Press in Venice in 1515.

Thus it can be fairly said that the modern European civilization of which we are the inheritors today began in the early 16th century—500 years ago.

That figure 500 has been taken by other scholars as  the general duration of civilizations, examples including the Ancient Egypt Old Kingdom, Minorca, Xia and Shang dynasties in China, Phoenicia, Etruscans, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, First Chera Empire in India, Early Chola Dynasty, and Parthian Empire.  That fits nicely with our civilization—and thus predicts the beginning of the collapse as probably already having occurred, and 2025 as a fitting year for its terminus.

Nor should that idea come as much of a surprise.  Look around: not a stable nation in the lot, some veering toward a right-wing patriotism yearning for the past, others  drowning their cultures in immigration, some in total collapse.  Not a single nation with any concept at all of how to deal with global overheating, scheduled to rise to life-threatening levels before this decade is out.  Not a one with a coherent, agreed-upon vision of the future that might give the rising generations a reason to hope—except maybe Trump’s dream of reliving the Eisenhower years.

January starts with an absolutely devastating Los Angeles fire, a perfect symbol of collapse, and possibly itself a trigger to economic disasters elsewhere, while much of the rest of the country is in record freezing temperatures. (Some say the earth will end in fire, some say in ice.) Many of us will survive, in a withered world, but we might begin to prepare now for new lives in new ways, and perhaps with more humility, community, and faith.

The post Are We Nearing the End? appeared first on LewRockwell.

If we study the problems outside the force-field of mythological beliefs, we find that there are no systemic solutions, there are only partial, local solutions.

The status quo rests on a foundational belief that all problems, regardless of their nature, can be solved by technology, the market or the government (i.e. the state), or some combination of these three.

Which one is the paramount solution depends on the specifics of the problem, of course, but what’s proposed as a solution also depends on which of the three has gained our primary loyalty: to true believers in technology, there’s always a tech fix. To true believers in the market, unleashing the market will fix any problem. To true believers in the power of the state, the Savior State is always the go-to solution.

These solutions transform from practical toolboxes into mythologies when they become simplified belief structures, in effect articles of faith populated with heathens, heretics, true believers, taboos and excommunication. The limits of each toolbox are set aside in favor of a belief in the unlimited magical powers of the tools.

We know we’ve entered the realm of mythologies when expressing doubts about the efficacy of tech, the market or the state unleashes an infuriated indignation that the gods of tech, the market and the state are being questioned, even as the proof of their powers are everywhere.

The difference between a toolbox and a mythology is every tool has limits, where mythology has no limits. If we’re trying to drive nails with a handsaw, we’re not going to find much success. We’re forced to admit the tool isn’t going to solve the problem.

But once we’re embedded in a mythological structure, then we see play-acting as a legitimate solution. So a diesel-fueled robot that roams the fields zapping weeds with lasers is the “solution” to food insecurity. See, there’s a tech solution to every problem. But the robot–AI!–can’t make it rain, or stop the windstorm that destroyed the harvest, or nurture the depleted soil. The robot is a phantom solution, a “solution” that meets the requirements of the mythology–there must be a tech solution–but doesn’t actually solve the problem of food insecurity, which is complex, structural and systemic.

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The post What If Tech, the Market and the State Are No Longer Solutions? appeared first on LewRockwell.

American security agencies have long used the cloak of national security to avoid accountability for their crimes, such as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and the numerous assassinations of foreign leaders and screw-ups.  Beginning with the Clinton regime, presidents and non-security appointees also began escaping accountability. The situation worsened in the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney regime, and it exploded in the Biden regime with the Attorney General, FBI, and Democrat state attorneys general and prosecutors using law as a weapon against Trump, his attorneys, and his supporters.  Many people were ruined financially.  Many were falsely imprisoned, and Trump himself had his reelection in 2020 stolen by the most brazen and obvious vote theft in American history. The evidence is clear that Biden himself is guilty of selling vice presidential and presidential influence with his son, Hunter, being the marketer and sharing the revenues.  Yet the US Department of Justice prevented any investigation and indictments  The whore American media covered up the story.

The practice of elevating high office holders to the privileged status of a king or an aristocracy above both the law and the US Constitution must not continue in the Trump regime.  If it does, high officials will have gained squatters’ rights in being above the law, and the US Constitution will be reduced to a dead document.

At this point, the only way a collapse of the rule of law in the US can be avoided is for the Trump regime to relentless prosecute the Department of Justice, FBI, and White House officials who selectively applied law in the form of lawfare against political opponents.  If those responsible avoid accountability, a legal precedent will have been established, and the differential rights and status based on race and gender that are already in place will be joined by special legal privileges for high government officials.  It would mean the end of any possibility of accountable government.

This should be the highest priority of the Trump regime.  It is even more important than closing the border.

On the war front Trump should simply walk away from conflict with Iran and Russia.  Wars distract from domestic matters and will prevent focus on making America great again. Wars will bring more propaganda about “terrorists” and more infringements of US civil liberty, which is not a path to making America great again. There is no reason whatsoever for American blood, taxpayers’ money, and more issuance of US debt in order to enrich the coffers of the military/security complex and to expand the frontier of Greater Israel. Trump should come to the realization that Israel is of no value to America.  Israel is a deadweight burden around our necks, and the unconditional American support for Israel’s wars and genocide of the Palestinians has cost America’s reputation hugely. If America ever had a moral luster, it no longer does.

Iran and Russia do not threaten the US. The Middle East is full of problems for Iran, whose government doesn’t need problems with the US.  Ukraine is Russia’s problem, not ours.  Washington is responsible for the conflict. Trump should apologize and remove us from the conflict.

The minute Trump stops sending money and weapons to Ukraine and Israel, peace will descend on the world. 

Trump should return to his original position that NATO is of no value to America. If NATO did not exist, Russia and Europe would be engaged in mutually beneficial economic ventures. These ventures would create financing and business opportunities also for Americans. All would prosper. It is Washington’s pursuit of hegemony–the control over others–that is suppressing economic activity worldwide and  eroding the living standard of all Americans except the top one percent. MAGA America has no interest in the agendas of special interest lobby group policies that benefit only a tiny percentage of people who are already so rich that they can’t possibly spend their huge amount of income and wealth.

The problems of the world originate in Washington and they are institutionalized in the Israel Lobby, the military/security complex, Big Pharma and its control over high cost and ineffective American medicine that sacrifices Americans’ health and the integrity of doctors to Big Pharma’s profits. These are the real threats to America that if America is again to be great, these threats, not Russia and Iran, must be destroyed and eliminated.

If the Trump regime can reestablish the respect for a rule of law by indicting and prosecuting DOJ, FBI, and other officials for their criminal behavior, and if Trump can disengage the US/Israeli war machine, he will have saved the world from nuclear war and re-established the United States as the principal nation to whom the world looks for leadership.

My concern is that Trump will love the war role. As Winston Churchill believed, there is nothing more exciting than being a war leader, especially if you imagine prospects of winning. Trump is extremely susceptible to getting into war based on advice that Putin has no red lines because Putin is too  fearful of conflict. With Iran’s isolation from the destruction of Syria and a reformist government that wants to be free of religious restrictions and to make money in the West, Trump is being advised it is time to bring Iran down. See here.

When the Ruling Elite have you blocked elsewhere, their agenda becomes your only choice. Has Trump fought so hard only for the sake of being used by the well-institutionalized American Establishment?

The third thing Trump should immediately do is to shut down the US biowarfare labs Washington is operating all over the world. These labs are trying to create deadly pathogens that are highly contagious. The labs are even attempting to target the pathogens at specific ethnicities, collecting, for example, Russian DNA in the hopes of finding some material unique to Russians to which to attach the pathogen.  These American labs are all illegal. Washington tries to avoid responsibility by locating its biowarfare labs in other countries.  Trump should put an immediate halt to the activity and prosecute those responsible, including the US Congress if Congress authorized this illegal activity.

Those who profit from this evil activity claim that we have to do it because our enemies do it, but they never provide any documentation for their claim. Regardless, as the Covid experience proves, when a pathogen is released it goes everywhere. To use one as a weapon results in the same self-destruction as nuclear war.

So much of science is committed to weapons. Science needs to be turned back to improving health and the human condition.

If Trump can deal with the real challenges that we face instead of being led off to fake challenges serving special interests, he will go down as the greatest American president in history.

The post What Trump Should Do appeared first on LewRockwell.

So there I was, making a loaf of my world-famous jalapeño cheddar bread, when an unusual thought occurred to me. Well, unusual for some folks, but not really for me, per se.

Here’s what I was thinking: At 115 feet long and weighing 100 tons, how did Argentinosaurus not crush itself under its own weight, especially with pneumatised (hollow) bones? More importantly, how did a creature that big get away from predators? Run? Swim? Jump? It’s fossils aren’t connected to particularly wet areas, so it wasn’t a floater, like a bored college student at the pool on spring break. Besides, to maintain that mass, it had to eat more or less constantly.

“Wow,” you say, “he thought all that while making bread?” Well, yeah, kneading is a long, tedious process that doesn’t require much brain power.

Then another unusual thought occurred to me, and this time it was unusual even for me.

Here’s what I was thinking: Suppose 100 million years ago, the Earth was smaller and thus gravity was greatly reduced, thus huge land animals didn’t weigh then what they would now? Suppose the continents don’t “float” like slag on a molten sea, but rather are ripped apart by an expanding planet?

If you’re starting to see the connection with making bread, give yourself a gold star, and then consult a therapist.

Here’s what started it all: I was reading this article about how Earth’s interior is all lumpy and bubbly, kind of like those old lava lamps that hippie chicks always had on a table in the corner next to the incense burner and patchouli oil.

I’ve also been monitoring the earthquake swarm in Ethiopia, along the Great Rift where the Horn of Africa is tearing away from the continent. This, of course, is tangential to Earth’s weakening magnetic field and impending pole flip, allowing greatly increased amounts of cosmic radiation through, and allowing the solar “wind” to strip away the ozone layer (not CFCs).

Which brings me back to the bread.

When I first finish the dough, it’s a tight ball about the size of a softball. After an hour or so, it’s a soft mushy blob twice its original size. It’s not a perfect metaphor, because the bread isn’t adding mass, just blowing up like a balloon.

With the Earth, however, that flood of cosmic radiation lets tons of protons and electrons and neutrinos plow into the ground. The neutrinos mostly pass right through at relativistic speeds, but some strike random atoms and convert from energy into matter. All of this is adding mass to the Earth, albeit a miniscule amount relative to a human lifetime, but over (cue Carl Sagan) millions and millions of years, it adds up.

Suppose, I mused, the continents don’t drift, but are rather pulled apart by a swelling planet? Suppose it wasn’t an asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, but increasing gravity crushing them? Suppose those blobs and bubbles the scientidiots have “just discovered,” despite decades of mapping the planet’s interior with sound waves, are new structures indicating that the weakening magnetic field is allowing in more radiation, which is increasing the matter that makes up the planet?

And why does the smell of yeast always make me crave a high-quality brewed beverage?

Oh sure, there’s a constant rain of cosmic dust falling on us all the time. About 80% of the dust in your house is your own skin flakes, but some amount of it is star ashes. Stuff falling on the surface wouldn’t cause the tectonic plates to separate, though. That would have to be new material deep inside causing the planet to swell, similar to the way yeast farts cause dough to swell.

Is there any other indication that the Earth is swelling? Well…

Imagine a bowling ball sliding down the alley doing its back or side spin. As the ball goes along it swells, adding weight and girth. What happens to the spin? Well, it slows down, right? it’s all laws of physics type stuff; trust me it’s true.

Well, guess what? The Earth’s rotation is slowing by 1.7 milliseconds a century, just like our bowling ball. It’s happening on Venus too, though Mars is spinning faster. There’s obviously other factors involved, but our situation here on Earth lines up with other observed phenomena that indicate a swelling planet.

Now I don’t claim to have special insight here, but the pieces seem to line up in a way that makes sense and views the planet as a holistic system, rather than isolated events. Besides, I don’t trust scientidiots. Their heads are buried so deep in their navels all they see is lint.

Taking just one of the scientidiot gospels about plate tectonics, if the Earth isn’t swelling, what would cause the plates to move in the first place? If you blow up a balloon and cover it in plaster, the plaster doesn’t suddenly start shifting around. But if you add more air, cracks form and the pieces start separating, right?

If a bunch of enormous animals roamed the Earth millions of years ago, then suddenly (geologically speaking) all died out and the biggest thing we have now is an elephant, it seems increasing gravity could have a lot to do with that.

Just sayin’.

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The post Of Bread and Planets appeared first on LewRockwell.

International Man: President Trump has openly voiced his interest in having the US government take control of the Panama Canal.

He has even suggested that he wouldn’t rule out using military force to make it happen.

What is going on here?

Doug Casey: Panama, like most countries, is an artificial construct; it’s not part of the cosmic firmament. It came into being when it seceded from Colombia in 1903, midwifed by US intervention. That was a “good” secession, unlike that of the Donbas from the Ukraine in 2014 or the South from the Union in 1861, which everyone knows were “bad” secessions.

The US then bought the Zone (5 miles on either side of the proposed canal) from Panama for $10 million, which was 500,000 ounces of gold. That impresses me as a fair price, considering it was an undeveloped fever-ridden jungle at the time and that gold is worth nearly $1.5 billion today. Another $40 million (2,000,000 ounces) was paid to buy out the previous French developer. In those days the US still—sometimes—dealt with a measure of honor and propriety. Then, another $350 million (17.5 million ounces) was spent to build the canal itself.

It makes sense to think in terms of gold since that was money then. It was the largest US investment in history up to that time. Be that as it may, creating Panama enabled the US to build the canal—to the great advantage of all concerned.

Anyway, the canal now supposedly yields $3 billion (+/- 1,000,000 ounces) of profit on about $5 billion of gross receipts per year. It’s not a giant money machine in today’s context.

Panama has been de facto US territory and the Canal Zone de jure US territory, fair and square, from the get-go. Until Jimmy Carter “sold” the Zone to Panama in 1977 (for a token $1) because he felt it was the right thing to do. I disagree, but everybody’s got an opinion. Since then, the Panamanians have run the canal competently and greatly improved it.

Perhaps we should just forget about the legalisms. Central America has been under the thumb of the US since at least the days of William Walker, who nearly succeeded in singlehandedly conquering most of the region in the 1850’s. USMC Gen. Smedley Butler spent the best part of his career acting as an enforcer when Central American cuadillos got uppity. And, most recently, the US invaded Panama in 1989 to depose long-time CIA stooge Manuel Noriega, killing several thousand Panamanians as collateral damage.

One annoying element of the current kerfuffle is the way Trump keeps saying the Panamanians are “ripping off” the US. I’m unsure how he’s jumped to that conclusion since, thanks to the Jones Act, almost zero US-flagged ships exist to “rip off.” All ships pay the same prices for passage, regardless of nationality, except for US Naval vessels, which pay nothing. Apart from that, Canal fees have risen much less than inflation since Panama took over.

The big question here is to what degree one nation-state can repossess or conquer real estate that may belong to another. Revanchism has been a consistent casus belli throughout history. The Argentines with the Falklands. The Moslems and the Jews with Palestine. The Suez Crisis in 1956 when Egypt took that Canal away from the UK and France.

Should Mexico try to repossess the American Southwest, which the Americans conquered in 1848? Should France try to repossess the Louisiana Purchase because they think it was sold too cheaply? Should Russia take back Alaska for the same reason?

Does the nationality of an asset like the canal make any difference? Or is it important that it’s operated competently and peaceably? It was weak and stupid of Carter to have given the Zone to Panama. But it’s dishonorable and stupid of Trump to threaten a theft.

International Man: Trump has also taken significant steps toward Greenland, a strategically important Arctic territory.

Why is Trump so focused on Greenland?

Doug Casey: Governments love to use the word “strategic.” It’s a magic word. Everything is strategic when they want something.

The island is quite an anomaly, bigger than Alaska and California combined, but with only 47,000 people, 90% of whom are “real” natives. I understand there’s something of a race problem, though, despite the fact the natives are a large majority. The “real” natives apparently have an animus against those of European descent, even if they were born in Greenland. And even though it costs Copenhagen about $10,000 per person per year to maintain the place. It would appear Greenland is a $500 million annual drain on the Danish treasury.

Does Greenland have mineral wealth? Of course. But so does Alaska, with a vastly better climate, vastly more development, 500,000 people, and a cornucopia of all types of minerals. Fun fact: Mineral production is greatly overrated as a source of wealth.

As for “strategic” things, during the Afghanistan war, strategic thinkers thought “we” should take it over because someone said it had $3 trillion of minerals. Similar numbers are pulled out of thin air for Greenland, but they’re meaningless for a dozen different reasons. The theoretical value of minerals in the ground is meaningless. What counts is the cost and possible profitability—or not—of recovering them.

One thing they’re not considering is who now owns Greenland. It’s not the Danish government. My understanding is that the island is owned in common by the natives—not just the vast icefields but even the land under everyone’s house. It’s a very tribal and communal society. Washington is not likely to respect that.

Greenland should declare independence. This might incentivize the natives to deploy their asset in the most economic way. Perhaps becoming an Arctic version of the Caymans or Singapore, buttressed by some theoretically valuable real estate. Becoming part of the US would most likely turn them into welfare recipients, a colder version of Puerto Rico—a lose-lose for both parties.

International Man: Trump has also proposed making Canada the 51st state, even going as far as threatening to use “economic force” to achieve this.

What’s your take on this?

Doug Casey: The Donald has a quirky sense of humor, something I’ve always liked about him. Maybe he’s just letting loose his comic instincts. However, jesting about an Anschluss with other people’s property isn’t a clever negotiating technique. In today’s world, it’s very dangerous. Could it be grounds for removal under the 25th Amendment?

This calls to mind what Thucydides said in his tome on the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians decided to teach the island of Milos a lesson for not actively supporting them against the Spartans. They invaded and destroyed the city, justifying it by saying: “The powerful do what they wish, and the weak suffer what they must.” It’s not a good look or a good model for the US.

But would Canada be better off if it merged with the US?

The cultures of Canada and the US are very similar. The big difference lies in the nature of their governments. Both are poorly run, bankrupt, and far from their founding principles.

That said, it’s arguable Canada would gain tremendously. The country has a per capita GDP of only 2/3rds that of the US, and it’s much more highly taxed and regulated. Merging them would only create an even more dysfunctional and “diverse” US.

The best solution for Canada is to split up, starting with Quebec. It’s not just that the province is culturally French and alien to the rest of the country; it has long been an economic drain. In fact, all the provinces would do better, becoming independent countries. Alberta has made noises in that direction for years. Newfoundland only joined Canada in 1949 to become a large net welfare recipient and the butt of Newfie jokes. They climbed aboard a sinking ship when they should have manned a lifeboat.

The real problem is that Canada is much more left-leaning than the US. If, heaven forbid, Trump somehow merged the two countries, it would only guarantee that leftists would control the US forever after. It would be a disaster for the US.

International Man: The idea of merging the US, Canada, and Mexico was once dismissed as a nefarious globalist scheme to centralize power, erode US sovereignty, and pave the way for a global government.

Trump has rebranded this concept, and many who once opposed it are now cheering it on.

Is globalism wrapped in a MAGA package still globalism?

Doug Casey: Apart from the fact that the world would be better off with many more microstates, not just a few megastates (or MAGAstates), it’s further proof that Trump has no philosophical core, and the US government is “on tilt.” That’s said of an incompetent, out-of-control gambler who keeps doubling his bets in the hope of somehow breaking even. The US is irredeemably bankrupt, controlled by an entrenched and deeply corrupt Deep State which operates for its own benefit, not the country as a whole.

I’m afraid the US is like a star about to go supernova, in collapse after burning its fuel. Or a dinosaur thrashing around in its death throes. It’s become a bankrupt multicultural domestic empire. Contrary to what Trump seems to think, it can’t solve its problems by expanding and taking over more territory.

That will only create more chaos.

International Man: What are the overall investment implications of Trump’s geopolitical strategy?

Doug Casey: We’re in for tough times. But, as always, I like to look at the bright side… namely that Harris and the Jacobins aren’t returning to office next week. On the dark side, Trump is starting to prove himself a megalomaniac. A bull in a China shop. A loose cannon. But, going back to the bright side, maybe this will have the effect of delegitimizing the US government, which is rotten to its core.

The average American has forgotten that his real enemy aren’t some motley foreigners on the other side of the globe—it’s his own government.

If Trump breaks some Deep State rice bowls, that’s great. I wish him, via Elon and Vivek, great success. Although success is a longshot bet. But what if Trump goes megalomaniacally wild and creates international chaos—in addition to what he may do in the Middle East or the Ukraine?

Washing away rotten foundations is both good and necessary. The problem is that a sound replacement foundation doesn’t exist on which to rebuild things because the basics of American society have been washed away as well.

I think we’re looking at potential chaos over the next four years, and then, when the Republicans are kicked out of office, it will get even worse. Truly rabid Democrats will take power as “our democracy” begs for a new father figure or Big Brother to kiss the situation and make it better.

So, as Lenin said, “What is to be done?”

With grossly overpriced stock, bond, and real estate markets, and a fiat currency heading towards its intrinsic value, it makes sense to own gold, silver, other underpriced commodities, and, of course, some speculations in the companies that produce them.

Reprinted with permission from International Man,

The post Trump’s Geopolitical Strategy (or Lack Thereof) in Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal appeared first on LewRockwell.

Possibly one of the most inane phrases ever uttered about modern governments is Oliver Wendell Holmes’s oft-quoted phrase stating that “taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

This reflected the naïve view, often pushed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, of the so-called “social contract.” According to this idea, we pay taxes, and in return the state provides order, protection, and all the blessings of civilization.

Presumably included among all those taxpayer-funded civilizational “services” provided by governments one can find “fire suppression.” But, you wouldn’t know it from watching tens of thousands of residents flee their homes in southern California and Los Angeles County as fires rage. As of Wednesday at midday, five different fires in southern California are still zero-percent contained. Nor is this some hard-to-reach rural area with few roads and little infrastructure. These fires are right in the middle of suburban cities and towns. Yet, it is all apparently too much for lavishly-funded government agencies to handle.

Indeed, government authorities in Los Angeles County and California had neglected infrastructure to the point that it became useless in many areas in terms of battling the blazes. In the early hours of the Palisades fire, firefighters found themselves hamstrung by a lack of water from fire hydrants. In spite of years of warning about the growing threat of fires in the region, California bureaucrats couldn’t be bothered with upgrading the water system to ensure reliable water supply and pressure in case of a major fire.

Since 2022, California firefighters have been bragging that they’ve been sending fire suppression equipement to Ukraine. This wasn’t paid for by firefighters, of course. It was funded by the taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the mayor of the City of Los Angeles—who is paid more than $300,000 per year—is on a taxpayer-funded trip to Ghana to attend the inauguration of the new president of that west African country. What possible benefit this could bring to ordinary people in Los Angeles remains a mystery, but residents are certainly paying for what is essentially a vacation for the mayor.

Before she left for her vacation, however, the mayor supported large budget cuts to fire suppression services, as well as to other basic services like sanitation and public works. This was necessitated by the city’s budget crisis stemming from years of waste, mismanagement, and legal settlements. In 2024, the city owes $47 million to residents who have sustained injuries from the city’s crumbling infrastructure and police incompetence.

Is all this failing infrastructure a result of cuts to taxes in the city? Of course not. Taxes in Los Angeles are among the highest in the nation. And, all of that is on top of California’s debilitating income taxes which include the highest progressive state income taxes. California has the highest tax burden in the nation.

Moreover, it’s hard to hire sufficient fire suppression workers when unionized firefighters earn outrageously inflated government salaries. As The Daily Mail reported in 2024, the LA fire captain Jason Getchius earned $823,000 in 2023. In California is it not unusual to find government employees earning mid-six-figures by milking the government overtime system.

The police are notorious for doing this as well. Naturally, these enormous salaries for police don’t translate into low crime rates.

The woman in charge of water and public works in Los Angeles, Janisse Quinones, makes at least $750,000. Like most government officials, her salary does not correlate with her competence.

This is the real reason we pay taxes: to keep the ruling class (high ranking officials) and the larger parasite class (government employees and government contractors) living lifestyles of relative opulence and ease while private sector workers toil to produce all the real wealth. If it seems worse in California it’s because the grift is at a far more advanced stage there. For example, government services like fire suppression and infrastructure are cut in order to fund lavish pensions for state employees. This is true in many states, but it’s especially bad in California.

Dry fire hydrants. Millionaire firemen. High crime. Crumbling infrastructure. Is this that “civilization” that Oliver Wendell Holmes was talking about? Possibly. Contra the clueless Holmes, however, taxes are definitely not the price we pay for civilization. If anything, taxes destroy civilization by funneling resources to extractive state organs which work primarily to enrich themselves and the ruling oligarchy.

And why should ordinary people expect any real services in exchange for all those enormous taxes they pay, year after year? They shouldn’t. The state looks out for the state and its closest friends. It doesn’t look out for the people who pay the bills, except on occasion and by accident in pursuit of some good public relations. Instead, state organizations like the City of Los Angeles will spend endless hours and mountains of resources on rewarding politically connected interest groups and on endless meetings about micro-aggressions and diversity hires and on censoring critics. Fighting fires? That’s a mere afterthought.

The post The LA Fires: The ‘Social Contract’ Is Nonsense, and No One Is Coming to Save You appeared first on LewRockwell.

“Rudolf Jung was an early National Socialist who wrote the first book on the movement (six years before Mein Kampf). He not only reveals the origins of the National Socialist movement, but he also shapes Hitler’s views and spells out their views and what they were trying to achieve. Jung wanted to be known as the ‘Karl Marx’ of National Socialism. In this video, we’ll take a look at Rudolf Jung’s life and book and see what we can learn from this.”

This is a fascinating and illuminating presentation on the early roots of the National Socialist movement and the seminal impactful influence of Rudolf Jung upon Hitler. After over 100 years, we are only now beginning to fully grasp the malignant origins this of deadly ideology, in order to understand its consequential impact in the Second World War, the later aspect of the Thirty Years War of the Twentieth Century.

The post Rudolf Jung – the Karl Marx of Hitler’s National Socialism? appeared first on LewRockwell.

I speak of course of Netanyahoo and his American “allies,” not Putin.

The post He Must be Stopped Before He Invades Even More Countries appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Gail Appel:

Trump knows how to get it done. Nor would this have happened under his watch.

With all the grief he’s gotten about his “ lack of diplomacy”, how well has the “diplomacy” of his predecessors worked out? They start wars. He ends them.

The post Trump says Israel, Hamas ‘very close’ to reaching hostage deal, ‘there’s been a handshake’ appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes David Martin:

Extremist Israeli settler leaders invited as ‘special guests’ to Trump inauguration

These are the people we’re talking about: Grasping Bastards

The post Holy Genocide, Batman! appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Gail Appel:

Ignominious , malicious ba…d. Pity he’s not leaving the White House in a prisoner transport bus.

The post Biden Imposes New Sanctions On Russia In Move To Complicate Trump’s Peace Efforts appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Will Marco Rubio Be Trump’s Blinken? appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Gail Appel:

Ft. Detrick sound familiar? Remember  the stolen, weaponized anthrax? Operation Dark Winter? Fauci, Mueller, Cheney, Rumsfeld ?

The post Let’s be blunt: the US Government collected the closest progenitor to SARS2 appeared first on LewRockwell.

I was not aware that the State of California takes in $220 billion a year in taxes (starting at around 18:30). The next nearest state in tax income is New York, with $100 billion. The government of California pisses away this tax money. There is NO excuse for cutting the funding for fire and police protection in California. There’s no excuse for our lousy roads and highways. Our crummy airports, hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure. The politicians and bureaucrats piss away our tax money. It’s infuriating!

The post LA Fires appeared first on LewRockwell.

Please watch (at least) the first 53 seconds of this interview, HERE.

For more information on how to Ground yourself indoors during these winter months please go to Earthing.com

To do a deeper dive on the research please go to EarthingInstitute.net

There, go to the Menu, BASICS and then the submenu, GETTING STARTED.

Highly Recommended

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Thanks, Johnny Kramer. 

The post LA Fires Emergency Podcast appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click here:

The Guardian

The post Israel admits soldiers used ambulance in raid on refugee camp appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Saleh Abdullah. 

War Room

The post External Revenue Service Discussed – Stephen K Bannon’s War Room appeared first on LewRockwell.

Writes Tim McGraw :

I’m fed up with the bastards and bitches in power. They need to go. Sure, more evil will come soon enough and replace them with new sociopaths. But let’s get rid of this batch first. I’m tired of looking at them. Hearing them. Paying their salaries.

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