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Oscar Grau explains why “Javier Milei is a Neocon.”

The post A “Warmongering Zionist Neocon” Masquerading as a Libertarian 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 è 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 è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

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(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/il-93-di-tutti-i-bitcoin-e-gia-stato)

A maggio 2025 erano stati minati circa 19,6 milioni di bitcoin, pari a circa il 93,3% dell'offerta totale. Restano quindi circa 1,4 milioni di BTC ancora da minare e le coin rimanenti saranno minate molto lentamente.

La ragione di questa distribuzione irregolare è il programma di emissione esponenziale di Bitcoin, regolato da un evento chiamato “halving”. Quando Bitcoin è stato lanciato nel 2009, la ricompensa per ogni blocco era di 50 BTC. Ogni 210.000 blocchi, ovvero circa ogni quattro anni, tale ricompensa viene dimezzata.

Poiché le ricompense iniziali erano così elevate, entro la fine del 2020 era stato minato oltre l'87% dell'offerta totale. Ogni successivo dimezzamento riduce drasticamente il ritmo di nuove emissioni, il che significa che ci vorrà più di un secolo per minare il restante 6,7%.

Secondo le stime attuali il 99% di tutti i bitcoin sarà stato minato entro il 2035, ma la frazione finale, ovvero gli ultimi satoshi, non sarà minata prima del 2140 circa, a causa della natura della riduzione geometrica delle ricompense.

Questa scarsità progettata, unita a un limite immutabile all'offerta, è ciò che porta Bitcoin a paragonarsi a materie prime come l'oro. Ma Bitcoin è ancora più prevedibile: l'offerta di oro cresce di circa l'1,7% annuo, mentre il tasso di emissione di Bitcoin è in palese calo.

Lo sapevate? La curva di offerta di Bitcoin non è terminale nel senso tradizionale del termine. Segue una traiettoria asintotica – una sorta di paradosso economico di Zenone – in cui le ricompense diminuiscono indefinitamente ma non raggiungono mai veramente lo zero. Il mining continuerà fino al 2140 circa, data entro la quale sarà stato emesso oltre il 99,999% dei 21 milioni di BTC totali.

Oltre il limite dell'offerta: come le coin perse rendono Bitcoin più raro di quanto pensate

Sebbene oltre il 93% della riserva totale di Bitcoin sia stata minata, ciò non significa che sia tutta disponibile. Una parte significativa è definitivamente fuori circolazione, persa a causa di password dimenticate, wallet smarriti, hard disk distrutti o utenti pionieri che non hanno più toccato le loro coin.

Stime di aziende come Chainalysis e Glassnode suggeriscono che tra i 3 e i 3,8 milioni di BTC – circa il 14-18% dell'offerta totale – siano probabilmente andati perduti per sempre. Tra questi, anche indirizzi dormienti di alto profilo come quello che si ritiene appartenga a Satoshi Nakamoto, che da solo detiene oltre 1,1 milioni di BTC.

Ciò significa che l'offerta circolante di bitcoin potrebbe essere più vicina a 16-17 milioni, non a 21 milioni. E poiché Bitcoin è progettato per essere irrecuperabile, qualsiasi coin persa rimane persa, riducendone permanentemente l'offerta nel tempo.

Ora confrontatelo con l'oro. Circa l'85% dell'oro totale disponibile a livello mondiale è stato estratto – circa 216.265 tonnellate, secondo il World Gold Council – ma quasi tutto rimane in circolazione o conservato in caveau, gioielli, ETF e banche centrali. L'oro può essere rifuso e riutilizzato; Bitcoin non può essere ripristinato una volta perso l'accesso.

Questa distinzione conferisce a Bitcoin una sorta di scarsità crescente, un'offerta che non solo smette di crescere nel tempo, ma si riduce silenziosamente.

Man mano che maturerà, Bitcoin entrerà in una fase monetaria simile a quella dell'oro: bassa emissione, alta concentrazione dei detentori e crescente sensibilità alla domanda. Ma Bitcoin si spinge oltre: il suo limite di offerta è rigido, il suo tasso di perdita è permanente e la sua distribuzione è pubblicamente verificabile.

Ciò può portare a diversi risultati:

• Aumento della volatilità dei prezzi poiché l'offerta disponibile diventa più limitata e sensibile alla domanda del mercato;

• Maggiore concentrazione del valore a lungo termine nelle mani di coloro che rimangono attivi e sicuri nella gestione delle proprie risorse chiave;

• Un premio sulla liquidità, in cui i BTC spendibili vengono scambiati a un valore effettivo più alto rispetto all'offerta dormiente.

In casi estremi ciò potrebbe produrre una biforcazione tra “BTC circolanti” e “BTC irraggiungibili”, con i primi che acquisirebbero maggiore importanza economica, in particolare in periodi di liquidità di scambio limitata o di stress macroeconomico.

Cosa succede quando tutti i bitcoin verranno minati?

C'è un'ipotesi diffusa secondo cui, con la riduzione delle ricompense per blocco di Bitcoin, la sicurezza della rete finirà per risentirne. Ma in pratica, l'economia del mining è molto più adattabile e resiliente.

Gli incentivi al mining di Bitcoin sono regolati da un ciclo di feedback autocorrettivo: se diventa non redditizio, i miner abbandonano la rete, il che a sua volta innesca un aggiustamento della difficoltà. Ogni 2.016 blocchi (circa ogni due settimane), la rete ricalibra la difficoltà utilizzando un parametro noto come nBit. L'obiettivo è mantenere i tempi di blocco stabili intorno ai 10 minuti, indipendentemente dal numero di miner in competizione.

Quindi se il prezzo di Bitcoin scende, o la ricompensa diventa troppo bassa rispetto ai costi operativi, i miner inefficienti escono di scena. Questo fa sì che la difficolta diminuisca, riducendo i costi per chi rimane. Il risultato è un sistema che si riequilibra continuamente, allineando la partecipazione alla rete agli incentivi disponibili.

Questo meccanismo è già stato testato su larga scala. Dopo che la Cina ha vietato il mining a metà del 2021, l'hashrate globale di Bitcoin è diminuito di oltre il 50% nel giro di poche settimane. Ciononostante la rete ha continuato a funzionare senza interruzioni e, nel giro di pochi mesi, l'hashrate si è completamente ripreso, con la ripresa delle operazioni dei miner in giurisdizioni con costi energetici inferiori e normative più favorevoli.

Fondamentalmente l'idea che ricompense inferiori possano minacciare la sicurezza della rete trascura il fatto che il mining sia legato ai margini di profitto, non alle quantità nominali di BTC. Finché il prezzo di mercato sosterrà il costo dell'hashpower – anche a 0,78125 BTC per blocco (dopo l'halving del 2028) o inferiore – i miner continueranno a proteggere la rete.

In altre parole, non è la ricompensa assoluta che conta, ma se il mining rimane redditizio rispetto ai costi. E, grazie alla regolazione integrata della difficoltà di Bitcoin, di solito lo è.

Anche tra un secolo, quando la ricompensa per blocco si avvicinerà allo zero, la rete sarà ancora protetta da combinazioni tra commissioni, incentivi di base ed efficienza infrastrutturale esistente in quel momento. Ma questa è una preoccupazione lontana. Nel frattempo il sistema attuale –  l'hashrate si aggiusta, la difficoltà si ribilancia, i miner si adattano – rimane uno degli elementi più solidi della progettazione di Bitcoin.

Lo sapevate? Il 20 aprile 2024, in seguito al lancio del protocollo Runes, i miner di Bitcoin hanno guadagnato oltre $80 milioni in commissioni di transazione in un solo giorno, superando i $26 milioni guadagnati con le ricompense per blocco. Questa è stata la prima volta nella storia di Bitcoin che le sole commissioni di transazione hanno superato il sussidio per blocco nelle entrate giornaliere dei miner.

Il futuro del mining di Bitcoin: il consumo energetico

È un'idea sbagliata quella secondo cui l'aumento del prezzo di Bitcoin comporti un consumo energetico infinito. In realtà il mining è vincolato dalla redditività, non solo dal prezzo.

Con la riduzione delle ricompense per blocco, i miner sono spinti verso margini più ridotti e questo significa inseguire l'energia più economica e pulita disponibile. Sin dal divieto al mining imposto dalla Cina nel 2021, l'hashrate è migrato verso regioni come il Nord America e l'Europa settentrionale, dove gli operatori attingono all'energia idroelettrica, eolica e alla rete sottoutilizzata.

Secondo il Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, tra il 52% e il 59% del mining di Bitcoin avviene ormai tramite fonti rinnovabili o a basse emissioni.

Le normative stanno rafforzando questa tendenza: diverse giurisdizioni offrono incentivi per il mining basato su fonti pulite o penalizzano le attività basate sui combustibili fossili.

Inoltre l'idea che prezzi più alti del BTC significhino sempre un maggiore consumo di energia non tiene conto del modo in cui Bitcoin si autoregola: più miner aumentano la difficoltà, il che comprime i margini limitando l'espansione dell'energia.

L'attività di mining basata sulle energie rinnovabili porta con sé le sue sfide, ma il futuro distopico di un hashpower alimentato solo da combustibili fossili è sempre più improbabile.

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

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

The Declaration of Independence – Dramatic Reading by Celebrities — Kathy Bates, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Whoopi Goldberg, Graham Greene, Ming-Na, Edward Norton, Winona Ryder, Kevin Spacey, and Renee Zellweger

Modern Historians Confront The American Revolution, by economist/historian Murray N. Rothbard

The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism, by Murray N. Rothbard

America’s Libertarian Revolution, by Murray N. Rothbard

America’s Radical Revolution, by Murray N. Rothbard

Economic Determinism, Ideology, and the American Revolution, by Murray N. Rothbard

American Revolution as a People’s War: A Bibliographical Essay by William Marina

Conceived in Liberty (Combined)  Volumes 1-4 Edition, Books by Murray N. Rothbard

Conceived in Liberty: The New Republic: 1784–1791 Volume 5, Book by Murray N. Rothbard

The post In Honor of Friday, July 4 –The American Revolution appeared first on LewRockwell.

Millions of people worldwide are concerned about climate change and believe there is a climate emergency. For decades we have been told by the United Nations that Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activity are causing disastrous climate change. In 2018, a UN IPCC report even warned that ‘we have 12 years to save the Earth’, thus sending millions of people worldwide into a frenzy.

Thirty-five years ago, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the (World Meteorological Organization) WMO established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide scientific advice on the complex topic of climate change. The panel was asked to prepare, based on available scientific information, a report on all aspects relevant to climate change and its impacts and to formulate realistic response strategies. The first assessment report of the IPCC served as the basis for negotiating the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Governments worldwide have signed this convention, thereby, significantly impacting the lives of the people of the world.

However, many scientists dispute with the UN-promoted man-made climate change theory, and many people worldwide are confused by the subject, or are unaware of the full facts. Please allow me to provide some information you may not be aware of.

1. Very few people actually dig into the data, they simply accept the UN IPPC reports. Yet many highly respectable and distinguished scientists have done exactly that and found that the UN-promoted manmade climate change theory is seriously flawed. Are you aware that almost 2,000 of the world’s leading climate scientists and professionals in over 30 countries have signed a declaration that there is no CO2-induced climate emergency? These signatories have refuted the United Nations claims in relation to man-made C02-induced climate change. See https://clintel.org/world-climate-declaration/

2. I have also signed this declaration. How can I make such an assertion? I have experience in the field as a former scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK Government; and as former staff member at United Nations Environment, where I was responsible for servicing the Pollution Release and Transfer Register Protocol, a Multinational Environmental Agreement, involving the monitoring of pollutants to land, air, and water worldwide. Real pollution exists, but the problem is not CO2. Industrial globalisation has produced many substances that are registered as pollutants, including thousands of new man-made chemical compounds, toxins, nano-particles and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that are in violation of the scientific pre-cautionary principle.

A book I published also provides ample evidence and testimony from renowned scientists that there is no ‘CO2-induced’ Climate emergency. The book titled ‘Climate CO2 Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Environment Movement’ is available on Amazon here.

3. Next, I will mention the Irish Climate Science Forum (ICSF) website, a valuable resource founded by Jim O’Brien. I am grateful to the ICSF for their excellent work in highlighting the scientific flaws in the UN climate narrative. The ICSF provides a comprehensive lecture series from renowned international scientists providing much evidence, analysis, and data that contradicts the UN assertions. The lectures are available at: https://www.icsf.ie/lecture-series

The ICSF scientific view coincides with those of the Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) foundation that operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy. CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. Based on this common conviction, 20 Irish scientists and several ICSF members have co-signed the CLINTEL World Climate Declaration “There is No Climate Emergency” (see https://clintel.org/ireland/).

4. The reality is that the climate has always been changing, the climate changes naturally and slowly in its own cycle, and CO2 emissions (and methane from livestock, such as cows) are not dominant factors in climate change. In essence, therefore, the incessant UN, government, and corporate-media-produced climate hysteria in relation to CO2 emissions (and also methane from cows) has no scientific basis. It appears to me the UN narrative is yet another example of fake science being used to drive an ulterior agenda, see also the book Godless Fake Science.

In truth I am against ‘real’ pollution, and the reality is that the CO2 component is not a pollutant. Unfortunately, many misinformed environmentalists are driving around in electric cars, the battery production for which has caused vast amounts of ‘real’ pollution via the industrial mining and processing of rare earth metals, and the consequent pollution to land, air and water systems. See also this article. Note that the UN does not focus on the thousands of real pollutants that corporate industrial globalisation creates.

5. The conclusions of the Climate Intelligence foundation include the following

There is no [CO2-induced] climate emergency… The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

The world has warmed significantly less than predicted by IPCC on the basis of modeled anthropogenic forcing. The gap between the real world and the modeled world tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models: Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth: CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crops worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters: There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent.

6. In the above book I reference the relevant work and scientific presentations of some of the world’s leading climate scientists. Let us examine some of the work and testimonies of these scientists:

“deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that Co2 from human industry was a dangerous plant destroying toxin. It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that Co2 the life of plants was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.” – Professor Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT.

Dr Nils-Axel Mörner was a former Committee Chairman at the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He was an expert involved in reviewing the first IPPC documents. He says the UN IPPC is misleading humanity about climate change.  He tried to warn that the IPPC were publishing lies and false information that would inevitably be discredited. In an interview, he stated: “This is the most dangerous and frightening part of it. How a lobbyist group, such as the IPPC, has been able to fool the whole world. These organised and deceitful forces are dangerous” and expressed shock “that the UN and governments would parade children around the place at UN Climate summits as propaganda props”. He states:

“solar activity is the dominant factor in climate and not Co2… something is basically sick in the blame Co2 hypothesis…  It was launched more than 100 years ago and almost immediately excellent physicists demonstrated that the hypothesis did not work.

I was the chairman of the only international committee on sea levels changes and as such a person I was elected to be the expert reviewer on the (UN IPPC) sea levels chapter. It was written by 38 persons and not a single one was a sea level specialist… I was shocked by the low quality it was like a student paper… I went through it and showed them that it was wrong and wrong and wrong…The scientific truth is on the side of the sceptics… I have thousands of high ranked scientists all over the world who agree that NO, CO2 is not the driving mechanism and that everything is exaggerated.

In the field of physics 80 to 90% of physicists know that the Co2 hypothesis is wrong… Of course, metrologists they believe in this because that is their own profession – they live on it.… I suspect that behind-the-scenes promoters… have an ulterior motive… It’s a wonderful way of controlling taxation controlling people” – Dr Nils-Axel Mörner, a former Committee Chairman at the UN IPPC, and former head of the Paleo Geo-physics and Geo-dynamics department in Stockholm

Another climate scientist with impeccable credentials that has broken rank is Dr Mototaka Nakamura. He asserts:  “Our models are mickey-mouse mockeries of the real world”. Dr Nakamura received a Doctorate of Science from MIT, and for nearly 25 years specialized in abnormal weather and climate change at prestigious institutions that included MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, JAMSTEC and Duke University. Dr Nakamura explains why the data foundation underpinning global warming science is “untrustworthy” and cannot be relied on and that: “Global mean temperatures before 1980 are based on untrustworthy data”.

Professor John R. Christy, Director of Atmospheric and Earth Sciences, University of Alabama, has provided detailed analysis of climate data, see Endnote [i]. I summarise the main points from his analysis below:

“The established global warming theory significantly misrepresents the impact of extra greenhouse gases; the weather that affects people the most is not becoming more extreme or more dangerous; temperatures were higher in the 1930s than today; between 1895 and 2015, 14 of the top 15 years with the highest heat records occurred before 1960; the temperatures we are experiencing now in 2021 were the same as 120 years ago…

the number of major tornadoes between 1954 and 1986 averaged 56/year, but between 1987 and 2020 the average was only 34/year… Between 1950 and 2019 the percentage of land area experiencing droughts has not increased globally – the trend is flat… Sea levels rose 12.5 cm per decade for 8,000 years and then it levelled off, now it rising only 2.5 cm per decade… worrying about 30 cm rise in sea level in a decade is ridiculous, in a hurricane the east coast of the U.S. gets a 20 foot rise in 6 hours, so a 30 cm rise will be easily handled!”

In a lecture titled The imaginary climate crisis – how can we change the message? Available on the Irish Climate Science Forum website, see Endnote [ii]. Richard L Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT summarises the battle against the climate hysteria as follows:

“in the long history of the earth there has been almost no correlation between climate and co2… the narrative is absurd…  it gives governments the power to control the energy sector… for about 33 years, many of us have been battling against the climate hysteria… Elites are always searching for ways to advertise their virtue and assert their authority. They believe they are entitled to view science as a source of authority rather than a process, and they try to appropriate science, suitably and incorrectly simplified, as the basis for their movement.”

“CO2…  it’s not a pollutant… it’s the product of all plant respiration, it is essential for plant life and photosynthesis…  if you ever wanted a leverage point to control everything from exhalation to driving, this would be a dream. So it has a kind of fundamental attractiveness to bureaucratic mentality.” – Prof. Richard Lindzen, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at MIT

Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, and President of Greenpeace in Canada for seven years, states:

“the whole climate crisis is not only fake news its fake science… of course climate change is real it’s been happening since the beginning of time, but it’s not dangerous and it’s not caused by people… climate change is a perfectly natural phenomenon and this modern warming period actually began about 300 years ago when the little ice age began to come to an end. There is nothing to be afraid of and all they are doing is instilling fear. Most of the scientists who are saying it’s a crisis are on perpetual government grants.

I was one of the (Greenpeace) founders… by the mid-80s… we were hijacked by the extreme left who basically took Greenpeace from a science-based organisation to an organisation based on sensationalism, misinformation and fear… you don’t have a plan to feed 8 billion people without fossils fuels or get the food into the cities…” – Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace

Professor William Happer, Princeton University, Former Director of Science at the US Department of Energy, is also a strong voice against the myth of man-made global warming. He states: “More CO2 benefits the Earth”.

7. The UN IPCC cherry picks data, uses flawed modelling and scenarios not remotely related to the real world

The UN climate crisis predictions are not based on physical evidence, rather they are based on complex computer modelling. One has to decode and analyse the modelling process to ascertain whether or not the models are valid and accurate or whether they have obvious flaws. The vast majority of scientists, economists, politicians and the general public have simply assumed that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models are accurate. Very few people have the time or skills to analyse these models, not to mention actually dispute them. Nonetheless, there were many senior and highly distinguished scientists that did exactly that – they claimed the UN narrative was incorrect and that there was no climate emergency. Their voices have been drowned out by a vast money-driven political and media establishment of the globalised ‘system’. The vitally important work of some of these renowned scientists is referenced in the above book.

“The computer models are making systematic dramatic errors… they are all parametrised… fudged…  the models really don’t work” – Patrick J. Michaels, Director, Cato Institute Center for the Study of Science

Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado, has conducted a detailed scientific review and analysis of the UN IPCC AR6 report, see Endnote [i].  He describes that in relation to climate modelling, the IPCC detached the models from socio-economic plausibility. In creating the models, instead of first completing integrative assessment models (IAMs), the IPCC skipped this essential step and jumped straight to radiative forcing scenarios and thus these scenarios are not based on competed IAMs. This led much of climate modelling down the wrong track. I quote points from Dr Pielke’s analysis as follows:

“The four IPCC scenarios came from a large family of models so instead of splitting modelling from socio-economic assumptions the models already had the assumptions faked and baked in to them, because they had to have those assumptions to produce the required radiative forcing (to produce a desired climate ‘crisis scenario’ outcome)… There are thousands of climate assumptions, but only 8 to 12 of them are available currently for climate research. The IPCC report even states that “no likelihood is attached to the scenarios in this report”. The likelihood is considered low they admit – This is an incredible admission by the IPCC.

These extreme unlikely scenarios dominate the literature and the IPCC report; therefore, the IPCC report is biased. Bottom line is that there is massive confusion. The IPCCs’ Richard Moss warned that RCP 8.5 was not to be used as a reference for the other RCPs, but 5,800 scientific papers worldwide misuse it like that… The whole process is seriously flawed… Nothing close to the real world is represented by the IPCC scenarios. Climate science has a huge problem! The IPCC currently uses RCP 8.5 as the ‘business as usual’ scenario, but RCP 8.5 is wild fantasy land and not remotely related to current reality at all… climate science has a scientific integrity crisis.” – Dr Roger Pielke Jr, University of Colorado

8. Financialization of the entire world economy is now based on a life-killing ‘net-zero’ greenhouse gas emissions strategy.

The UN Agenda 2030 plan and the Paris Agreement goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 7% per annum until 2030 is in effect a plan that would seemingly disable the current fossil-fuel-based mechanisms of the industrial economy for the food, energy and goods that enable human life and survival. Yet the narrative is quite hypocritical as the production of green energy infrastructure, and mining of rare earth metals for batteries for electric vehicles, is, and will most likely continue to be, very fossil-fuel intensive. Globalisation resulted in much of humanity becoming largely dependent on the trans-national industrial economy rather than on traditional more self-sufficient local/regional economies. Therefore, one has to ask where is this all going to lead if the plug is truly pulled on fossil fuels? Almost all of us are seemingly locked into, and have become dependent upon, the current economic paradigm of globalisation. A system rigged by debt-money created from nothing; created and controlled by private mega-banks and behind the scenes money-masters; and which can induce boom, bust, bailout scenarios that detrimentally effect the populace.

It should be noted that for decades, these same political, government, and corporate powers have rampantly promoted corporate economic globalization and fossil fuel dependency. Whilst, at the same time actively hindering the funding, creation, or government support of, more self-sufficient local communities/regions, and local co-operatives. Most of the world population thus became reliant on the globalized fossil-fuel driven system. I explore this topic in the books Demonic Economics and the Tricks of the Bankers and Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability

Purchase here

Zero carbon emissions, in essence, means pulling the plug on current systems of industrial agriculture, transport, goods production, electricity production, etc. This could have terrible consequences, particularly in locations and countries, that are currently unable to produce much food. In Ireland, the deluded greens in government had planned to close the coal-fired power station Moneypoint, in the name of reducing CO2 emissions. However, as the price of electricity increased and the dawn of so-called ‘green energy’ began to evaporate like the Irish morning mist, the government scrapped this plan in 2022, instead deciding to convert the station to an oil-burning facility. The Irish Times newspaper reported:

“With growing concerns over security of the energy supply in the State, the Government is not in a position to decommission Moneypoint as a fuel-burning station in the near future. It was confirmed by the Irish Government in 2022 that Moneypoint will convert to oil generation from 2023.” See Endnote [ii]

The so-called ‘green economy’ (for it is not environmentally friendly in reality) and UN Agenda 2030 are resulting in increased energy poverty and decreased energy independence for the masses, while also developing trillions of dollars for the behind-the-scenes mega-banks. “Stop burning coal and wood logs that causes climate change don’t ya know” my deluded neighbour informed me last year, having threw out her wood burning stove and installed solar panels. Then a typical winter storm in Ireland last month left many thousands of people without electricity or heating for almost a week, shivering and wishing for a wood burning stove, while their solar panels produced little electricity in winter.

9. Furthermore, the current green energy/renewable technologies being promoted by the UN and WEF, are not a viable solution for the world’s energy supply. Although these technologies have some limited viability in certain locations and scenarios, the fact remains that the Energy Returned on Energy Invested is much too low – in essence the entire process is mathematically flawed. This is evidenced by the work of scientists, including Professor David MacKay (1967 – 2016), former Regius Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University, and former Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Summary

In summary, CO2 reduction is the main focus of the UN-promoted climate-change-hysteria that has been rampant among the world’s population. However, the proclaimed climate crisis exists in computer models only.  The cult of ‘manmade climate change’ is a media and UN politically-promoted ‘ideology’, that is used for a wider political and corporate agenda. Manmade climate change is not based in fact, and has hijacked real environmental concerns.

Due to incessant UN, government, and corporate-promoted climate change propaganda, many people are, thus, in a media-induced state of confusion, and, thus, blindly assume their pre-determined role in society under this ‘dictatorship of words’ without even being aware of it. The unpalatable reality is that people’s access to energy and resources is being intentionally reduced via bogus climate change policies, inflation, ongoing geo-political theatre and intentionally instigated war.

We cannot understand how to create a truly resilient society unless we correctly perceive the current society we live in and how it came to exist. Unless we recognize the untruths of the current paradigm, even if it is not ‘politically correct’ to do so, then we will not be able to make the correct adjustments to our communities and local/regional networks, or create a truly resilient thriving society. In this spirit of truth, new networks are emerging worldwide.

—

[1] Source: Irish Climate Science Forum lecture titled Testing Climate Claims 2021 Update available at www.icsf.ie

[1] The Irish Climate Science Forum website URL is www.icsf.ie

[1] Source: Irish Climate Science Forum lecture titled What does IPCC AR6 say on scenarios and extreme weather? available at www/icsf.ie

[1] Source:  https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/2022/11/27/plans-to-decommission-moneypoint-by-2025-delayed-by-government-over-fears-of-power-outages/

The post 1900 Scientists Say ‘Climate Change Not Caused by CO2 appeared first on LewRockwell.

Scripture and Magisterial teaching is clear that dispensationalism is a grave error and the 1948 Zionist entity is not historical and biblical “Israel”, but also quite clear is historical and geo-political and cultural reality. And a paradigm shift has happened in which certain historical and geo-political and cultural realities can now be talked about without instant demonization and censorship. What have the rulers of the Zionist entity specialized in since its birth in 1948? Unbiased research tells us: Assassinations, aggressive unjust wars, false flag terrorism, moral and cultural subversion of other countries, espionage, propaganda, genocide. But why has this satanic behavior been shrouded in lies and propaganda for so long?

Because of the obvious malicious and deliberate genocide of Gaza, which simply can’t be covered up, and because we now know beyond any doubt, thanks to courageous researchers and truth tellers, that the Israel Regime murdered American sailors in 1967 on the USS Liberty, is it not reasonable also to suspect the State of Israel of being a main accomplice in the murder of JFK and the obvious false flag terror event of IXXI? Is such really beyond the pale of rational inquiry in light of recent events? Is historical and political reality dictating what we permit ourselves to question, or is it decades of propaganda? Consider the implications if it turns out that Zionists, not Muslims, murdered a sitting American President and 3000 of its citizens?

Until and unless the full truth of Zionist crimes becomes viral, things will only get worse. Catholics with a platform should be the first to announce the truth from the rooftops. Why aren’t they? Moronic “Christian” Zionists like Ted Cruz and Cartoonish “Catholic” propagandists for Zionism, like this pathetic guy, are not the real enemy, for their propaganda is blatantly obvious and are thus easily unmasked and discredited. It’s the ones who every “conservative” Catholic praises and who seem to have the most financial and backing and largest platforms that are the most dangerous and complicit in their silence. Oh, they may criticize Zionism, but they never get around to naming the crimes. I wonder why. And forget about the Catholic academics and Bishops. They are a lost cause. Telling the truth, whenever it means any risk to their livelihood, is just not their thing, even though it’s their very vocation. The treason against humanity they committed during the scamdemic will live in infamy; they showed their true colors.

A good number of Jews condemn Zionism and the state of Israel. And they are hated for it. All Jewish, Muslim, and Christian people of good will need publicly to distance themselves from and vociferously condemn the satanic agenda of their leaders. This includes the rulers of not only Zionist and Wahhabist regimes, but also the present American Empire-Regime, in both its godless woke left and godless Zionist right iterations. We must expose and condemn the traitors who and ideologies that rule our country, whether in official or unofficial positions of power, but we do so as American patriots who love our land and people, not as leftist communists who despise them.

Finally, Jews, like every human being born into this world is objectively obligated by truth and love to do to save his soul, need to repent and recognize Jesus Christ as their savior and messiah, and become Catholic. God is counting on us to evangelize them, in spite of the lies we’ve been told by some of our own traitorous and faithless clergy that the Church “has no mission to the Jews.” Bishop Barron was wrong. Jews cannot be saved unless they reject their rejection of Jesus Christ. Every human being has to judge if Jesus Christ was innocent or guilty, and whether his crucifixion was just or not. Each human being before he dies has to answer personally and existentially the question Jesus posed to His disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” Let us Catholics be conduits and mediators of Jesus Christ for all people, including the Jews, whom we are called to love.

This article was originally published on Children Beware of Idols.

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When asked about the cost of their government’s support of the State of Israel, some Americans will say it’s $3.8 billion a year — the amount of annual military aid the United States is committed to under its current, 10-year “memorandum of understanding” with Israel. However, that answer massively understates the true cost of the relationship, not only because it doesn’t capture various, vast expenditures springing from it, but even more so because the relationship’s steepest costs can’t be measured in dollars.

Since its 1948 founding, Israel has been far and away the largest recipient of American foreign assistance. Though the Ukraine war created a brief anomaly, Israel generally tops the list every year, despite the fact that Israel is among the world’s richest countries — ranked three spots below the UK and two spots above Japan in per capita GDP. Driving that point home, even when using the grossly-understating $3.8 billion figure for US expenditures on Israel, America gave the Zionist state $404 per person in the 2023 fiscal year, compared to just $15 per person for Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries on Earth and America’s third-largest beneficiary that year.

Source: Council on Foreign Relations

Israel’s cumulative post-World War II haul has been nearly double that of runner-up Egypt. What most Americans don’t realize, however, is that much of Egypt’s take — $1.4 billion in 2023 — should be chalked up to Israel too, because of ongoing US aid commitments rising from the 1978 Camp David Accords that brokered peace between Egypt and Israel. The same can be said for Jordan — America’s fourth-largest beneficiary in fiscal 2023 at $1.7 billion. US aid to the kingdom surged after it signed its own 1994 treaty with Israel, and a wedge of Jordan’s aid is intended to address the country’s large refugee population, comprising not only Palestinians displaced by Israel’s creation, but also masses who’ve fled US-led regime-change wars pursued on Israel’s behalf.

Then there’s the supplemental aid to Israel that Congress periodically authorizes on top of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) commitment. Since the October 7 Hamas invasion of Israel, these supplements have exceeded the MOU commitment by leaps and bounds. In just the first year of the war in Gaza, Congress and President Biden approved an additional $14.1 billion in “emergency” military aid to Israel, bringing the total for that year to $17.9 billion.

One must also consider the fact that, given the US government runs perpetual deficits that now easily exceed $1 trillion, every marginal expenditure, including aid to Israel, is financed with debt that bears an interest expense, increasing Americans’ tax-and-inflation burden.

On top of money given to Israel, the US government spends huge sums on activities either meant to benefit Israel or that spring from Israel’s actions. For example, during just the first year of Israel’s post-Oct 7 war in Gaza, increased US Navy offensive and defensive operations in the Middle East theater cost America an estimated $4.86 billion.

Those Gaza-war-related outflows have not only continued but accelerated. For example, earlier this year, the Pentagon engaged in an intense campaign against Yemen’s Houthis. In proclaimed retaliation for Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza, the Houthis have targeted Israel, and ships the Houthis said were linked to Israel. In response, America unleashed “Operation Rough Rider,” which often saw $2 million American missiles being used against $10,000 Houthi drones, and cost between one and two billion dollars.

President Trump’s military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — amid a war initiated by Israel on contrived premises — cost America another one to two billion dollars, according to early estimates. Even before the attack on a nuclear program the US intelligence community continues to assess is not aimed at producing a weapon, the Pentagon was already spending more money on Israel’s behalf, helping to defend the country from Iran’s response to Israel’s unprovoked aggression. The run-up to US strikes itself entailed a massive and costly mobilization of American forces and equipment to the region, as the Pentagon readied for multiple scenarios.

Propelled by Israel’s powerful US-based lobby, by Israel-pandering legislators, and by a revolving cast of Israel-favoring presidents, cabinet members, and national security officials, the United States has consistently pursued policies in the Middle East that place top priority on securing Israel’s regional supremacy.

Among the many avenues used to pursue that goal, none has been more costly than that of regime change, where an outcome that results in a shattered, chaotic state is seemingly just as pleasing to Israel and its American collaborators as one that spawns a functioning state with an Israel-accommodating government — and where the cost is often measured not only in US dollars but in American lives and limbs.

Of course, the most infamous such regime-change effort was the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. “If you take out Saddam, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured a US congressional hearing. Doing his part to aid a Bush administration dominated by Israel-aligned neoconservatives bent on taking out one of Israel’s regional adversaries, Netanyahu also said there was “no question whatsoever” that Hussein was “hell-bent on achieving atomic bombs.”

The drive to topple Syria’s Iran-allied Assad government is another prominent example of regime change on behalf of Israel, as the two countries sought to sever the “Shia Crescent” that — due in great part to Saddam’s ouster — presented a continuous pipeline of Iranian influence extending to Israel’s borders. To the contentment of the US and Israeli governments, Syria is now led by an al Qaeda alumnus who’s reportedly poised to relinquish Syria’s long-standing claim on the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967.

Taken together, the price tag of US military operations in Iraq and Syria, including past and future medical and disability care for veterans, totals $2.9 trillion, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project. The human toll has been even more mind-boggling: upwards of 580,000 civilians and combatants killed, with perhaps two to four times that number indirectly perishing from displacement, disease and other factors. More than 4,600 US service-members died in Iraq, and 32,000 were injured, many of them enduring amputations and burns. Alongside mass suffering, these and other US interventions undertaken to ensure Israel’s regional supremacy have fomented enormous resentment of the United States across the region.

Those resentments help drive another massive debit in the Israel’s account with the United States: Any thorough assessment of the costs of the relationship must reflect the fact that US backing of Israel is a principal motivator of Islamist terrorism directed against Americans, and there’s no greater example of that fact than 9/11.

Read the Whole Article

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Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino just posted the following communique on X:

Update: Public corruption will not be tolerated as the Director and I vigorously pursue bad actors who violated their oaths to all of us. We view the theft of public funds the same way. It’s a crime against all of us. Today, in conjunction with the DOJ and our federal partners, we are announcing the results from the largest healthcare fraud investigation, as measured by financial losses, in DOJ history. The investigation spanned 50 federal districts, and resulted in nearly 3 billion dollars in false claims with over 15 million illegal distributions of pills. We seized 245 million dollars, we charged 324 defendants, 96 medical professionals, and the intended losses from these bad actors approached 15 billion dollars. Results matter. Talk is cheap. And this is not even the beginning of the beginning. If you’re stealing from the public, or violating your oath to serve, then we’re coming for you too. God bless America, and all those who defend Her.

The announcement reminded me of the 2019 book Code Blue: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex, by Mike Magee, an MD and former physician-spokesman for Pfizer. As he memorably described the corruption of the U.S. healthcare system.

Cozy relationships and generous gratuities have demonstrated a remarkable ability to corrupt even those we would instinctively put on the side of the angels, including members of the biomedical research community, deans of medical schools, directors of continuing medical education programs, officers at the NIH and FDA, and even seemingly altruistic patient advocacy organizations like the American Cancer Society.

A theologian looking at all this might conclude that American health care has lost its soul. A behavioral economist would point us toward studies showing that the exercise of moral judgment in a business context draws on a completely different cognitive framework from the one we use in making such decisions in our personal lives.

A $15 billion dollar fraud. This comes on the heels of a $2.75 billion federal fraud case in 2024, in which 193 people, including 76 doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals, were accused of illegally distributing millions of pills of the stimulant Adderall and of conducting fraudulent schemes involving $176 million of drug and alcohol abuse treatment services.

The industry is so thoroughly infested with money-grubbing hucksters, humbugs, and scumbags that it reminds me of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are so given to wickedness that God decides to annihilate them out of sheer disgust.

To be sure, as Plato pointed out in The Republic, fraud and injustice always proliferate in a Republic in which the citizens fail to tend properly and diligently to their affairs, including their health.

Plato argues that a proliferation of doctors and lawyers is a symptom of an unjust society. The presence of many doctors and lawyers suggests a society riddled with illness and disputes.

This article was originally published on Courageous Discourse.

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President Trump, to his credit, demanded a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Both countries agreed to it. Then, the president became very angry with Israel because, as he said, “As soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”

But as I write this column, the ceasefire is still in effect. I hope it lasts. However, just two days before the ceasefire, we dropped ten 30,000-pound bunker bombs on Iran, a country that had not even shot one bullet at us.

Please, God, let this be the end of our involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.

This is Israel’s war. It is not our war. Netanyahu and Israel First neocons led us into a very unnecessary war in Iraq that cost the lives of so many young Americans, and led to the blinding and maiming of thousands more. It was not worth their sacrifice.

Donald Trump was elected as president in 2016 primarily because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, and because he promised to put America First.

The overwhelming majority of Americans – both Democrats and Republicans – do not want this country stuck in another war in the Middle East.

This is not our war; it is Netanyahu’s war. The very respected foreign policy expert and Columbia professor, Jeffrey Sachs, a Jew, has described Netanyahu as “one of the most violent and dangerous people in this world.”

Tom Friedman, the longtime New York Times columnist and also a Jew, wrote in his column of May 9 that “Netanyahu is not our friend.”

Israel claimed it had killed Iran’s top eight generals and its nine leading nuclear scientists even before the U.S. dropped its bombs.

Israel also claimed it had destroyed Iran’s ground-based air defense capabilities and had achieved total air superiority even before we got involved.

If their claims are true, Israel was already winning this war. They started this war, let them finish it – without us.

Israel supposedly had two main goals in invading Iran: To stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program and to foster regime change there.

Well, all of our top intelligence officials in both Democratic and Republican administrations had certified for years that Iran was not building any nuclear weapons. Tulsi Gabbard, now our highest intelligence official, also certified this again in her congressional testimony on March 25.

Netanyahu was so eager to go to war against Iran – he has cried wolf so many times, for 30 years, always falsely saying Iran was just weeks or months away from developing a nuclear bomb.

Netanyahu claimed many times that Iran was the main purveyor of terrorist violence around the world. Actually, it has been Israel that has spread violence throughout the Middle East.

The late Charley Reese, who in 1999 was voted as the most popular columnist by C-Span viewers, wrote in 2002: “The big pushers for war with Iraq are the usual suspects – Americans with a long record of pretending to speak about American interests, when in fact, they are pushing an Israeli agenda.” Today, you can replace the word “Iraq” with the word “Iran.”

As far as its goal of regime change is concerned, the very respected foreign policy analyst, John Mearsheimer, said you cannot achieve that goal with only an air campaign. Americans definitely do not want to see the boots of our troops on the ground in Iran.

Too many of our presidents and their top advisors have seemingly wanted to be new Winston Churchills. They seem to feel more important if they can lead us into another war.

Eisenhower, who spent his career in the military, was strong enough to resist this impulse in 1956 when Israel demanded that we support its war against Egypt.

Mitchell Bard wrote about this in The Times of Israel in 2014: “Eisenhower went on television to criticize Israel’s failure to withdraw from Egypt and warned he would impose sanctions if it failed to comply. Eisenhower was prepared to cut off all economic aid, to lift the tax-exempt status of the United Jewish Appeal, and to apply sanctions on Israel.” What courage that was.

Today, almost every member of the U.S. Congress is afraid to criticize Israel’s bombing, killing, and starving of many thousands of little children because of the Israel Lobby’s power and ability to direct massive campaign contributions for them or against them.

President Trump said on February 13 that he wanted to cut the defense budget in half. Now he is pushing a “Big Beautiful Bill” to increase defense spending by $150 billion, moving it to over one trillion dollars a year.

On May 13 in Riyadh, President Trump criticized neocons, nation builders, and interventionists. Then, unfortunately, he bowed to the wishes of warmonger neocons by approving the dropping of bombs on Iran.

And, finally, President Trump said in his Inaugural Address: “We will measure our success not only by little battles we win, but also by the wars that end, and perhaps MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE WARS WE NEVER GET INTO.”

Candidate Trump reportedly accepted a $100 million campaign contribution from Miriam Adelson in return for a promise to support Israel in every way. Hopefully, he can resist this pressure and go down in history as an anti-war, peace president like Eisenhower.

This article was originally published on The Knoxville Focus.

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“When a long train of abuses and usurpations… evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”—Declaration of Independence (1776)

We are now struggling to emerge from the wreckage of a constitutional republic, transformed into a kleptocracy (government by thieves), collapsing into kakistocracy (government by the worst), and enforced by a police state algogracy (rule by algorithm).

This week alone, the Trump administration is reportedly erecting protest barricades around the White House, Congress is advancing legislation that favors the wealthy, and President Trump is grandstanding at the opening of a detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

Against such a backdrop of government-sponsored cruelty, corruption and shameless profiteering at taxpayer expense, what, to the average American, is freedom in an age when the government plays god—determining who is worthy of rights, who qualifies as a citizen, and who can be discarded without consequence?

What are inalienable rights worth if they can be redefined, delayed, or revoked by executive order?

Frederick Douglass posed a similar challenge more than 170 years ago when he asked, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”

His question was a searing indictment not just of slavery but of a government that proclaimed liberty while denying it to millions—a hypocrisy that persists in a system still governed by institutions more committed to power than principle.

Every branch of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—has, in one way or another, abandoned its duty to uphold the Constitution. And both parties have prioritized profit and political theater over justice and the rights of the governed.

The founders of this nation believed our rights come from God, not government. That we are born free, not made free by bureaucrats or judges. That among these rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—none can be taken away without destroying the very idea of government by consent.

And yet that is precisely what’s happening.

We now live under a government that has become judge, jury, and executioner—writing its own laws, policing its own limits, and punishing those who object.

This is not what it means to be free.

When presidents rule by fiat, when agencies strip citizenship from naturalized Americans, when police act as both enforcers and executioners, and when courts rubber-stamp the erosion of basic protections, the distinction between a citizen and a subject begins to collapse.

What do inalienable rights mean in a country where:

• Your citizenship can be revoked based solely on the government’s say-so?
• Your freedom can be extinguished by surveillance, asset seizure, or indefinite detention?
• Your property can be taken, your speech censored, and your life extinguished without due process?
• Your life can be ended without a trial, a warning, or a second thought, because the government views you as expendable?

The answer is stark: they mean nothing—unless we defend them.

When the government—whether president, Congress, court, or local bureaucrat—claims the right to determine who does and doesn’t deserve rights, then no one is safe. Individuals become faceless numbers. Human beings become statistics. Lives become expendable. Dignity becomes disposable.

It is a slippery slope—justified in the name of national security, public safety, and the so-called greater good—that leads inevitably to totalitarianism.

Unfortunately, we have been dancing with this devil for far too long, and now, the mask has come off.

This is what authoritarianism looks like in America today.

Imagine living in a country where government agents crash through doors to arrest citizens merely for criticizing government officials. Where police stop and search you on a whim. Where carrying anything that resembles a firearm might get you arrested—or killed. Where surveillance is constant, dissent is criminalized, and loyalty is enforced through fear.

If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.

But this scenario isn’t new. It’s the same kind of tyranny that drove American colonists to sever ties with Great Britain nearly 250 years ago.

Back then, American colonists lived under the shadow of an imperial power and an early police state that censored their speech, surveilled their movements, taxed their livelihoods, searched their homes without cause, quartered troops in their towns, and punished them for daring to demand liberty.

It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.

The Declaration of Independence—drafted by Thomas Jefferson and signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who risked everything—was their response. It was more than a list of grievances. It was a document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, a call to arms against a system that had ceased to represent the people and instead sought to dominate them.

Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death, because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives.

Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up. They understood that silence in the face of tyranny is complicity. So they stood together, pledging “our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” to the cause of freedom.

Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations.

The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights were meant to enshrine the liberties they fought for: due process, privacy, free speech, the right to bear arms, and limits on government power.

Now, nearly two and a half centuries later, those freedoms hang by a thread.

Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to discover that almost 250 years later, the government they had risked their lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.

In fact, had Jefferson and his compatriots written the Declaration of Independence today, they would almost certainly be labeled extremists, placed on government watchlists, targeted by surveillance, and prosecuted as domestic threats.

Read the Declaration of Independence again, and you’ll see the grievances they laid at the feet of King George—unjust laws, militarized policing, surveillance, censorship, and the denial of due process—are the very abuses “we the people” suffer under today.

Had Jefferson written the Declaration about the American police state in 2025, it might have read like a criminal indictment of the crimes perpetrated by a government that:

Polices by fear and violence:

• raiding family homes in the dead of night with SWAT teams that shoot pets and traumatize children;
• targeting vulnerable individuals—including the disabled and neurodivergent—for arrest under pretexts of noncompliance;
• killing unarmed citizens for not complying quickly enough;
• using roadside cavity searches and rectal probes as tools of humiliation and control.

Surveils and represses dissent:

• spying on its own citizens, reading private messages, tracking movements, and mining personal data;
• collecting DNA from innocent Americans and compiling biometric databases without consent;
• tracking drivers with license plate scanners and red-light cameras without due process;
• detaining protesters, journalists, and whistleblowers without trial, often labeling them as domestic threats;
• jailing veterans for criticizing the government;
• placing ordinary Americans on watchlists and labeling dissent as terrorism.

Strips away rights:

• seizing property through civil asset forfeiture without charges or due process;
• building secret prisons and detention centers shielded from judicial oversight;
• stripping citizenship from those it deems disloyal, making constitutional rights conditional;
• criminalizing homelessness, dissent, and disloyalty as pretexts for exclusion and punishment;
• criminalizing routine behavior under vague laws that fuel mass incarceration and overcriminalization.

Concentrates unchecked power in the executive:

• bypassing Congress with executive orders, sidelining the courts, and ruling by decree;
• weaponizing federal agencies to suppress opposition and silence critics;
• treating constitutional limits as optional and the presidency as a personal fiefdom.

These are not isolated abuses.

They are the logical outcomes of a government that has turned against its people.

They reveal a government that has claimed the god-like power to decide who gets rights—and who doesn’t. Who counts as a citizen—and who doesn’t. Who gets to live—and who becomes expendable.

All along the spectrum of life—from the unborn child to the elderly—the government continues to treat individuals endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights as if they are criminals, subhumans, or enemies of the state.

That is not freedom. It is tyranny.

And it must be called by its true name.

The truth is hard, but it must be said: the American police state has grown drunk on power, money, and its own authority.

The irony is almost too painful to articulate.

On the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence—a document that rebuked government corruption, tyranny, and injustice—we find ourselves surrounded by its modern-day equivalents.

This week’s spectacle—protest barricades, legislation to benefit the rich, and Trump’s appearance at Alligator Alcatraz, a.k.a. “Gator Gitmo”—shows how completely we have inverted the spirit of 1776.

That a president would celebrate the Fourth of July while inaugurating a modern-day internment camp—far from the reach of the courts or the Constitution—speaks volumes about the state of our nation and the extent to which those in power now glorify the very forms of tyranny the Founders once rose up against.

This is not law and order.

This is political theater, carceral cruelty, and authoritarianism in plain sight.

It is what happens when a nation that once prided itself on liberty now builds monuments to its own fear and domination.

The spectacle doesn’t end with detention camps and barricades. It extends into commerce, corruption, and self-enrichment at the highest levels of power.

President Trump is now marketing his own line of fragrances—a branding exercise so absurd it would be laughable if it weren’t a flagrant violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. His investments are booming. And all across his administration, top officials are shamelessly using public office to line their pockets, even as they push legislation to strip working-class Americans of the most basic benefits and protections, while claiming to be rooting out corruption and inefficiency.

This is not governance. This is kleptocracy—and it is happening in plain sight.

In the nearly 250 years since early Americans declared their independence from Great Britain, “we the people” have worked ourselves back under the tyrant’s thumb—only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making.

The abuses they once suffered under an imperial power haven’t disappeared. They’ve evolved.

We are being robbed blind by political grifters and corporate profiteers. We are being silenced by bureaucrats and blacklists. We are being watched by data miners and digital spies. We are being caged by militarized enforcers with no regard for the Constitution. And we are being ruled by presidents who govern not by law, but by executive decree.

Given the fact that we are a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did not happen overnight.

The architecture of oppression—surveillance, militarism, censorship, propaganda—was built slowly, brick by brick, law by law, war by war.

It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration, political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power at the expense of individual freedoms.

The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of—police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state, pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines, militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless wars, etc.—were put in place by government officials we trusted to look out for our best interests.

The result is an empire in decline and a citizenry under siege.

But if history teaches us anything, it’s that the power of the people—when awakened—is stronger than any empire.

For decades, the Constitution has been our shield against tyranny.

But today, it’s under siege. And now we must be the shield.

Surveillance is expanding. Peaceful dissent is being punished. Judges are being targeted. The presidency is issuing decrees and bypassing the rule of law.

Every institution meant to check power is being tested—and in some cases, broken.

This is the moment to stand in front of the Constitution and defend it.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the fight for freedom is never over. But neither is it lost—so long as we refuse to surrender, refuse to remain silent, and refuse to accept tyranny as the price of safety.

It is time to remember who we are. To reclaim the Constitution. To resist the march toward authoritarianism. And to reassert—boldly and without apology—that our rights are not up for negotiation.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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This now seems to happen with some regularity:

An explosion struck the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker Vilamoura, carrying approximately one million barrels of crude, off Libya’s coast, according to its Greek operator, TMS Tankers. – Greek City Times, Jul 1 2025

The explosion flooded the engine room, disabling the vessel. TMS Tankers reported that the ship, which departed from Zueitina, Libya, en route to Gibraltar, will be towed to Greece on Tuesday or Wednesday. The cause of the explosion remains undisclosed.

The possibility that the Vilamoura was hit by a mine was raised on Friday by security firm Vanguard, but it said that nothing had been confirmed by officials.

The operator distanced itself from speculation that the ship had been targeted by saboteurs.

According to the Financial Times this is at least the fifth tanker (archived) this year that had became casualty of some explosives:

A series of mysterious limpet mine attacks on oil tankers has shaken the shipping world, prompting speculation that the explosions were part of a state-backed sabotage campaign.

Five vessels have been hit by deliberate blasts this year, with the latest incident flooding the engine room of the Greek-owned tanker the Vilamoura last week as it sailed off the coast of Libya.

All the vessels called at Russian ports within weeks of the attacks, prompting some security experts to suggest that Ukraine had a hand in the explosions.

bigger

The FT account leaves out a Russian cargo ship that was attacked with explosives and sank in late 2024:

The Russian operator of a cargo ship that sank in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria said Thursday that it had been hit by a series of explosions in an act of sabotage.

Oboronlogistica, a state-controlled company that operated the Ursa Major freighter, said it was wrecked by three powerful explosions just above the water line in what it described as a “terrorist attack” that caused it to sink.

It said in a statement carried by Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency that the explosions left a hole in the ship’s starboard and filled the engine room with acrid smoke, hampering the crew’s attempts to access it. The company added that the damage to the engine room made it impossible to activate pumps and keep the ship afloat.
…
The company said the ship, one of Russia’s largest cargo ships, had sailed from St. Petersburg and was carrying two heavy cranes and other equipment to the port of Vladivostok on Russia’s far eastern coast.

All these attacks seem to have been made with magnetic limpet mines. These get attached to a ships hull while the ship is anchored or moored. They can be exploded by a timer or radio signal.

The campaign against Russian related ships may well be an Ukrainian operation. But I would be astonished to learn that the British are not involved in it.

Ukraine is not known for wide access to ports in the Mediterranean Sea and for the necessary qualified diving specialists. Britain’s Special Boat Service is:

The SBS has a subunit dedicated to operating Swimmer Delivery Vehicles (SDVs) known as the SDV Troop.

Such vehicles, launched from submarines, are ideal for installing limpet mines to the hull of unsuspecting ships.

Britain has helped to plan the Ukrainian attack in Kursk. It has been involved in several sabotage operations by the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Service on Russian ground. British soldiers are dying on the battlefield in Ukraine.

When investigating the sabotage operations against those ships the Russian counter terrorism forces should look out for British, not for Ukrainian, actors.

Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.

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In my remarks this evening, I would like to set the stage for the Rothbard Graduate Seminar by addressing a pernicious and deeply entrenched myth about Murray Rothbard and Man, Economy, and State: namely, that Rothbard possessed a superficial knowledge of mainstream economics when writing his treatise. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Rothbard deeply engaged with mainstream economic theory throughout his treatise. This is not surprising given that, when Rothbard wrote his treatise, he was a well-trained neoclassical economist who was completely conversant with the research methods and various strands of doctrine that composed the emerging “neoclassical synthesis.” This synthesis of the ideas of Alfred Marshall, Leon Walras, and John Maynard Keynes would come to dominate academic economics in the U.S. by the mid-1950s. The leading architects of this approach were John Hicks, Franco Modigliani, Alvin Hansen and, especially, Paul Samuelson.

Rothbard enrolled at Columbia University in 1942 at the age of sixteen. At age nineteen he received his A.B. degree with honors in economics and mathematics and soon after enrolled in Columbia’s Ph.D. program in economics. In the 1940s, Columbia University was a leading academic institution in the U.S. and housed one of the top three economics departments in the nation. It rivaled the University of Chicago and Harvard University, producing more doctoral degrees than either institution. Notable faculty included Arthur F. Burns, the foremost institutionalist and a leading authority on business cycles; John Maurice Clark, a leading Marshallian and pioneer in Keynesian economics; Harold Hotelling, the renowned mathematical statistician; Joseph Dorfman, an institutionalist and influential historian of American economic thought; and George Stigler, the founder of Chicago price theory.

Rothbard took courses with all these eminent economists but was especially influenced by the institutionalists Burns and Dorfman, and there was mutual admiration between Rothbard and both professors. Burns expected Rothbard to make “a prominent place for himself” in the world. Rothbard recalled that in his lectures Burns “was a brilliant theorist” and his “critique of orthodox theory . . . was excellent.” Rothbard held Dorfman in high esteem as a historian of economic thought, writing that “his knowledge of the sources is unparalleled.” He acknowledged Dorfman as one of his “mentors” along with Ludwig von Mises in the dedication of his two-volume treatise on economic thought. Dorfman in turn appreciated Rothbard’s abilities and agreed to chair his dissertation committee. When the dissertation was completed, Dorfman lobbied to have it published by Columbia University Press.

In addition to studying the institutionalist approach under its contemporary leaders and learning Chicago price theory from its leading light, Rothbard spent an entire year in an honors seminar going chapter by chapter through Marshall’s Principles of Economics, then the bible of neoclassical economics. But Rothbard did not just absorb different theoretical approaches and doctrines at Columbia; he also immersed himself in the study of conflicting economic methods, namely, institutionalism and positivism.

Prior to the 1940s most economists, going back to the British classical economists, utilized the deductive method to develop economic theories by tracing out the logical implications of a handful of general assumptions about human behavior and the technical conditions of production. This methodological approach culminated in the early 1930s in Lionel Robbins’s monograph, Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. However, beginning in the early 1900s the deductive method was rejected by many economists at Columbia in favor of the Baconian empirical method championed by the Institutionalists. According to this method, economic theories could be discovered only by the painstaking and copious collection and collation of facts. During the 1940s, however, both the deductive and institutionalist methods were being rapidly swept aside by the on-rushing tide of positivism. The positivists argued that economic theory is developed by forming tentative hypotheses from basic assumptions about human nature and then testing these hypotheses based on how well they predict historical or future patterns of economic facts. Both the positivist and institutionalist approaches thus champion empirical analysis, but only positivism allows for a body of economic theorems that precedes investigations of historical episodes.

It was during this period of methodological ferment and transition that Rothbard took a course on the philosophy of economics from Ernest Nagel, one of the leading exponents of logical positivism. Nagel’s criticisms of institutionalism favorably impressed Rothbard, who took copious notes on Nagel’s lectures. Commenting that Nagel made “the most convincing case for neo-classical economic theory,” Rothbard sent his lecture notes to Arthur Burns. Burns was impressed with Rothbard’s notes and sent them to Milton Friedman, a former student and then colleague of Burns’s at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Friedman was then writing his famous article on “The Methodology of Positive Economics.” Friedman wrote at the top of the first page of Rothbard’s notes, “Arthur: many thanks. I found it interesting, and, of course, agreed.”

Although Rothbard was favorable to Nagel’s positivist criticisms of institutionalism, he rejected out of hand the statistical basis of the positivist method. Specifically, he enrolled in a graduate mathematical statistics course offered by Hotelling but quickly became disillusioned when he realized after a few lectures that statistical inference was based on what he called the “groundless assumption” of a normal distribution.

At this stage of his intellectual evolution, Rothbard recalled that he possessed only an “instinctive feeling or insight . . . that there was something wrong with” institutionalism and positivism. Positivists were right to criticize institutionalists for their attempt to discover theories by amassing and sifting through reams of data. At the same time, the institutionalists were on the mark when they attacked the positivists’ use of false assumptions. Their addition of more realistic supplementary assumptions only covered up, and did not substantively change, the theoretical edifice built upon false premises. Rothbard’s elite Columbia education thus left him with an inchoate feeling that something was wrong with both approaches to economics. He later reflected that he “tended to agree with institutionalist critiques of Keynesians and mathematicians, but also with the latter’s critiques of the institutionalists.”

Unfortunately, Rothbard did not then fully grasp the alternative to institutionalism and positivism, the deductive method, which had been the traditional approach in economics from its inception as a science in the 18th century. Furthermore, he did not know that significant improvements had been recently made in this method by Ludwig von Mises. The praxeological method logically deduced theorems only from assumptions that were self-evidently true, meaning that neither the assumptions nor the theorems required empirical verification. As Rothbard recalled, “Nagel of course had never heard of praxeology at the time, and unfortunately I hadn’t either.”

Returning to doctrine, Rothbard was thoroughly trained in Keynesian economics at Columbia, where the faculty included both old-style Keynesians along Alvin Hansen-Seymour Harris lines and what Rothbard called the “younger mathematico-Keynesians” such as Albert G. Hart. In addition, Burns, whom Rothbard hailed as a “a brilliant theorist,” engaged with Keynesian economics in his courses. Burns criticized Keynesian macroeconomics for inconsistently building on Marshall’s microeconomic, partial-equilibrium theory of the firm. In an unpublished article written in 1947 for Frank Chodorov’s Old Right broadsheet, analysis, Rothbard set out the full Keynesian model and then elaborated a Marshallian critique along the lines suggested by Burns.

By the time he completed his course work at Columbia, then, Rothbard was a well-trained, if somewhat uneasy, neoclassical economist well versed in all the elements of contemporary economic theory and method that would soon coalesce into Samuelson’s so-called “neoclassical synthesis.” This theoretical approach would dominate economics from the mid-1950s until it crashed and burned during the stagflation of the mid-1970s.

After passing his orals in 1948, Rothbard embarked on his doctoral dissertation. Completed by 1951 and entitled “The Panic of 1819: Reactions and Policies,” it was a thorough examination of contemporary opinion on the causes of and remedies for the panic. Although Rothbard amassed a plethora of facts for his dissertation, he refrained from any theoretical investigation. He did not try to empirically test a theory along positivist lines, nor did he seek to discover a new theory from a mass of facts as the institutionalists taught. Burns, a member of Rothbard’s committee, was dissatisfied with the dissertation, and his mentor Dorfman deferred to his more formidable colleague. Rothbard’s Ph.D. degree was finally awarded in 1956, after Burns departed Columbia for a post in the Eisenhower administration.

Despite learning from distinguished economists at Columbia, Rothbard by his own admission “had never been able to find a comfortable home in economic theory.” But Rothbard took a huge intellectual leap forward when he discovered through FEE the thought of Ludwig von Mises and read his recently published magnum opus, Human Action. Rothbard began regularly attending Mises’ weekly seminar at NYU. Even before completing Mises’s treatise, Rothbard converted to Austrian economics and adopted Mises’ praxeological approach to economic theory, which revitalized the deductive method by grounding it in the fundamental fact of human action. At about the same time, Rothbard realized that the limited-government, laissez-faire position was “logically untenable” when he was unable to answer the objection raised by left-liberal friends that if people could collectively decide that government should provide police, courts, and military defense, then why couldn’t they decide that government should also operate steel mills or dams. Rothbard’s epiphany led him to adopt a pure anarcho-capitalist position.

The absurd myth that Rothbard ignored mainstream economic theory in constructing his theoretical system is laid to rest once and for once his schooling in economics is taken into consideration. Indeed, Rothbard’s conversion to praxeology would not have been so swift or complete had he not undergone such intensive and high-level training in the economic methods and theories of the day. On the other hand, despite his intellectual brilliance and his independent recognition that many core doctrines of the orthodox economics of the time were profoundly erroneous, Rothbard would never have developed into the economist he became without his encounter with Mises and Human Action.

The post The Young Rothbard: an Uncomfortable Neoclassical Economist appeared first on LewRockwell.

Most bishops who responded to a Vatican questionnaire about restricting the Latin Mass said reversing Pope Benedict XVI’s liberation of the traditional rite ‘would cause more harm than good.’

Journalist Diane Montagna revealed in a July 1 report that the Vatican’s overall assessment of the consultation of bishops, which was believed to have prompted Pope Francis to implement the 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, stated that the majority of bishops were satisfied with the implementation of Summorum Pontificum and believed that making changes to Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio would do “more harm than good.”

“The majority of bishops who responded to the questionnaire stated that making legislative changes to Summorum Pontificum would cause more harm than good,” the report said.

The report notably contradicts Pope Francis’ claim in his letter accompanying Traditionis Custodes, which stated that the bishops’ assessment found the implementation of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio to be a key source of division in the Church.

“An opportunity offered by … Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division,” the late Argentine pontiff wrote.

But, according to the report, the Vatican’s overall assessment shows that while the bishops had concerns about division caused by attendees of the Tridentine Mass rejecting the Second Vatican Council and other disagreements, the majority of the “gaps,” “divergences,” and “disagreements” that Francis cited actually stem from the resistance by a minority of bishops to Summorum Pontificum.

“The majority of bishops who responded to the questionnaire, and who have generously and intelligently implemented Summorum Pontificum, ultimately express satisfaction with it,” the report stated. “In places where the clergy have closely cooperated with the bishop, the (divisions) has become completely pacified,” the report continued.

Traditionis Custodes, which has led to the suppression of numerous Latin Masses around the world, has been denounced by clergy and scholars as a repudiation of the perennial practice of the Catholic Church and even of solemn Church teaching.

Cardinal Raymond Burke has affirmed that the traditional liturgy is not something that can be excluded from the “valid expression of the lex orandi.”

“It is a question of an objective reality of divine grace which cannot be changed by a mere act of the will of even the highest ecclesiastical authority,” the cardinal wrote in 2021.

Liturgical scholar Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has also implored priests to resist Traditionis Custodes and its accompanying Responsa ad dubia “regardless of threats or penalties,” since obedience to these documents would undermine the very mission of the holy Catholic Church.

Kwasniewski has made the point that “the traditional liturgical worship of the Church, her lex orandi (law of prayer),” is a “fundamental” “expression of her lex credendi, (law of belief), one that cannot be contradicted or abolished or heavily rewritten without rejecting the Spirit-led continuity of the Catholic Church as a whole.”

‘The traditional Mass belongs to the most intimate part of the common good in the Church. Restricting it, pushing it into ghettos, and ultimately planning its demise can have no legitimacy. This law is not a law of the Church because, as St. Thomas [Aquinas] says, a law against the common good is no valid law,’” he said in a speech at the 2021 Catholic Identity Conference.

Recently, a letter-writing campaign was launched by the Faithful Advocate, inviting parishes and Catholics across the country to write to Pope Leo XIV, “asking him to abrogate Traditionis Custodes and protect the Sacred Liturgy worldwide.”

This article was originally published on Lifesite News.

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Israel is an ‘annihilatory state.’ It does not seek to live alongside its Arab and Persian neighbors as an equal. Rather, it aims to maintain hegemony across the Middle East. At bottom, Israeli atavists don’t want educated, erudite neighbors, equals with whom to make magic in the region; they want subjects they can sanction and slaughter into submission. ~ilana

IT’S ABOUT PALESTINE. Of all the known facts about Israel’s war of aggression against Iran, now nominally suspended by Trump, this is the most important. Incisively put by Craig Mokhiber, “Iran is the last, independent, frontline state that refuses to submit, to normalize the crimes against the Palestinian people.” Quite simply, “Iran was being punished for its support for the Palestinians.” If you are free of the prefrontal lobotomy that comes with subscriptions to the Murdoch or Adelson Media; you will grasp this.

Israel’s unprovoked, illegal war against Iran was not in anticipatory self-defense by any stretch, explains Mokhiber—prominent and principled scholar on the international law (always bringing it back to its natural-law elements). It was old-fashioned aggression, Normalized by Israel and its sponsors, wars of aggression are considered the “supreme crime” in international law (the natural law and libertarian law are agreed).

Israel’s trademark terrorism was aimed at sundering Iranian sovereignty. Before the Iranian Revolution, locus of control over Iranian affairs resided in Washington, D.C., a synonym, we can now all agree, for Tel Aviv. The 1979 Revolution took decision-making away from Tel-Aviv and returned it to Teheran. What the 1979 Iranian Revolution militated against; Israel seeks to reinstate.

For its part, the United States of America, Israel’s lickspittle co-belligerent, is now viewed, certainly in West Asia, as a mulish military power that doesn’t know Shiite from Shinola.

Trump, you’ll recall, stumped our county—the president has forgotten at whose pleasure he serves—promising peace. He delivered war. Commentators Chas Freeman and Scott Ritter, both in-the-know, had divulged early on that the president had been engaged in “diplomacy-as-deception” with Iran. Having connived with Israel, Trump knew in advance of Israel’s impending “surprise” attack. He had engaged in fake negotiations with the Islamic Republic. With the help of the CIA, Mossad and MI5—the Israeli terrorists then smuggled the needed materiel into Iran. A con-man, concluded Dr. Foad Izadi, an Iranian academic.

Not that Israel needs a reason to war—but more so than a war of aggression for regime change, Israel’s June 13 sneak attack on Iran was meant to eliminate Iran as we know it.

Professor John Mearsheimer, one of America’s most distinguished scholars of international relations, offers a description of Israeli aims in terms that contradict the defunct, deceptively Panglossian ideas of a “two-state solution” and a “peace process.” Over and above regime change, Israel, in Mearsheimer’s always-careful estimation, has a “deep-seated interest” in breaking apart—in fracturing—the surrounding nations.

Iran’s ‘Rogue’ Status

Israel’s gestalt is annihilatory. As shown during two years of genocide and ongoing destruction in neighboring countries, Israel is an “annihilatory state.” The Hebrew verb lechasel לחסל)), to eliminate, is used quite promiscuously by the pedestrian minds on the piss-poor TV panels, on the street and in the Knesset.

There exists in Israel a condition that is as much a part of the nation’s collective “soul,” as it is the “souls” of individual Israelis. The mindset is Jewish supremacy; the shared endeavor emanating from it is regional, military supremacy.

Commensurate with this pathology; Israel does not seek to live alongside its Arab and Persian neighbors as an equal. Rather, it aims to maintain hegemony across the Middle East. Wherever and whenever the pro-liberation, pro-Palestinian axis of resistance surfaces, Israel will move—not to negotiate with or resolve “conflicts” with it, but to eliminate it and restore Israeli hegemony.

To wit, notice how Israel, methodically and spitefully, picks off peace negotiators. The “genocidal entity” made an attempt on Ali Shamkhani’s life. He was lead negotiator on nuclear talks with the United States, before June 13. The illegal and immoral assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas chief diplomat, falls into this category of elimination (chisul/חסול). There were others. Against the laws of war, Iranian scientists and non-combatant elite military personnel were targeted in their family homes—and will continue to be eliminated at a pace, in line with Israel’s predatory, cannibalizing nature.

This annihilatory impetus, the core of Israel, accounts for why, as has been observed, documented and anatomized over 20 months, Israel revels in wiping out Arab (and Persian) human capital—intellectuals, men and women of the arts, in the applied and theoretical sciences, reporters, activists, healers and humanitarians. If you wanted to enjoy your neighborhood; you would not perennially reduce it to a primordial, pre-civilization stage, as in Gaza, by wiping out knowledge, experience, strength; smarts, beauty and goodness.

This eliminatory core of Israeli society, as I emphasized in March of 2024, accounts for why Israel targets “the very fabric of a society—immeasurable human capital—including otherwise- indissoluble, extended family networks, the kind of generational bonds we in the West can only dream of, whittled down and depleted in numbers and in their native energy.”

At bottom, these Israeli atavists—during the offensive in Iran, they murdered nearly 900 Palestinians in Gaza—don’t want educated, erudite neighbors, equals with whom to make magic in the region; they want subjects they can sanction and slaughter into submission. All the better to bring them to their knees, where they now languish, Iran, Yemen and Palestine excepted.

As Israel sees it, the Arab Peninsula and the Levant must bow not toward Mecca and Medinah but to the Mad Dog Medinah (מְדִינָה is country in Hebrew). Regional submission is achieved by reducing the region to rubble, on any pretense and at every turn, and making it utterly dependent financially on America, which itself is, as we now know, in thrall to Israel. With a coopted Arab world, the US can assume the status of dictator as well as benefactor.

On the facts, then, which is the rogue state, Israel or Iran?

Israel launches wars of aggression on its neighbors. Iran does not. Israel, not Iran, is a promiscuous proliferator of nuclear weapons. It is believed to possess “90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and has produced enough plutonium for 100-200 [more] weapons.” Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Israel is not. Unlike Iran, so far, Israel has rejected any IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) oversight, any inspections and safeguards. In marked contrast, Israel, not Iran, is a genocidal entity. Israel, not Iran, had begun this war, is conducting air raids on neighboring nations, and committing mass murder daily.

Iran & Terrorism

And unlike Israel, Iran doesn’t practice state terrorism; it reluctantly and ably defended the realm.

Warnings, stateside, of “a heightened threat environment in the United States” from Iran have been issued by the US National-Terrorism-Industrial-Complex. These generally portend a false-flag operation. The “country of origin for the largest number of foreign-born terrorists” is Ameri-Israel’s good friend Saudi Arabia. Between 1975 and 2024, the Saudis were responsible for 2,354 murders on American soil; Iranians for … none… not one.

To change that, FBI entrapment operations, dubbed sting operations or counterterrorism, are routinely launched—and are likely underway right now. Beware! These stings are governed not by laws passed by Congress, but by creative handles. A vintage FBI entrapment method is when some needly simpleton is enticed by FBI agents into committing a crime he or she had no intention of committing until approached.

Bum joke, perhaps, but we all need a laugh. As a likely example of entrapment, I give you the case of Masih Alinejad, an inconsequential Iranian-American regime-change “journalist.” The woman, with her mad-hatter, tumbleweed hair, mouths the kind of cliched ideas of which we have an abundance in America.

Ms. Alinejad had alleged that she had been the target of a kidnapping plot by the Iranian mullahs. She also said “the Federal Bureau of Investigation had approached her eight months prior with photographs taken by the plotters.” Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more.

Come off it, Ms. Alinejad. In rebuttal, I’d say that I don’t believe that the Iranian supreme leader (whose life the grubby Israelis have recently threatened) wants her back. I don’t believe the mullahs think Masih is a keeper. If anything, theirs was a desperate plea: America, please keep Iranian regime-change agitators like Masih Alinejad away.

IRAN & WMD

The current status of Iran’s nuclear capability has never been the issue, although the “genocidal entity,” Israel, is pursuing, and will pursue, “wars to preserve its own nuclear monopoly” in the region.

Before she turned tail (to wag the dog for Trump), Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), “delivered the U.S. Intelligence Community’s (IC) collective conclusions covering a broad swath of national security issues and geographic areas—including the threat posed by Iran and its possible development of a nuclear weapon.” “The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” reported Gabbard, who “was echoing an assessment that U.S. intelligence agencies have been making since 2007.”

Not unrelated to the manufacture of Israel’s casus belli is that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) appears to no longer act impartially, as it did in the build up to war on Iraq, under the leadership of Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei. The utterances of Rafael Grossi, the IAEA’s mercurial director general, had helped justify kinetic action against Iran.

Prior to Israel’s unprovoked war of choice on Iran, the vainglorious Grossi had been roaming the region, raising alarm about the Islamic Republic. Distilled, Grossi’s May 31, 2025 report, “Verification and monitoring in the Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015),” very plainly equates his annoyance with Iran with weapons-grade enrichment by Iran.

Grossi’s hornet’s nest is in the IAEA’s use of Palantir necro-software. According to Wikipedia, Grossi’s hokum WMD report was generated for the IAEA by Palantir Artificial Intelligence software.

Palantir makes a tidy sum in the necro-industry, peddling software for mass surveillance (and attendant, “alleged” executions). In Gaza, Palantir software is “alleged” to have enabled Israel’s Unit 8200 in the algorithmic generation of kill lists.

Without evidence other than “a mosaic of AI storytelling,” Grossi had continued to cook up stories against Iran. Following the June 22 American aerial and amphibian strikes on that heavily sanctioned nation; Grossi took to blabbering about amounts, down to the kilogram, of uranium enriched and secreted away in Iran. Sometimes it was 400 kilograms, other times 900. Post haste, the agency’s WMD sightings have since been walked back. “We did not have any proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon,” Grossi sheepishly told CNN’s Christian Amanpour on June 17.

The costs of Israel’s warmongering have pyramided. Is it not time to look this particular gift horse in the mouth?

Back To Beginnings: Palestine

What is the basic cause for this trouble in the greater Middle East, asks Dr. John Mearsheimer, speaking to the Notre Dame International Security Center. Who is responsible for the offensives begun, after October 7, by Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and assorted militia in Syria and Iraq, against which the United States elects to wage low-grade wars?

There are two dueling opinions. The genocidal regime and its partners—they had planned, before October 7, to drop the Palestinians out of history—all blame Iran. Iran is said to form the gravitational pull; is the “master puppeteer” of Hamas, Hezbollah, even the plucky Yemeni Ansar Allah movement.

These Israel-centric asininities are enforced by the West’s obedient “terrorist” designations—and by discussions so riddled with cliches as to be devoid of meaning. A favorite reductionism, for example, is the “proxy” word, disgorged by the clubby DC foreign-policy establishment and Israel’s sub-intelligent ruling elite. By Foreign Policy Inc’s telling, these complex and variegated regional Arab communities—the Resistance—are engaged in an unprofitable, punishing enterprise spanning decades, because commanded by Iran. Never mind what the principals themselves say.In its deeply rooted intellectual mendacity, the Western foreign-policy establishment does not believe that patriotism, nationalism, and fellow-feeling exist among groups outside the Occident. (I’m being cynical.) Unchallenged, the national security and foreign policy conglomerate contends that the Houthis’ valiant military intervention on behalf of the Palestinians, massacred daily with Western imprimatur, is no more than the protest of marionettes manipulated by their Iranian masters. As this mindset goes, only Anglo-Ameri-Israeli “soldiers” act in solidarity with their people.

The countervailing theory, “the alternative scenario,” argues Dr. Mearsheimer, is that Israel is responsible.” That “it is largely a result of Israel’s occupation that the Palestinians attacked Israel on October the 7th. Having assessed the evidence for the theory of Iranian hegemony over resistance militias, Mearsheimer, a scrupulous scholar of “great-power politics” (and a patriot who served in the US Air Force for five years), has found there to be “little evidence that Iran is responsible for all these conflicts in the Middle East.” For the longest time, Dr. Mearsheimer has argued that on the evidence, “Israel is principally responsible for the conflict in the Middle East. Israel and its barbaric Occupation of the Palestinians.”

Israel’s baleful presence in the de facto annexed territories is why every American president has understood the imperative of a solution to the Palestinian plight, without which Intifadas—one, two, three, ad infinitum—would culminate in events like October 7.

The “blame-Iran, change-the-Iranian-regime” tedious cant was begun by Israel in the 1970s and is at the behest of Israel, seconds Dr. Stephan Walt. It was during the 1990s, that the US acceded to Israel and began excluding Iran. In 1994, confirms Ali M. Ansari, professor of Iranian History at the University of St. Andrews, “In line with Israel’s budding rapprochement with the Arab world” and the signing of “a peace treaty with Jordan”—Israel “switched its strategic perspective from one that cast Iran as a [regional] balancer to one that saw Iran as the enemy. Henceforth, the United States would be encouraged by Israel to ostracize and isolate the Islamic Republic.” (“The Shallow Roots of Iran’s War With Israel,” Foreign Affairs, May 29, 2024.)

What Dr. Ansari cannot say, I will: Israel’s “strategic perspective” requires everywhere and always an enemy. This designated enemy will be tarnished by a blood libel, an abstraction: he, she or they will be said to be antisemitic, baying for Jewish blood. This blood libel ignores the truth, because when facts and reality are scrutinized, it’s Arabs that are being exterminated daily en masse, with western grants of government privilege, not Israelis.

You have to hand it to Israel. It has positioned itself as the world’s cross, a curse that every individual not Jewish-Israeli is born into and must carry like an albatross.

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It is a strange feature of our times that when a priest fulfills his sacred duty it becomes news. Such is the case with Fr. Ian Vane, who rightly refused Holy Communion to British MP Chris Coghlan after Coghlan’s public support for assisted suicide. Such an action by a priest should be common—as common as “Catholics” who promote evils while maintaining a public platform are today.

Receiving the Eucharist while in a state of mortal sin is a sacrilege because it profanes the sacredness of the sacrament by placing Him in a marred vessel. Instead of receiving the graces normally associated with reception of the Eucharist, one who receives Communion in a state of mortal sin causes further spiritual harm and compounds the sin. This teaching is not ambiguous, and it never has been. It can be found in Scripture itself: “And therefore, if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, he will be held to account for the Lord’s body and blood” (1 Corinthians 11:27, Knox). Thus, a priest who denies Communion in such cases is attempting both to assist the parishioner and prevent an act of sacrilege.

There is a profound injustice in the all-too-common cases wherein pastors remain silent when a parishioner ignores the teachings of the Church, publicly encourages serious sins, and then presents himself for Communion. Such is the case with so many nominally Catholic members of Congress who have voted in favor of abortion or even against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. In these scenarios, there are really only two possibilities:

1. The priest does not care enough about the soul of the communicant to act.
2. The priest does not believe that the teachings of the Church have merit, or that they matter in any transcendent way.

That’s all there is. The complex interplay of Church politics, the onslaught of media criticism, and irate or offended parishioners all fall under the umbrella of the first option. The priest must choose if he cares more about the soul of the parishioner than the trial that he will have to endure for doing what he was called to do. Fr. Ian Vane said yes, which is refreshing to the point of being remarkable.

When priests continue to offer Holy Communion in these cases, we might consider how that affects other members of the Church. The decision communicates (excuse the pun) an indifference toward their souls and a flippancy about their spiritual battles. After all, everyone is engaged in a spiritual war—our souls are being fought for. The decisions that we make bear consequences in this life and the next. Good priests acknowledge that reality.

There is a corresponding horror and romance in recognizing the degree to which our own decisions matter. It’s why the modern insistence of hoping Hell is empty can seem aspirational until it reduces our decisions and our humanity to nought.

Fr. James Schall, S.J., reminds us:

But if the doctrine of hell is true, if it is a real possibility for each person as a result of his choices, of his putting disorder into his soul and into the world, it means that our ordinary affairs are shot through with unimaginable significance. 

This is even more true with the decisions that relate to the sacred, or that relate directly to Him who Is.

Fr. Vane told the BBC, “As priests, we are custodians of the sacraments,” which is confirmed by Canon Law. Yet, to a people who have grown dim to the graces offered therein, the idea of a need for a custodian is anathematic, or at least incomprehensible. An indifference to acts of scandal quickly translates into an indifference toward Divine Law—and an indifference toward God Himself, who is profaned.

This disregard is then taught to parishioners, including the next generation, who watch how we act. That is so often how banal and irreverent liturgies result in younger generations leaving their parishes when they mature—because a demonstrated indifference is tantamount to a lived apostasy. If they have only ever seen Catholics acting as if the sacraments do not matter, they may reach an age wherein they believe the actions of their elders.

A priest himself causes scandal when he willfully contributes to the ignorance of his parishioners with regard to the moral law. He asserts, via his indifference, that those sins aren’t a “big deal” and don’t require us to change ourselves.

As a devout Catholic, if I were to err unknowingly, and especially if I was doing so in a public way, I would want to know. If I was jeopardizing my relationship with Christ and placing my soul at risk, I would want to know. Moreover, the faithful have a right to know, and priests have a duty to inform them. Those who take the Faith seriously desire to know when they are placing their souls in peril. Those who do not practice the Faith have no reason to approach the Eucharist, for reception of Communion is not a token of affiliation but an intimate encounter with Christ and His Church.

We are called to die to ourselves, to change who we are to become anew in Christ. Too often it is insinuated, with rolled eyes, that we are instructed to follow a system of frivolous rules without cause, as if the Church hierarchy invented a penal code in their boredom. Instead, Christ left us a Church to guide us in properly following Him. Moreover, our lives become better when we do so because they are then properly ordered.

Read the Whole Article

The post The Mercy of Withholding the Eucharist appeared first on LewRockwell.

The ideology of transsexualism is undoubtedly one of the most heated topics of our time.

One common misapprehension among those who argue against it is the assumption that this debate can be settled on the merits of the argument. This, however, is not the case.

Trans advocates have not arrived at their position by considering facts or evidence, nor do they operate by logic or reason.

For example, most human beings—including children—readily see and understand that biological men cannot become women, nor can women become men.

What trans activists advocate thus runs in complete contravention to the physical and physiological reality that is plain to everyone. These individuals are willing to assert, with a straight face, something that is obviously and patently untrue.

By taking this position, they reveal themselves to be fundamentally dishonest. This is why hard evidence, facts, and sound arguments do not typically carry weight with trans advocates. If they did, they would not espouse their position.

Because their stance is at odds with reality, they cannot defend it through argument or appeal to facts.

This is evident in how they typically respond to challenges. Rather than engaging in argumentation, they often become agitated and angry, quickly resorting to recriminations. Their usual strategy is to terminate the debate by leveling accusations of hate, transphobia, or similar charges.

They behave this way because they cannot rationally support their standpoint. If they could, they would naturally plead their position in a sensible and coherent manner.

The inability of pro-trans advocates to rationally justify their views explains their relentless efforts to censor the opposing side. It is highly revealing that perhaps no other issue is surrounded by such an extensive censorship infrastructure as that of transsexualism.

Opposing views are quickly shut down under the guise of hate speech, transphobia, or discrimination. So extreme is the drive toward censorship in the trans debate that its proponents are unwilling to even acknowledge legitimate objections to the pro-trans outlook. In an astonishing distortion of moral sensibility, those who oppose it are cast as morally deficient.

This extreme situation persists in mainstream discourse, even though a vast majority of the population considers the pro-trans position wrong and rejects the agenda advanced by activists.

The severe level of censorship surrounding the trans issue indicates the weakness of its advocates’ arguments. Unable to provide effective arguments to support their view, they resort to silencing the opposition. And they have been largely successful in this endeavor. We rarely hear meaningful critiques of trans ideology from official organs of sanctioned conversation.

This reflects a broader principle: the desire to censor is positively correlated with the weakness of the censors’ argument. If someone has a strong argument—or believes they do—they do not try to censor. On the contrary, they are eager to present their view to the opposition.

As a rule, we encounter the greatest levels of censorship to protect views that are the least defensible. Trans ideology, which so flagrantly contravenes obvious physical and physiological realities, is perhaps the most conspicuous example of this.

Other examples include the COVID vaccines or the allegedly unprovoked Russian aggression in Ukraine. Past instances include the Hunter Biden laptop or Joe Biden’s dementia, among others. All these are or were indefensible positions, which is why their proponents erected elaborate systems of censorship to forestall evidence-based, rational discussion. Those in opposition were immediately dismissed as morally deficient, evil, or outright crazy, labeled as conspiracy theorists, homophobes, anti-vaxxers, racists, Kremlin agents, and so forth.

Returning to the trans issue, it serves as a litmus test for basic honesty and integrity. Those willing to deny the obvious reality before everyone’s eyes cannot be considered good-faith participants in political discourse. Their stance shows they have little respect for evidence, reality, facts, reason, or truth and are inclined to disregard them for the sake of their ideological agenda.

This applies to anyone who advocates censoring their political opponents on any issue of concern.

Therefore, it was disappointing to observe the Trump administration attempting to silence those who sought to draw attention to the genocide in Gaza. As with trans ideology, the censorship in this instance is not explicitly admitted but is carried out under false pretenses—in this case, accusations of antisemitism.

Trump’s censorship effort is wrong for two main reasons. First, people should be able to say whatever they want as long as they do not directly incite violence toward others (as protected by the Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court). Second – based on what we daily see on our screens – those alleging genocide in Gaza cannot be too far from the truth. After all, Trump himself admitted during a press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu that the place has been turned into “a demolition site.”

It is unfortunate that Donald Trump, who has been severely victimized by censorship from the political Left, has resorted to this tactic himself. However, it should be noted that Trump’s censoriousness regarding Israel’s Gaza tactics is an exception, whereas censorship on the Left is systemic and widespread.

Nevertheless, Trump’s censorship attempt vis-a-vis Israel’s activities in Gaza is wrong and is potentially the first step down a slippery slope. We must be vigilant not to adopt the unjust tactics we rightfully condemn in our opponents.

The post Censorship Transsexualism, and the Tragedy in Gaza appeared first on LewRockwell.

Yesterday the United Kingdom High Court of Justice refused to authorize an application for a new inquest into the death of a UK citizen during the 9/11 attacks.  The attorney general’s prior refusal to authorize a new inquest was “not justiciable” and immune from judicial review.

Geoff Campbell was murdered in the North Tower on 9/11.  His brother Matt Campbell provided to the UK courts compelling evidence that the North Tower was destroyed by pre-planted explosives and incendiaries rather than the impact of Flight 11 into the North Tower.

For example, William Rodriguez was in the basement of the North Tower on 9/11 and just before Flight 11 hit the North Tower heard and felt an explosion.  Rodriguez stated in an interview, “I was in the basement, which is the support floor for the maintenance company, and we hear like a big rumble. Not like an impact, like a rumble, like moving furniture in a massive way. And all of sudden we hear another rumble, and a guy comes running, running into our office, and all of skin was off his body.”

Why is the UK refusing to objectively investigate the murder of a British citizen on 9/11, especially when the victim’s family has provided evidence that shows that the impact of Flight 11 was not the cause of the North Tower’s collapse?

The United Kingdom was a main ally of the United States during the so-called “War on Terror”, which was launched after the 9/11 attacks.  We know that the US government refused to objectively investigate the 9/11 attacks and employed fear-mongering and jingoistic rhetoric to convince a frightened American public into supporting the brutal and unprovoked wars of aggression that were waged after 9/11.

An objective investigation into the 9/11 attacks would likely reveal very inconvenient truths for the United States government and its key allies such as the United Kingdom.

The post UK Court Denies New Inquest into Death of 9/11 Victim appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click Here:

The MAHA Report

The post In Explosive Interview on Tucker, Kennedy Blasts Corruption in Public Health appeared first on LewRockwell.

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Trump’s war on American consumers is proceeding.  He announced today that imports from Vietnam will be taxed with a 20 percent tariff tax, 40 percent for goods that have to change ships during the journey.  This will allow certain American corporations to jack up their prices and, as some Vietnamese businesses drop out of the export market prices of those goods will increase even more.

The post A War Trump is Actually Winning appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, Johnny Kramer.

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