 California Exodus  Nefesh B’Nefesh: Live the Dream US & CAN 1-866-4-ALIYAH | UK 020-8150-6690 or 0800-085-2105 | Israel 02-659-5800 https://www.nbn.org.il/ info@nbn.org.il It’s time to come home! Nefesh B’Nefesh: Live the Dream 1-866-4-ALIYAH |
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‘If You Love Your Children, Flee The State’: California GOP Lawmakerby Tyler Durden, 16June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/if-you-love-your-children-flee-state-california-gop-lawmaker
A California state senator has urged parents to “flee” the state if they “love their children” in response to what he calls alarming language in a new gender identity bill.
Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita) is one of two lone Republicans on the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee , and has served in the state legislature for 11 years, according to the Daily Signal, who notes that he was the lone voice warning against language in the bill, AB 957, which was amended on June 5 by a Democratic senator to rewrite the state’s Family Code to list “gender affirmation” alongside a child’s need for “health, safety and welfare.”  CA Sen. Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita) Rep. Scott Wilk (R)Under AB 957, introduced by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson (D) and co-authored by Sen. Scott Weiner (D), a parent could lose custody of their child for not “affirming” their claims about gender identity.
“I was born and raised in this state. I love this state, but I’m not going to stay in this state. It’s just too oppressive and I believe in freedom and so I’m going to move to America when I leave the legislature,” Wilk continued. Watch:
 Tony Kinnett-tweet-14June2023- Sen Scott Wilk warns parents to flee his own state In response to the outrage, a spokesperson for Sen. Wilson tried to downplay concerns, saying “It’s not saying [affirmation] is the most important factor or determining factor. It’s one of many factors that the judge should consider while working out a custody agreement.”
Sure… |
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A ‘Traumatic Fight For Survival’: The Demise of San Francisco Should Concern All Americansby Tyler Durden, 25July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/traumatic-fight-survival-demise-san-francisco-should-concern-all-americans Authored by John Mac Ghlionn via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), San Francisco is a dangerous place to live. If in doubt, let me point you in the direction of Darren Mark Stallcup. An artist by day, a fentanyl citizen journalist by night, the young man recently made a shocking video documenting life in San Francisco.  Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco Homeless people gather near drug dealers in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, Calif., on Feb. 22, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
A resident of the Tenderloin, a drug-infested neighborhood overrun with crime, Stallcup describes himself as a witness to a “zombie apocalypse” and “fentanyl genocide.” Every morning, he must navigate his way through sidewalks littered with needles, human waste, and even dead bodies. He describes “Frisco” as “a fourth world country within a first world country.”
“Living in San Francisco has been a wild ride,” Stallcup tells me. He has “personally witnessed the city go from being a cultural capital to the technological capital to the fentanyl capital. After the massive tech exodus, led by Elon Musk, San Francisco lost billions in tax revenue.”
According to Stallcup, “Local leaders who gained an appetite from tech tax money soon found themselves desperate to quench their newfound appetite for money. The only other way for them to achieve this was to enable the homeless-industrial complex by allowing fentanyl to plague our community and corrupt various nonprofits and organizations.”
For Stallcup, his mornings and nights begin and end in an eerily similar manner: opening and closing his eyes to the sounds of people screaming for their lives and ambulances speeding by, sirens blaring.
“Sleep,” he says, “is very difficult to come by, especially living in the Tenderloin, where my apartment building has been broken into multiple times.”
“It’s traumatic, to say the least, a fight for survival,” he adds. Quite literally, a fight for survival. On more than one occasion, Stallcup has had to fight off burglars with his own bare hands.
Stallcup’s apartment building is surrounded by bodies (dead and barely alive), inordinate amounts of litter, tents, and an array of drug-related accouterments.
“Every morning, I go out and count the bodies,” he says, “sometimes giving them a small love tap just to see if they are alive.” It’s “Groundhog Day” meets “The Road.” Early in the morning, white vans come by his place and stack the bodies on multiple layers of metallic trays. Welcome to modern-day America.
“This humanitarian crisis,” says Stallcup, “is a fentanyl genocide.” He’s right. It is. In San Francisco, a person dies of a fentanyl overdose every 10 hours. “Theft, rape, and murder is rampant,” Stallcup tells me, “with mom-and-pop shops under attack every day.” Grocery stores are ransacked dry. Cars and apartments are broken into regularly. Who’s to blame? I ask. “I truly believe that I am witnessing the collapse of the Western civilization,” he replies, and he believes that it’s because of corruption and people “who profit from the chaos.”
Stallcup is particularly critical of the city’s mayor, London Breed. And for good reason. Her leadership skills have been seen as, for lack of a better word, anemic.
Stallcup isn’t the only disillusioned San Franciscan. As I write this, a number of major retail stores, including the likes of Whole Foods, Old Navy, and Nordstrom, are shutting up shop and moving elsewhere. In fact, since 2019, according to a recent San Francisco Standard report, nearly 50 percent of the stores in the city’s downtown shopping district have closed.
Who can blame them? According to Fox News, even the city’s richest neighborhoods are being plagued by “smash and grabs, robberies, burglaries, and open-air drug use.” As Tracy McCray, San Francisco Police Officers Association president, noted, “The problems in the Tenderloin have escaped the Tenderloin.”
They most certainly have. To compound matters, gangs of youths, baseball bats in hand, are reportedly tormenting mothers and nannies, mugging them on their daily school run.
Last month, in Noe Valley, once a “charming, family-friendly neighborhood,” 11 phone robberies occurred. These robberies, according to the Telegraph, “are believed to have been carried out by the same gang who are targeting women picking up children from school.” One woman was allegedly assaulted with a baseball bat, while another woman was punched in the face.
It’s hard to believe that, less than two years ago, San Francisco was named the 15th safest city in the world—yes, 15th. Today, as is clear to see, the city has become increasingly unsafe for all citizens. Viewed as a “liberal city,” San Francisco is, first and foremost, a U.S. city. Its demise should sadden all readers, regardless of their politics.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or Zero Hedge. |
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Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. is giving up two Major San Francisco hotels, Westfield is giving up San Francisco Centre and 60 Spear Street Sells At 66% Off. The CRE Doom Loop Accelerates as San Francisco has gone to Hell! “Well done, Democrats. You’ve effectively transformed a once-thriving city into a hellhole. “Why would they give up on a loan that is due in 6 months, June 05, 2023 due November 2023?
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CRE Doom Loop Accelerates As Westfield Abandons Largest San Fran Mall, Stops Paying $558 Million Loanby Tyler Durden, 13June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/cre-doom-loop-accelerates-westfield-abandons-largest-san-fran-mall-stops-paying-558-million Downtown San Francisco has been dealt another blow after Westfield and its partner Brookfield Properties made the “difficult decision” to stop payment on a $558 million loan for the metro area’s largest shopping mall after “challenging operating conditions,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“For more than 20 years, Westfield has proudly and successfully operated San Francisco Centre, investing significantly over that time in the vitality of the property. Given the challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic, we have made the difficult decision to begin the process to transfer management of the shopping center to our lender to allow them to appoint a receiver to operate the property going forward,” Westfield said.
The mall at 865 Market St has multiple lenders tied to its commercial mortgage-backed securities. Those lenders weren’t disclosed. The receiver determines what happens to the mall next, but during a retail foreclosure, the property usually stays open.
 Westfield San Francisco Centre
This comes after Nordstrom, which occupies 312,000 square feet in the mall, isn’t renewing its lease in August after nearly four decades of operations. When Nordstrom closes, the mall only be 55% leased, well below the average 93% of other Westfield malls across the US.
Bloomberg obtained a letter to employees from Jamie Nordstrom, the retailer’s chief stores officer, who said the closing of Nordstrom is due to a slump in sales because of lower foot traffic, adding “dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years.” We suspect Nordstrom is referring to the out-of-control crime…
Westfield recently blamed “unsafe conditions” and “lack of enforcement against rampant criminal activity” in the downtown area for Nordstrom’s departure. It also said the mall’s poor performance and crime-ridden surrounding area is an anomaly versus its other properties nationwide.
Westfield and Nordstrom’s exodus comes one week after Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. ceased making payments on a $725 million CMBS loan secured by two of its San Francisco hotels.
Park Hotels also blamed crime in the downtown area, and “San Francisco’s path to recovery remains clouded and elongated by major challenges.”
In the past several months, retailers, including Whole Foods, T-Mobile, and many other stores, have closed up shop after progressive city leadership fails to enforce law and order. San Francisco’s CRE meltdown is only accelerating, and the latest property foreclosures of major hotels and malls might be the start and could stymie any economic recovery.
Meanwhile, the city is also grappling with the tech downturn and regional banking crisis that saw the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank. Another segment of the CRE market faltering is office, where vacancies are high as companies like Salesforce Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. are reducing square footage.
The departure of companies and CRE meltdown prompted San Francisco’s Mayor, London Breed, to recently make a U-Turn to fund police after years of promoting the defund the police movement.
Congrats, Democrats, You’ve effectively transformed a once-thriving city into a hellhole. Now watch it implode. |
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Downtown San Fran Office Tower Sells At 66% Off As CRE Crisis Claims Another Victimby Tyler Durden, 13August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/downtown-san-fran-office-tower-sells-66-haircut-cre-crisis-accelerates Understanding the backdrop of the crime-ridden progressive metro area of San Francisco, alongside the mass exodus of businesses and residents, and the record-high vacancy rate of office towers, we asked a very important question earlier this summer: What are office buildings worth?
We quickly found out in June that one downtown San Francisco office building sold for roughly 70% less than its previously estimated value, an ominous sign of what would come as the commercial real estate market dominos appear to be falling.
Now Sixty Spear St., an 11-story building that is 30% occupied and is expected to be entirely vacant by summer 2025, has been sold to Presidio Bay Ventures for $40.9 million, about a 66% discount versus the most recent assessed property value of $121 million, according to local media SFGATE.  60 Spear Street San Francisco CA 94105 “We acknowledge the formidable challenges that confront San Francisco,” Cyrus Sanandaji, founder and managing principal of Presidio Bay, who is now the office tower’s proud new owner. He remains a bull on the San Francisco office market and wants to expand the building’s square footage from 157,436 to 170,000 square feet and transform it into a “Class-A trophy office building with exceptional design and hospitality-driven amenities.”
All we have to say to Sanandaji’s CRE bet is good luck. The crime-ridden metro area covered in poop must come to terms with City Hall’s horrendous progressive policies that have entirely backfired and led to an exodus of businesses and people. Until Mayor London Breed can instill law and order once more — the ability for the downtown area to thrive once more will remain challenging.
Marc Benioff, the chief executive officer of Salesforce, the city’s largest employer and anchor tenant in its tallest skyscraper, warned last month that the metro area is in danger. He offered a grim outlook: The downtown area is “never going back to the way it was” in pre-Covid times when workers commuted to offices daily.
… and documenting how the downtown area has rapidly transformed into a ghost town is Youtuber METAL LEO, who walks around with a video camera, revealing empty stores, malls, and towers.
Besides Sixty Spear, SFGATE provided data on other recent tower transactions:
Things are so bad that some building owners are just walking away from properties: And defaulting… As the CRE crisis spreads, remember last week: Baltimore Sun Editorial Board Tells Everyone ‘Keep Calm’ Amid CRE Panic … this will only mean bad news for commercial real estate-small banks that could threaten financial stability and either cause a recession or make a recession more severe.
If you’re curious where we could be in the CRE crisis cycle, a recent analysis by CoStar Group shows 55% of office leases signed before the pandemic that were active during Covid haven’t expired, meaning vacancies will continue to rise.
Here’s what could be next: The collapse of WeWork will only cause more pain for CRE markets nationwide. The coworking company occupies 16.8 million square feet across the US. |
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Downtown San Francisco Becomes A Ghost Town As Major Retailers Fleeby Tyler Durden, 08May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/downtown-san-francisco-becomes-ghost-town-major-retailers-flee Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com, Retailers abandon downtown San Francisco in droves. Nordstrom is the latest, signaling the death of the area…  downtown SF retail closures
That image from the Tweet below is from April 29. Since then, there have been more closures…
 San Francisco Chronicle-tweet-29April2023-biggest merchants and beloved small businesses shuttered in downtown San Francisco Nordstrom closes two stores and Saks Off 5th says goodbye as well.
 San Francisco Chronicle-tweet-03May2023-Nordstrom will close two downtown locations Walgreens and Whole Foods Leave
 Greg Gallagher-tweet-2May2023-Walgreens announces another store closure in San Francisco San Francisco’s Dying DowntownThe San Francisco Standard says Nordstrom’s Exit From San Francisco Calls Downtown Mall’s Future Into Question
Call Out the GuardZerohedge comments Gov. Newsom Activates National Guard And Highway Patrol To Combat San Francisco’s Drug Crisis
San Francisco Ghost Town
 Brian Altano-tweet-03May2023-San Francisco become a ghost town in real time “It’s been completely surreal watching a major city like San Francisco become a ghost town in real time. Tons of restaurant and business closures. Way less commuters. Empty buildings everywhere. All the tech companies bounced and people got priced out. Just a hollow city now.” Q&A on the Exodus
 MishGEA-tweet-04May2023-don’t people want to live there
Other than A through F downtown San Francisco is a great place to be. * * *
 Andrew Wong 🇺🇸-tweet-18April 2023-This is one way to defund Jeff Bezos
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“There’s Poop Everywhere”: San Francisco’s Office District Not Only A Ghost Town, It’s Also Covered In Sh*tby Tyler Durden, 25May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/theres-poop-everywhere-san-franciscos-office-district-not-only-ghost-town-its-also  Urban Alchemy employees pick up trash while people gather belongings in the Tenderloin neighborhood. | Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images Everyone knows that San Francisco is the nation’s largest public toilet – requiring the city to employ six-figure ‘poop patrol’ cleanup team, however a new report from the city Controller’s Office really puts things in poo-spective.  SF Feces Query For starters, feces were found far more often in commercial sectors, covering “approximately 50% of street segments in Key Commercial Areas and 30% in the Citywide survey,” second only to broken glass as can be seen in the ‘illegal dumping’ section.  SF Feces moder If you’re wondering about the city’s fecal methodology, look no further than a footnote on page 43;
As far as where most of the poo is found, Nob Hill takes the top spot, followed by the Tenderloin and The Mission districts.  Feces Observed in SF Neighborhoods Via the San Francisco Standard “It’s terrible; this street is covered,” Tenderloin resident Joe Souza told The San Francisco Standard earlier this month. “There’s poop everywhere. You always see it along the wall and in front of the garage there.”  Percentage of Evaluation with Feces by Neighborhood Meanwhile, nearly 2/3 of key commercial routes reported moderate to severe street litter, vs. 41% of the citywide streets struggling with the same problem.  San Francisco’s Streets Are Filthy. A New Survey Shows Just How Dirty Via the San Francisco Standard As the San Francisco Standard reports; San Francisco’s commercial and residential streets are also highly tagged up, with every neighborhood except one—Visitacion Valley—reporting high levels of graffiti last year. The issue is once again worse in commercial areas, of which 71% said they had severe or moderate graffiti.  A Clean City team in the Tenderloin power washes the sidewalk on Hyde Street in San Francisco. | Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images “In terms of actual counts of graffiti observed, there were about 10 times (160,000 vs. 16,000 respectively) as many instances of graffiti reported in the Key Commercial Areas survey in comparison to the Citywide sample,” the report said.
And San Francisco’s favorite cleanliness fixation, human or animal feces, continues to be a sore spot for the city: Almost half of the surveyed commercial areas observed feces. Citywide, that figure was just 30%. * * * San Francisco’s poopocalypse comes amid a staggering commercial office vacancy rate as a combination of pandemic-era work-from-home policies, and people fleeing the city’s notorious violence and poo-covered streets have made the once-thriving city into a ghost town.
 jason-tweet-23May2023-This used to be gridlock-now it’s a ghost town-SF |
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Some Parts Of America Are Already On The Verge Of Being Ungovernable As Rampant Lawlessness Spreads Like Wildfireby Tyler Durden, 15August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/some-parts-america-are-already-verge-being-ungovernable-rampant-lawlessness-spreads Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, In order for a civilized society to function, most people have to willingly follow the rules of that society. If that happens, law enforcement authorities can deal with the few that choose to be lawless. For generations, that is how things worked in America There was a high standard of morality among the general population, and so the police were able to successfully handle the few bad apples that insisted on breaking the law.
But now everything has changed. As a result of decades of extreme moral decay, lawlessness is rampant and there are vast multitudes of young people that openly flaunt the rules of our society. In fact, there are already some areas of the country that are literally on the verge of being ungovernable.  Systematically looted the Nordstrom store at the Westfield Topanga mall
A perfect example of what I am talking about happened in southern California on Saturday.
Dozens of lawless young thieves systematically looted the Nordstrom store at the Westfield Topanga mall, and they were able to get away with tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise…
When I was growing up, this sort of thing simply did not happen.
But now we are seeing mobs of looters go haywire all over the nation on a regular basis. This heist was obviously well coordinated, and not one of the thieves even showed a shred of remorse. Topanga Mall Nordstrom Robbery 60-100k StolenApparently these young people are not exactly languishing in poverty, because a BMW and a Lexus were among the getaway vehicles that they used…
How are we supposed to respond to this?
As I stated earlier, we are seeing robberies of this nature so often now.
Several days earlier, dozens of young people looted the Yves Saint Laurent store in Glendale…
Some people attempt to downplay the severity of these crimes by saying that these big corporate retailers can afford the losses they are experiencing. No, they can’t. Overall, U.S. retailers will lose more than 100 billion dollars due to theft this year alone.
This has become a major national crisis, and as J. Lee Grady has aptly pointed out, we truly have become “the land of the free-for-all”…
A lot of of this theft is being fueled by the worst drug crisis in the entire history of our nation.
Today, vast stretches of the city of Los Angeles have been transformed into giant homeless encampments that are filled with “zombie-like residents smoking drugs”…
The same thing is happening in San Francisco. In fact, conditions have become so dangerous in downtown San Francisco that federal employees that work at “the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” are being told to work from home for the foreseeable future…
I find it perfectly fitting that “one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets” is operating right outside of a giant office tower named for Nancy Pelosi.
Politicians such as Pelosi have been making horrendously bad decisions for decades, and that has been a major factor in getting us to this point.
We are truly reaping what we have sown, and what we are currently experiencing is just the beginning. Eventually, conditions will deteriorate so dramatically in our core urban areas that our leaders will be forced to implement extreme measures in a desperate attempt to restore order.
But ultimately you can’t govern vast numbers of people that have no intention of being governed. The fabric of our society really is coming apart at the seams, and we are going to see things happen in the years ahead that will completely shock all of us. * * * |
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Target To Shutter Nine Stores In Major Cities After Being Targeted By Violence, Theftby Tyler Durden, 27September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/target-shutter-nine-stores-major-cities-after-being-targeted-violence-theft
Retail giant Target on Tuesday announced the closure of nine stores in major cities across the US, citing violence, theft and organized retail crime. The news comes on the heels of a warning from the company that lost or stolen inventory has created a $500 million dent in profitability this year.
According to CNBC, the company will close one store in Harlem, two stores in Seattle, three stores in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, and three more in Portland, Oregon.  Target stores set to close in October 2023
According to CNBC, Target, which has nearly 2,000 stores in the U.S., has been outspoken about organized retail crime at its stores. It has said theft has driven higher levels of shrink, an industry term used to describe losses from goods that were damaged, misplaced or stolen.
With today’s announcement, Target also stands apart in its decision to both shutter stores and to explicitly blame that decision on retail crime.
When asked in May if the company planned to close stores due to crime, CEO Brian Cornell said “We do not want to close stores. We know how important our stores are. They create local jobs, they generate taxes, they’re very important for those local shoppers, and they play a critical role in communities across the country.”
“We’ll continue to do everything in our power to keep our doors open,” he added. “At the same time, we’ll be closely monitoring the safety of our team and guests as well as the financial impact to our business as we determine the right path forward at Target.”
Target also noted in its Tuesday release that the company supports the passage of the ‘Combating Organized Retail Crime Act,’ which proposes stiffer penalties for theft offenses, and calls for a change in the threshold which must be met by prosecutors before bringing federal theft cases. The Act would also provide retailers with a formal venue to trade information with each other, and law enforcement, through a proposed Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center.
Nine states have passed similar laws since 2022 (six so far this year), which have been supported by retailers and trade associations.
This goes way beyond just crime… Target’s plight uncovers more layers of operational decay. The company’s struggles, spanning over a year, include an alarming buildup of unsold inventory, backlash against its Pride merchandise collection, and an evident pullback in consumer expenditure on non-essential items such as apparel and home goods.
In an uncharacteristic admission during an earnings call in August of last year, the company – alongside other retailers, highlighted the unexpected blow to profits caused by higher markdowns, along with desperate attempts to offload unpopular merchandise. A surge in inventories predictably correlates with a rise in shrink, leaving a dent in the retail margins, a situation previously unmentioned by Target in the last two decades.
Meanwhile, the introduction of locked cases for merchandise, hiring of third-party guard services, extensive training for store leaders in de-escalation tactics, and considerable investment in cyber defense to counteract fraud and organized crime have failed to make a meaningful difference.
“Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully,” the company said in the release.  A looter rob a Target store
Target’s announcement, aligning with the release of the National Retail Federation’s latest National Retail Security Survey, sheds light on the nebulous shrink data. Despite a surge to $112 billion in 2022 from $93.9 billion the previous year, the shrink impact on retail bottom lines mirrors past patterns, with an average annual increase from 1.44% in 2021 to 1.57% in 2022.
In the wake of store closures across major cities, Target joins the ranks of Walmart, Nordstrom, and Walgreens Boots Alliance, which are all experiencing similar pain.
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Bob Hope Says Democrats Are Like Zombies
Democrat-run metro cities overrun with ZOMBIE DRUG “TRANQ” that’s cooked down into powder form and mixed with heroin and fentanyl – eats human flesh21May2023 by: S.D. Wells This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author (Natural News) Just take a stroll down any metropolitan street in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, or New York City, and you will feel like you just stepped onto the movie set of “World War Z.” There are actual zombies roaming the streets, sleeping standing up, and moaning from the flesh-eating disorder they have from taking a pet tranquilizer that eats human flesh (they thought they were just smoking fentanyl and crack). The zombie drug “tranq dope,” also known by veterinarians as xylazine, is now frequently used by drug dealers to “cut” other drugs (spread them out so they make more money), while further complicating the drug addiction nightmare for users. Zombie drug tranq infiltrating heroin, fentanyl, counterfeit prescription pills, and sedativesJust as one may have thought the illicit drug supply couldn’t get any more dangerous and deadly, it did. Many drug dealers use baby laxatives to cut cocaine and crack so they can make it look like there’s more to buy and use, and double or triple their profits. The side effects for drug users boiled down to a bad case of the runs, and then whatever else happens to the heart, brain, and cleansing organs from the continued drug use.
Now there is xylazine, a drug used by veterinarians and fellow surgeons for anesthesia, sedation, muscle relaxation, and analgesia. Doesn’t sound so bad for drug addicts, but the drug wasn’t made for humans, but mainly cattle, horses, and other mammals. Turns out, it’s too dangerous to use on humans because it causes dangerously low blood pressure, critically low heart rates, and wait for it… a disorder that eats away at the flesh.
Also, because xylazine is a non-opioid sedative, it’s also not a “controlled substance” in the USA, and NARCAN does not work as an anecdote to save people from overdosing, like it can with heroin or fentanyl. Xylazine cannot be purchased without a veterinary license, so how are so many drug dealers getting a hold of it to use to cut street drugs? DEA puts out safety alert about “widespread threat” of fentanyl cut with xylazine in 1/4th of all fentanyl powder sold in America‘s socialist citiesThe DEA is warning of a “widespread threat” of fentanyl cut with xylazine, the “zombie drug” that is stolen from veterinary clinics and mixed with other street drugs. Xylazine is ultra-deadly and can eat away at human flesh when consumed or smoked. Also, the fentanyl anecdote NARCAN does not work to save people from xylazine overdose.
About one-fourth of all fentanyl powders sold on the streets is now laced/mixed with the zombie drug, warns the DEA.
Xylazine causes CNS depression, respiratory depression, heart rate slow down, and death. This veterinarian drug for putting animals under for surgery is being taken in pills and smoked by druggies in Democrat-run metropolitan cities and it’s eating their flesh. Drug dealers are mixing this with fentanyl and people don’t know, and NARCAN won’t save them from this. It’s like a real-life scene from the Walking Dead show. Will these zombies still be able to vote for Biden in 2024, for more free money and new crack pipes for smoking Tranq?
Tranq gives it’s users leper-looking sores and can result in amputation of limbs. When combined with fentanyl the chances of death skyrocket from just one use. Many druggies die the first try, and most don’t even know they’re getting xylazine at all. The Democrats in DC like this, because it’s part of the depopulation program, along with Covid vaccines and open borders.
Tune your internet dial to NaturalMedicine.news for more tips on how to use natural remedies for preventative medicine and for healing, instead of succumbing to Big Pharma for toxic injections that spread disease and disorder. Sources for this article include:
DEA Warns ‘Zombie Drug’ Hitting US Streets, Set To Worsen Overdose Crisisby Tyler Durden, 24March2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dea-warns-zombie-drug-hitting-us-streets-set-worsen-overdose-crisis President Biden’s efforts to end a nationwide drug crisis, which he promised to end during the 2020 election campaign, may face further challenges as the Drug Enforcement Administration issued an alert on Monday regarding a new concoction of fentanyl and a veterinary tranquilizer hitting American cities and towns.
 DEA HQ-tweet-20March2023-𝐏𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐂 𝐒𝐀𝐅𝐄𝐓𝐘 𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐑𝐓 When combined, xylazine, a veterinary tranquilizer, also commonly known as “tranq,” and fentanyl make drug overdoses even deadlier because the opioid overdose antidote, naloxone, also known as Narcan, won’t reverse its effects.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses between August 2021 and August 2022. About two-thirds of the deaths involved synthetic opioids.  Overdoses are the leading cause of death among the young in the US
The grim statistics are a significant concern for the Biden administration, who promised to end the drug crisis during the 2020 election campaign. But with open borders and record amounts of migrants flooding into the US, it’s no wonder the drug crisis is worsening.
Some have warned the proliferation of fentanyl, and surging overdose-related deaths nationwide should be designated as a “weapon of mass destruction.”
The DEA’s new alert of xylazine-laced fentanyl (some have called it the “zombie drug”) should concern all Americans because it renders Narcan useless.
[EDD: Tweets to Graphic to Post.]
 HARD FACTOR-tweet-01March2023-Hot new drug Tranq is causing people’s skin to fall off
 Brandon Farley-tweet-3March2023-Today In Portland a Fentanyl Junkie Obstructs Driveway
 1r0nm41d3n-tweet-01March2023-Dude is tweaking hard and could this be a tranq sore
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Olive Garden Owner Warns: “Decline In Fine Dining” As Wealthy Americans Trade Down To Cheap Boozeby Tyler Durden, 22September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/olive-garden-owner-warns-decline-fine-dining-wealthy-americans-trade-down-cheap-booze
Sentiment continues to turn negative for the US consumer as the latest warning sign comes from a multi-brand restaurant operator with more than 1,900 full-service locations nationwide. During a Thursday morning conference call, the management team warned Wall Street analysts about “softness” among wealthier households.
Darden Restaurants CEO Rick Cardenas said, “We are seeing a little softness versus last year with household incomes above $125,000, and that primarily affects our Fine Dining brands, but it does affect all of our brands.”
The multi-brand restaurant operator owns Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, and five other brands with more than 1,900 locations nationwide.  Darden Restaurants Brands
Cardenas offered more clues about waning consumer spending habits at restaurant locations:
Darden’s CFO told analysts that a decline in fine dining has been due to customers opting for lower-priced wines and other beverages over the past year:
Darden’s exec team offered a cautionary view on wealthier customers amid a period of high credit card debt and depleted savings for consumers. The $2 trillion in excess savings from the Covid crisis has been all but depleted, according to according to JPM calculations.  Personal Savings vs Credit Card Debt 2016-2023
The latest slide in consumer credit suggests folks are finally tapped out.  Revolving Credit Monthly Change 2000-2023
Meanwhile, with average credit card interest rates rising above 22% to a new record high…  Credit Card Interest Rate September 2023
And now that repayment of student loans has officially resumed, it will likely cause a $15.8 billion headwind for consumers every month.
The days of $80 steaks and $25 martinis might be over for now. |
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This does not even include Local, County and Employer Labor Taxes.
California Is The Most Costly State For Starting A Businessby Tyler Durden, 10August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/california-most-costly-state-starting-business Authored by John Seiler via The Epoch Times, Some of the people I admire most are small-business owners. One example that comes to mind is an auto shop guy who takes special care of his customers, never cheating them. Another runs a small restaurant with special attention to cleanliness. A third owns a gift store and always is walking around, straightening the merchandise on the shelves, interacting with customers.  Stacy Dean stands inside the restaurant she owns, the Kopper Kettle, in Yucaipa, Calif., on July 10, 2020. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times) In addition to making a profit by keeping customers happy, these entrepreneurs must pay taxes and comply with numerous multiplying government mandates, restrictions, and regulations.
A new study found these crucial foundational businesses of our economy have it the hardest in California compared to the other 49 states. The ratings come from Venture Smarter, which provides services to small businesses. The ratings show how hard it is to start up a business. The best 10 states:
You’ll notice these are the states that score highest on other rankings, such as tax rates and the number of regulations. An anomaly is Colorado, which is run by a Democratic governor, Jared Polis, who favors low taxes.
By contrast, the worst states generally also are on other lists of most difficult business and tax climates. The worst 10 states:
Anomalies are Alabama, West Virginia, Missouri, and Arkansas, which generally score higher on other measures of business friendliness.
Delaware is President Biden’s home state and a tax haven for large corporations—but not small businesses. California Business Startup Cost: $1,950The startup cost in taxes and fees in the first year for a California business is a hefty $1,950. That’s almost up to New York’s highest cost of $1,985. By contrast, in Wyoming it’s just $160. Lowest is $50 in Mississippi.
A spokesperson for Venture Smarter told Value Walk: “Forming a limited liability company (LLC) in Wyoming can be a great way to protect your assets. The state is one of the most business-friendly states in America, and forming a limited liability company is relatively easy.
“Creating an LLC in Florida is also an easy process, whether it is your first time, or you are an experienced entrepreneur. … An LLC is a business entity designed to protect its owners from being held personally liable for business-related debts and LLCs have gained popularity because they offer a lot of flexibility for their owners.”
These are startup costs. The rankings don’t include such costs as rent, electricity, insurance, etc., which of course are much higher in California than elsewhere. ALEC-Laffer Rank: 45thThe Venture Smarter rankings are similar to others. One of the best is the 2023 ALEC-Laffer “Rich States, Poor States” rankings by the American Legislative Exchange Council and economist Arthur Laffer.
California ranked 45th of the 50 states. It scored worst on income tax progressivity. That top rate of 13.3 percent just digs in and forces rich people from the state. But the 9.3 percent paid by the middle class is the worst in the country for that economic group.
On this report card, California also suffered Cumulative Net Migration—people leaving for other states—of 1,551,510 from 2012-21. That was second worst after New York, which lost 1,778,252. 2024 Tax SlamIt’s just going to get worse in 2024. The Wall Street Journal reported Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill “that raises the top marginal income-tax rate on the sly. High earners won’t know what hit them until it does.” That was Senate Bill 951.
“The bill funds an expansion of the state’s paid family leave benefit by removing the $145,600 wage ceiling on the state’s 1.1% employee payroll tax. … This means that in 2024 California’s top marginal tax rate will increase to 14.4% from 13.3% for workers making more than $1 million. Those making between $61,214 and $312,686 would pay 10.4%. So California’s upper-middle class will pay more than millionaires in almost every state save New York, New Jersey and Hawaii.”
Moving to a place with no state income tax, such as Wyoming, Florida, and South Dakota – the top three states for starting an LLC, as listed above – is looking even more attractive for small business owners. And the rest of us. |
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The Psychology Of Inflation: What Makes You Say, “No Way Am I Paying That”?by Tyler Durden, 28September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/psychology-inflation-what-makes-you-say-no-way-am-i-paying Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Value varies. Invest in what’s valuable.  Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock
It’s a well-recognized human bias to feel losses more acutely than gains. Perhaps something similar occurs with inflation. As essentials soar in cost–i.e. non-discretionary expenses such as shelter, food at home, utilities, childcare, healthcare insurance, etc.–our only response is sighing resignation: yes, it’s a ripoff but there’s little we can do about it without making major changes in our lives.
Discretionary purchases are a different matter. The pleasures gained by the purchase are significant enough to be worth the financial cost. But at some point–a point that varies with each individual–the cost is so high that the pain of that expense outweighs the pleasure of the purchase.
This may explain why the public mood is sour despite the rosy statistics of economic expansion. The experiential gains of abstract economic stability do not outweigh the acute pain caused by soaring costs for pleasures that were far more affordable just a few short years ago.
Put another way: economically speaking, what is unseen statistically may have more impact that what is seen. So GDP is rising, blah-blah-blah, but can you believe I just paid $56 for a nothing-special breakfast for two people?
You see and hear these experiential leverage points all the time now: if you take a moment to observe the shoppers in the meat aisle, you see many lookie-loos: people go to the “sale” cooler for steaks, look at the price, shake their heads and walk to the discount bin to paw through what little is left.
Or you hear another shopper mutter, “I’m not paying that!” after glancing at the price. Even well-off retirees are appalled when a fast-food meal that a few years ago would have been covered by a $20 bill now requires a $20 and a $10.
Millions of households have canceled cable TV service due to the soaring costs and marginal quality of the offerings. “Basic cable” that provided low-cost access to local channels has vanished, replaced by a “basic premium (of course) service” that costs four times more.
As long as the credit card had plenty of spending power, people didn’t seem to feel any pain as costs soared. $400 per day for a nothing-special room in a nothing-special resort, no problem. $100 to change the oil in the car, no problem. And so on.
But once the funds available for discretionary spending dry up, sensitivity to financial pain increases. But just as consequential as availability of discretionary funding is the internal measure of value. The well-off retiree can easily afford the fast-food meal, but the pain exceeds the pleasure because the meal simply isn’t worth the price.
The perception of value varies significantly. Time, place and individuals all vary. What seems costly in one circumstance may offer high value to someone else. But if we plot all these unseen data points, we sense a change in the tide: a great many discretionary purchases are no longer worth the cost.
Conservative pundit David Brooks recently illustrated these nuances by expressing his discontent with a $78 tab for a meal at an airport restaurant. His online post suggested that his $78 bill for a hamburger meal was an example of why Americans were discontented with the economy.
It was soon revealed that the burger meal was $18 and the balance was comprised of three whiskeys at $20 each. Mr. Brooks apparently felt the price of the three whiskeys exceeded the value of the three whiskeys, but one wonders why he ordered whiskeys two and three if he was so disenchanted with the price of the first one.
This introduces two other psychological factors in inflation: sudden price increases catch our attention, and so they are more likely to trigger an experiential leverage point. The same can be said of serial increases in the cost of services that were previously stable: when the cable TV or utility bill rises inexorably month after month, we notice this and begin considering actions to reduce or eliminate this expense.
The other factor is we like to whine, as if low prices are an entitlement and we’ve somehow been robbed of something we’re entitled to. But value is conditional and contingent. In some cases, we simply can no longer afford the service or product. In other cases, the value has diminished as the cost has risen, or the cost has risen to the point it far exceeds the value.
Having lived on the margins most of my life, frugality was not an option, it was a pressing necessity. It is now a habit and a free-standing value independent of how much money I earn or have. So paying $100 to have the oil in my Civic changed is off the table. We change the oil ourselves, just as we’ve done for decades.
Acute sensitivity to value and price has its rewards. When we do splurge, we do it not out of habit but to reap the gains of some purchase that is well worth the monetary price.
Unlike jetsetters like Mr. Brooks, I can count the number of meals I’ve bought in airports on one hand, and several of those were voucher meals due to delayed flights. Earlier this year, I had a highly enjoyable airport restaurant meal that was worth a great deal more than the price. It was late, and there was only one restaurant still open. It was crowded, and I felt fortunate to get a table. I’d just left my wife in the post-surgery recovery ward of the hospital, grateful she was OK, and I was drained by a very long day of uncertainties.
The hamburger meal and draft beer cost $35. That was a splurge for me but memorably valuable in that time and circumstance. I was grateful to have something to eat, grateful to the overworked servers and for everything good that had happened that day. I remembered my own job serving the public, and how much a decent tip meant. 50 years later, I still recall the rare decent tips. I handed the server a $20 tip, it wasn’t much, but it expressed “thank you.” Value varies. Invest in what’s valuable. * * * |
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California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expenseby Tyler Durden, 08May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/california-defaults-186-billion-debt-saddling-employers-expense California’s recent decision not to pay back some $20 billion borrowed from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits during the pandemic will fall on the shoulders of employers, according to experts.
“The state should have taken care of the loans with the COVID money it received from the government in 2021,” said Marc Joffe, policy analyst at the Cato Institute—a public policy think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., in a statement to the Epoch Times.
In the state’s proposed 2023-2024 budget, $750 million was allocated to start paying down the loans, until Governor Gavin Newsom nixed the provision in early January, leaving businesses in the state responsible for the loans, as mandated by federal regulations – so that the federal unemployment tax rate of .6 percent will increase by .3% per year starting in 2023 until the loan is extinguished.
“California is just not really an employer-friendly state,” said Joffe. “This one thing will not be a difference between a business remaining open or closing, but it’s just another burden on top of the many burdens the state puts on employers.”
In total, 22 states borrowed money for unemployment insurance from the federal government. All but four, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York, have paid back their debts – with California owing the most by far at $18.6 billion as of May 2, followed by New York at $8 billion, Connecticut at $187 million and Colorado at $77 million, according to data from the US Treasury.
More via the Epoch Times, Initially, the state borrowed from its reserves to pay the benefits, but after exhausting its coffers borrowed to cover expenses, analysts said.
Exacerbating the situation were unprecedented levels of fraud occurring across the state, due to limited oversight and antiquated computer systems, according to Lee Ohanian, professor of economics at the University of California–Los Angeles.
Analytics firm LexisNexis estimated the total cost of the fraud at $32.6 billion. Investigations have since uncovered that illegitimate unemployment benefits payments were paid to convicted felons, with one address receiving 60 separate fraudulent payments.
Fraud is a persistent issue historically with the program, and a $2 million federal grant in 2013 sought to address the issue with new computer software systems.
The upgrade successfully stopped instances of fraud, but further improvements stopped with the end of the grant in 2016, reportedly due to the agency’s reluctance to take on the annual expense for the third-party service. “They were penny wise and pound foolish,” Ohanian told The Epoch Times. At a cost of $2 million annual investment, the program would have cost $14 million to operate since it was terminated.
“Sadly, this is just a trifecta of bad decisions,” Ohanian said. “The [Employment Development Department] made a bad decision to not renew its lease for the fraud detection software, the state government took out a loan and chose to welch on the debt—which is outrageous—and now businesses are repaying more in taxes for the incredibly unwise decisions and mistakes of the state government.”
Reports that the state is seeking forgiveness from the federal government were met with resistance by policy experts, including Ohanian.
“We’ve made a lot of bad decisions and we expect the rest of the country to pay for it,” he said. “It also raises questions about the future: If the state is going to default on the $20 billion federal loans, how safe are municipal bonds from California?” |
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Coming to your city:
Mexican TV Spots Cartel Wielding Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher In Border Town Near Texasby Tyler Durden, 01June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/mexican-tv-spots-cartel-wielding-anti-tank-rocket-launcher-border-town-across-texas The Mexican government has been waging war against drug cartels for over a decade with limited success. These cartels illegally procure modern military equipment from Western countries, making the fight comparable to those in Middle Eastern warzones.
On Wednesday, Mexican TV channel Milenio published an article titled “Mexican cartels prepare for a war; they have military grade ROCKET LAUNCHER” that shows a video of a Gulf Cartel (Cartel Del Golfo, CDG) member carrying a “military-grade grenade launcher during a checkpoint in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.”  Mexican Drug Cartel Wielding FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher
Milenio’s Azucena Uresti identified the rocket launcher as a Raytheon-made FGM-148 Javelin. She noted the rocket launcher on the black market fetches anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000.
 Azucena-Uresti-tweet-31May2023-AzucenaALas10 In Tamaulipas-Gulf Cartel was carrying a javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher
After further review, the rocket launcher might be an AT-4, a Swedish-made disposable anti-tank launcher, which was also sent to Ukraine with Javelins. Nevertheless, these military-grade weapons are turning up in Mexican border towns during the worst US southern border crisis in history. Matamoros directly borders Brownsville, Texas.  Matamoros, Mexico borders Brownsville, Texas
But don’t worry because the Biden administration repeatedly states everything is fine on the border. |
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Southern Border Cameras Capture Heavily Armed Cartel Illegally Entering USby Tyler Durden, 10August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/cameras-detect-heavily-armed-cartel-cross-us A little over two months ago, the Mexican TV channel Milenio published shocking footage of a cartel member wielding a “military-grade grenade launcher” in Matamoros, a city in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas that borders Brownsville, Texas. Mexican Drug Cartel Wielding FGM-148 Javelin Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher
Now Fox News border correspondent Bill Melugin has obtained frightening images of heavily armed cartel members with body armor crossing into Texas last weekend.
Melugin said a tactical unit under Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) was immediately deployed to the area after cameras detected the armed cartel members entered the US illegally.
 Bill Melugin-tweet-8August2023-NEW: Per law enforcement source, a group of suspected cartel gunmen armed with rifles & body armor were seen on cameras crossing illegally into the Fronton, TX area in the RGV Saturday night. Elite Border Patrol BORTAC agents were called out & searched area, but found nobody. Here’s an example of a BORTAC agent that was dispatched. They look like Tier 1 Special Forces operators.  Border Patrol Tactical Unit BORTAC agent The Biden administration has gone out of its way to downplay the crisis at the southern border ahead of the 2024 presidential election cycle.
On Tuesday, Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan provided The National Desk’s Scott Thuman with a dose of reality about the true nature of the border crisis:
Morgan explained how the Biden administration is lying about the crisis:
In recent Congressional testimony, Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies warned:
Seeing cartel members brandishing RPGs and some crossing into the US heavily armed, one has to question if America’s southern border under Biden is on the verge of falling. |
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Allstate Drops California; Will Not Write New Insurance Policies Over Wildfires, Construction Costsby Tyler Durden, 04June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/allstate-drops-california-will-not-write-new-insurance-policies-over-wildfires Insurance giant Allstate has stopped writing new policies for homeowners, condominiums and commercial structures, citing wildfires, higher costs of construction and higher reinsurance premiums, the SF Chronicle reports.  Firefighters work to control a fire as flames from the County Fire jump across Highway 20 near Clearlake Oaks, California, on July 1. Credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images
The company, the fourth largest casualty insurance provider in the state in 2021, said the pause on new policies was “so we can continue to protect current customers,” according to spokeswoman Brittany Nash in an email to the outlet.
“The cost to insure new home customers in California is far higher than the price they would pay for policies due to wildfires, higher costs for repairing homes, and higher reinsurance premiums,” she wrote in a follow-up email on Friday.
The move follows a similar measure by State Farm – the largest property and casualty issuer in the state – which announced in late May that it would stop issuing new homeowner policies, citing inflation, wildfires and rising reinsurance costs.
The Chronicle suggests that the decision by both companies suggests there may be insurance industry woes in the state that are more severe than the public is aware of.
“State Farm is unusual in that it announces such underwriting actions. It is not required by law and most insurers do not,” said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, an association of insurers, in an email to The Chronicle over the weekend.
Frazier told the outlet on Thursday that the only required public disclosure is when insurers ask the California Department of Insurance for rate increases.
In recent years, AIG and Chubb, which insure higher-end homes, have pulled coverage in some areas of the state.
Would this be happening if California’s leadership had spent the last several decades clearing dead brush and reducing the state’s wildfire risk? |
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Wildfire Smoke and COVID-19https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/covid-19/wildfire_smoke_covid-19.html  Wildfire smoke and Covid-19
Prepare for wildfires.
Take actions to protect yourself from wildfire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keep in mind that while physical distancing guidelines are in place, finding cleaner air might be harder if public facilities such as libraries, community centers, and shopping malls are closed or have limited their capacity.
Create a cleaner air space at home to protect yourself from wildfire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Know the difference between symptoms from smoke exposure and COVID-19.
People with COVID-19 are at increased risk from wildfire smoke during the pandemic.People who currently have or who are recovering from COVID-19 may be at increased risk of health effects from exposure to wildfire smoke due to compromised heart and/or lung function related to COVID-19.
Know whether you are at risk from wildfire smoke during the COVID-19 pandemic.Some people are more at risk of harmful health effects from wildfire smoke than others. Those most at risk include:
Know what to do if you must evacuate.
Stay informed. Know where to find information about air quality and COVID-19 in your area.
Additional Resources For more information about COVID-19, go to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
For more information about the health effects of wildfire smoke and reducing exposure to it:
For more information on air quality, wildfire information, smoke forecasts, and vulnerable populations:
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Indoctrination, Intimidation & Intolerance: What Passes For Education Todayby Tyler Durden, 10August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/indoctrination-intimidation-intolerance-what-passes-education-today
Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
This is what it means to go back-to-school in America today.
Instead of being taught the three R’s of education (reading, writing and arithmetic), young people are being drilled in the three I’s of life in the American police state: indoctrination, intimidation and intolerance. [EDD:
 Lisa M. Love, M.Ed.-tweet-14July2021-There are times when we need to make sure students are doing things a very specific way, but that’s probably much less often than we realize. What are your thoughts? …] Indeed, while young people today are learning first-hand what it means to be at the epicenter of politically charged culture wars, test scores indicate that students are not learning how to succeed in social studies, math and reading.
Instead of raising up a generation of civic-minded citizens with critical thinking skills, government officials are churning out compliant drones who know little to nothing about their history or their freedoms.
Under the direction of government officials focused on making the schools more authoritarian (sold to parents as a bid to make the schools safer), young people in America are now first in line to be searched, surveilled, spied on, threatened, tied up, locked down, treated like criminals for non-criminal behavior, tasered and in some cases shot.
From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment he or she graduates, they will be exposed to a steady diet of:
This is how you groom young people to march in lockstep with a police state.
As Deborah Cadbury writes for The Washington Post, “Authoritarian rulers have long tried to assert control over the classroom as part of their totalitarian governments.”
In Nazi Germany, the schools became indoctrination centers, breeding grounds for intolerance and compliance.
In the American police state, the schools have become increasingly hostile to those who dare to question or challenge the status quo.
America’s young people have become casualties of a post-9/11 mindset that has transformed the country into a locked-down, militarized, crisis-fueled mockery of a representative government.
Roped into the government’s profit-driven campaign to keep the nation “safe” from drugs, disease, and weapons, America’s schools have transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs, strip searches and active shooter drills.
Students are not only punished for minor transgressions such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight, but the punishments have become far more severe, shifting from detention and visits to the principal’s office into misdemeanor tickets, juvenile court, handcuffs, tasers and even prison terms.
Students have been suspended under school zero tolerance policies for bringing to school “look alike substances” such as oregano, breath mints, birth control pills and powdered sugar.
Look-alike weapons (toy guns—even Lego-sized ones, hand-drawn pictures of guns, pencils twirled in a “threatening” manner, imaginary bows and arrows, fingers positioned like guns) can also land a student in hot water, in some cases getting them expelled from school or charged with a crime.
Not even good deeds go unpunished. One 13-year-old was given detention for exposing the school to “liability” by sharing his lunch with a hungry friend. A third grader was suspended for shaving her head in sympathy for a friend who had lost her hair to chemotherapy. And then there was the high school senior who was suspended for saying “bless you” after a fellow classmate sneezed.
Having police in the schools only adds to the danger. Thanks to a combination of media hype, political pandering and financial incentives, the use of armed police officers (a.k.a. school resource officers) to patrol school hallways has risen dramatically in the years since the Columbine school shooting.
Indeed, the growing presence of police in the nation’s schools is resulting in greater police “involvement in routine discipline matters that principals and parents used to address without involvement from law enforcement officers.”
Funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, these school resource officers have become de facto wardens in elementary, middle and high schools, doling out their own brand of justice to the so-called “criminals” in their midst with the help of tasers, pepper spray, batons and brute force.
In the absence of school-appropriate guidelines, police are more and more “stepping in to deal with minor rulebreaking: sagging pants, disrespectful comments, brief physical skirmishes. What previously might have resulted in a detention or a visit to the principal’s office was replaced with excruciating pain and temporary blindness, often followed by a trip to the courthouse.”
Not even the younger, elementary school-aged kids are being spared these “hardening” tactics. On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.”
In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids—some as young as 4 and 5 years old—for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums.
Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others. Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers in the nation’s public schools.
This is what happens when you introduce police and police tactics into the schools. Paradoxically, by the time you add in the lockdowns and active shooter drills, instead of making the schools safer, school officials have succeeded in creating an environment in which children are so traumatized that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of adults in authority, as well as feelings of anger, depression, humiliation, despair and delusion.
For example, a middle school in Washington State went on lockdown after a student brought a toy gun to class. A Boston high school went into lockdown for four hours after a bullet was discovered in a classroom. A North Carolina elementary school locked down and called in police after a fifth grader reported seeing an unfamiliar man in the school (it turned out to be a parent).
Police officers at a Florida middle school carried out an active shooter drill in an effort to educate students about how to respond in the event of an actual shooting crisis. Two armed officers, guns loaded and drawn, burst into classrooms, terrorizing the students and placing the school into lockdown mode.
These police state tactics have not made the schools any safer. The fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated like hardened criminals: handcuffed, arrested, tasered, tackled and taught the painful lesson that the Constitution (especially the Fourth Amendment) doesn’t mean much in the American police state.
So what’s the answer, not only for the here-and-now—the children growing up in these quasi-prisons—but for the future of this country?
How do you convince a child who has been routinely handcuffed, shackled, tied down, locked up, and immobilized by government officials—all before he reaches the age of adulthood—that he has any rights at all, let alone the right to challenge wrongdoing, resist oppression and defend himself against injustice?
Most of all, how do you persuade a fellow American that the government works for him when, for most of his young life, he has been incarcerated in an institution that teaches young people to be obedient and compliant citizens who don’t talk back, don’t question and don’t challenge authority?
As we’ve seen with other issues, any significant reforms will have to start locally and trickle upwards. As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we want to raise up a generation of freedom fighters who will actually operate with justice, fairness, accountability and equality towards each other and their government, we must start by running the schools like freedom forums. |
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The Suffering Is Off The Chartsby Tyler Durden, 02June2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/suffering-charts Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, Things have taken a turn for the worse. In recent months, economic activity has been dropping all over the nation, and that decline appears to be accelerating. We just learned that gross domestic income has now fallen for two quarters in a row, and the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has now been plummeting for 13 consecutive months. Unfortunately, when economic conditions deteriorate it is the people at the low end of the economic pyramid that get hit the hardest.
Thanks to our rapidly rising cost of living, we are seeing a dramatic explosion in the number of “working homeless” that are living out of their vehicles on a daily basis even though they are currently employed. In particular, the RV “communities” that are springing up from coast to coast are starting to get quite a bit of attention…
Most of these people get up and go to work in the morning. In fact, the Daily Mail spoke to one man that actually “works for a New York City hospital”…
If you work at a hospital, you should be able to afford a place to live.
But this is our country now. We are absolutely destroying the middle class, and as a result we now have a massive homelessness crisis on our hands…
No matter what you or I are facing right now, at least we aren’t sleeping in the streets.
So we should count our blessings. Hunger is also rapidly growing all over America. Right now, record numbers of people are coming for help at one food bank in the Seattle area…
And in Boston, the line for food on one recent weekend morning “stretched the length of two football fields”…
We are witnessing so much suffering all over the country right now. And there are so many more people that are living right on the edge of disaster.
According to one recent survey, approximately 38.5 percent of U.S. adults experienced “some form of difficulty in covering expenses between April 26 and May 8”…
Of course this is just the beginning. As I keep warning my readers, things will eventually get much worse.
And finally, whatever happens in Washington is not going to fundamentally alter our long-term trajectory, and that means that much more suffering is coming in the days ahead. * * * |
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US Suicide Rates Hit Record High of Nearly 50,000 in 2022, Provisional CDC Data Show
 Silhouette of depressed man sitting on walkway of residence building (Aonprom Photo/Shutterstock) By Katabella Roberts
Suicide rates soared to the highest number on record in 2022 as nearly 50,000 Americans took their own lives, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Aug. 10.
The latest report suggests a notable increase in suicides since 2021 following two consecutive years of modest declines in 2019 and 2020.
According to the CDC’s provisional data, an estimated 49,449 Americans committed suicide in 2022, or nearly 15 deaths for every 100,000 people, up 2.6 percent from 48,183 deaths by suicide in 2021, and surpassing the peak of 48,344 in 2018.
Previously in 2019 and 2020, the suicide rate fell to 47,511 and 45,979 respectively, according to the CDC, although it is unclear exactly what prompted the decline.
Suicide is now the eleventh-leading cause of death in the United States, compared to 2020 when it was the twelfth-leading cause, the latest data suggest.
The latest figures—which are based on death certificates received by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and may change—show that America is facing a growing mental health crisis, according to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra.
“Nine in ten Americans believe America is facing a mental health crisis. The new suicide death data reported by CDC illustrates why. One life lost to suicide is one too many. Yet, too many people still believe asking for help is a sign of weakness,” Mr. Becerra said. “The Biden-Harris Administration is making unprecedented investments to transform how mental health is understood, accessed, and treated as part of President Biden’s Unity Agenda. We must continue to eliminate the stigmatization of mental health and make care available to all Americans.”
According to the latest CDC report, men accounted for approximately 79 percent of the total number of suicides in 2022, although rates increased among both males and females at 3.8 percent among American women, and 2.3 percent among American men.
The largest increase in suicides was seen among older adults, according to the CDC. Youth Mental Health Crisis Deepening Due to Pandemic Policies: Study
Rates Increased Among Older AdultsAmong Americans ages 45 to 64 there was a 6.6 percent increase in suicides, the data show. In those older than 65, the CDC reported an 8.1 percent increase year-on-year.
Many middle-aged and elderly people experience problems like losing a job or losing a spouse. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer, said it was important to reduce stigma and other obstacles to them getting assistance.
Meanwhile, among the racial and ethnic groups the CDC tracks, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders had the largest increase in suicide in 2022, with a 15.9 percent rise, the CDC data show.
Multiracial individuals saw suicide rates increase by 7.9 percent while rates rose 5.7 percent among Asians and 3.6 percent among black or African Americans.
However, the CDC noted a decline in suicide rates among American Indians/Alaska Natives, where suicide rates declined 6.1 percent year on year.
The health agency also noted a decline in suicide rates among individuals aged 10–24, approximately 8.4 percent. While it is unclear what prompted the rise in the number of suicides among Americans, experts have said the increase could be driven by a multitude of factors such as increasing rates of depression and the limited availability of mental health services.
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, which for many led to job losses, financial instability, isolation, and loneliness, may have also played a role. Pandemic Prompts Anxiety, DepressionA March 2023 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that by early 2021, 4 in 10 adults reported symptoms consistent with anxiety and depression over the course of the pandemic, although that figure dropped to approximately 3 in 10 adults as the pandemic continued.
Deb Stone, a behavioral scientist at the CDC Injury Center, told The Washington Times earlier this year that suicide rates might be stable or even decline during a disaster, and rise afterward, “as the longer-term sequela of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among populations struggling with preexisting inequities.”
Meanwhile, a poll conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and published last month found that the majority of Americans (82 percent) are still not familiar with or have not heard of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a resource aimed at helping people in mental health, substance use, and suicide crises get connected to the support they may need.
Final data from the CDC on suicide rates will be available later this year. “Today’s report underscores the depths of the devastating mental health crisis in America. Mental health has become the defining public health and societal challenge of our time. Far too many people and their families are suffering and feeling alone,” said U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
“These numbers are a sobering reminder of how urgent it is that we further expand access to mental health care, address the root causes of mental health struggles, and recognize the importance of checking on and supporting one another,” he added.
As part of its effort to combat the rising suicide rate among Americans and address the nation’s mental health crisis, the Biden administration has announced a string of initiatives aimed at lowering and preventing such deaths, including its National Suicide Prevention Lifeline that launched last year allowing anyone in the United States to dial 988 to reach mental health specialists.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. If you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis or is considering suicide, has mental health issues, or is engaging in substance abuse, dial or text the U.S. Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 to speak with a counselor. If you’re in the UK, call the Samaritans at 116123.
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New study warns that declining health standards in the U.S. causing “a crisis of early death”30August2023 // Arsenio Toledo // https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-08-30-declining-health-standards-crisis-early-death.html
A recent study has found that the United States is experiencing what leading researchers call “a crisis of early death.”
The study, done by researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), found that more than one million deaths in the U.S. – including many young and working-age adults – could be avoided each year if the country had similar mortality rates to other developed nations.
The researchers noted that, in 2021, the U.S. had 1.1 million excess deaths which could have been averted, with the excess deaths referred to as the country’s “Missing Americans” because these deaths reflect people who would still be alive if the U.S. death rate was equal to its peers. (Related: Government to blame sudden death epidemic on long COVID and climate change, says Ed Dowd.)
“The number of Missing Americans in recent years is unprecedented in modern times,” said study lead and corresponding author Jacob Bor, a BUSPH associate professor of global health and epidemiology, in a media release accompanying the publishing of the study.
The researchers analyzed mortality trends in America from 1933 to 2021 and then compared the results with age-specific mortality rates from “peer nations, including Australia, Canada, Japan and 18 nations in Europe.
The findings showed that America had lower mortality rates than peer nations during World War II. By the 1960s and 1970s, America’s mortality rates were similar to peer nations. But by the 1980s, the U.S. began a four-decade-long trend of accelerating excess deaths, reaching 622,534 excess deaths in 2019, nearly 1.01 million excess deaths in 2021 and over 1.09 excess deaths in 2021.
According to the study, nearly 50 percent of all Missing Americans in 2020 and 2021 were under the age of 65 – this means that nearly half of the excess deaths in the U.S. were from working-age Americans and even youths.
“Think of people you know who have passed away before reaching age 65. Statistically, half of them would still be alive if the U.S. had the mortality rates of our peers,” said Bor. “The U.S. is experiencing a crisis of early death that is unique among wealthy nations.”
Declining healthcare system mainly responsible for excess deathsWhile Bor and the other researchers acknowledge that the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic likely contributed to a sharp spike in mortality in the U.S., the research does not acknowledge the role vaccines may have played. Instead, Bor and his associates point to the general decline in health standards in the U.S. as the main culprit.
“The U.S. was already experiencing more than 600,000 Missing Americans annually before the pandemic began, and that number was increasing each year,” said Bor. “There have been no significant policy changes since then to change this trajectory.”
“We waste hundreds of billions each year on health insurers’ profits and paperwork, while tens of millions can’t afford medical care, healthy food or a decent place to live,” said study senior author Steffie Woolhandler, a distinguished professor at the School of Urban Public Health at Hunter College, City University of New York. “Americans die younger than their counterparts elsewhere because when corporate profits conflict with health, our politicians side with the corporations.”
Study co-author Andrew Stokes, a BUSPH assistant professor of global health, said that the findings raise a number of urgent questions that need to be addressed in future research. “Which geographic areas are disproportionately responsible for the Missing Americans, and what were their causes of deaths? Answers to these questions may help to clarify policy solutions,” he noted.
Learn more about the American healthcare system and how it continues to disappoint many in the country at Medicine.news.
Watch this clip from “The HighWire” as host Del Bigtree and investigative journalist Jefferey Jaxen discuss how excess deaths are also surging in other countries like the United Kingdom.
EXCESS DEATHS HIT RECORD LEVELS
This video is from the channel The HighWire with Del Bigtree on Brighteon.com.
More related stories:Scott Schara: Medical system didn’t value people’s lives during COVID-19 pandemic – Brighteon.TV.
Americans continue to suffer as hospitals refuse to be transparent about their prices.
Sources include:
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“Arbitrary… Outdated!” – Yellen Outraged After Fitch Cuts USA’s AAA-Ratingby Tyler Durden, 02August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/fitch-cuts-usas-aaa-rating-cites-fiscal-deterioration-erosion-governance Update (1750ET): Treasury Secretary Yellen is pissed, calling the downgrade “arbitrary” and “outdated.”!
 Federal Debt Held by the Public 1900 – 2053
Bidenomics for the win…
 zerohedge-tweet-1August2023-Yellen Says Fitch Downgrade Based on Outdated Data We wonder how the Vice President feels about this…
 zerohedge-tweet-1August2023-Kamala: First of all, it’s two letters * * * In the middle of the debt-ceiling ‘crisis’ in May, with Fitch, Moodys and DBRS all threatening to do what S&P boldly did in 2011 and downgrade the US should the debt ceiling crisis lead to a technical default, China’s leading rating agency, China Chengxin International Credit Rating decided not to wait, downgrading the USA’s rating by one notch, to AA+ from AAA, citing high inflation and the widely watched debt-ceiling stand-off.
 US Dollar Downgraded
Key Rating DriversRatings Downgrade: The rating downgrade of the United States reflects the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to ‘AA’ and ‘AAA’ rated peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.
Erosion of Governance: In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit until January 2025. The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management. In addition, the government lacks a medium-term fiscal framework, unlike most peers, and has a complex budgeting process. These factors, along with several economic shocks as well as tax cuts and new spending initiatives, have contributed to successive debt increases over the last decade. Additionally, there has been only limited progress in tackling medium-term challenges related to rising social security and Medicare costs due to an aging population.
Rising General Government Deficits: We expect the general government (GG) deficit to rise to 6.3% of GDP in 2023, from 3.7% in 2022, reflecting cyclically weaker federal revenues, new spending initiatives and a higher interest burden. Additionally, state and local governments are expected to run an overall deficit of 0.6% of GDP this year after running a small surplus of 0.2% of GDP in 2022. Cuts to non-defense discretionary spending (15% of total federal spending) as agreed in the Fiscal Responsibility Act offer only a modest improvement to the medium-term fiscal outlook, with cumulative savings of USD1.5 trillion (3.9% of GDP) by 2033 according to the Congressional Budget Office. The near-term impact of the Act is estimated at USD70 billion (0.3% of GDP) in 2024 and USD112 billion (0.4% of GDP) in 2025. Fitch does not expect any further substantive fiscal consolidation measures ahead of the November 2024 elections.
Fitch forecasts a GG deficit of 6.6% of GDP in 2024 and a further widening to 6.9% of GDP in 2025. The larger deficits will be driven by weak 2024 GDP growth, a higher interest burden and wider state and local government deficits of 1.2% of GDP in 2024-2025 (in line with the historical 20-year average). The interest-to-revenue ratio is expected to reach 10% by 2025 (compared to 2.8% for the ‘AA’ median and 1% for the ‘AAA’ median) due to the higher debt level as well as sustained higher interest rates compared with pre-pandemic levels.
General Government Debt to Rise: Lower deficits and high nominal GDP growth reduced the debt-to-GDP ratio over the last two years from the pandemic high of 122.3% in 2020; however, at 112.9% this year it is still well above the pre-pandemic 2019 level of 100.1%. The GG debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to rise over the forecast period, reaching 118.4% by 2025. The debt ratio is over two-and-a-half times higher than the ‘AAA’ median of 39.3% of GDP and ‘AA’ median of 44.7% of GDP. Fitch’s longer-term projections forecast additional debt/GDP rises, increasing the vulnerability of the U.S. fiscal position to future economic shocks.
Medium-term Fiscal Challenges Unaddressed: Over the next decade, higher interest rates and the rising debt stock will increase the interest service burden, while an aging population and rising healthcare costs will raise spending on the elderly absent fiscal policy reforms. The CBO projects that interest costs will double by 2033 to 3.6% of GDP. The CBO also estimates a rise in mandatory spending on Medicare and social security by 1.5% of GDP over the same period. The CBO projects that the Social Security fund will be depleted by 2033 and the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (used to pay for benefits under Medicare Part A) will be depleted by 2035 under current laws, posing additional challenges for the fiscal trajectory unless timely corrective measures are implemented. Additionally, the 2017 tax cuts are set to expire in 2025, but there is likely to be political pressure to make these permanent as has been the case in the past, resulting in higher deficit projections.
Exceptional Strengths Support Ratings: Several structural strengths underpin the United States’ ratings. These include its large, advanced, well-diversified and high-income economy, supported by a dynamic business environment. Critically, the U.S. dollar is the world’s preeminent reserve currency, which gives the government extraordinary financing flexibility.
Fed Tightening: The Fed raised interest rates by 25bp in March, May and July 2023. Fitch expects one further hike to 5.5% to 5.75% by September. The resilience of the economy and the labor market are complicating the Fed’s goal of bringing inflation towards its 2% target. While headline inflation fell to 3% in June, core PCE inflation, the Fed’s key price index, remained stubbornly high at 4.1% yoy. This will likely preclude cuts in the Federal Funds Rate until March 2024. Additionally, the Fed is continuing to reduce its holdings of mortgage backed-securities and U.S. Treasuries, which is further tightening financial conditions. Since January, these assets on the Fed balance sheet have fallen by over USD500 billion as of end-July 2023.
ESG – Governance: The U.S. has an ESG Relevance Score (RS) of ‘5’ for Political Stability and Rights and ‘5[+]’ for the Rule of Law, Institutional and Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption. Theses scores reflect the high weight that the World Bank Governance Indicators (WBGI) have in Fitch’s proprietary Sovereign Rating Model. The U.S. has a high WBGI ranking at 79, reflecting its well-established rights for participation in the political process, strong institutional capacity, effective rule of law and a low level of corruption.
Additionally, they warn that the following could lead to more negative ratings actions…
All hail Bidenomics. |
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It’s Mourning In Americaby Tyler Durden, 22July2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/its-mourning-america Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back.  The Wizard of Oz – Behind the Curtain The birth of financialization in the early 1980s was morning in America because finance– the collateralization of previously low-risk assets and the resulting explosion of credit and leverage–gooses demand and asset valuations.
Now that we’ve at long last reached the demise of financialization, it’s mourning in America as the hyper-stimulation has reached its zenith and is beginning its inevitable end-game of uncontrolled implosion. The hyper-financialization of American life has fatally distorted the nation’s production, politics, values and social order.
Regardless of our political persuasion, we’re all mourning for what’s been lost to either decay or erosion, both of which are so gradual that we cannot discern the full extent of the damage. We sense it, though, and this fuels the nation’s distemper.
The decay, erosion and distemper remind me of a quote from French author Michel Houellebecq:
Substitute con for happiness and we have an insight into the source of mourning in America: we’re being conned 24/7, on every level and in every nook and cranny of the economy and society.
The key to any good con is to persuade the mark (victim) that it’s not a con. The most direct approach is to claim the con is true, factual, etc. Once this claim starts unraveling, then the con switches to an alternative reality that has enough shreds of credibility to be plausible.
This is why so many confuse the con and propaganda. Both are self-serving, of course, as the goal of propaganda is to generate compliance and conformity in the populace by constructing an emotionally compelling context that is both appealing and plausible. Those spewing the propaganda do so to secure their power and further their own self-serving agenda.
For example, that we’re all enjoying unprecedented prosperity in the best of all possible worlds. Look at all the low-quality rusting junk we can buy from manufacturers in totalitarian nations at low, low prices–wow! It doesn’t get any better than this. Stainless Steal (February 26, 2023).
The difference is that those spewing propaganda can be true believers in whatever cause is being pushed. In most cases, propaganda is issued by cynical, manipulative sociopaths who are merely hired guns for whomever seeks all the advantages of persuading people that enriching and empowering the few at the expense of the many is not only allowable, it’s the right thing, the only option, etc. But propaganda works best when it converts the previously uncommitted or apathetic into true believers, much like a religious conversion.
A con, on the other hand, is a swindle, a fraud, a bezzle, that takes advantage of the mark’s naive trust. This trust might be in a blood relative, a friend, an enterprise, an organization or an institution. The con exploits this trust to defraud or break the mark into an unknowing patsy. The fundamentals of the con are:
Here’s the metaphor the con presents: I’m leading you to a glorious fruit tree loaded with ripe fruit. All you have to do is harvest as much as you want.
Since we’re all still hunter-gatherers in Wetware 1.0, this greatly appeals to us. We’re inherently risk-averse and greedy to exploit windfalls, and the con promises us near-zero risk and one windfall to stripmine after another. It’s irresistible.
The con always has an end date, when the mark discovers they’ve been fleeced. Trust is destroyed, and the mark, bitterly enlightened to their own credulity, laziness and greed, vows to never fall for such a con again.
The higher-order con never lets trust be completely destroyed. Instead, the con-man either rushes to console the mark and apologize for the unexpected loss, (Jeez, this never happened before–it must have been a glitch in the Matrix), or the con-man brazenly blames the victim for misjudging the situation and failing to take advantage of the unbeatable deal.
This is America in a nutshell: a continuous cacophony of cons. This is why trust in institutions such as the media, corporations, political interest groups, government and education are in free-fall, along with social trust in our fellow Americans. Every node of power is dominated by people out to maximize their personal gains at the expense of the public, customers, voters, members, students, etc.
And so on, in an endless profusion of self-serving cons. Ernest academics ponder this decay and propose all sorts of scholarly possibilities, while never mentioning the obvious source: every node of power in America is hopelessly corrupt, covering its cons with tsunamis of propaganda aimed at “trust-building” among “stakeholders,” whipping up the conned faithful, cherry-picking evidence to string along the marks just a little longer, and pointing to the long history of the institution as trustworthy–a reputation that is being pillaged to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
 it wasn’t influence-peddling
The most successful cons divert attention from the con-men to some other group of marks / victims. You got fleeced because of them. The fact that everyone outside the nodes of power has been fleeced is left unsaid, as this realization might generate a common cause of the marks against those benefiting so richly from the cons.
It was fun while it lasted, exploiting the supercharged-cons of hyper-financialization and hyper-globalization, but those cons have been tapped out and there are no replacements.
It’s tough recognizing that we’ve been credulous, naively trusting, and greedy for low-risk riches. Every one of the countless skims, scams and cons has exploited our willingness to trust and our self-interest in easy wealth.
Now that America has been transformed from a high-trust social order into a low-trust social order, there’s no going back.  US Social Trust
This is why it’s mourning in America. Trust can only be rebuilt slowly, first by opting out of all the self-serving cons and then re-establishing trust at the local level. * * * |
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The Decline and Fall of the American EmpireBy Steve McCann
A cursory examination of history reveals that the United States is mired in the same process that precipitated the collapse of the great empires of the past. The foibles and failures of human nature and their impact on the rise and fall of empires is amazingly consistent and the end result always inevitable. Can this nation avoid a similar fate?
Empires are defined as great military and economic powers encompassing large occupied or controlled land areas. Although they vary greatly, they average around 250 years in duration. The United States will be celebrating its 250th anniversary in 2026.
In 1976, Sir John Glubb, a distinguished British diplomat and general, wrote an essay on the fate of empires throughout history. He enumerated, based on 3,000 years of historical data, the six various stages in the rise and fall of empires.
These stages and how they apply to the United States are as follows:
The Age of Decadence is marked by debauchery, defensiveness, pessimism, materialism, a significant weakening of religion, frivolity, a welfare state, and a massive influx of unassimilated foreigners. These symptoms of national decadence are the end product of long periods of prosperity and power, love of wealth and status, and self-obsession by the ruling elites leading to fateful government corruption and instability.
Sir John Glubb is definitive in stating that in all ancient and modern fallen empires, “there does not appear to be any doubt that money is the agent which causes the decline of strong, brave and self-confident people.”
An examination of various empires from the Persian Empire to the Roman Empire to the British Empire confirms Glubb’s hypothesis that pursuit and accumulation of money or wealth is the portal through which power over the masses is achieved. The amassing of wealth and thus power evolves into a quasi-religion that over time triggers the descent into the age of decadence and corruption that inevitably leads to the collapse and conquering of empires by their external enemies.
In the early stage of the age of decadence, materialism becomes a driving force in society, inducing many in the upper classes to indulge in excessive, often conspicuous consumption as an absurdly wealthy elite emerges. Far too many societal elites and non-elites become convinced that increased consumption and social status is the key to happiness, but in its pursuit they become demonstrably more pessimistic and less happy and fulfilled.
The search for happiness and fulfillment leads to imprudence and voyeurism becoming central to the culture. Unhappy people searching for diversion became fixated on celebrities and captive to evolving voyeurism. And voyeurism takes on a more sinister aspect as people in both ancient and modern empires become increasingly desensitized to graphic images and willing spectators or participants in violence and debauchery.
Debauchery is an oft-recurring theme in the demise of empires. Societies develop an abnormally immature obsession with sex. An obsession that requires increasing deviancy to satiate coupled with concurrent abuse of children and the marginalization and exploitation of women. Meanwhile, the use of drugs and alcohol expands exponentially. Debauchery is a symptom of the absence of meaning in people’s lives leading to the self-destruction of society and concomitantly a loss of a sense of duty and patriotism.
Other symptoms common among many empires in the last stages of decline include:
Additionally, while the decline of empires is precipitated by internal factors, the final collapse is marked by defeat at the hands of powerful external enemies. The United States is presently facing an implacable and powerful external enemy, Communist China. A foe this nation’s elites, in their self-indulgent pursuit of wealth, essentially created by willfully intertwining the American economy with a ruthless and dictatorial communist regime.
Unfortunately, the vast bulk of the American citizenry is not aware of the historically precarious situation this nation finds itself. Nor are they aware that the policies and actions of the Marxist controlled Democrat party over the past 20 years is a window into what will happen to this nation if they continue in power. Another four to eight years of Democrat Party rule will permanently embed:
As the last three years have amply proven, decadence and sexual debauchery will continue apace. All forms of deviancy, including but not limited to pedophilia, will be forcefully mainstreamed. Religious liberties will be denigrated and curtailed. Infanticide and state-sponsored euthanasia will be legalized. Materialism and voyeurism will become the new state religion. And virtually all drugs will be legalized and easily available.
As the United States descends into insolvency, societal chaos and upheaval, Communist China, with which the Democrat party is intertwined, will actively abet and promote the dissolution of this country as it will be waiting vulture-like to feast on the carcass.
The inevitable can perhaps be mitigated if a significant majority of the populace acknowledges the current plight of the nation and initiates a return to the nation’s founding Judeo-Christian principles. Additionally, it is imperative that either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis wins in November of 2024 and for a populist Republican Party to control both the presidency and Congress for a minimum of two presidential terms.
Republican primary voters must also acknowledge reality and not be captive to cultlike sycophancy for either Trump or DeSantis. They need to ask themselves: who can win against a corrupt and devious Democrat party reliant on voter fraud and manipulation in the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania? Who has the coattails to assure the capture of both Houses of Congress? And can that person can either serve a second term or make certain another Republican will win in 2028?
It is not hyperbole to say the upcoming election cycle is the most determinative in American history. If the Republicans fail to win the presidency and Congress in 2024, this nation will have passed the point of no return and a new chapter in the annals of the decline and fall of great nations will be written. |
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Victor Davis Hanson: A Culture In Collapseby Tyler Durden, 09January2024 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/victor-davis-hanson-culture-collapse Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,
In the last six months, we have borne witness to many iconic moments evidencing the collapse of American culture.
The signs are everywhere and cover the gamut of politics, the economy, education, social life, popular culture, foreign policy, and the military. These symptoms of decay share common themes.
Our descent is self-induced; it is not a symptom of a foreign attack or subterfuge. Our erosion is not the result of poverty and want, but of leisure and excess. We are not suffering from existential crises of famine, plague, or the collapse of our grid and fuel sources. Prior, far poorer, and war-torn generations now seem far better off than what we are becoming.
What is happening to us is not due to an adherence to a too strict conservative tradition but is almost exclusively the wage of the progressive project.
In short, we are seeing fissures that America has not experienced in our cultural history since the Civil War. The radical Left apparently feels such chaos, anarchy, and nihilism are necessary to topple past norms and customs and thereby adhere to a socialist, equity agenda that no one in normal times would stomach.
Some of the decay is existential and fundamental; some anecdotal and illustrative. But either way, while decline came about gradually over decades, its sudden and abrupt chaos during the three years of Biden’s presidency has shocked Americans. Financial ImplosionAs long as interest rates were de facto zero, both parties ran up gargantuan debt. Now the national debt has hit $34 trillion. But two odd things have also happened under the Biden administration that are beginning to undermine the very existence of the U.S. financial system:
The public is baffled: is the Left playing chicken with us? Is the strategy to “gorge the beast,” thereby demanding even higher federal taxes, which, combined with many state taxes, now exceed 50 percent of one’s income?
Is the goal massive “redistribution” by ensuring “equity” by gouging the middle class and rich? Or is the left’s goal more nihilistic: to force a remedy for insolvency by ensuring high inflation, renouncing government debt, or government appropriation of private capital? Military CrisesAmericans have lost deterrence abroad. Confusion reigns among the public over why the Biden administration fled from Afghanistan, leaving behind billions of dollars of munitions and equipment in the hands of Taliban terrorists. Why did it allow a Chinese spy balloon to traverse the continental U.S. with impunity?
And why did Biden signal to Russia when preparing an invasion of Ukraine that our reaction would depend on the magnitude of Putin’s offensive? Why has military recruitment cratered, shorting the Pentagon of thousands of soldiers?
Why do Iranian proxies attack almost daily U.S. installations abroad and ships in the Red Sea, apparently without fear of reprisal? Why did Hamas slaughter Israelis on October 7? What explains our indifference or ennui?
Is the answer a deliberate effort to curb supposed American “arrogance” by once more leading from behind? Are we rebooting the Obama Administration’s bankrupt idea of empowering an Iranian crescent from Teheran to Damascus to Beirut to Gaza to ensure “creative tension” between Israel and the moderate Arabs and Persian-led theocratic Shiites?
Why do our officer classes rotate in and out of lucrative military consultantships, lobbying billets, and board membership on corporate defense contractors—as if their innate talents rather than their lifelong contacts with current serving procurement officers earned their exorbitant fees?
Why did our retired four stars with disdain violate the uniform code of military justice by serially and publicly trashing the commander in chief? Why has the Pentagon revolutionized the entire system of recruitment, promotions, and tenure in the armed forces by predicating them in large part on race, gender, and sexual orientation rather than merit or battlefield efficacy? Did we learn anything from the old Soviet commissariat system? Would we prefer to lose a war by promoting equity than win one by ensuring liberty?
Why did the top brass go after supposedly “insurrectionist” white males (who died at twice their demographics during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan) in the military, only to discover from their own internal investigations that no such cabal of “domestic terrorists” existed, and only to drive out thousands more of the maligned by stupidly requiring COVID vaccinations from those with naturally acquired immunity?
In sum, the U.S. will either undergo a post-Vietnam-like revolution in the military or, in late Roman imperial fashion, our armed forces will be unable to defend the interests or indeed, the very safety, of the U.S. RaceWhy, when so-called non-white ethnicities and races were achieving parity with or exceeding the majority population in per capita income and when racial intermarriage was commonplace, did we blow up the values of the civil rights movement and revert to precivilizational tribalism? Who were the sophists who convinced us that racially segregated dorms, safe spaces, and graduations, or using race as an arbiter of admissions and hiring, were not racist?
When did we lump together an entire cadre of diverse ancestries, ethnicities, religions, politics, classes, and values and dub them all “white,” and then smear them collectively in stereotypical fashion? When did we calibrate race as the chief determinative factor in our identities? Have we become premodern tribal people—feuding clans right out of the Norse sagas, ghosts of the Balkans nursing ancient grievances and hatreds? Since when in history has a nation’s “diversity” ever been preferable to its “unity”? The SexesDid anyone in, say, 2004 believe that in just twenty years, the Left would try to mainstream the previously rare medical malady of gender dysphoria into a transgendered civil rights issue by insisting on three rather than two sexes?
Would anyone have believed that leftists, gays, and feminists would have done their best to destroy a half-century of female athletic achievement by allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and thereby erase the record performances of three generations of women?
Would anyone have believed that a feminist and accomplished swimmer like Riley Gaines would be cornered, swarmed, threatened, and barricaded in at a university for the crime of daring to state the obvious: that transgendered women are still, in terms of their musculoskeletal physiques and frames, males and thereby have no business competing in women’s sports?
Would anyone have believed that a gay senate aide would have engaged in passive, unprotected sex in a public and hallowed Senate chamber, filmed in graphic detail his act of sodomy, had it circulated among friends and social media, and then, when outrage followed, claimed victimhood by accusing those offended of being homophobic toward him and his active homosexual partner? LawlessnessWe are witnessing the steady erasure of jurisprudence, both civil and criminal. Does the law as we knew it a mere decade ago still exist? Massive looting with impunity is now largely exempt from justice in our major blue-state cities. In Compton, a van slams into a Mexican bakery as waiting crowds swarm, loot, and destroy the business. And for what? Some free pies and cakes? Or the nihilist delight in ruining the livelihood of a hardworking family business?
Such smash-and-grabs rob stores of billions of dollars in revenue each year. Can we even comprehend that employees and security guards are now ordered to stand down, as if the apprehension of such thieves might in some way seem illiberal or racist?
Does anyone even care that pro-Hamas protestors—many in America as guests on green cards and student visas—shouted support for the October 7 massacre of Jews, screamed for the destruction of Israel and the Jews in it, shut down the Manhattan and Golden Gate Bridges, defiled the Lincoln Memorial and White House gates, and disrupted Christmas celebrations in our major cities with complete exemption? Is storming the California legislature, and disrupting it in session, now a felony in the manner of those convicted after January 6, or do we have two sets of laws, dependent on ideology, race, and party affiliation?
In one of the most chilling videos in memory, Las Vegas Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus was recently violently attacked by an unshackled career felon defendant (with three prior violent felony convictions and facing additional new felony counts). The assailant, Deobra Redden, leaped over the justice’s bench with ease and began beating her and pulling her hair before two bailiffs, with great difficulty, managed to restrain him. Why was Redden out on parole given his violent record, and why was he not shackled given his toxic past? His self-admitted effort to kill the judge, his ability nearly to pull it off, and the record of past leniency accorded him are a commentary on a sick society.
But then again, in our major cities, George-Soros-subsidized prosecutors have all but destroyed civil society. They have been systematically releasing felons with violent criminal records on the same day they are arrested, freeing convicted felons early from prisons and jails, and sabotaging the law by arbitrary enforcement on the grounds that it is inherently either unfair or racist.
The post civilization civil bookend to that precivilizational subterfuge was a systematic legal effort, for the first time in American history, to remove in an election year the leading primary and general election candidate Donald Trump from various state ballots. The Soviet-like charge was that he was guilty of “insurrection,” a crime he has never been charged with, much less convicted of. Meanwhile, three state prosecutors and one special federal counsel—all leftists and some previously bragging in their own election campaigns of their intention to destroy Trump—have charged candidate Trump with an array of felonies. The vast majority of Americans agree Trump would never have been so charged had he just not sought to seek reelection—or had been a liberal Democrat. EducationIn ancient times, the President of the Harvard Corporation was a signature scholar and intellectual, befitting Harvard’s own self-regard as the world’s most preeminent university. No longer.
Now-resigned president Claudine Gay’s meteoric career was based on a flimsy record of a mere 11 articles—the majority of them plagiarized. Her entire career was fueled by the tired pretext that the privileged Gay was somehow deserving of special deference given her race and gender.
Confronted with such corruption, the Harvard Corporation, its legal team, and 700 faculty sought to downplay Gay’s intellectual theft. Indeed, they smeared her critics as racist—only then to deal with her new billet as a professor of Political Science with a long record of plagiarism that was exempt from the sort of punishments dealt out to students and faculty for less egregious defenses.
How did Ivy League degrees so quickly become mostly certifications of ideological and woke orthodoxy? Or is it worse than that? Does a Stanford history major or Yale literature graduate know anything, respectively, about the Civil War or Shakespeare’s plays? Do they even know that we, the public, know that they don’t know?
Was Elizabeth Warren really Harvard’s first law professor of color? Was Claudine Gay truly an impressive and respected scholar of political science? Are the governing members of the Harvard Corporation the nation’s best and brightest?
How in less than five years did our elite universities destroy meritocracy, abolish SAT requirements, require DEI oaths and pledges, and mirror the worst commissariat institutions of the old Warsaw Pact nations and Soviet Union? How and why these elite universities blew themselves up in a mere decade will baffle historians for decades to come. The End of SovereigntyThe Biden administration has shattered federal immigration law, as some 10 million illegal entries will have crossed unlawfully and with impunity in the first Biden term—all by intent. The southern border is not merely porous; it no longer even exists.
Did the Left want new constituents? New entitlement recipients to grow government and raise taxes on the clingers and deplorables?
Did it want a larger DEI base to replace the steady exodus of non-whites from left-wing agendas? Does it shun sovereignty, preferring a global village without arbitrary borders? Do these utopians in Malibu and Martha’s Vineyard similarly feel their own yards and grounds need no walls, no barriers, and no boundaries to deny the underprivileged their rights to enjoy what the predatory classes possess?
In this new America of ours, Joe Biden is hale and savvy, while Hunter did nothing wrong. Our heroes are Dylan Mulvaney, Gen. Rachel Levine, and the two Sams, Bankman-Fried and Brinton. In today’s America, Karin Jean-Pierre is truthful, while Alejandro Mayorkas is honest. An innocent and saintly George Floyd was randomly murdered; his death proof of systemic police racism. And defunding the police brought calm and quiet, in the way our border is secure and the homeless are mere victims.
Dr. Jill is an impressive academic. Oprah and LeBron are the downtrodden and victimized. Gen. Mark Milley is a brave maverick, and so is Adam Schiff. The flight from Afghanistan marked a brilliantly organized retreat.
The Chinese balloon really did not take too many pictures of sensitive areas. January 6 was an armed insurrection, preplanned by fiery conspirators and revolutionaries. Ashli Babbitt deserved to be blasted in the neck for entering a broken window.
Kamala Harris is a wordsmith. Russian collusion really happened. So did Russian laptop disinformation. Christopher Steele’s dossier was mostly true, in the fashion of Claudine Gay’s dissertation and Barack Obama’s memoir. And 51 former intelligence authorities bravely came forward to offer their expertise in certifying that Hunter’s laptop was cooked up in Moscow.
With all this, what do we think the Iranians, Putin’s Russians, the communist Chinese, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas now think of the United States?
That we are the nation that won World War II or fled from Afghanistan? Did the eight million who broke our laws and simply walked across our border respect us, fear us, admire us, or come here to manipulate and use us? Did Hamas appreciate the hundreds of millions of dollars we gave them, in the same way Iran was friendlier after we lifted the sanctions?
In sum, American civilization has been turned upside down, and we have a rendezvous soon with the once unthinkable and unimaginable.
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Efforts to Protect US Intensify Amid Global Shift From DollarCalls from Congress and state houses to the private sector for out-of-the-box thinking, such as repegging the currency to gold or declaring precious metals to be legal tender, are growing. An illustration of the U.S. dollar linked to gold. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock) By Alex Newman | 22August2023 Updated: 23August2023 https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/efforts-to-protect-us-intensify-amid-global-shift-from-dollar-5451294
With inflation plaguing the economy as the U.S. dollar is increasingly being sidelined in international trade, potentially even at risk of losing its status as the global reserve currency, lawmakers in Washington and state capitals are touting gold and precious metals as the solution.
From congressional efforts that would once again back the U.S. dollar with gold to state-level initiatives to facilitate commerce in precious metals, proposals are proliferating. Some have already advanced.
Private-sector players are getting in on the action, too, arguing that gold can be a defense against economic calamity as foreign governments and central banks stockpile record amounts of precious metals.
In a series of interviews with The Epoch Times, state and federal lawmakers working to restore gold as money argued that this was the best way to defend the dollar, stabilize the economy, rein in government spending, and protect U.S. interests.
A bill introduced in Congress this year by U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), dubbed the Gold Standard Restoration Act (H.R. 2435), would redefine the dollar in terms of a fixed weight in gold. The legislation would also require authorities to exchange paper currency for gold.  U.S. Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) introduced the Gold Standard Restoration Act (H.R. 2435) this year. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) “How can you look at a country that’s 32 trillion in debt with out-of-control spending and think it’s the right standard to go by?” Mr. Mooney asked in a phone interview with The Epoch Times, warning of peril ahead for the dollar if its gold backing was not restored.
“Returning to the gold standard would bolster domestic and international confidence in the U.S. dollar because its value would be tied to something of actual worth, not just the ‘full faith and credit’ of the U.S. government,” added Mr. Mooney, who has been sounding the alarm throughout his political career. “This would preserve the U.S. dollar’s global reserve status.”
Meanwhile, in Texas, lawmakers concerned about the stability of the dollar and the U.S. economy are working to facilitate commerce in gold through the Texas Gold Depository.
“You have to look at history,” said Texas Rep. Mark Dorazio, a Republican who introduced the bill to facilitate intrastate trade in gold. “Over the last 6,000 years of history, gold and silver have kept their value and served as the standard.”
“It is the go-to in economic crisis and instability—everyone knows you go to gold,” the lawmaker told The Epoch Times in a phone interview.
“Everybody I talk to likes the idea of using our depository to conduct business,” he added. “Plus it would make money for the state. It’s a win-win for everyone.”  A worker polishes gold bullion bars at the ABC Refinery in Sydney on Aug. 5, 2020. Gold prices hit $2,000 an ounce on markets for the first time on Aug. 4, 2020. (David Gray/AFP via Getty Images) Ron Paul, a longtime champion of the gold standard and sound money who spent decades in Congress attempting to draw attention to the issue and wrote a best-selling book called “End The Fed,” told The Epoch Times that gold is likely to play a major role in the future.
As what he called the “Mickey Mouse” dollar continues to lose dominance, “something will have to replace it, [and] now we are seeing that,” he said, warning that “the Chinese are buying a lot of gold.”
Dr. Paul ridiculed the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights and emerging central bank “digital” currencies without inherent value as potential alternatives, saying something tangible such as gold is what’s needed.
“If there’s a digital currency that is truly backed with gold, that might be helpful,” he said. Ultimately, Dr. Paul said he would repeal legal tender laws, abolish the Federal Reserve, and allow the market to decide what should be used as money.
“Gold and silver became money spontaneously thousands of years ago, and metals have worked well,” he said, praising state and federal efforts on precious metals. “We need sound money.”
Despite his pessimism about the economy, Paul, who gained national prominence during his runs for president, celebrated the growing number of states declaring gold and silver to be legal tender.
“The Constitution is very much on their side,” he said.  Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is a longtime champion of the gold standard. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images) Among other benefits, this can facilitate trade in precious metals by removing sales taxes and eliminating other obstacles, he said. “This is a silent revolution going on at the grassroots level, passing legislation on this,” Paul said, adding that gold could protect countries, states, and even individuals. “That is a help in changing attitudes.”
As government debt and inflation continue to grow amid moves by U.S. adversaries to displace the dollar, interest in precious metals will continue to expand, multiple experts told The Epoch Times. What Happened to Gold?Until about 50 years ago, the U.S. dollar was still officially backed by gold. Because other currencies were mostly exchangeable for dollars on demand, the global monetary system was in effect underpinned by gold—at least in theory.  Infographic: One Dollar Graph In fact, for thousands of years, precious metals have served as money. Economists say this is because they are durable, portable, scarce, and inherently valuable.
But with a series of major policy changes, beginning with the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 followed by a 1933 executive order by President Franklin D. Roosevelt limiting gold holdings, that began to change.
Under the leadership of President Richard Nixon, the U.S. government formally severed the dollar’s final link to gold in 1971, ending the ability of even foreign powers to exchange their dollars for gold.
That was a turning point. Conventional wisdom holds that the move by Nixon resulted in the end of the gold standard forever as most of the world was suddenly plunged into what is known as a “fiat” monetary system. Fiat means the currency has value by government edict, rather than any inherent value.
Economist John Maynard Keynes famously referred to the metal as a “barbarous relic,” a view that has proliferated in academia and in central banking circles.
But the world is now facing escalating economic and monetary turmoil. Just last week, Fitch downgraded U.S. debt in a historic blow as debt levels surge and the purchasing power of currencies worldwide plummets.
The problems with the dollar are growing. As reported in May, U.S. adversaries such as the Chinese Communist Party are actively working to reshape the global monetary system and replace the dollar.
Even traditional U.S. allies such as France and Brazil are now doing international deals in other currencies. Multiple experts explained that Biden administration and Federal Reserve policies were contributing to the trend through high spending and loose monetary policy blamed for inflation.
Calls for major monetary reform at the international level have been steadily growing for decades, and have ramped up further in light of current events.
Numerous world leaders and central bankers, including the People’s Bank of China, have proposed an international reserve currency to displace the dollar, and senior U.S. policymakers have even flirted with the idea publicly.  People walk past a currency exchange shop in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 23, 2023. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images) But in the United States, more traditional options for drastic reforms involving metals are being explored, too. Indeed, developments are causing many experts and lawmakers to take a fresh look at the “barbarous relic.”
At the same time, reports that authorities in the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will consider a gold-backed currency are fueling interest in monetary metals worldwide.
Non-Western central banks are buying gold in record quantities, according to the World Gold Council, and analysts expect that demand to remain strong.
“We think this trend of central bank buying is likely to continue amid heightened geopolitical risks and elevated inflation,” Swiss bank UBS said in a note to clients in late May. Gold Standard to the Rescue?Several congressional Republicans who spoke with The Epoch Times pointed to current events to highlight what they say is the urgency of legislation to protect the dollar by once again tying it to gold.
Mr. Mooney of West Virginia, the chief sponsor behind the “Gold Standard Restoration Act,” explained that severing the link between the dollar and gold has produced extreme spending, inflation, and other problems.
“We need to learn from history,” he told The Epoch Times. “When President Nixon unfortunately took us off the gold standard, it made everything worse. He claimed at the time it was going to control inflation, but the opposite occurred.”
“It was a huge mistake,” continued Mr. Mooney, who introduced the bill in the last Congress as well. “Inflation is still out of control to this day.”
Because the dollar is no longer tied to gold, and because the federal government is rapidly losing the trust of Americans and people worldwide, the dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is at risk, he said.
“They keep playing monetary games at the Fed, with borrowing and printing money, and that makes the dollar less stable and more susceptible to international competition,” the congressman warned, adding that the Chinese Communist Party is taking full advantage.  In 1913, The Federal Reserve Act established the Federal Reserve System as the central bank of the United States. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) But eventually, change may be forced upon the United States. “If we get to the point where we literally can’t pay our debts anymore—where we default on our loans—it would force some fiscal restraint in our country, but it would also jeopardize the dollar and give a great opportunity for communist China and other countries to not use the dollar anymore as the standard,” he said.
Mr. Mooney also pointed to increasingly erratic U.S. foreign policy such as the Afghanistan withdrawal “debacle,” saying other governments were now reconsidering whether the United States is truly as stable as previously believed.
Aside from restoring the gold standard, Mr. Mooney said it was imperative for the U.S. government to come up with a plan to control spending. “Democrats have absolutely no plan to do that,” he said.
He also warned that if current trends continue, economic disaster is a certainty. “I can’t tell you what the exact limit is, but I never thought we’d be able to get this far,” he said, blasting the $5 trillion in new debt added under the current administration as “totally irresponsible.”
The only answer is to get back to a real standard where the dollar is backed by gold, he said. “If we got back to the gold standard, at least we would have a restriction there in terms of government spending,” Mr. Mooney added.  The National Debt Clock in New York City on July 7, 2023. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Another co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), also warned about the consequences of allowing the dollar to be debased.
“If our currency continues to suffer from rampant inflation, and our wealth and retirement become less and less valuable, Americans can thank [President] Joe Biden for printing more money out of thin air,” he told The Epoch Times.
“H.R. 2435 would protect families and businesses against Biden’s spending sprees by repegging the dollar to a fixed weight of gold at market price,” Mr. Gosar concluded.
Numerous other lawmakers have supported the general proposition as well. Commenting on the Federal Reserve’s efforts to bring in a Central Bank Digital Currency, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also touted gold.
“We should go back to the gold standard, not digital currency payment systems. Hard pass,” she wrote on Twitter in April. State-Level Gold InitiativesLawmakers and analysts told The Epoch Times that currently there is little chance of President Biden signing such measures into federal law. That could change under the next president as the economic situation deteriorates, however.
But at the state level, initiatives to expand the use of gold are proliferating nationwide. In recent years, multiple states have even passed laws declaring gold and silver to be “legal tender,” in line with Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution.
In Texas, lawmakers are making some of the biggest moves yet. In 2015, the state approved the creation of the Texas Bullion Depository, which, among other functions, stores precious metals for clients.
Now, a growing coalition of lawmakers and experts are working to use the institution to facilitate trade within Texas using precious metals.  Texas Rep. Mark Dorazio. (house.texas.gov) The idea was first hatched about 3 years ago, Texas Republican Rep. Mark Dorazio told The Epoch Times, as lawmakers gathered to discuss solutions to “out-of-control overspending by the federal government” and “the people of Texas being taken advantage of through inflation.”
“The question really was, ‘How can we protect Texans from the federal government?’” the lawmaker said. “That’s where this idea came from.”
“I’ve always been interested in silver and gold because of the stability they provide,” he added, noting that gold has remained stable and preserved its value for over 5,000 years, going back to the Bible’s Book of Genesis.
Recent inflation as well as banking collapses and bailouts have only added urgency to the issue as Texans grow increasingly concerned about their retirements and pensions, explained Mr. Dorazio.
China’s and Russia’s ongoing purchases of gold also suggest Texas must take the issue seriously, he said. The goal is for Texans to be able to use a debit card-style system allowing them to transact and make payments using their gold deposits at the state depository at merchants around the state.
Mr. Dorazio credited economic warfare expert Kevin Freeman with the idea, but other experts as well as multiple lawmakers also played a role.
“This bullion bill would give everyday folks on the street the opportunity to own gold or silver and, when they need to liquidate or transact business, they can do it, just like they would with a credit card, with any vendor,” Mr. Dorazio said. “The depository would just deduct that amount in gold from the holder’s account. The merchant never even knows, they just get paid.”  A man shops at a grocery store in Houston on Dec. 18, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Eventually, Mr. Dorazio and others behind the effort hope that Texas’s new system can be expanded and potentially even serve as a model for other states and countries.
“When this came to me, I said, ‘We’ve got to push this thing,’” he continued. “We pushed it hard.” The bill did not pass in this year’s session. However, Mr. Dorazio and other lawmakers intend to file what they say is an improved bill in several different committees next year, “and I think we’re going to get it passed.”
Mr. Freeman, the economic warfare expert Dorazio credited with the concept, told The Epoch Times that the move by Texas would have benefits for all Americans.
“If passed into law, this becomes a safe haven for those who want to buy, hold, and even spend precious metals,” he said, pointing those who would like to learn more to TransactionalGold.com.
“This effort would strengthen our financial system and as a result actually help the dollar by adding gold and silver to America,” he said.
Numerous state legislators who spoke with The Epoch Times expressed an urgent desire to pursue similar solutions for their states.
Another prominent lawmaker embracing gold is Republican Rep. Ken Ivory of Utah. Even as he sees a “fiscal and monetary earthquake on the horizon,” his state is especially vulnerable as a significant portion of its budget comes from the federal government.
“The big concern we have is the most vulnerable people in Utah are dependent on federal funds that the [Government Accountability Office] and the [Congressional Budget Office] both tell us are unsustainable,” he said. “We need to figure out as states how to end that dependence and really find a stable system for caring for people in Utah.”  The Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City. (Scott Catron/CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons) While Utah is consistently regarded as one of the best-managed states, Mr. Ivory said, “it doesn’t matter how diligent we may be, because it’s like we’re on a treadmill going the wrong direction as they continue to inflate the money—they just keep printing money—and so even as one of the best-managed states, we are still losing ground.”  Utah State Rep. Ken Ivory. (Utah House of Representatives) Mr. Ivory is one of a growing number of lawmakers across America who see major economic turmoil ahead that is “going to devastate the most poor and vulnerable,” the lawmaker told The Epoch Times in a phone interview, referencing debt, deficit, and the accelerating de-dollarization trend.
“It will be terrible for everyone,” he continued, “but the most vulnerable will pay the most.” Citing military leaders, Mr. Ivory also called the looming economic trouble one of the most significant threats to national security. As such, it is time to begin “contingency planning,” he said. The Utah legislature is not currently in session, but Mr. Ivory and other state officials are already working on legislation for 2024 that will give the state treasurer the authority to hold gold and silver.
“We also want to do more of what Texas has done, starting with the [gold] bill that did not pass as a template for Utah,” he said. Private Sector and IndividualsEven without action from authorities, individuals and the private sector can also play a role in protecting themselves from trouble with the dollar, experts in economics and the metals industry told The Epoch Times.
Charles Nenner, a prominent trends forecaster and economic analyst, recommended diversifying investments as a way for individuals to protect their own wealth and savings.
People should “move as many assets as they can out of the dollar since the U.S. dollar is very vulnerable,” he said, suggesting that the loss of confidence in the dollar was part of a broader “super cycle” involving the end of U.S. global dominance.
University of Bayreuth Honorary Economics Professor Thorsten Polleit, who serves as chief economist at Degussa, Europe’s largest precious metals trading house, also recommended diversification out of fiat currencies for investors and companies.
“I think that the official fiat currencies—U.S. dollar, euro, Chinese Renminbi & Co—will see their purchasing power erode over time,” he told The Epoch Times. “So people and businesses should not rely on the ‘stability’ of fiat currencies, but to minimize their money holdings.”
“In addition, people should diversify their assets: hold physical gold and silver, invest in a globally diversified stock portfolio; and don’t put your money in money market funds and bonds,” he added, suggesting investment for the long-term.  A one-kilo Swiss gold bar and gold U.S. dollars coins in Paris on Feb. 20, 2020. (JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images) Ultimately, Mr. Polleit said many of the political and economic problems facing not just the United States but the world could be traced back to “state monopolized money, or fiat money.”
“The solution is a return to a ‘free market in money’: Ending the state’s money production monopoly by giving people the freedom to choose the kind of money that suits their needs best,” he said, adding that people would likely choose gold as it has “always been the finest money available in human history.”
One Utah-based company, Goldback Inc., is working to circulate gold in the market already by turning the metal into notes with 1/1,000 of one ounce of gold in them to be spent at willing businesses.
“We are really focused on helping people use gold as money,” Goldback CEO Jeremy Cordon told The Epoch Times, adding that over 1,000 businesses already accept Goldbacks and the number of participating merchants is growing fast.
The biggest barrier to more widespread use of gold in commerce at the moment is sales taxes charged on precious metals in various states, including even some conservative states, he continued.
“I think it’s great that state legislators are paying more attention to these precious metals laws,” Mr. Cordon continued, adding that the firm is tracking legislation nationwide. “We are seeing a huge uptick in action on the congressional side, too.”
“A lot of these lawmakers know people are starting to use gold as money as part of the de-dollarization environment we’re in, and that is going to continue,” he said, calling it “encouraging” that more and more states were acting on the issue.
Neither the Federal Reserve Board nor the U.S. Treasury responded to requests for comment. |
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The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates [Infographic]Niall McCarthy Former Contributor
Since the turn of the century, China has experienced a revolution in third level education. It has outstripped both the United States and Europe in graduate numbers and as of 2016, it was building the equivalent of nearly one university per week. That progress has caused a massive shift in the world’s population of graduates, a population the U.S. used to dominate. Last year, India had the most graduates of any country worldwide with 78.0 million while China followed close behind with 77.7 million. The U.S. is now in third place with 67.4 million graduates, and the gap behind the top two countries is widening.
Some estimates see the number of Chinese graduates aged between 25 and 34 rising 300 percent up to 2030 compared to just 30 percent in the U.S. and Europe. According to the World Economic Forum, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has become a pretty big deal in China’s flourishing universities. In 2013, 40 percent of Chinese graduates finished a degree in STEM, over twice the share in American third level institutions.
STEM graduates have become a vital cog in the wheel of global prosperity and unsurprisingly, China is leading the way. The World Economic Forum reported that China had 4.7 million recent STEM graduates in 2016. India, another academic powerhouse, had 2.6 million new STEM graduates last year while the U.S. had 568,000. *Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)  The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates |
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The Burning Platform
FALL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE AND DESCENT INTO A NEW DARK AGESAdministrator Posted on May 31, 2023 https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/05/31/fall-of-american-empire-and-descent-into-a-new-dark-ages/ “The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and, instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigor of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians.” — Edward Gibbon. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chapter 38 “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West”  Cole Thomas – The Course of Empire Destruction 1836
The moniker of my website originated from a quote by David Walker, then Comptroller General of the U.S., in 2007. I wholeheartedly endorsed Walker’s viewpoint and become politically active in trying to get Ron Paul elected as president in 2008 and 2012. It was a fruitless effort, as the uni-party in Washington DC, controlled by the dark forces of the Deep State, do not allow men and women who truly want to reduce the size and scope of government to ever get elected. His warning sixteen years ago is a perfect example of being right but being early. When talking about the decline of empires, you are really deliberating about a process, not an event. The Roman Empire did not fall on a specific day due to a specific cause. It collapsed in stages over hundreds of years due to numerous reasons, each triggering events which compounded upon each other and ultimately led to the final collapse.
Walker said, “The US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.” He believed we were resting on the laurels of being the sole superpower, as our empire built on debt was slowly and methodically crumbling. He cited three reasons for the fall of the Roman Republic that resonated in 2007 regarding the American Empire (formerly a republic):
It’s almost humorous Walker was issuing these dire warnings when the 2007 annual deficit was $160 billion. At our current rate of debt accumulation, it takes only one month to reach $160 billion. In 2020 and 2021 it only took 20 days to accumulate $160 billion. The national debt in 2007 was $9 trillion, up from $5.6 trillion in 2000. Today it stands at $31.8 trillion. Interest on the national debt will approach $900 billion this year, exceeding defense spending.
Walker warned about our debt ratios skyrocketing when the baby boomers retired. Well, the debt to GDP ratio has doubled from 62% in 2007 to 124% today, and most boomers can’t even afford to retire. U.S. unfunded liabilities total $188 trillion. Personal debts total $25 trillion, with $1.8 trillion of student loan debt and $1.3 trillion of credit card debt. The fiscal irresponsibility of our government and its citizens is breathtaking, unsustainable, and ultimately fatal to our empire. Walker may have been early, but he certainly was not wrong.  Federal deficits trends Over Time-FY 2001-2022
The current Kabuki theater farce regarding the raising of the debt limit is a perfect example of how spineless politicians blatantly deceive the public, with the full support of the regime media, in proclaiming spending cuts and fiscal responsibility, when the CBO projections show the national debt growing to more than $50 trillion in the next ten years, as most of the spending is on automatic pilot. And this is before the coming recession/depression provokes the usual political response of fiscal stimulus, which will drive the debt higher.
Threats of government default, hysterical articles in the regime media, and last-minute deals are nothing but a show for the ignorant masses, while the true globalist agenda of one world order, where the peasants will own nothing and be happy, is rolled out at an accelerated pace. They know the fiscal sustainability of the western world is dire, therefore they are acting in a reckless manner, which imperils the world with a potential global war.  World Economic Forum-twet-19November2016-You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy. This is how our world could change by 2023
Walker’s first point about the decline in moral values and political incivility has reached civil war instigating levels of degradation, deviancy, and treasonous political activity. Not in Walker’s wildest dreams did he envision the grooming and trafficking of children, drag queen story hour for toddlers, pushing children to be mutilated and propagandized into believing they are the opposite sex, promoting deviancy, and having this degenerate behavior jammed down our throats by the government, corporations, and the media.
Destroying our culture, promoting abnormality and sloth, tearing the fabric of our society to shreds, encouraging lawlessness, looting and murder, and persecuting normal white Americans who dissent, is actively promoted, and funded by Soros, Gates, and the rest of the Davos – WEF globalist psychopaths. The devaluation of our lives was never more evident than during the covid plandemic, where the annual flu was weaponized to lockdown the world, create havoc and chaos, institute totalitarian measures to abscond with our liberties and freedoms, destroy the lives of vaxx dissenters, and ultimately destroy the lives of millions who obeyed and were injected with the untested, gene altering, spike producing, Big Pharma enriching concoction.  Covid-19 Protests-Free_Ohio_Now_Columbus
To put a Roman Empire slant on it, what has been wrought by Clinton, Obama, Comey, Wray, Brennan, Clapper, Pelosi, and their gaggle of treasonous co-conspirators since 2016 has marked our current day crossing of the Rubicon. Politics has always been a dirty game, but the machinations to bring down a duly elected sitting president, which continue to this day under the direction of Biden’s handlers, is reminiscent of the plots, coups, and murders as the Roman empire descended into corruption, madness, and deviant behavior.
The Durham report documented the unequivocal facts regarding the relentless coup attempt against Trump, but the complete coverup by the regime media and the toothless non-existent prosecution of the criminal Deep State characters involved in this treasonous act proves there no longer is a representative government looking out for the citizens of this country. We are a corporate fascist oligarchy, ruled by the few, for the few. We are nothing more than serfs, peasants, and useless eaters to the ruling class, as they continue to pillage and plunder what remains of the Treasury.
Walker thought our military was stretched thin in 2007, as the neo-cons had us fighting a two-front war in Iraq and Afghanistan to enrich the military industrial complex, based on false WMD claims and a fruitless effort to find our CIA created global terrorist mastermind – Osama bin Laden. Little did he know that twenty years after invading Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban, we would conduct a disastrous retreat and hand the country back to the Taliban, with a gift of about $10 billion in military hardware.  Taliban’s new arsenal
The defense budget in 2007, while fighting two wars, was $700 billion. Today the budget approaches $900 billion when we are supposedly not at war with anyone. With the Deep State firmly in control of both political parties, the arms dealers will always be swimming is your tax dollars, whether they are shipping their murderous wares to Zelensky, Israel, Taiwan, or any other country fighting our current mortal enemies – Russia, China, Syria, and Iran.
Mr. Walker was naïve in his assessment about the U.S. military’s strength. Winning wars to protect America has never been the goal. War is big business and keeps the politicians on both sides of the aisle satiated with political donations (aka bribes). The ruling class had no issue using a few hundred thousand poor patriotic useless eaters as cannon fodder in Iraq and Afghanistan to further enrich themselves. But it is much easier to create chaos and war in other countries and let their poor suckers die for a forlorn false cause, while providing weapons to both sides. I wonder if Walker was blindsided by Obama’s creation of wars in both Libya and Syria in 2011.
We killed Ghaddafi and left Libya a smoking chaotic ruin, with Islamic terrorists running rampant. Obama created ISIS so we had a reason to destroy Syria and Assad. Russia obliterated ISIS and has successfully kept Assad in power, infuriating the neocons and provoking the next move on the global chessboard. All the NPC Ukrainian Flag waving dolts who believe everything the regime media regurgitates, as instructed by their masters, are clueless as to why Biden and his neocon handlers are pushing us towards a direct conflict with Russia. Obama, Clinton, Victoria Nuland, John Brennan, McCain, Graham, and a slew of other Deep State lackeys overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine in 2014, because he was friendly towards Russia, initiating a domino effect in the Ukraine which has left us at the doorstep of World War III.  State flag of Ukraine carried by a protester to the heart of developing clashes in Kyiv, Ukraine. Events of February 18, 2014.
The Roman economy was basically a rapine economy. Like all slave-owning societies, Rome had no middle class, a debased currency, and no export production – it lived by conquests, slave trade, and plundering the conquered provinces. Such economies can exist only as long as they expand; when the expansion ends, downfall is inevitable. See any resemblance to the American economy? When the Fed stops printing, it all comes crashing down. By the third century their currency was worthless, and a barter economy sprung to life.
By 451 AD the empire was bankrupt, taxes were 40% to 60%, and there was nothing left in the coffers to pay the military or keep the infrastructure from crumbling. The barbarians applied the final blow with the sacking of Rome, and the Dark Ages were born. Slavery and serfdom were the fate of Roman peasants. The collapse of Mediterranean trade meant the collapse of papyrus imports, and the means of writing disappeared. Literacy dissipated. The Roman civilization was kept alive only in churches and monasteries, which could afford parchment and vellum. What will the bankruptcy of the American empire entail and how will the city dwelling welfare recipients’ fare? My guess is not very well.  Heinrich Leutemann,-Rome’s plundering by the vandals (c.1860–1880)
Just as the Romans became fat and happy, enjoying the fruits of efforts, innovation and sacrifices put forth by prior generations, Americans have grown to believe they are the richest, freest, and most powerful nation on earth. They believe it is their privilege to rule the world. Just as the Romans hired mercenary armies to fight their wars because it was beneath their citizens to defend their vast empire, the U.S. used paid mercenaries (Blackwater) in Iraq and Afghanistan to fight their wars. Now we just outsource the dying to Ukrainians, Libyans, Syrians, and Somalis, while providing them the weapons, technology, and logistics to wage endless war on our behalf.  IRAQ-LIBYA-YEMEN-SYRIA-before-after US intervention
Next up will be the Taiwanese, as we provoke China into our next war. As documented earlier, the fiscal trajectory of our empire is on a course towards Armageddon, and the tens of billions in weapons being handed to the most corrupt nation on earth – Ukraine – is simply insane. Biden acts like a Roman emperor dictator (with dementia) during the final stages of Rome’s collapse, while the feckless politicians in the House & Senate sit idly by, cheering on our descent into national bankruptcy.
The final collapse of the Western Roman Empire was mainly triggered by the weakness of its late-stage emperors, failure of its civil administrators, disease, epidemics, and the unceasing invasion of its lands by the barbarian Visigoths and Vandals. Military failure and monetary weakness were the final nails in the coffin. The parallels with the American empire’s late stages are uncanny.  Joe Biden-child sniffing fool
Can anyone conceive of a weaker emperor than Dementia Joe Biden? He is a low IQ, lying, corrupt to his core, bumbling, child sniffing fool, acting on behest of the Deep State and their globalist cabal. His administration is crawling with deviants, dopes, and those seeking the destruction of our country. The barbarian hordes are streaming across our southern border and being ushered into communities across the country by government sanctioned flights and bus rides. These mostly male Hispanics, Haitians, Somalis, Muslim terrorists, and Chinese nationals are not going to strengthen our country, but contribute greatly to its fall. But at least the ruling class will have maids and gardeners, while Big-Agra will have cheap labor to pick their crops.  The Longest Welfare line in the World
Edward Gibbon’s discernment that the number one cause for the ruin of Rome was “The injuries of time and nature”, is more profound than it might seem. Its ability to be sustained for almost one thousand years is remarkable, but as with all large entities it succumbed to entropy, currency debasement, deviancy, corruptibility of its ruling class, and apathy of its citizenry. Everything trends towards disorder, chaos, and ultimately collapse. Pleasure without pain, glory without sacrifice, indolence without work, degeneracy disguised as creativity, and treason portrayed as politics, led to a slow spiraling disintegration of their society and culture over the course of centuries.
These exact same characteristics are rearing their ugly head in the late stages of the American Empire decline. It is fascinating that Roman historian Tacitus was documenting traits of a declining nation state during the first century, while it took until the fifth century for the Western Roman Empire to finally collapse. The timing of the downfall is always in doubt, as grains of sand are added to the pile until entropy wins and all comes crashing down.  Invasions of the Roman Empire
 American Flag in Tatters
It’s as if Tacitus lived among us today. His description fits perfectly in describing the psychopaths controlling the U.S. Empire, along with most of the western world, as they rape, pillage, plunder, and desolate foreign lands in the name of freedom and call it peace keeping. The U.S. Empire is willing to fight Putin until the last Ukrainian is dead on the battlefield. How noble. Slaughter and seizing natural resources under false pretenses (WMD) are hailed as spreading democracy to third world countries.
It took the Roman Empire about 1,000 years to fall. The British Empire fell in approximately 300 years. The United States has been around for 234 as a nation, but only an empire since 1946, a mere 77 years. Has the advancement of technology, speed of communications, monetary manipulations, and level of military firepower coalesced into accelerating the demise of empires? It certainly appears so, as the American Empire is on course to fall by the end of this Fourth Turning, within the next ten years.
It is commonly believed the Dark Ages began with the fall of the Roman Empire. Of course, the definition of the Dark Ages has been debated for centuries, with the time frame sometimes set from 500 AD to 1000 AD, and sometimes until 1500 AD. They overlapped with the Middle Ages and some scholars contend they weren’t even that dark. I find it interesting as we enter a new Dark Ages, the regime media is busy writing articles contending the previous Dark Ages weren’t so bad after all.
The level of gaslighting produced on a daily basis by the propaganda peddlers doing their assigned task of keeping the masses ignorant and confused, is beyond the comprehension of average Americans trying to make a living and trusting their government. In reality, the Dark Ages coincided with the cultural decay and decadence of Rome in its late stages, as the vices of gluttony, lust and greed became the root of their civilization and functioned as chains enslaving and weighing down their culture.  The Dark Ages by JonasDeRo
During the glory days of the Roman Empire, they achieved tremendous advancements in the areas of science, literature, philosophy, government, and architecture. The fall of the empire left a vacuum in these areas for centuries. The death of a culture is not an easy event to recover from. Record keeping during the Dark Ages was minimal, leaving historians in the dark as to what happened. After the fall, feudalism emerged, and the Catholic Church gained increasing power.
The intermingling of the church and state contributed to the lack of cultural advancement. The uneducated peasants were fearful and superstitious, living lives of subsistence and want. The Renaissance Age of enlightenment, which followed the Dark Ages, provided the inverse paradigm to the Dark Ages. Italian scholar Petrarch, who lived in the 14th century referred to the time period as ”those men of intellectual prowess as living cloaked in darkness”.
I would contend we have already entered a new Dark Ages, based upon the collapse of our culture, ignorance of the masses, failure of our educational system, celebration of deviancy, lack of civility, and lawlessness in our cities. Most Americans would scoff at the notion we have already entered a new dark age. Everyone (including the desperately “poor” illegal aliens swarming across our border) has a super-computer phone in their hands 24/7. Every piece of knowledge ever conceived is available at our fingertips through the internet.
We spend tens of thousands of dollars per student per year in our public schools to educate our children. Our universities are world renowned. We are the wealthiest nation in history. We have tens of thousands of laws, regulations, and rules, to keep us safe. And supposedly, the American dream is attainable by everyone born in this country. Sounds like we should be living in a new age of enlightenment. But nothing could be further from the truth. Mistaking technological advancement and passage of laws with cultural and societal advancement is a complete fallacy, as described by Albert Einstein and Aldous Huxley almost a century ago:  “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Albert Einstein
In case you haven’t noticed, our culture has descended into the gutter, societal norms which kept the country relatively cohesive since its inception are being attacked and obliterated by deviants and degenerates, and any semblance of a unified vision of what America stands for is actively being destroyed by the globalist Davos crowd seeking to implement their Great Reset agenda of technocratic control over the lowly peasants, while they feast, plunder and pillage the planet – the true psychopath barbarian billionaire horde.
The perversion of normalcy into glorifying pedophiles, drag queens, transgender freaks, drug addict felons, race hustlers, and organizations promoting lawlessness, looting, and killing, while persecuting and prosecuting normal, hard-working, civilized white people has left the country on the brink of chaos. Technology has done nothing but make us dumber, distracted and easily manipulated by the Bernaysian masters of manipulation.
Multiple generations have now been socially indoctrinated by government schools to obey, emote, believe, and fear whatever (Covid) and whoever (Putin) they are commanded to fear. What they are not taught is how to think critically, question everything, and make their own decisions based upon actual facts. Test scores in reading, writing and math are at all-time lows. The solution is to continually lower the standards and never hold anyone accountable for results.
We are a nation of morons led by a cadre of psychopaths. Children are encouraged by their parents and doctors to cut off their breasts and penises due to peer pressure and deviants controlling the schools and media. Groomers make toddlers watch transgender freaks perform sex acts on stage. Library books for 8-year-olds describe anal sex, masturbation, and other perverted acts.
 Matt Walsh-tweet-4October2022-I believe that gender ideology Statues portraying our history are torn down by mobs, while what passes for art and architecture today is perverted, frivolous and inconsequential. There are no masterpieces of literature created in our rotting society. The only thing that matters is monetizing content and number of eyeballs. Quality is non-existent, overridden by quantity and replaceability. Movies and television programs are created by untalented hacks, responding to focus groups, and required to insert the required racial and homosexually woke storylines into every program.
There are no Godfathers or Casablancas being produced. There are no novelists writing masterpieces on par with Steinbeck or Hemingway. But we do have Cardi B belting out her best-selling song WAP (acronym for Wet-Ass Pussy) and Sports Illustrated with transgender and obese swimsuit models. Based on TV commercials, 90% of Americans are either black, in an interracial relationship, gay, or transgender. We are an epically unserious society. Anyone observing America and most of the western world in an impartial manner would have to conclude we are already living in a new Dark Age of ignorance, superstition, and degradation, even before the final collapse of empire.  Hank Willis Thomas Sculpture Honoring Martin Luther King Jr on Boston Common
While doing research on the Dark Ages I was surprised to stumble across some climate related information which puts the current hysterical climate change narrative in perspective. The current war on CO2, cow farts, petroleum powered vehicles, farmers, and human beings living in peace, is nothing more than an agenda to depopulate the planet, make our lives miserable, and further enrich those controlling the narrative, flying on private jets, vacationing on enormous yachts, and living in 50 room mansions in the Hamptons.
The green agenda is built on taxing you more, with zero impact on climate, while virtue signaling success. Meanwhile, the sun and power within our earth’s core will dictate our climate, despite all fruitless manmade efforts to have an impact. George Carlin’s The Planet is Fine diatribe captures the hypocrisy of humans thinking they matter at all when it comes to the planet.
 Solar Cycles-Brey and Eddy Solar Cycles
As you can discern, Rome flourished during a warming period and the Dark Ages coincided with a cooling period. Neither was due to human activity, petroleum products, not recycling enough, or cow farts. It was due to solar and volcanic activity, which may have gone hand in hand in creating the dynamics that made the Dark Ages dark. The Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715 when sunspots were at a minimum. Major volcanic eruptions in the 13th century, dimming sunlight across the planet also contributed to the cooling of the planet.
It seems recent studies of ice cores by real scientists confirm the period around 536 AD may have been the worst time to live on our planet in history. A cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland in 536 AD spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere, producing a mysterious fog plunging Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. Snow fell during the summer in China. Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547. The repeated blows, followed by Bubonic plague, plunged Europe into economic stagnation that lasted until 640.  Natural disasters on European society
Humans will always be at the mercy of Mother Nature, the sun, and the volcanic activity within the bowels of our planet. Taxes, recycling, and electric cars won’t have one iota of impact on the future of the planet. The impact of little or no sun over the course of years led to crop failures, famine and plague, bathing sixth-century Europe in darkness and despair. Crops cannot grow without sun. Hunger and lack of vitamin D left the populations susceptible to disease. The bubonic plague killed half the inhabitants of the Eastern Roman Empire during these dark days, hastening its collapse.
With no wheat, there was no bread, a staple of the diet in those days. The people of Europe were occupied with survival, living a brutish existence, leaving little time for cultural advancement. The trials and tribulations documented throughout history are determined by a combination of controllable human actions and uncontrollable natural causes.  Under dark skies, St Augustine brings a message of Christian hope to 6th-century King Ethelbert of Kent. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
Our helplessness at the hands of nature happens every day across the globe, with the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami deadly reminders of our vulnerability and powerlessness. We already know Schwab, Soros, Gates, Tedros, and the rest of the Great Reset New World Order cabal are actively attempting to bring down the American Empire and replace it with a global oligarchy, where we own nothing, and they own it all. Using climate change as their cudgel, they are already conducting a war on farmers, purposely restricting the output of food for the masses.
Combined with rampant raging central bank created inflation across the world, wars being conducted in breadbasket regions of the globe, and extreme drought conditions in key agricultural regions, the landscape is already in the danger zone. With Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano showing signs of a major eruption, and hundreds of other dormant volcanoes around the world capable of eruptions on par with the 536 AD eruption, it’s only a matter of when, not if. Many scientists postulate the Sun has entered into the modern Grand Solar Minimum (2022–2053) that will lead to a significant reduction of solar magnetic field and activity like during Maunder minimum, leading to noticeable reduction of terrestrial temperature. We have zero control or influence over these events.  AMECAMECA, MEXICO – MAY 23: Popocatepetl volcano spews incandescent material as seen from Paso de Cortés on May 23, 2023 in Amecameca, Mexico. The second highest volcano in the country increased its activity while Mexican authorities raised the alert to yellow phase 3. Popocatepetl volcano caused the fall of ashes in different municipalities in Puebla, Estado de Mexico and Mexico City. Mexican army has spread forces as a preventive measure while the 3 levels of government are in coordination to observe the activity of the volcano and the situation in the surroundings. (Photo by Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty Images)
Quotes from Tacitus nearly 2,000 years ago are proof human nature never changes and the cycles of history repeat themselves across empires. Biden’s illegal executive orders, disregard of the Constitution, and blatant corruption, along with the regime media suppressing legitimate dissent about Fauci’s lies, Pfizer’s falsification of trial data, and the FDA colluding with Twitter to censor doctors, fit perfectly into Tacitus’ view of the world.
 CORONAVIRUS-BIDEN-FAUCI
The traitorous acts of Obama, Biden, Clinton, Comey, Brennan and the entire FBI and CIA complex in conducting a coup against a duly elected president and then covering up their treason with the full cooperation of the regime media was and still is an audacious crime. These crimes are fully detailed in the Durham Report and on Hunter Biden’s laptop, but no one will go to jail, because half the country supports the crime the other half is apathetic and uninterested, and our elected leaders are in on it. Two thousand years and nothing changes.
 spies who lie
The American Empire is displaying all the worst attributes of Rome in its death throes, as the oligarchy grows more audacious, knowing they are illegitimate, but unconcerned with being brought to justice because they control the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government. They fear no one and dare the peasants to try and stop them. The oligarchs provoke crisis, chaos, fear, and strife. They hide in the shadows, functioning as an invisible governing power, manipulating the minds of the masses, in their psychotic belief they can control and rule the world because they are superior in intellect, integrity, and ability to envision the future.
This relatively small circle of psychopaths, who have gotten the empire into this mess, grow ever more powerful as they lead us on a path to disaster. Their hubris and an arrogant disregard for the wishes of the people, belief in their own invincibility, and not fearing any retribution for their crimes of treason, leave them at the top of a crumbling empire – so they will have the farthest to fall.
Everything about our empire is unsustainable. Ultimately it will collapse financially under the weight of its unpayable debts. With psychopaths running the show who believe they can win a two front war against Russia and China, we will be lucky if our empire isn’t just a pile of smoldering ruins when they are done with it. There is absolutely no way to vote ourselves out of this because the Deep State counts the votes.
The dissenters are not united enough to shoot our way out of this. You can run, but you can’t hide from the impact of the coming collapse. The unknown ingredient to this toxic mixture of death is nature’s influence. If a volcanic eruption, or several volcanic eruptions on par with the 536 AD occurrence, were to happen concurrently with economic collapse, the earth’s population of 8 billion would be drastically reduced in short order.  Amish Community: The Caretakers Of The Earth
At this point, the best we could hope for is a relatively non-violent collapse where the critical thinking self-reliant people would migrate to rural regions and learn to live off the land again. The simple life of thriving day to day based on your own efforts, along with the efforts of your small homogeneous community, is the likely destiny for millions. No one is coming to save us. We’ll have to save ourselves. We happened to be born at a juncture of history where a Fourth Turning crisis ended an empire. We didn’t choose our fate, but we need to prepare and make the best of our situation.
I find nothing more appropriate to visually represent our clownworld empire falling than a picture of a dwarf clown, smoking a cigarette while holding a bouquet of wilted flowers in the pouring rain in front of a defunct circus tent. If the clown shoe fits, wear it. The season is turning. A time to be born, a time to die
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Martin Armstrong On “The Coming Dark Age”by Tyler Durden, 21September2016 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-20/martin-armstrong-coming-dark-age Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,
Question:
 Wild Tree – Dark Age
Answer:Hillary is just corrupt and rotten to the core. She represents everything that is wrong with our political economy. Politicians no longer care about the people. Every election promises “change” in some variation.
 Obama – Change we can believe in
That is admitting something is broken, but it always comes down to the same thing – it’s just about them.
 Mark Twain – If voting made any difference they would not let us do it Indeed, it was Mark Twain who put it best during the last century: “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” We must understand that this has been an age old battle between the rulers and the people. In Athens where Democracy was born, they constantly fought to seize power back and even made Pericles stand trial. Government has always sought to bribe the people creating a welfare state. The Romans knew that the way to power was to promise everything but give them bread and circuses (sport games) and they could maintain power. It was Decimus I?nius Iuven?lis, commonly known as Juvenal, who was a Roman poet active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD that wrote that phrase:
… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses
[…] iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli / uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim / imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se / continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, / panem et circenses. […]
(Juvenal, Satire 10.77–81)
Nothing has changed. Many people can name every person on some sports team but cannot name their political minister, congressman, or whatever lofty title they call themselves. The judge in a courtroom demands to be called “honorable” as do all public servants. They make a mockery of the very word.
 Athens – AR Tetradrachm 510-505BC (17-35 grams)
We are approaching the grave danger of a Dark Age beginning from the aftermath of 2032. Hopefully, I will be gone by then and will not have to face this horrible event. Yet Dark Ages are reoccurring events throughout history and in all cultures. The Greeks endured their between the Homeric Age that marked the end of the Mycenaean civilization around 1100 BC, to the first signs of the Greek cities (poleis) rising again in the 6th century BC (508–322 BC). It was during the 9th century BC (900-801BC) that we begin to see the rise of great cities outside of Greece including Carthage, which was founded by the Phoenicians.
Japan went through its Dark Age, which also lasted about 600 years and the same impact was endured in Europe with the collapse of Rome in 476AD. Dark Ages seem to come in units of 3 so they are 300 or 600 years. The cause is always political corruption.
 Japanese Debasement 760-958AD
In the case of Japan, each new emperor devalued the money in circulation with a decree that it was worth 10% of his new coins. There was no intrinsic value since they were bronze or iron. This process led people NOT to hoard money. Chinese coins were sought after since they would not be devalued. Eventually, nobody would accept Japanese coins and they ceased to be issued for 600 years. People used Chinese coins or bags of rice.
 Roman Follis 295-348AD
The Roman Monetary Crisis that saw silver vanish by 268AD, was naturally followed by an attempt to restore the monetary system. A new bronze coin was introduced in 295AD known as the Follis. Again, one 52 year cycle saw its collapse from over 16 grams to under just 2 grams.  Zenonis By the time you come toward the very end of the Roman Empire, you rarely find any bronze and when you do, it is less than an American penny. Coinage is debased because of the corruption in government. Those who think restoring the gold standard would do anything are wrong. Such monetary reforms appear repeatedly throughout history with little lasting impact. The system as we know it is always doomed to failure simply because we are satisfied as a whole with bread and circuses and let politicians run wild in their greed. Hillary is the example for everyone to see.
I will gather all the accounts and this is on my bucket-list of books to complete. We do have a choice. We can understand what is coming and WHY, and perhaps take that first step out of darkness and move into the light of a realistic political system that ends the bribing of citizens and this eternal battle of political corruption. We need a REAL democracy without career politicians. Only then can we hope to advance as a society. |
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The Three Stages Of Empireby Tyler Durden, 21September2016 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-21/three-stages-empire Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, I consider it self-evident that we are in the third and final stage of self-serving Imperial decay.
Though Edward Luttwak’s The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century CE to the Third is not specifically on the rise and fall of empires, it does sketch out the three stages of Empire.
Here is the current context of the discussion of Imperial lifecycles: the U.S. defense budget is roughly the same size as the rest of the world’s defense spending combined:
 US Defense budget
Luttwak describes the first stage of expansion thusly:
“With brutal simplicity, it might be said that with the first system the Romans of the republic conquered much to serve the interests of the few, those living in the city–and in fact still fewer, those best placed to control policy.”
The second stage spread the benefits of Empire much more broadly:
“During the first century A.D., Roman ideas evolved toward a much broader and altogether more benevolent conception of empire… men born in lands far from Rome could call themselves Roman and have their claim fully allowed, and the frontiers were efficiently defended to defend the growing prosperity of all, and not merely the privileged.”
The third stage is one of rising inequality:
“In the wake of the great crisis of the third century, the provision of security became an increasingly heavy charge on society, a charge unevenly distributed, which could enrich the wealthy and ruin the poor. The machinery of empire now became increasingly self-serving, with its tax collectors, administrators and soldiers of much greater use to one another than to society at large.“
That line describes the American state and central bank perfectly. The burdens of an increasingly self-serving hierarchy are falling most heavily on the middle and upper-middle class, while bread and circuses (i.e. Medicaid-paid opiates) are freely distributed to the restless masses to distract them from the immense concentration of wealth and power at the top of the pyramid:
 The Global Wealth Pyramid
At some point, Collapse Is Cheaper and More Effective Than Reform (November 5, 2015). The third stage Luttwak describes can be broken down into a chart of the Lifecycle of Bureaucracy, for every Imperial Project is ultimately the combination of a vast concentration of wealth/power and the sclerosis of self-serving bueaucracies that serve themselves rather than society at large:
 Lifecycle of Bureaucracy
I consider it self-evident that we are in the third and final stage of self-serving Imperial decay. That said, we don’t have to follow that trajectory; we can fashion a much better future outside the status quo, as I outline in A Radically Beneficial World.
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The Burning Platform
END GAME FOR THE AMERICAN EMPIREAdministrator Posted on 27August2023 https://www.theburningplatform.com/2023/08/27/end-game-for-the-american-empire/
 Thomas Paine Quote: The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance Living through the late stages of an empire in decline, coming unhinged, flailing about in a death throes of debt, depravity and denial, is not a pleasant experience. But, it is just the cycle of history playing out once again, with the name of the empire changed, different villains and fools, civil and international strife, and a debt default to end all debt defaults. As the chart below portrays, the existing social order, controlled and dominated by America since the beginning of the 20th Century, is rapidly hurtling towards its demise, to be swept away by a tsunami of debt default, social chaos, and global war. That’s how Fourth Turnings roll.  The Archetypical Big Cycle-Dalio-Cycle I know the ignorant masses choose the ostrich method of keeping their heads buried in the sand, but that will not save them from the consequences of actions taken and not taken over the last fifty years by the political and business leaders installed by wealthy globalist psychopaths bent on controlling the world and reaping the riches from their despicable efforts.  Stick your head in the sand I believe Ray Dalio‘s chart of the changing world order is accurate as to where we stand in the cycle, even though he is one of those global elitists. The beginning of the decline can be pegged to the start of the 21st Century, with the dot.com crash and 9/11 ushering in an astronomical increase in debt, money printing, and despotism, as each crisis created by debt and money printing was met with the “solution” of more debt and money printing. With interest on the national debt about to surpass $1 trillion per year and unfunded future debt obligations exceeding $200 trillion, there is no way out. The American economic system will implode in a matter of a few years.
The internal conflict since the election of Trump in 2016 and the subsequent coup, election fraud, scamdemic, and now unwarranted un-Constitutional persecution of Trump, leaves the country on the brink of civil war. I know the regime media and distracted masses scoff at the possibility of civil war, but the same was true in 1859. There are a lot of rightfully angry people in this country with a seething rage for those who have destroyed this country for their own gain. The 2024 election sure seems like a spark that could ignite this powder keg, and the 300 million weapons owned by the angry people are waiting to be put to proper use.  Tree Of Liberty by StephenBarlow
I believe we are already in the midst of stages 16 – Loss of Reserve Currency and 17 – Weak Leadership. The American empire initiated war in the Ukraine has set in motion the demise of the USD as the reserve currency of the world, ending its seventy seven year reign as the one and only settlement currency for global trade. Biden, the weakest, dumbest, most corrupt, illegitimate president in the history of our country, has succeeded in pushing Russia, China, India, Brazil, and now the Middle East and South American oil producers towards an economic alliance which will accelerate the demise of the USD.
Biden, as the puppet of evil globalist forces, has encouraged an invasion of our southern border by barbarian hordes, has destroyed our economy, flaunted the Constitution, and has set us on a path towards global conflict. He makes James Buchanan and Jimmy Carter look like Mount Rushmore candidates compared to his “accomplishments”. They were just ineffective and weak. He is corrupt, evil and destructive. 2024 would be the sixteenth year of this Fourth Turning, right in the wheelhouse of civil war, revolution, and global conflict. We have entered the endgame and now it’s just a matter of how much destruction, death, and retribution will be required to achieve a new world order better than what we have today. Not winning is not an option.  “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately”-Benjamin Franklin
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Hidden Fragility – What Happens When The Electricity Is Off For Three Days?by Tyler Durden 19October2016 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-19/hidden-fragility-what-happens-when-electricity-three-days Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
What happens when an electricity dependent society and economy has an extended loss of electrical grid and communications? One of the hidden realities of modern life is its fragility. For example, few people are aware of the precariousness of the supply chain that refills gasoline/petrol stations around the world every few days.
A new book, When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation explores the fragilities of our truck-dependent supply chains.
Longtime correspondent Bart D. (Australia) recently experienced a multi-day regional loss of electricity. His first-person observations help us understand what breakdowns in energy are like on the ground.
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Observations of life in an extended power failure by Bart D. (Australia)
South Oz is continuing with its streak of extreme weather. The latest being our encounter with what’s being described as a category 2 ‘hurricane’ with the added bonus of a severe front preceding it that produced many low-grade tornados. A score of major power transmission towers were twisted off their footings, 80 000 lightning strikes fried out a lot of ‘secondary’ electricity infrastructure … 40% of power that is usually being generated from wind had to be shut down due to extreme winds and base load backup generators failed in many locations (including my region).
Power ‘gradually’ returning after blackout plunged state into darkness
End result … entire state without electricity for a day and a half. Some regions, including my home region, (about the size of the state of Tasmania) were without electricity for 3 nights and 2.5 days.
It was a fascinating opportunity to observe firsthand what happens when an electricity dependent society and economy has an extended and complete loss of electrical grid and communications.
Key observations for my local area are:
1. Many people have small petrol generators thanks to our lovely coastal wilderness and a preoccupation with Glamping (Glam Camping)
2. Very few people had a store of petrol at home more than 5 to 10 litres. (usually kept for use in lawn mowers, brush cutters, chainsaws). Some owners of small boats had up to 20 litres on hand.
3. When the electricity goes out … the pumps at fuel stations don’t work. To my great surprise, only 1 fuel station in my nearest city of about 14 000 population had (or quickly acquired) a back-up generator to work their fuel pumps. There was a 3 hour wait for customers to get from back of queue to the pumps … and a ridiculous show of ‘bulk buying’ where people didn’t just take fuel that they personally needed; they showed up with between 3 and 8 X 20 litre (5 gallon) fuel cans as well as filling their cars. Hopefully the canned fuel was distributed among family and friends. (My assertion is that the owners of the station should have rationed fuel to 40 litres per customer to keep the que moving faster and to make sure everyone had some, rather than creating an ‘all or nothing’ situation)
4. Due to the difficulty with getting hold of petrol after the blackout started … almost everyone with generators at home could only run them for a few hours over the course of the entire blackout. Even then, the small camping gensets usually lacked the capacity to run large modern refrigerator/freezers. So … most people lost the contents of their fridges by the end. Due to cold weather, at least freezers stayed cold for the most part.
5. Big shops had their own gensets … but they can’t power the banks of chillers for meat and dairy … so these items became unavailable by the evening of the blackout starting.
6. The full loss of grid, grid back-up and other smaller backups caused telecommunications and data transmission to practically cease. This meant limitations of EFTPOS in stores. Banks were shut, ATM’s didn’t work and some shops that were open could only take cash. Generally though, everyone muddled through the sketchy electronic payment systems one way or another. Internet access failed for the most part. Social media pretty much collapsed … my two daughters though their social lives were over. I didn’t miss it. My wife found more time to do other things too.
7. The items that disappeared from the shelves fast, and were tricky to find after 24 hours without power were : Bread, D cell batteries, 6 volt square batteries, matches, heat beads, butane gas cans, fresh meat, sandwich meats, cheeses. (not sure about bottled water – most here have rain tanks anyway). Everything else seemed fine, although fresh fruit and veg got limited after 48 hours.
8. In hardware/camping stores that managed to open: bottled LPG quickly sold out as did BBQ’s, camp stoves, camp lights and batteries to run them. Most here have a gas BBQ at home, but if you didn’t already have a full bottle of gas … it was very hard to get a replacement after 48 hours.
9. No one here knows how to use a road intersection properly when the traffic lights are out! I think this helped create major gridlock in the states capital but was even noticeable here at my much smaller regional city with just one such intersection containing lights. (public education urgently required on this)
10. The number of back-up gensets at critical locations (including hospitals and communications systems) that failed was disturbing. There needs to be a major inquiry into why the back-ups on critical services failed. This nearly caused a shutdown of mains water supply as our water is pumped out of aquifers and has to be lifted to storage tanks high up in the hills. More of a problem for sanitation than drinking, as rain tanks are common here.
11. Then there were a few people like me … I ran my big ‘workshop’ genset 7 hours a day (hour in the morning, hour at lunch time, 4-5 hours in the evening) and was burning about 7 litres of fuel a day in doing so. My home fuel reserve meant I could run at that extravagant level for a month if need be, or supply others who fell short. We ran refrigerators, lights and TV almost ‘as usual’ and offered to charge anyone’s batteries who needed it and supplied a small camping gas burner, full cylinder of gas and a good battery powered camping light to my parents-in-law who were seriously underprepared. The rest of my small home town (located 20km from a regional city) was rather dark and quiet for the three nights (in part due to the lack of pre-stored fuel to run camping gensets).
12. We have a gas stove in our kitchen, with bottled LNG that lasts 3 -5 months in normal use, so cooking was as normal for us. Since we didn’t try to use the gas to also heat washing/bathing water it would have lasted for the usual amount of time.
13. When most were having cold showers, no showers, wasting their BBQ gas to heat pots of water or crowding into friends and relations who had LNG hot water systems in their houses … our family had hot baths by candle light in huge volumes of wood heated water. (Picture of my old wood heater below.) It is very efficient, made in the 1940’s I think, but possibly much older. The inner bowl is copper and absorbs heat from a small fire lit behind the square opening in front. It can boil 70 litres in 20 minutes from a cold start, or 15 minutes for a refill of water once it’s already been going a while.
 Wood fired water boiler
14. Apart from the fuel distribution fiasco everything remained orderly, people remained calm and helpful and life went on. Strangers were a lot chattier with other strangers than usual … which is good to see. I saw examples of shops extending ‘unsecured credit’ for small amounts of basic food items to people who had no cash on them and whose cards didn’t work. No looting, no “Law Enforcement” out making trouble and plenty of sharing and cooperation.
15. Although about a quarter of houses have solar panels or solar thermal hot water where I live … none of it worked as it’s all grid connect AND doesn’t work under the heavy cloud/rain/cold of a 3 day storm.
I’ve been thinking about getting ‘stand-alone’ solar power (ie connected to my own batteries) since they closed the big coal fired station in the north of my region, (and the price of these systems has become quite affordable). Our region is at ‘the end of the line’ of our state grid now and I expect regular outages this summer when hot, calm conditions prevail that reduce our wind generation output at the same time as spiking power use for air conditioners. Our electricity now has to travel up to 1600km (1000 miles) from the state of Victoria to reach us when the windmills aren’t working here!
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Thank you, Bart, for sharing your observations. The resilience (or lack thereof) of complex systems is difficult to assess until there are atypical strains placed on the system.
What seems effortlessly resilient on average days can break down dramatically if redundancies, proper maintenance and crisis response have been stripped from the system by incompetence, budget cuts and/or the self-serving priorities of managers and employees.
As a result, we only discover systems have become fragile and brittle in crisis, when it’s too late to restore resilience.
Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock |
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Dear America, Rest Up For What’s Coming When Normies Awake!by Tyler Durden, 07August2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dear-america-rest-whats-coming-when-normies-awake Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, Normies Awake!
So-called Normies might be musing, this month of approved mental languor, whether the mighty efforts to suppress news of all kinds, about everything, have concealed the true tendings of our wayward country – leading them to wonder whether it is even possible to be a Normie in such an abnormal time and place.
So-called Normies might be musing, this month of approved mental languor, whether the mighty efforts to suppress news of all kinds, about everything, have concealed the true tendings of our wayward country – leading them to wonder whether it is even possible to be a Normie in such an abnormal time and place.  Peasants Will Be Out With Pitchforks What news is suppressed?
But never mind all that… for now, just go see Barbie. Have a clam roll, a dip in the ocean, another margarita…. September will be here soon enough.
Eventually, the official perversion of money – especially of borrowing an awesome lot of it with no intention of ever repaying – leads to the unhappy circumstance of money disappearing until nobody has any money. And by such, the broke-ness of the government transmogrifies to a whole land full of broke people. Many banks go broke as well. Even the high-fliers who hoarded things that purport to represent money go broke. Then, nobody has the means to buy anything. Businesses that can’t sell anything stop being businesses. After a while, no activity is meaningful except grubbing in the soil to grow some food, or stealing it from those who grubbed and grew it. By then, you can barely even call it a society.
By September, we’ll have some idea where all that is heading. The bond market is wobbling because the government can’t stop increasing its spending. America issues more and more bonds to borrow ever more money, but to the world’s bond-buyers (a.k.a. lenders), what used to be considered virtually risk-free now looks like a bad bet. So, the enticement to buy, which is called the interest rate, has to go up. But as it goes up, the cash value of existing bonds goes down (who wants the older bonds when the newer ones pay more?)
The holders of bonds are mainly big institutions: banks, pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds (other countries). They put their large holdings into bonds because in normal times they are safe and dependable investments. But these are abnormal times. When the value of their bonds goes down a lot, the value of their reserves goes down. And when those reserves get reduced too much in relation to the institutions’ liabilities (what they owe), the institutions go bankrupt. When that happens, the people who are vested in those institutions lose their money, too, and end up having to sell stocks and other property to meet their obligations. This ends up looking like what we call “a crash.” It will get Normies’ attention.
How’s it going with the poisoning of America? Since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now “X”), the app has developed a beefed-up immune system against censorship aimed at it by the FBI, CIA, DHS, and the White House. Twitter is once again a popular medium of information exchange, where news flows pretty freely these days. Even news of previous censorship and cancellation is getting out – and with interesting possibilities for consequences.
 Mary Talley Bowden MD-tweet-6August2023-On 11/17/21, I posted 25 Tweets saying “Vaccine mandates are wrong” w/screenshots of patient testimonials. Days later, Houston Methodist, 1st in the country to mandate the vaccine, notified the Houston Chronicle that my privileges were suspended for spreading “dangerous misinformation.” The many brave doctors who questioned the “vaccine” story, are being heard now. Other entrepreneurial analysts on Twitter — e.g., Edward Dowd, The Unity Project, “The Ethical Skeptic,” “Chief Nerd”— regularly publish data and charts showing America and the rest of the world just how much damage the mRNA shots did to millions of people, how many have been disabled and killed by them. By September, the awareness of what has been done, and the psychopathic degree of official lying about it, could pass that threshold beyond which everybody knows and the great crime is revealed. Expect a major American political attitude adjustment.
There is surely enough publicly-seen evidence to make an impeachment case against “Joe Biden.” The process seems to move slowly, given the traditional lassitude of Congress, but momentum is building as all these other national fiascos careen toward criticality due to abysmal executive leadership. That evidence shows the Biden Family engaged in an international racketeering scheme to peddle “JB’s” influence when he was vice-president. That’s bribery and the very word is in the short passage of our Constitution describing the grounds for sacking a high official.
Rep. Comer’s House Oversight Committee has already dug up voluminous suspicious activity reports in Biden family bank accounts and has promised more, including information of offshore hidden accounts. Jim Jordan’s preliminary impeachment inquiry has drawn up its first witness list which includes the shadowy “JB” aide Michael Carpenter, and the slippery Trump impeachment “whistleblower,” CIA agent Eric Ciaramella — who essentially accused Mr. Trump of attempting to look into the very bribery crimes of the Biden family lately exposed, a pungent irony. When the impeachment process gets underway in earnest this fall, I expect “Joe Biden” will resign, leaving Ms. Harris to be managed by the shadow-president Barack Obama. That in itself will become a crisis of its own.
Our country has vested its prestige and treasure — but not our blood, at least yet — in the preposterous Ukraine proxy war, completely misjudging every element of it. The Russiaphobia of so many Blob officials was amplified by their own dishonest efforts to blame Russia for all the self-created ills of our own national life. The dirty secret of the Ukraine war is that we are no longer in control of events. The Russians are going to settle things there and that poor palooka of a country will be wrested back into their traditional sphere-of-influence, no more to be a troublemaker. I doubt that our puppet, Mr. Zelensky will be in power by Halloween. NATO will cease to exist and each nation of Europe will then struggle to settle its own sovereign hash without much of an industrial economy left. Expect governments to fall.
In the meantime, enjoy the clam rolls, the surf, the corn-dogs at the fair, and all the other blessings of languorous August. Rest up for what’s coming when Normies awake! * * * Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page |
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FAKE CLIMATE NARRATIVE IS EASILY DEBUNKEDAdministrator ZeroHedge emphasis added https://www.zerohedge.com/political/quinn-fake-climate-narrative-easily-debunked Anyone capable of critical thought knows this entire globull warming/ climate crisis/ health emergency narrative is false, contrived by the ruling elite/globalist cabal billionaire class as a further means to gain control, increase their already ungodly wealth, tax us into oblivion, lock us down in their 15 minute cities, and dole out our daily allotment of bug protein.
Their narrative is filled with lies, misinformation, and holes so big you can drive a Tesla through them. They have faked the temperature data for decades. CO2 is not a pollutant. Eating meat is not destroying the planet. Cows farting is not ruining our environment. Of course, Chris Christie farting may be harming the planet. This fake narrative is dutifully spewed by the corporate regime media 24/7, as they are funded by Gates, Soros, and the WEF to do so. Lies, lies and more lies.
 ANCIENT WISDOM Only a fool believes that electricity used for air conditioning harms the planet, but electricity used to charge a Tesla does not.
The foolishness of the drivel they expect us to swallow is beyond the pale. They want to put oil companies and coal companies out of business because fossil fuels are evil. They are purposely attempting to drastically reduce our energy output, which means less electric power. But they also want to force everyone to drive an electric vehicle. And they won’t allow nuclear power plants to be built. These insane beliefs are ridiculous. Only low IQ willfully ignorant NPCs could believe them. More than half the population [of the Global North/NATO] apparently fall into this category.
Wind and solar are polluting, environmentally damaging and inefficient. They push solar, while at the same time push geo-engineering to block the sun, to cool the planet. This idiocy speaks volumes to what these people running the show think about the intellectual capacity of the masses. They believe we are sufficiently dumbed down, distracted, and apathetic to implement their agenda through constant propaganda, fear mongering, and threats. They want to own everything, while you own nothing. It’s nothing but a show and they will keep it going until we do something about it.
 Greta Thunberg Poses for the Cameras Amid Arrest |
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Once Trust Has Been Lost, There’s No Going Backby Tyler Durden, 08May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/once-trust-has-been-lost-theres-no-going-back Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Now that the overlapping crises are upon us and the banquet of consequences is being served, we’ll see just who our elites and leadership really are.
The erosion of trust doesn’t require intent, it only requires the blind pursuit of self-interest above all else. Trust is fundamentally reciprocity and honesty: to build trust, we must each perform our agreed-upon responsibilities and be truthful about our performance and actions.  US Social Trust Lies, obfuscation, misdirection and the sins of omission are all Kryptonite to trust. Those who put the pursuit of self-interest above all else like to think they can finesse their greed by omitting the truth rather than presenting a fabrication / lie. But being social animals whose survival ultimately rests on trust, humans are keenly sensitive to the difference between the truth / honesty and self-serving prevarications such as the sins of omission.
America’s elites and those living large in protected fiefdoms have persuaded themselves that their relentless pursuit of self-interest has no cost or consequence. Conveniently ignoring Adam Smith’s volume on the moral foundations needed to support capitalism, they think “the invisible hand” of the market is nothing more than a feeding frenzy of self-serving greed, and so their relentless pursuit of self-interest will somehow magically transform their looting and free-riding into a stable economy and society.  Share of Total Net Worth of the Middle Class
This is why trust has been lost in America. Everyone with any hold on power uses that power solely to benefit themselves and their cronies, under the tissue-thin guise of “serving the public” (or even more egregiously, “doing God’s work”–please hand me a barf-bag…).
When everyone is issuing an endless spew of BS to cover their own self-enrichment, trust is eroded and then lost. When everyone with any shred of power is scrambling to free-ride the system to serve their private interests above all else, the system itself can no longer be trusted.
This is why institutions have lost public trust. Those happily ensconced in a politically powerful fiefdom can increase their private gains at the expense of the public interest without any worries that the public can ever make it through the complexity thickets they’ve erected to ring-fence their fiefdom.
The elites rig the system behind flimsy legal screens and declare the system one of “endless opportunity” without mentioning some are more equal than others. Markets are rigged, politics is theater and those in the know gloat as their personal fortunes expand like clockwork.  Share of Total Net Worth of the Top 1 Percent
All of this is betrayal of the public trust and the public interest, and betrayal has a cost and consequence: trust is lost. Betrayal hurts because we believed the pretenses and promises of the lying, cheating prevaricator. Once the truth seeps out, we’re done with the liar / free-rider / self-serving BSer.
This is where we are: trust has been lost and there’s no going back. As the first chart above illustrates, social trust–our willingness to trust strangers–has declined for decades. There are many threads in this decline, but one is that everyone has transmogrified into a scammer or grifter, trying to extract something from us while giving us nothing in return except empty promises, phony gratitude or the pretense of reciprocity.
What exactly is the difference between the beggar with a phony story, a politician “explaining” a new junk fee or a private-sector elite rigging the system to benefit their enterprise? There is no difference. All are masking their pursuit of self-interest behind a phony story. The beggar’s story of needing $10 for gas is obviously threadbare; so too are the stories of pickpocketing “leaders” and SillyCon Valley monopolists.
As the chart below shows, the middle class that once trusted markets, institutions and civic leaders has seen its share of the national wealth decline as the top 1%’s share increased. Wealth wasn’t “grown,” it was transferred. Eventually “investors” finally accept they’re nothing but marks for the financial elite to skim and scam and so they exit the fake 3-card-monte “market.” The skimmers and scammers, bereft of marks, whine and beg for a return to the good old days when they could exploit all the trusting marks.  Percentage household financial assets in stocks 1950 -1985
Those who have looted the public trust for their own private gain now decry the loss of trust. Their tears are as fake as all their other stories. What they mourn is the marks awakening to their endless skims and scams, and the opting out of those who’ve finally had enough.
Everything’s gone so well that those with wealth and power have been able to pretend to be fantastic. But now that the overlapping crises are upon us and the banquet of consequences is being served, we’ll see just who our elites and leadership really are.  Overlapping Crises: “Solutions” Are Now Mutually Reinforcing Problems
Pretending will no longer work, and all the self-serving prevarications in the world will no longer shield us from the consequences of a society stripped of public trust.  When things go wrong in life, that is when it shows who you are. When things go well, everyone can pretend to be fantastic.
Once trust has been destroyed, there’s no going back. * * * |
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The Extinction Event Hitting Corporate Media…by Tyler Durden, 12May2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/extinction-event-hitting-corporate-media Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com, MSM went “all-in” on a discredited COVID narrative.Since the pandemic I’ve been saying that confidence in the mainstream, corporate press has been irreparably damaged. After four years of non-stop Trump Derangement Syndrome so intense that even some liberals were wondering if the press had gone overboard on editorializing – Covid hit, and a lot of normies now see the MSM for what it really is: agitprop and brainwashing.
Cancel culture and censorship reached such absurd levels that we started to see an exodus of high profile reporters (Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, et al) exiting corporate news outlets and setting up on their own, after they committed the sin of colouring outside the lines of establishment precepts. The MSM went all-in in Covid, but every core tenet of the Covid narrative has since fallen apart:
Not good.  Russian TV test Pattern
With the tempo being set by numerous media collapses, especially by overtly “woke” ones: Buzzfeed’s bankruptcy, Vice circling the drain – and television viewership plummeting, the stage was set for a few key moments that will be remembered as defining the extinction level event rolling through corporate media: #1) The Rise of Dark CarlsonAfter Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, the number 1 pundit on television with the highest viewership today, he didn’t go to a rival network (Newsmax offered him $25 million), he decided to take his own show out on Twitter.
 Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-9May2023-This is a defining moment in the extinction event Apparently, on his own, not part of any deal with Elon Musk, Carlson is just letting it all hang out. In one of his first installments, he called into question the 9/11 narrative (Why did Building 7 just fall into its own footprint for no reason?). It prompted one observer to coin the term “Dark Carlson” for what is transpiring via this channel. #2) The Schism of RFK Jr. coverageRFK Jr, having thrown his hat into the ring to challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination, immediately drew fire from the MSM, having unilaterally decided that anything RFK says is automatically “misinformation” (see the closing remarks on “rhetorical circularity”, below). RFK Jr, for his part, created an account on Nostr.
 Mark Jeftovic, The ₿itcoin Capitalist-tweet-11May2023-Nothing epitomizes the Industrial Age vs Network Era Nostr is a fast growing decentralized social media network, contrast with Twitter – which is governed by the vagaries and whims of whomever owns it – Nostr is decentralized at the server level to relays (which anybody can run) at the the account level to individual users. This protocol is spreading like wildfire and it’s beyond censorship.
The juxtoposition between a sclerotic, industrial era, mediocre network clutching their pearls over RFK’s “misinformation” and RFK showing up on Nostr tells us a lot.
While this is not seen as much of a big deal yet, this is a signal worth paying attention to. #3) CNN’s disastrous town-hall with TrumpI didn’t watch it, and when you look at the reporting on it, both left and right traditional outlets are declaring victory – but the reality is that CNN pulled the plug on it 20 minutes earlier than scheduled (ten key moments here).
Love him or hate him, Trump draws attention and viewers unlike any other personality – and the fact that CNN drew the curtain early signals one thing: it was a disaster for the network and probably didn’t hurt Trump. After deftly manipulating a hostile media and leveraging social media cunning to win the presidency in 2016, it doesn’t look like the MSM has learned much. When the media falls, so does the system it supportsWhen the Soviet Empire fell in 1989 – 1990, anybody predicting it even months earlier would have been ridiculed. When it happened it took everybody by surprise (even the CIA) and unfolded at astonishing speed (Victor Sebestyen’s Revolution 1989: The Fall of the Soviet Empire covers it brilliantly).
Things move even quicker today – where we are in the early innings of what will possibly be the final financial crisis of the fiat money system.
In another great book about Late Stage Communism, “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More“, Alexey Yurchak chronicles the hyper-normality that saturated the zeitgeist during “the last Soviet Generation”. The “Dead Irony” chapter outlines the ingenious forms of unauthorized humour.
A contemporary parallel is when you come across a Twitter account that exhibits such over-the-top support for All The Latest Things™ that you can’t tell if its satire or not. That is a type of performative dissidence called “Stiob” (unless it’s real).
Yurchak’s examination of “the hegemony over meta-discourse” and it’s disintegration ring eerily familiar to those keeping score today. One example is what he called “rhetorical circularity”: in our case it means that anything the MSM refuses to cover is “misinformation”, because there are no MSM citations to support it.
As I frequently comment, we’re in Late Stage Globalism. While many view Covid as the gateway to a “Great Reset” technocracy – it looks to me like it was instead, the a-c-c-e-l-e-r-a-t-i-o-n event of the millennia.
I’m not an accelerationist and the elites are certainly still pushing hard for that WEF-style authoritarianism.
But I’m just an observer and I’m here to tell you, that is what’s happening. Given the nature of technological compounding (“Future Shock”, as Alvin Toffler called way back in 1970), accelerationism is somewhat baked in and we just have to watch the implosion of corporate media (not to mention the self-destruction of Woke capitalism) to know it is happening. * * * |
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While Israel is secure and forever, who will have a ‘Sweet Year’?
The ‘sweetening’ begins18September2023 https://rivkalevy.com/the-sweetening-begins/ I just got off the phone with my husband, waiting in some airport in Poland to get back to the Holy Land.He told me the border crossings today have been brutal. [Both the Poles and the Ukrainians are rabid Antisemites] People standing in the sun for hours and hours, on a fast day, and lots of people fainting.There are still some massive, ongoing tests of emuna and middot going on, and every single person who went to Uman this year, with maximum mesirut nefesh, has sweetened the harsh decrees for all of us.
Of course, the same people who are still going on about ‘safe and effective’ are EXACTLY the same people still dissing the kibbutz in Uman on Rosh Hashana, and calling the people who went ‘idol worshippers’ and ‘retarded’, amongst many other choice words. Do the experiment for yourself.
It’s probably not a total 100% match up – but I guarantee, it’s approaching it.==== In the meantime, here’s some good news I got sent, still unverified, but from a trustworthy source:
==== This is the ‘vibe’ I’ve been getting so far about Rosh Hashana, too, even though it seems a little incredible, if I’m honest.That somehow, stuff got ‘sweetened’ again, and all the evils’ plans are going to some how fall through again, BH – as we’ve seen happen so very many times already, over the last few years.
At least, for the people who are making even in a tiny bit of sincere teshuva, and making some small effort to stay within the circle of the True Tzaddikim – as we saw recently in Essaouia, in Morocco.
For everyone else…. I really don’t know still, how all this is meant to play out. Mass teshuva at the last minute, once the penny finally drops?Let’s hope so. ==== I will keep you updated as and when I hear more. But in the meantime, it’s nice to have some ‘good news’ to share here.Because we are still heading into choppy waters, at least in the short term.
And we still need to make every effort to keep doing our hitbodedut, making our teshuva, saying our Tikkun HaKlalis and paying our tzedaka, to get the evil decrees to carry on evaporating.
At least, in our own little corner of the world. ==== |
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While Israel is secure and forever, peril faces American Jewry
Judea-Samaria Is forever, but Modern Orthodoxy in America is notWhile Israel is secure and forever, peril faces American Jewry. Not only are non-Orthodox rapidly self-destructing and disappearing, but these fault lines extend into “Modern Orthodoxy”. Op-ed.:Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer 15August2023, 1:00 PM (GMT+3) https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/375594 Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer is Senior Contributing Editor at The American Spectator, Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, was adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools for nearly twenty years, and is Rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California.
News Item: “Australia to Resume Use of Term ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’” Australia? They occupy land belonging to aborigines.
OK, who’s next? Biden living on occupied Delaware Indian territories?
What “The World” says about Israel does not matter. Through 75 years of Israel, and 50 before, G-d’s miracles have predominated despite enemies afar and snakes within. Like the Babylonian, Mede, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine empires, those enemies have met their fate, and Israel grows only stronger.
Israel exists by different rules of nature. By all odds, it never should have emerged. Hebrew was going the way of Latin and Celtic. The name “Israel” was supplanted by “Palestine.” Two thousand years of Exile persuaded the world we were consigned to be “Wandering Jews.” They even mockingly named a plant for our disgrace.
Then the worst anti-Semites helped midwife Israel. Stalin voted for it. The world center of Jew hatred, the United Nations, legitimized it. It was too small to survive, so G-d hardened the Arabs’ hearts, and their wars expanded Israel into the Negev, Galilee, and Judea-Samaria. Even before 1948, virulently anti-Semitic Poland miraculously helped build the Jewish armed resistance, arming and training all three underground groups — the Haganah, the Irgun, and the Lechi — until Hitler arrived. Communist Czechoslovakia emerged to arm Israel when America demurred. The Italian Mafia, controlling Manhattan and Jersey docks, helped run arms to Israel when Truman embargoed. Miracles.
-In 1956 during the Suez crisis, France was Israel’s champion while Eisenhower was hostile. In 1967, France reneged, so Israel found post-Eisenhower America ready. And Israel sailed away two years later with the five French gunboats she had paid for but that DeGaulle would not release. C’est la vie. When he was needed in 1973, Nixon — of all people — stepped in, even as his Vice President Agnew was pleading nolo contendre on the exact day the arms shipments to Israel were authorized.
-Israel survived the Ford-Kissinger “Reassessment,” the anti-Semitic Jimmy Carter, Reagan’s condemnations of Israel’s conduct of the 1982 war and of Begin’s bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, George Bush and James Baker, Clinton hosting Arafat more than any other White House visitor and inducing Ehud Barak to offer Arafat parts of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount; Obama, Biden, Hillary, and Kerry, and aspects of Trump’s “Deal of the Century” that would have compromised Jewish sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.
-The Obama-Biden-Kerry refusal to veto UN Security Council resolution 2334 in December 2016 ultimately proved meaningless as, only months later, Trump — of all people — arrived to recognize Jerusalem as capital, move the embassy, recognize Golan sovereignty, and recognize the legality of Jewish communities throughout Judea and Samaria.
-Israel has prospered by G-d’s miracles. Peres preached a vision of “Palestine” as a Maui or Tahiti. The “Palestinians” helped clarify reality by bus-bombing Bibi to a miracle election victory. Bibi then broke faith at the Wye Conference, so G-d replaced him with Ehud Barak. Barak unilaterally handed over South Lebanon to become a Hezbollah stronghold and tried giving away parts of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount so G-d gave him an Intifada that exposed his military incompetence, and replaced him with Sharon.
-After Sharon broke his pledges to voters and perfidiously imposed a national catastrophe on 8,500 Jews in Gush Katif, he turned next to ceding Judea and Samaria. Instead, he sustained a debilitating stroke. He recovered, got a second chance perhaps by merit of his 1950’s Unit 101 and his Yom Kippur War heroism, but he had learned nothing. He sustained another stroke so massive that his plans and he ended for good.
-Ehud Olmert — now revealed as a crook, prisoner, and villain who urges countries to withhold support from Israel — followed and tried actualizing the give-away. He was stopped by a Hezbollah kidnaping that launched a war he proved incapable of waging, alongside his hapless “Defense Minister,” a Labor Party union hack. When Netanyahu returned, he had learned never to cede Judea and Samaria.
So, although Zionists must advocate passionately for Israel, it kind-of does not matter except for fulfilling one’s duty to G-d and His Torah, land, and people. With some 350,000 Jews now living in eastern communities of Jerusalem that were liberated from Arab occupation in 1967 and more than 500,000 in the rest of Judea and Samaria — totaling 850,000 Jews — and recognizing the logistical mess the Israeli government encountered in relocating, resettling, and reemploying 8,500 Jews from Gush Katif (one percent of 850,000) in 2005, it is clear the “Two-State Solution” never will happen, no matter what anyone says or does. One million Jews cannot be forcibly uprooted and relocated. Indeed, Israel now is reversing the 2005 Gush Katif surrender by restoring Chomesh and other communities in Northern Shomron.
Chief Rabbi Yitzchak HaLevi Herzog said in the 1940’s, when he refused to relocate temporarily from Eretz Yisrael as Hitler’s Gen. Erwin Rommel approached the Holy Land during his North Africa campaign, that the Tanakh (Bible) and all of Judaic theology speak of only two destructions. There will not be a third Churban (catastrophe).
One should not be nonchalant about threats of America reducing aid to Israel. But one should not lose sleep over it either. When a parent threatens to cut off a college-age son or daughter financially, that worries the child. But once the child becomes a successful entrepreneur, professional, TikTok Influencer, or $350,000-a-year Israeli Supreme Court justice, that threat evaporates.
Israel is that matured entity. Yoram Ettinger has shown that Israel is a better financial and military value to America than vice-versa. Several recent influential think pieces have made the argument that Israel even can benefit from living without American aid — if it comes to that. In time, Israel would actualize Moshe Arens’s dream and create its own jet fighters, and Americans would lose restrictive influences. India will buy. Finland will buy. Arabs will buy. The whole world will buy. They do now.
Miracles. All fears that Arab birthrates would imperil Israel’s Jewish demographic majority have been vanquished. A million Jews from the former Soviet Union arrived. Jews from France, Argentina, Ethiopia came — always some anti-Semitic eruption to augment Israel’s population. Even the miracle of 850,000 Jews arriving in the 1940’s and 1950’s as Arab countries secured Israel’s Jewish demographic majority forever and laid the groundwork for Edot HaMizrach (Sephardic Jews) to save Israel from the godless Marx-inspired Ashkenazic elite who had laid the foundation for a secular socialist society whose last entrails are found at Tel Aviv restaurants on Tisha B’Av. The Opposition’s perpetual protests reflect they have lost; otherwise, they would be celebrating.
Australia? Kangaroos, the Koala, the Wallaby. They don’t matter. Neither do Canada, England, France, Russia, America, anyone.
While Israel is secure and forever, peril faces American Jewry. Not only are non-Orthodox rapidly self-destructing and disappearing, but these fault lines extend into “Modern Orthodoxy”:
1. At least 33-40 percent or more of American “Jews” are not Jews. American Orthodox rabbinic and lay institutions are terrified to reveal they know this and its ramifications. All practicing American rabbonim (Orthodox rabbis) know they secretly undertake lineage investigations before conducting weddings for anyone not engaged in their communities because odds are that one or both prospective spouses is not Jewish. For that same reason — encountering “Jews” who are not Jews — they turn away even relatives of paid synagogue members from being buried in their shul cemeteries and from having their kids “bar- or bat-mitzva’d.”
American rabbonim regularly encounter people who tell them they or their spouse is “Jewish,” or their child is marrying someone “Jewish,” even though the rav knows the person is a “Marilyn Monroe convert.” Because the Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America, terrified to offend members and donors, deliberately evade the issue and stopped educating the public years ago, many Jewish parents affiliated with O.U. shuls and RCA rabbonim have evolved to accept when their boys marry non-Jewish and tell them “Mom, she’s doing a conversion with a reform/conservative rabbi, so it’s OK and you will have Jewish grandchildren, and don’t write me out of your will.” Jewish parents no longer feel stigma: “Well, Rabbi, at least she is undergoing some kind of conversion. Right?” Wrong.The local syngogue raibbi is afraid to speak the Truth because he may get fired. He rationalizes: “If I tell them the hard truth, they will fire me, and then what will become of the shul?” (Answer: They will hire someone else with the exact same skills-set but more docile.) Tragically, the RCA and OU, who cannot be fired by local congregants but fear donors, also resist speaking the Truth. That is the meaning of Exile. The lesson for Israel: Jews vigilantly must guard against similar erosion in Israel’s Law of Return and Grandparent Clause. The toxicity poisoning American “Judaism” must not attain a foothold in Israel. This is Judaic life-or-death.
2. Secondly, mainstream American Modern Orthodox institutions proceed with contempt-of-court toward their own Poskim (Torah Authorities) and fear speaking with clarity on issues regarding the pernicious pretense of “Open Orthodoxy.” The “Maharat” Academy (“Yeshivat Maharat”), which contravenes Judaism and ordains “Orthodox women rabbis” (“Maharats”), now proudly and publicly endorses lesbian marriage, even among their own Maharat “Yeshiva” students. Yes, “Orthodox women rabbis” in lesbian marriages.Other “Maharats” advocate for transgender legislation, claiming they speak for Orthodox Judaism. Such “Maharats” amplify the disgrace; one is “Rabbi in Residence” at Missouri’s Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion. Another is a professor of Feminism at the seminary for “Reform Rabbis,” where she is proud to be called “Rabbi.”
The Orthodox Union asked their Poskim to pasken (Judaically rule) on whether “women rabbis” may serve O.U. congregations, and their revered Torah Authorities unanimouslypaskened in an extended learned Teshuvah (Responsum) in February 2017 — more than six years ago — that women rabbis are absolutely forbidden. Yet, to this very day, there are O.U. congregations in public contempt of their own rabbinic judges, and Orthodox Union knows it — because allknow it, because it is so public — and yet O.U. has not implemented the very rabbinic ruling it sought. That is contempt of court.
Even so, the same O.U. “boldly” lectures Israelis on how to deal with their courts. Nor does Rabbinical Council of America conscientiously enforce its own explicit requirement: “. . . [W]e cannot accept either the ordination of women or the recognition of women as members of the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title.” Indeed, RCA even has bumbled into becoming a back-door vehicle for “Open Orthodox” female and male rabbis to gain legitimacy.
And the third “pillar” of American Modern Orthodoxy, Yeshiva University, now has a “Vice Provost for Values and Leadership” who leverages her YU status to legitimize “Maharat women rabbis” in a number of venues. The university’s Cardozo Law School awarded Jimmy Carter their “International Advocate for Peace” award, and 21 of their faculty signed a letter opposing Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court. Cardozo even has mandated that all students must take a course in critical race theory to graduate.
How far YU has descended from Presidents Rav Bernard Revel, Rav Samuel Belkin, and Rav Norman Lamm of blessed memory and the overriding spiritual leadership of HaRav Yosef Ber Soloveitchik!
Greater Israel is safe and secure forever. American Modern Orthodoxy?
To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the Biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org
Rav Fischer’s recent hour-long interview on a range of pressing contemporary Jewish issues, ranging from the “Palestine” Myth to apostate Jewish leftists and their like-minded reform rabbis to the weakness of pro-Israel campus Jews who root their advocacy in Victimology instead of Jewish strength, can be found here. |
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J’accuse: US Jewish leadership is failing to defend the community – opinionThe Jewish establishment left us practically defenseless in the face of this new mutant strain, and that is why – I know it’s a serious charge – we are in this awful situation.By CHARLES JACOBS Published: 2JUNE2023 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-744853  OPEN LETTER published January 13, 1898, in ‘L’Aurore’ by Emile Zola in response to the Dreyfus Affair, in which Zola addressed French president Félix Faure and accused his government of antisemitism. (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
It might not have been the kindest thing during my trip to the Holy Land to tell Israelis, who were just bombarded by 1,500 Islamic Jihad rockets and are stuck in the excruciatingly painful fracas over judicial reform, that American Jewry’s house is on fire and that the Jewish establishment there is failing to subdue the flames.
But that was the theme of my talk at Jerusalem’s Begin Center last Monday. It was a book launch for the just-published collection of essays Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership, which I co-edited with Avi Goldwasser.
Indeed, antisemitism in the US is careening out of control. According to the FBI, Jews are more likely the targets of hate crimes than Blacks, Latinos, transgenders, and Muslims combined. Nearly every Jewish institution has security, many with armed guards. This is not the country we grew up in.
Antisemitism in the US: Where is the assault against American Jews coming from?The assault – ideological and increasingly physical – comes simultaneously from four major ideological camps.
Who are our adversaries? First, the white nationalists who attack us based on that older Jew-hatred we’re familiar with. Today, they update their classic picture of the Jew as conniving, greedy, powerful behind the scenes, with the charges that we are the ones who invented multiculturalism and are the ones behind the rising tide of Third World immigration that they believe will remake America.
 Religious leader Louis Farrakhan gives the keynote speech at the Nation of Islam Saviours’ Day convention in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 19, 2017. (credit: REUTERS/REBECCA COOK)
Second: Black racists – including Black academics, politicians and followers of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Many believe Farrakhan’s lie that the Jews were the masters of the Black slave trade. More recently, Blacks are taught that the Palestinians are just like them: oppressed “people of color.”
Third: radical Muslims, many from antisemitic cultures, who carry an ancient religious hatred and are further inflamed by their tribal support of Palestinians. In American mosques, imams preach hatred of Jews. Muslims have attacked Jews on America’s streets.
The fourth camp consists of anti-Israel radical progressives who now include the most energized segments of the Democratic Party – the Squad. Israel, they preach, is a racist/apartheid state where Jews oppress indigenous, innocent, indigent and, importantly, darker-skinned peoples. This narrative has grown over four decades into support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Recently, progressives supported Nakba Day rallies in more than 35 American cities.
All of this did not happen overnight. It built up over about four decades, slowly.
The book, which has received praise from Dennis Prager, Daniel Pipes, Leil Leibovitz, Ken Levin and Gil Troy, is a collection of 22 essays (an expansion of an original set published in White Rose Magazine, published by Karen Lohman Bloch).
Some pieces are by prominent thinkers and writers – Alan Dershowitz, Jonathan Tobin, Morton Klein, Thane Rosenbaum, Caroline Glick and Richard Landes – who analyze our situation and explain how and why Jewish leaders are failing us. Other essays are by unsung Jewish activists who document the incompetence, the ignorance, even, yes, the perfidy of their local Jewish leaders who refuse to stand up and fight back, or worse, who misguide us about our actual situation.
By “the failing Jewish establishment,” we mean the legacy organizations: the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Community Relations Councils, the Federations, along with most of the Rabbinate. The lone exception among legacy groups is the Zionist Organization of America, led by the courageous and indefatigable Morton Klein. The other groups that are bravely fighting our adversaries – CAMERA, StandWithUs, Club Z, Endowment for Middle East Truth, Aish HaTorah, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, Students Supporting Israel, and more – were launched as grassroots groups, precisely because the Jewish establishment was failing.
As our writers describe, the Jewish establishment first failed to intervene against the media defamation of Israel. It then failed to stop harassment and intimidation of Jews on campus. It now is failing to stop anti-Israel education in America’s public high schools, exploding across the nation via ethnic studies curricula and critical race theory. Finally, it failed to recognize the long-term threat of the growing radicalization of the historically moderate American Muslim community.
My talk described how this happened. I used examples from my experience as a Boston Jewish activist who helped lead grassroots Jews to resist. As the essayists describe, the Boston experience is mirrored across the country – and in Canada.
WHAT HAPPENED to the West’s Jews? As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained, antisemitism is a virus that morphs predictably: Whatever is any society’s worst sin, that is what the Jews are charged with. In the religious epoch, Jews were the killers of the Christian God. When race “science” – eugenics – was all the rage, Jews were racial vermin. In capitalist societies, the Jews were hated as communists; in communist societies, we were despised as capitalist exploiters. When having a nation-state was the way normal people expressed their values, Jews were cursed as rootless cosmopolites. And so today, when globalism and internationalism are the reigning virtues, Jews are cursed for their state.
Once we were tainted, stripped of having the moral high ground – which, for a while, the guilt and shame from the Holocaust provided – all hell could be loosed against us. Well, the virus mutated into anti-Israelism, or Palestinianism, and Jews worldwide are tainted as oppressors. The “new antisemitism” pierced our post-Holocaust shield.
The Jewish establishment left us practically defenseless in the face of this new mutant strain, and that is why – I know it’s a serious charge – we are in this awful situation.
To make matters worse, a new “woke-progressive” ideology that is undeniably and inevitably anti-Jewish has defeated classical liberalism in many key institutions and has become an accelerant to the mounting antisemitism.
Classic liberalism believes in equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion and/or sexual orientation. It welcomed and supported Jewish life in America. The new ideology – which goes by many names: woke, progressivism, political correctness, intersectionality, etc. – insists instead on equal results. If there are fewer Black or Latino lawyers proportional to their numbers in society than there are white or Jewish lawyers, that proves that society is unjust and racist. Those who achieved success did so by exploiting the underachieving minorities. Success in life is proof that you have oppressed or have benefited by the oppression of Blacks, Latinos, women, homosexuals, etc. As Jews are among the most successful, we are by implication the biggest oppressors.
And all of this ideology is being taught in American public schools. Its principles are required in law schools, medical schools, corporate boards. Fewer and fewer Jews are getting into Ivy League schools, fewer are being hired by corporations, and fewer are sitting on boards of philanthropies.
The Jewish establishment is now fully trapped. It put all our eggs into the imploding liberal basket. It made alliances with all the minority groups, and now these very groups have turned on us and have become Palestinianists and antisemitic. Our leaders are flummoxed and confused. They need to be pressured, convinced, humiliated and shamed to do a massive rethink.
To help organize grassroots activists to challenge and change our leadership, we created The Jewish Leadership Project (www.jewishleadershipproject.org). Our book prescribes steps that our leaders must take to stem the tide of animus. We are in danger at a watershed moment. But we are an accomplished community, with very talented individuals. We can and must find proud, brave and competent leadership to secure a better Jewish future.
The writer is a longtime Jewish and human rights activist, speaker and writer, who today is president of The Jewish Leadership Project. charlesjacobs123@gmail.com |
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Jerusalem Cats Comments: How can you raise Jewish Children without a good Jewish Education?
Jerusalem Cats Comments: How can you raise Jewish Children without Jewish peers? If you want Jewish teenagers then you need to raise then with Jewish Peers in a Jewish Schools and in a Jewish State with Jewish Holidays and a Jewish Week.Nefesh B’Nefesh: Live the Dream US & CAN 1-866-4-ALIYAH | UK 020-8150-6690 or 0800-085-2105 | Israel 02-659-5800 https://www.nbn.org.il/ info@nbn.org.il Even the most secular teenager in Israel has a better Jewish education then anyone outside of Israel.
To quote the study:
“In terms of predicting adult Jewish connections, statistical studies show that every year past the bar mitzvah year “counts” more than the year before. Receiving formal Jewish education from age 16 to 17 more accurately predicts adult Jewish connectedness than receiving formal Jewish education from age 15 to 16. Quantitative and qualitative research suggest that having mostly Jewish friends in high school is a motivator for continuing formal and informal Jewish education and a predictor for marrying or partnering with a Jew and forging strong Jewish connections. Conversely, when teenagers stopped attending Jewish schools after bar and bat mitzvahs, both they and their parents (in separate interviews) reported that their family Jewish observances and activities such as Shabbat service attendance gradually declined.” “When Jewish education succeeds, it is most often a story of the more, the more. Jewish education is part of the ongoing building of Jewish social capital. No one educational strategy provides a permanent Jewish inoculation for all Jews, but all educational strategies work best when they include the reinforcement of a social network.” “But for some Jewish populations who miss these serendipities, the story is more like, the less the less. Some Jews are geographically isolated in childhood, and have few Jewish friendship circles, and do not get sent to Jewish camps that might enrich their Jewishness on many levels [What about a Jewish Day School or Full Time Yeshiva Program of stead of Public School?]. Some are the children of weakly identified Jewish parents; some of these Jewishly “impoverished” families, in terms of Jewish social capital, are intermarried families, especially where the mother does not identify as a Jew. Weak Jewish identification often gets worse with each generation that is remote from Jewish social networks and Jewish education, creating a cycle of poor Jewish social capital.”According The Pew Research Religion and Public life project : Orthodox Jews are more likely than American Jews of any other denomination to have traveled to Israel; 77% have done so, followed by 56% of Conservative Jews, 40% of Reform Jews and 26% of those who have no denominational affiliation. |
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From aish.com INFOGRAPHIC: Will Your Grandchildren Be Jewish?Are American Jews facing an existential threat? Published: June 10, 2017 http://www.aish.com/jw/s/INFOGRAPHIC-Will-Your-Grandchildren-Be-Jewish.html
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From aish.com INFOGRAPHIC: Will Your Grandchildren Be Jewish?TOP |
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 Infographic: Survey of Jewish Americans |
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Pew:What happens when Jews intermarry?By Gregory A. Smith and Alan Cooperman
American Jews have been debating the impact of intermarriage for decades. Does intermarriage lead to assimilation and weaken the Jewish community? Or is it a way for a religion that traditionally does not seek converts to bring new people into the fold and, thereby, strengthen as well as diversify the Jewish community? The new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews did not start this debate and certainly will not end it. However, the survey’s findings on intermarriage, child rearing and Jewish identity provide some support for both sides.
For example, the survey shows that the offspring of intermarriages – Jewish adults who have only one Jewish parent – are much more likely than the offspring of two Jewish parents to describe themselves, religiously, as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. In that sense, intermarriage may be seen as weakening the religious identity of Jews in America.
Yet the survey also suggests that a rising percentage of the children of intermarriages are Jewish in adulthood. Among Americans age 65 and older who say they had one Jewish parent, 25% are Jewish today. By contrast, among adults under 30 with one Jewish parent, 59% are Jewish today. In this sense, intermarriage may be transmitting Jewish identity to a growing number of Americans.
Surveys are snapshots in time. They typically show associations, or linkages, rather than clear causal connections, and they don’t predict the future. We do not know, for example, whether the large cohort of young adult children of intermarriage who are Jewish today will remain Jewish as they age, marry (and in some cases, intermarry), start families and move through the life cycle. With those cautions in mind, here’s a walk through some of our data on intermarriage, including some new analysis that goes beyond the chapter on intermarriage in our original report. (We would like to thank several academic researchers, including Theodore Sasson of Brandeis University, Steven M. Cohen of Hebrew Union College and NYU Wagner, and Bruce Phillips of Hebrew Union College and the University of Southern California, for suggesting fruitful avenues of additional analysis.)
First, intermarriage is practically nonexistent among Orthodox Jews; 98% of the married Orthodox Jews in the survey have a Jewish spouse. But among all other married Jews, only half say they have a Jewish spouse.
In addition, intermarriage rates appear to have risen substantially in recent decades, though they have been relatively stable since the mid-1990s. Looking just at non-Orthodox Jews who have gotten married since 2000, 28% have a Jewish spouse and fully 72% are intermarried.
Also, intermarriage is more common among Jewish respondents who are themselves the children of intermarriage. Among married Jews who report that only one of their parents was Jewish, just 17% are married to a Jewish spouse. By contrast, among married Jews who say both of their parents were Jewish, 63% have a Jewish spouse.
 Pew 2013 jewish identity by generation
Among Jews, the adult offspring of intermarriages are also much more likely than people with two Jewish parents to describe themselves religiously as atheist, agnostic or just “nothing in particular.” This is the case among all recent generations of U.S. Jews.
For example, among Jewish Baby Boomers who had two Jewish parents, 88% say their religion is Jewish; hence, we categorize them as “Jews by religion.” But among Baby Boomers who had one Jewish parent, 53% describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or having no particular religion, even though they also say they consider themselves Jewish or partially Jewish aside from religion; they are categorized as “Jews of no religion” in the table. Far fewer Jewish Baby Boomers who had two Jewish parents (12%) are Jews of no religion today.
A similar pattern is seen among Jewish Millennials: 51% of Millennials who have one Jewish parent are Jews of no religion, compared with just 15% of Millennials who had two Jewish parents.
Summing this up, it appears that the share of Jews of no religion is similar – and relatively low – among recent generations of Jews with two Jewish parents. It is much higher (and also fairly similar across generations) among self-identified Jews with only one Jewish parent.  Pew 2013 Jewish Intermarriage one parent But it is also important to bear in mind that the percentage of Jewish adults who are the offspring of intermarriages appears to be rising. Just 6% of Jews from the Silent Generation say they had one Jewish parent, compared with 18% of Jewish Baby Boomers, 24% of Generation X and nearly half (48%) of Jewish Millennials. The result is that there are far more Jews of no religion among younger generations of Jews than among previous generations, as shown in the survey report.
When we look at all adults who have just one Jewish parent – including both those who identify as Jewish and those who do not – we see that the Jewish retention rate of people raised in intermarried families appears to be rising. That is, among all adults (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who say they had one Jewish parent and one non-Jewish parent, younger generations are more likely than older generations to be Jewish today.
For example, among U.S. adults ages 65 and older who had one Jewish parent, 25% are Jewish today (including 7% who are Jews by religion and 18% who are Jews of no religion), while 75% are not Jewish (meaning that they currently identify with a religion other than Judaism or that they do not consider themselves Jewish in any way, either by religion or otherwise). Among adults younger than 30 who have one Jewish parent, by contrast, 59% are Jewish today, including 29% who are Jews by religion and 30% who are Jews of no religion.  Pew-2013-Jewish Intermarriage younger generation Finally, it has often been assumed that Jewish women are less inclined to intermarry than are Jewish men. As Bruce Phillips, a sociologist at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, has written: “In American popular culture, intermarriage has been the [domain] of Jewish males. Starting with ‘Abbie’s Irish Rose’ and ‘The Jazz Singer’ following the turn of the century through ‘Bridget Loves Bernie’ and the ‘Heartbreak Kid’ in the early 1970s to ‘Mad About You’ in the 1990s, the plot is about a Jewish married man in love with a stereotypical [non-Jewish woman].”
But our survey finds that Jewish women are slightly more likely to be intermarried than Jewish men. Among the married Jewish women surveyed, 47% say they have a non-Jewish spouse. Among the married Jewish men, 41% say they have a non-Jewish spouse. |
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JerusalemCats Comments: The real test is will they make Aliyah?According to Pew “A Portrait of Jewish Americans”(2013) ”The Jewish Population went down from 5.2 Million in 2000 to 4.2 Million +/- 3% today” http://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/comparisons-between-jews-in-israel-and-the-u-s/ The US has an 85% intermarriage rate for secular Jews vs. 2% for Israel.  Pew-2016-03-08-Israel Reform Essay static identify
Almost half of American ‘Jews’ actually are not JewishReform leader Rick Jacobs travels the USA proudly proclaiming that “interfaith families are now the majority of the movement.” Op-ed.Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer 8June2023, 1:12 PM (GMT+3) http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/372504 The recent Israel-bashing, Jew-hating graduation speech by a “Palestinian Arab” at CUNY Law School made national news. The Zionist Organization of America took the lead, as it almost always does among the Presidents’ Conference “major” Jewish organizations, in fighting back. ZOA demanded that the CUNY Law den of corruption be defunded by New York State, that the administrators who approved and facilitated the Nazi-like speech be fired, and that the Jew-hater graduate be denied a New York State Bar license to practice.
Amazingly, that lowest-tier (ranked #154, among the lowest 20% in the country) school’s so-called “Jewish Law Student Association” praised the speaker’s vicious anti-Zionist venom and lies. Their pathetic self-hate appears here in its entirety. That self-flagellating screed is so warped that one initially would suppose it a forgery, impossible to be authored by Jews even in a world of self-hating Jewish apostates like George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and Ben & Jerry.
That document helpfully demonstrates that almost half the people in America who call themselves “Jews” are in fact not Jews.
The numbers:
Much of current American “Jewish” demographic data emanate from a landmark Pew report. Pew asked interviewees to self-identify. If someone told Pew’s pollster he or his parents are or were “Jewish,” Pew took it as gospel.
But who really is a Jew? Through 3,300 years of Judaism until 1983, the only definition of a “Jew” was to be born to a Jewish mother or to convert to Judaism by accepting and undertaking the laws (halakhah) and traditions (mesorah) of Judaism completely and unequivocally, and affirming total belief that every word in the Torah is true and the word of G-d spoken to Moshe Rabbeinu (Moses our Teacher).
On March 15, 1983, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), the “Reform” movement’s body of rabbis, passed an unprecedented resolution that declared hundreds of thousands, perhaps one million or more, of non-Jews to be ”Jews.” Prepared by a committee on patrilineal descent entitled “The Status of Children of Mixed Marriages,” the CCAR resolution stated that “we face, today, an unprecedented situation due to the changed conditions in which decisions concerning the status of the child of a mixed marriage are to be made.”
Contrary to thousands of years of unbroken Jewish practice and tradition — which even “Reform” acknowledged as binding through its first 150 years — the resolution overnight accepted the children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers as “Jewish” if the parents nominally would claim they would rear the child that way. Obviously, such a claim by a Jewish spouse who marries a non-Jew has no meaning.
The “Reform” movement’s body of congregational temples is the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism), and their president, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, now travels the country proudly proclaiming that “interfaith families are now the majority of the movement.” (See embedded link at page 9, lower left column.)
Rabbi Jacobs’s assertion that the majority of “Reform”-affiliated families today are headed by a Jewish and non-Jewish intermarried spouse substantiates the underlying math. Let’s say there are 200 married congregants at the “Reform” Temple, comprising 100 marriages, and 60 of the marriages (the majority, which Jacobs asserts) are intermarriages. That means, outright, that at least 60 of those 200 in the temple are non-Jewish under any definition. They alone comprise 30 percent. Beyond that, among their 60 “Jewish” spouses, a certain number of them also are non-Jewish. Many of those “Jewish” spouses are children of outright non-Jewish mothers who intermarried with Jews, and who after 1983 (40 years ago) reared them “patrilineally” as though Jews — although they are not and never were. Others among those 60 are the children of “Jewish” mothers who “converted to Judaism” like Marilyn Monroe via a heterodox rabbi, which means those mothers also were non-Jewish. Some 10-20 (could be more, could be fewer) of the 60 “Jewish” intermarried spouses in our sample thus actually are not Jewish either. So we have 70-80 non-Jews among every 200 “Reform Jews.” That is 35-40 percent.
Even non-Orthodox “Conservative” rabbis regard large swaths of “Reform” “converts” to be non-Jewish because many such “converts” never immersed in a mikveh ritual body of water. Thus, the numbers of outright non-Jews in our 200-person hypothetical sample of Year 2023 “Reform” households stand at 70-80 non-Jews or 35-40 percent “of the movement.” These non-Jewish families, in turn, then have their own children for the next generation.
Inasmuch as “Reform’s” patrilineal policy now is 40 years extant — two generations — the numbers of outright non-Jewish “Reform” “Jews” today, among “Reform” Jews born since the 1980s, well exceeds 40-50 percent. (By contrast, older Reform Jews who were born and grew up well before the 1983 “patrilineal” tsunami and before Jews started marrying non-Jews at record highs — say, people over age 60 — would number a markedly higher percentage of actual Jews.)
Pew reports that “Reform” Jews comprise 37 percent of American Jewry, with “Conservative” Jews at 17 percent, and Orthodox at 9 percent. Pew’s Orthodox numbers manifestly are incompatible with reality in terms of proportion of actual Jews, but the numbers could be correct based on Pew’s fanciful maximizing of Jewish demographics.
Pew is not to blame; they survey people’s stated opinions and do not present as rabbinic authorities. Beyond this,
Pew says that another 32 percent of Jews claim no religious affiliation whatsoever, so their numbers stand to be less Judaic than even “Reform’s” population. Worded in another chart, Pew declares that 27 percent of American “Jews” report “no religion.” Among that group, we may expect many authentic Jews, too —Jewish-born apostates like George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and the Ben & Jerry’s founders. Even so, the numbers reflect huge numbers of non-Jews erroneously self-reporting in that group as “Jews.”
If “Reform” Jews are 37 percent, and Jews of “no religion” are 27 percent, that means approximately one-third of all reported American “Jews” plainly are not Jews. These are the data, conservatively interpreted. Thus, the highly generous census reports of 7.5 million “Jews” now in America, suggesting preposterously a 25 percent increase from the 6 million of the 1970s despite half a century of rife assimilation and intermarriage, actually more accurately are 4.5 to 5 million Jews.
Pew says Orthodox Jews are 9-10 percent of an American “Jewry” numbering 7.5 million. That would approximate 750,000 Orthodox Jews in America. However, if there are 750,000 Orthodox Jews in America but only amid a more realistic 4.5 million-person community, that then doubles the Orthodox percent of American Jewry to at least one-sixth or 16.66 percent. Similarly, if there are 750,000 Orthodox Jews among a slightly larger population of 5 million, that puts the Orthodox percent of American Jewry at 15 percent.
Moreover, Orthodox Jews regularly get undercounted in these surveys because they are harder to count — for practical logistical reasons. For example, “Reform” “converts” are especially eager to answer the phone and respond to such surveys as “Jews by Choice.” By contrast, Orthodox Jews do not want to be bothered. Haredim and Modern Orthodox have less interest in taking the call or remaining on the phone. Many such calls are made on weekends, to maximize reaching survey targets at a time of week when they will agree to answer long polling surveys. However, Orthodox Jews do not touch the phone on Shabbat, except in cases of life or death, and that makes them unreachable most of Friday and Saturday.
Notably, when the World Zionist Congress (WZC) conducted elections in March 2020 for delegates to their quadrennial international convention, “Reform” Judaism and their left-wing cohort won 40 or so seats, “Conservative” Judaism won 20 or so seats, and Orthodoxy and their conservative (political, small “c”) allies won 70 or so seats. Although those numbers were not a scientific population survey but a voluntary affirmation of Jewish affiliation in the context of Zionist engagement, the WZC numbers, by which Orthodox Jews and their conservative (small “c”) cohort so overwhelmingly outvoted the combined non-Orthodox and progressive left, expose the Pew errors that put the Orthodox at only 9 percent of the community. Politics and energy can explain variations in free elections, as can community cohesion, organizing, and “get-out-the-vote” dynamics, but WZC free-election results that so profoundly contradict Pew numbers underscore that Orthodoxy comprises substantially more than 9 percent of authentic American Jewry.
Pew explains how they count Jews. For example:
People are categorized as “Jews of no religion” if they answer a question about their present religion by saying they are atheist, agnostic or have no religion in particular; and they say they had a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish; andthey consider themselves Jewish in some way aside from religion, such as ethnically, culturally or because of their family background.…
Combining 5.8 million adult Jews (the estimated size of the net Jewish population in this survey) with 1.8 million children (living in households with a Jewish adult and who are being raised Jewish in some way, including those who are being raised both Jewish and in another religion) yields a total estimate (rounded to the nearest 100,000) of 7.5 million Jews of all ages in the United States, or 2.4% of the total U.S. population.
In this report, as in the 2013 study, children are treated differently from adults: Children who are being raised as Jewish and in some other religion are included in the Jewish population estimate, while adults who identify as Jewish and some other religion are not. This accounts for the uncertainty inherent in projecting how children will identify when they grow up; some children who are raised as Jewish and another religion go on to identify, in adulthood, solely as Jewish.
In sum, at least 33-40 percent — and probably much more — of self-reporting American “Jews” are not Jews, with ever-higher numbers and percentages of “false Jews” among those born each decade since the 1980s and particularly in the past 20 years.
The ramifications are enormous. When the media report that 25 percent of American Jews oppose Israel or support BDS or regard Israel as “apartheid” or support “Palestinian” demands that Israel hand them Judea and Samaria, we gain new clarity that overwhelming numbers of those hostile respondents include the core of self-identifiers who are not actually Jews to begin with. They simply are not Jews. These are the “Jews” of J Street, Jewish Voice for Palestine, and the CUNY “Jewish Law Student Association.” Like the Erev Rav (Mixed Multitude) who built the Golden Calf in the Sinai Desert, these are the non-Jewish Fifth Column in our midst.
Likewise, when pollsters state that 70 percent of American Jews vote Democrat and 30 percent Republican, know that the divide among actual Jews towards Democrat liberalism probably lies more along the lines of 55-45 percent, more akin to Catholic voting patterns.
Judaism is not and never has been transmitted by blood, genes, DNA; contrarily, patrilineal bloodlines were among the ways Hitler and the German Nazis defined Jews.
No Orthodox congregational rabbi in America today will agree to conduct a marriage for a couple who have no prior affiliation with the rabbi’s community until that rabbi independently has verified that both prospective spouses actually meet the classic normative 3,000-year definition of “authentically Jewish.” Even the most theologically flexible Modern Orthodox congregations now require new families seeking to have their child bar– or bat-mitzva’d at the synagogue to document that the mother authentically was Jewish when the child was born or that the child properly was converted to Judaism consonant with the classic normative standard
Indeed, Orthodox synagogues will not even allow people to purchase gravesite plots in their cemetery sections until prospective buyers can prove unequivocally that they (or the deceased whom they wish to inter) meet Judaism’s classic definition of Jewish. As a result, intermarried couples ultimately cannot lie side-by-side for eternity in Orthodox sections of cemeteries, nor can the children of a Jewish father and non-Jewish birth mother be buried in a family plot with their father in a cemetery’s Orthodox section.
They can always find a BDS graveyard at Ben & Jerry’s.
Adapted by the writer, Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer, for Arutz Sheva from a version of this article that first appeared here in The American Spectator.
To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the Biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org |
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Ben Shapiro: Most US Jews aren’t Jewish in their identityIn an extensive interview with INN, Ben Shapiro warns of the dangers of progressive ideology,Israel National News American conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro was in the Israel National News-Arutz Sheva studio for a very special interview that touched on many topics. When asked if liberals and progressives are “the enemy,” Shapiro told former Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Boaz Bismuth: “I don’t think that liberals and progressives are the enemy as people but I think that the ideas of liberals and progressives are extraordinarily destructive to the social fabric in the United States.”
“In order to have a functioning country you have to have a common philosophy, you have to have a common culture, and you have to have a common history. Progressives in the United States are fighting against all three of these things,” he says.Shapiro explains that to have a culture, a nation has to have a set of values or ideals.“When it comes to the culture of the United States that sort of requires you to at least speak the same language. You have to speak in terms of facts. And in the United States you have open debate over whether men and women exist caused by the left. It’s going to be tough to have a conversation with people when words have no meaning. When it comes to history, the left in the United States believes that the history of the United States is an unending series of calamities filled with brutality and evil. And again, you can’t have a nation built that way,” he says.
“The ideas of progressives are extraordinarily dangerous to the social fabric in any country,” he adds. Is is possible today for progressivism and conservatism to go hand-in-hand as was the case at times in the 20th century? “The idea that the right and left can’t have a conversation anymore that is a new thing,” Shapiro says. “The idea that if you are on the left you literally can’t get in the same room with somebody on the right and have an open conversation without attempting to wreck the person on camera, that’s a major problem.”
He sees a bleak future if “traditional liberals” continue to take their marching orders from the radical left and move increasingly away from the center-left of the political spectrum, where they used to reside.
“The future of the United States rests not on whether people like me speak. It’s really more on whether traditional liberals, people who disagree with me on taxes, on healthcare, whether those people are willing to tell the hard left it’s still important to have a conversation with people like me, or whether they decide they would rather get their policy done by working with the people on the left and then shutting the door on everybody else. A lot of liberals have been intimidated into believing that if they even have a conversation with people on the other side of the isle, this makes them bad. It’s more important to get done what they need to get done in terms of ramming the United States to the left, even if that means ending debate before it begins.”
Shapiro recalls that he entered into political commentary because of defending Israel. He was a philosophy major at UCLA and saw an editorial comparing former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Adolf Eichmann. “I walked into the [newspaper] office and starting writing a column that turned into a syndicated column that turned into a career,” he says. The left has only become even more anti-Israel since then, he notes. “The left in the United States has now been taken over by a sort of ideology that suggests that anything that is successful must be inherently discriminatory and because Israel is successful it’s more discriminatory. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the left’s ideas on Israel began to shift immediately upon Israel winning the Six Day War. Until then Israel was the darling of the left,” Shapiro says.
“What I’m worried about is the rising generation tends to be more progressive. What we’ve watched is that these people tend to come into jobs and then restructure the job. They tend to come into their companies and restructure the company around them. It’s not that they come into institutions and these institutions civilize them, which is normally the way people grow up instead.”
He also believes that many pro-Israel students on American campuses don’t know how to defend Israel or are intimidated by their progressive believes. “The number of people on campus who care about Israel is very low and the people who defend Israel don’t know how to do it. They tend to be very shy about defending Israel, specifically because in order to defend Israel you have to defend principles a lot of people on the soft left are uncomfortable with. You have to defend nationalism, you have to defend religion,” Shapiro says. “Israel is losing the left in America but I don’t think that has to do with Israel. That has to do with the left, the left has gotten significantly more radical over time. The left in America is starting to look a lot like Jeremy Corbyn’s left in Great Britain.”
On the topic of transgender people, Shapiro believes it is part of “secularism as a religion.” “Gender dysphoria is an actual psychological condition. It’s in the DSM 5. What the left has decided is that if you believe you are a member of the opposite sex, we all have to treat you as a member of the opposite sex, and in fact you are a member of the opposite sex. Once a society decides that standards of actual truth – the meaning of words – it’s gone too far, transgender ideology is violative of biology, it’s violative of reason, it’s violative of basic language,” he says. “What that is in the end is an attempt to cudgel you into joining a particular cult. You have to have skin in the game and the way you demonstrate you have skin in the game is by saying nonsensical things over and over… If you see secularism as a religion, and saying your pronouns as a ritual, then it makes a lot more sense than than the idea that men can be women and women can be men.”
There’s an instinctive human drive to reject all this stuff because it’s the evidence of your own eyes. Don’t reject the evidence of your own eyes in the name of ridiculous gender ideology that the left likes to propose as a measure of equality.” Shapiro sees modern liberalism as alienating traditional liberals and increasingly pushing them to the right. “You’re seeing liberals being driven into the conservative camp, people like Elon Musk [who] is not a conservative. He’s been driven into the arms of people on the right simply because the left has decided that if you are not willing to repeat all these mantras you can’t sit at the the table. If you shrink your table enough there won’t be a lot of people at your table anymore.”
If progressives don’t believe in “In G-d We Trust”, as it says on American money, who do they trust? “The government, the experts, you trust the experts always. And if the experts blow it, you trust them even more. It’s an amazing double down that they’ve done,” Shapiro explains.
“The experts failed on all of these things that they said that they could fix and simultaneously they told you that your moral system is wrong and they’re the experts on morality as well. You wonder why people are ticked off – that’s why people are ticked off. But they have no capacity to really see it.”
For him, this is more evidence that progressive political elites are out of touch with ordinary Americans. “There’s a major disconnect between the political class on the left [in the United States] and the people they’re purporting to represent,” he says. He sees certain parallels with Israeli society. “It’s a mistake to treat any population in a free society as though it’s incapable of getting ahead. From what I’ve seen in Israel, there’s a mistake that the Israeli government has recently been making a lot in its treatment of the Arab population as though affirmative action and more social spending is necessary and just and good because it’s somehow going to create layers of of success in Arab populations in Israel. I doubt it’s going to work for any population, whether you’re talking about Arabs in Israel, whether you’re talking about Black and Hispanic Americans, you have to treat everybody by the same rules and the same rules of success apply literally everywhere. If you get a job, if you get an education, you do these things, you’re going to be successful in a free society, and that’s true in Israel as well for Arabs who have all the same rights that Jews do in in the State of Israel with regard to these things.”
When asked about why Jews in America vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats, even after the presidency of Barack Obama and anti-Israel Squad Democrats in Congress, he notes that “this is the number one question that I always get asked on college campuses.”
“The answer is most [American] Jews are not particularly Jewish in identity. If you ask a Jew what’s your core identity they’ll say you know I like social justice and I’m very concerned with the issues of the world –Tikkun Olam – but not in the actual traditional sense,” he says.
“The idea is that most Jews in the United States are not religious. What [they] really are is a secular leftist who really doesn’t believe in G-d but feel some sort of very basic cultural solidarity that focuses on a particular history with with bagels and and locks and all the rest of this that’s not going to give you any sense of identity with the State of Israel. This is a big mistake that a lot of Republican politicians make with the Jewish population in America. They’ll go to a Reconstructionist synagogue and they’ll talk about Israel as though this is going to be a resonant issue. Israel is like number 15 on the list for these folks and even when it comes to Israel, they think of Israel in the same way that secular leftists think of Israel on the very progressive left.”
He notes that if you look at the voting patterns of Orthodox Jews in America, around 85 to 90 percent vote Republican and the less religious Jews get, the bigger the percentage of Jews voting Democratic gets.
“Are you talking about ethnically Jewish voters, or are you talking about self-identified Jews, or are you talking about people who actually practice Judaism? People who actually practice Judaism tend to care a lot about Israel. People who don’t practice Judaism don’t tend to care a lot about Israel. It’s not really a mystery.”
“There are lots of Jews who are not Zionists in the United States. For them it’s actually sort of embarrassing. The reason that a lot of progressive Jews identify as Jewish is just so that they don’t have to identify as white because if you’re white in the United States then this means that you’re part of the oppressor class but if you say that you’re a progressive Jew then you can dissociate from the rest of the Jews and you can say but I’m the good Jew.”
In terms of the 2024 US presidential election, Shapiro, who famously as a conservative did not vote for Trump in 2016, says he hopes that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis get the Republican nomination and not Trump.
Shapiro says DeSantis is “terrific. He’s wonderful.” Although he also praises Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and hopes they are primary candidates.
“There are a bunch of candidates I think are really good on the right side of the aisle. I think that Donald Trump has an enormous amount of baggage. I think that he would have the toughest time beating a Democrat.”
When asked if he believes the 2020 election was stolen as Trump claims, he replies: “You can talk about how the election rules were were biased, you can talk about the mail in ballots. Were ballots falsified on mass? No. The the evidence is just not there for that. Donald Trump’s own people did not allege that in court. He alleges it now. The evidence again is not present for that. There are a lot of things that can be said about the way the election was conducted, again a lot of the rules changed because of COVID, some of those rule changes were really problematic legally speaking… but the the idea that hundreds of thousands of ballots were fabricated on behalf of Joe Biden or that a bunch of pro-Trump ballots just got dumped in a river somewhere. There’s no evidence to that effect that i’ve seen whatsoever.”
In terms of the upcoming Israeli elections in November, Shapiro says that if former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns as prime minister, he feels that it’s good news for the country.
“The coalition government that was established simply in opposition to Prime Minister Netanyahu was obviously going to fall apart. It was only a question of when it was going to fall apart, literally the only thing holding it together was how much people disliked Benjamin Netanyahu. There’s been this this sort of log jam at the top of Israeli politics for a long time and it’s been exacerbated by of course the prosecutions of Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he says. “If Israel wishes to be governed in any way it’s got to be governed on the basis of an agenda and the agenda can’t just be we don’t like Bibi Netanyahu.” |
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70% of secular Jews in the US, 50% in Europe married to non-JewsThe issue of intermarriage, viewed as a complex reality of Jewish life, prompts questions about how communities should treat the resulting children.By ZVIKA KLEIN
A dramatic new report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) has delved into the world of Jewish intermarriage rates, shedding light on a key concern among Jewish leaders and policymakers worldwide. The report, titled “Intermarriage of Jews and non-Jews: the global situation and its meaning,” examines intermarriage prevalence across countries covering over 95% of the global Jewish population. Moreover, it contextualizes the data with Jewish fertility rates to gauge the threat of intermarriage to Jewish community sustainability around the globe.
Dr. Daniel Staetsky, Senior Research Fellow and Director of JPR’s European Demography Unit, authored the comprehensive report, bringing to the forefront some compelling insights about intermarriage in Jewish communities. Among the key findings are: 1. Global intermarriage prevalence: The report reveals that the overall prevalence of intermarriage stands at 26% worldwide. However, a stark distinction emerges between Israel, where intermarriage is relatively low at 5%, and the Jewish Diaspora, where it reaches 42%.
2. Impact of traditionalism: The report establishes that Jewish populations with the lowest intermarriage levels exhibit the highest levels of traditionalism. Religiosity and strong connections to Jewish heritage seem to serve as powerful deterrents to intermarriage.
3. Intermarriage in Europe and the US: Secular or ‘Just Jewish’ Jews in Europe and the US show the highest prevalence of intermarriage. Nearly 70% of secular Jews in the US and almost 50% in Europe are married to non-Jews.
4. Factors influencing intermarriage: The report suggests that factors like the availability of suitable Jewish partners play a relatively smaller role compared to traditionalism when comparing intermarriage rates across different countries.
5. Diverse patterns in Europe: Contrary to a single European pattern, the report reveals that the highest (Poland) and lowest (Belgium) intermarriage rates among Diaspora communities are found in Europe.
6. American Jews and intermarriage: Although often associated with high intermarriage rates, American Jews actually occupy a middle position in the global spectrum of intermarriage prevalence.
7. Interplay of intermarriage and fertility: While intermarriage rates have increased over time in the US, the report observes that this trend is somewhat offset by the growing Haredi and Orthodox populations. In Europe, the situation appears more stable over time.
8. Fertility: The report highlights that the impact of intermarriage on Jewish population trends today is overshadowed by the significance of fertility rates. Low fertility is a major concern for Jewish communities in the Diaspora, while Israel remains an exception with relatively high fertility rates.
Understanding demographic processes and trends in community developmentDr. Jonathan Boyd, JPR’s Executive Director, emphasized the importance of this report’s findings: “Understanding demographic processes and trends is an essential component of community development work, and is all-too-often overlooked when planning for our shared future.”
The report paints a nuanced picture of intermarriage, indicating that it is not a monolithic phenomenon. Instead, it varies significantly across regions and is strongly influenced by traditionalism and religiosity within Jewish communities. While intermarriage is often perceived as a potential threat to the sustainability of Jewish communities, the report highlights that low fertility rates represent a more pressing challenge.
By placing intermarriage in the context of fertility, the report calls for a more comprehensive approach to address demographic concerns. Policymakers and community leaders are urged to consider the impact of both intermarriage and fertility rates when devising strategies for community development and engagement.
For Jewish communities, the report’s findings serve as reference material for critical policy discussions. The issue of intermarriage, viewed as a complex reality of Jewish life, prompts questions about how communities should treat the consequences of intermarriage, including incorporating the offspring and spouses of intermarried Jews into communal activities.
Moreover, a policy scenario emphasizing the revival of traditionalism and increasing the volume of traditional practices warrants exploration. Jewish communities can look to the example of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities, which foster in-marriage through international matchmaking and migration, and consider how such methods can be adapted to enhance the availability of Jewish partners.
Additionally, fostering inclusivity and exploring the role of Jewish institutions in supporting and encouraging fertility in the Diaspora are essential components of community development. Acknowledging demographic realities and trends is crucial for ensuring a vibrant and sustainable Jewish future. |
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ADL’s WAR to censor Twitter and Jews
UPDATE:Elon Musk Reveals “Extremely Powerful” ADL CEO Sought To Shake Him Down For Donationsby Tyler Durden, 07September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/elon-musk-reveals-extremely-powerful-adl-ceo-sought-shake-him-down-donations Update: The ADL is now fundraising off this scandal and telling donors they’re under threat due to Musk’s criticisms!
 Ashley St. Clair-tweet-6September2023-In case you were skeptical of the ADL’s grift
DailyWire’s Ben Shapiro summed things up succinctly:
 Ben Shapiro-tweet-6September2023-Anti-Defamation League-progressive interest group
Musk agreed:
 Elon Musk-tweet-7September2023-Accurate * * * As InformationLiberation.com’s Chris Menahan detailed earlier, Twitter/X owner Elon Musk revealed on Wednesday that Jonathan Greenblatt, the “extremely powerful” CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, sought to shake him down for donations just like he did to Adidas, the Brooklyn Nets and Kyrie Irving.
“Andrew Ross Sorkin asks Jonathan Greenblatt if he was seeking to have a role at X or shaking @elonmusk down for donations to the ADL (like he did to Adidas and the Brooklyn Nets) and he responds by saying that’s an ‘anti-Semitic trope,’ ” Greg Price tweeted along with a clip of Greenblatt’s latest appearance on CNBC.
“Because the answer is ‘Yes!’ regarding seeking donations, hence JG’s refusal to answer the question,” Musk responded. “JG instead went on the attack, implying that Sorkin, despite being Jewish, is somehow an anti-Semite just for asking a basic conflict-of-interest question!”
 Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Because the answer is Yes regarding seeking donations
“I love how ADL overlord Jonathan Greenblatt says the ADL is just a little ‘nonprofit in New York’ with no power as if they didn’t lead a pressure campaign that squeezed $60 billion from Meta’s market cap for not complying with their demands,” Ashley St. Clair commented in response to Greenblatt’s CNBC appearance. “ADL has been operating mafia-style for ideological compliance for decades!”
“Exactly!” Musk said. “The ADL is extremely powerful in the west, as demonstrated by our massive drop in US advertising, while Asia advertising has actually grown slightly.” …“Jonathan at ADL kicked off a massive Twitter boycott campaign less than a week after the acquisition closed,” Musk said in another post.
“Literally nothing had changed about the site. Our US revenue is still 60% down from that campaign, but slowly improving.”
 Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Jonathan at ADL kicked off a massive Twitter boycott campaig
Read More… HERE
“I Don’t Believe In Cancel Culture” – ADL CEO Fumes At Suggestion He Was ‘Shaking Down’ Musk For Moneyby Tyler Durden, 06September2023 –
The Musk vs ADL (and the censorship industrial complex) battle escalated further this morning with the X/Twitter owner highlighting a new article from Newsweek saying that “ADL Has Lost Its Way”:
 Elon Musk-tweet-6September2023-Good article
“The ADL taught me that nastygrams from Jew haters were just the price we pay for liberty, worthy of being filed and forgotten,” writes Ron Coleman in the op-ed.
 Screenshot-Newsweek-The ADL Has Lost Its Way
“But” Coleman explains, “the ADL no longer believes this…”
The following clip suggests just that…
 Awkward-Mama-tweet-2September2023-I CAUGHT the ADL discussing how they attempt to influence Elon Musk As Coleman concludes:
Greenblatt then appeared on CNBC this morning to respond to Musk’s threats. He got his initial talking points in without much push back from the anchors:
 ADL CEO responds to legal threats from Elon Musk
But then things turned just a little more contemptuous as Andrew Ross Sorkin dropped a bombshell and asked the ADL CEO:
“No…” Greenblatt exclaimed.
To which Greenblatt immediately played a ‘card’:
Sorkin swiftly interrupted to defend himself…
Greenblatt then dropped the biggest load of bullshit yet:
“Better” by who’s defintion? “Better” by having voices silenced that do not fit the establishment narrative (and that have nothing at all to do with anti-semitism)?
“I’m trying to understand what led to this – whatever is happening here. That was why I asked that question,” Sorkin asked.
Watch the full interview below: ADL’s Joel Greenblatt discusses Twitter on CNBCMichael Shellenberger was quick to point out the ADL CEO’s propaganda…
 Michael Shellenberger-tweet-6September2023-Experts have debunked you for decades
And here is @MarioNawful debunking some of Greenblatt’s lies:
Doesn’t seem like the meeting with X CEO Linda Yaccarino went as well as Greenblatt is making it out to be.
As InformationLiberation.com’s Chris Menahan detailed earlier, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt on Tuesday responded to Twitter/X owner Elon Musk’s criticism of their aggressive pro-censorship ad boycott campaigns by accusing him of “engaging with a highly toxic antisemitic campaign” which will incite violence against Jewish people.  ADL-CEO Jonathan Greenblatt
From Haaretz, “ADL Hits Back at Elon Musk for Engaging With ‘Highly Toxic Antisemitic Campaign’ “: [EDD: Only the Foreign Press reads this Yellow Commie Lying Rag]
Musk can probably add this inflammatory rhetoric to his lawsuit against the ADL. Without a doubt, the time when the most “unprecedented spikes in antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions” occurred was in 2017 after Trump’s election when over 245 bomb threats were called into Jewish community centers throughout America.
The ADL used the threats to harangue President Trump for “emboldening anti-Semites” and legislation was passed as a result of lobbying from the ADL to increase funding and security grants to Jewish groups.
 ADL-tweet-22December2020-Doubling non-profit security grants
It turned out nearly all of the JCC bomb threats were carried out by “18 year old” Israeli-American Michael Ron David Kadar, who was found to have a bitcoin wallet worth millions of shekels (a few copycat threats were called in by African-American Juan Thompson).  The teen arrested for JCC bomb threats Zero photographs of Kadar’s face were ever released. Kadar was found guilty in Israel in June 2018 for the bomb threats and sentenced to ten years in prison.
In 2019, evidence was dug up by geneticist Franklin Stahl, Ph.D., a member of the National Academy of Science, suggesting that Kadar’s Israeli mother, Dr. Tamar Kadar, who is a chemical weapons researcher at the Mossad-operated Israeli Institute for Biological Research, may have been the real culprit behind the calls.
Stahl reported that Kadar, who evidence indicates was actually 27 years old and not 18 years old at the time of his arrest, was nothing more than a fall guy.
Additionally, Kadar appears to have been freed from prison by Israel and allowed to travel back to America only to be arrested and jailed on a weapons charge in Illinois.
Kadar’s story completely fell off the map shortly after it was uncritically reported in 2017 and the ADL refused to remove his hoax calls from their list of “anti-Semitic incidents” for 2017.
The ADL never apologized to Trump or his supporters for smearing them for supposedly inciting these (hoax) bomb threats and never offered to give back the money they got from Congress due to hyping the threats.
This battle – between Musk and the activist censors – is far from over.
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The ADL Has Lost Its Way. Elon Musk Is Right to Stand Up to Its Censorship | OpinionRon Coleman, litigation partner, the Dhillon Law Group
As a young law student back in in 1987, I read an article about “human rights violations” being perpetrated by Israel in the National Law Review. Never a shrinking violet, I dashed off a letter to the editor in protest. A couple of days after it was printed, two letters arrived in my law school mailbox, both of them antisemitic and threatening. I was a bit spooked, so I called the Chicago office of the Anti-Defamation League.
A fellow named Michael Lieberman invited me to come in, and when I showed him the letters, he recognized one of the authors, a known crank with many disturbing qualities by the name of Anthony Martin-Trigona. The man is a serial litigant who has by now filed over 250 political lawsuits, but he was also essentially harmless, Michael explained. ADL would “file” my letters. Case closed.
Back then, the ADL adhered to the values America was founded upon. It existed to protect Jews from attacks and did so within the confines of free speech values, albeit with a liberal slant. I know because after my encounter with ADL in 1987, I volunteered as an ADL legal intern. It was fun, and I did believe I was doing good. Everyone believed that. And it was true.
The ADL taught me that nastygrams from Jew haters were just the price we pay for liberty, worthy of being filed and forgotten. This is not Weimar Germany; it is America. We have a First Amendment, we have civil rights, we have a working democracy. That is part of the good we have done.
But the ADL no longer believes this. It has become part of a great online censorship machine that is being exposed day after day as an anti-free speech enterprise.
 Elon Musk Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre on June 16, 2023 in Paris, France. Chesnot/Getty Images
The national ADL, like the ACLU, the NAACP, and other formerly “apolitical” civil rights groups, is now merely a tax-exempt cadre of the national Democratic Party. Anyone paying any kind of attention knows this. And as the Democratic Party has moved further into the fringes of Left-wing lunacy, the ADL has moved with it—whether a Jewish “antidefamation” issue is at stake or not. The party requires it.
So it should come as no surprise that “X” (Twitter) CEO Elon Musk is now claiming the ADL has engaged in relentless efforts to delegitimize X, falsely smearing the platform and its owner for providing an antisemitic haven for “hate speech.” Per Musk, the ADL has gone so far as to lean on advertisers not to do business there. No shrinking violet himself, Musk has gone as far as threatening to sue the ADL for defamation. Naturally, Musk’s objections to being defamed “just prove” that Musk “really is” an antisemite.
I, too, am (still) not much of a shrinking violet, and like Musk have not hesitated to express my view that the ADL has lost its way. As an Orthodox Jew, I want people—especially American conservatives—to know that the ADL does not speak for all Jews. And I want to draw attention to the fact that the ADL is largely silent when national figures and institutions aim nasty rhetoric and resentment at the most visible Jews, or what we call in my house “the Jewiest Jews.”
The ADL has let our community down so many times that its silence is not even a letdown anymore. All but the most institutionally constrained Orthodox Jews openly reciprocate the contempt the ADL seems to harbor for traditional Judaism, its values, and its people. The widespread belief in my community is that ADL does not object to public expressions of hatred and fear of Orthodox Jews because the assimilated Jews that run the place share those sentiments themselves.
My own disdain for the formerly righteous ADL reached a peak a few years ago, when I learned just how far its commitment to leftist dogma went. I encountered it as part of my work as a lawyer who does both defamation and free speech litigation. Trying to get my arms around the ways smear groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center go about deplatforming disfavored personalities, I kept bumping into the same rogue’s gallery, and ADL was, far more often than not, part of the pro-censorship coalition.
Today’s ADL operates hand in hand with other formerly august institutions such as the SPLC and CAIR, dedicated to the proposition that all speech is not created equal. Having failed to persuade, the Left is now committed to censorship. And as state and federal governments get in on the act, the ACLU and other self-described champions of civil liberties are silent, or even cheer them on.
This betrayal is especially disappointing in a Jewish organization. Fearless dissent was once held up as a Jewish value. Now, it’s deemed a sin worthy of banishment from the camp of humanity in the new order the ADL serves.
The ADL’s efforts to censor Twitter confirms what we have known for years: Not only is today’s ADL not doing the world some good. It is doing something much worse. How much longer will we be allowed to say so? Ron Coleman is litigation partner in the Dhillon Law Group’s metropolitan New York office. He has been recognized by Jewish and other organizations for his public interest work on behalf of free speech and religious liberties and his support of Jewish institutions and causes. He is also active on Twitter at @roncoleman and hosts a weekly podcast which can be found at www.coleman-nation.com.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own. |
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Judge fines ADL $10.5 million in Colorado defamation suitBy J. Correspondent | 12May2000 https://jweekly.com/2000/05/12/judge-fines-adl-10-5-million-in-colorado-defamation-suit/ DENVER — A civil lawsuit that began with a neighbors’ dispute over garden plants and fighting dogs has ended in a judgment against the Denver-based chapter of the Anti-Defamation League — and what is believed to be the largest defamation judgment ever awarded in a Colorado trial.
On April 28, a 12-member jury in U.S. District Court here sided with the plaintiffs, William and Dorothy Quigley of Evergreen. The Quigleys had sued the Mountain States chapter of the ADL and that chapter’s director, Saul Rosenthal.
The jury awarded the Quigleys damages, mostly punitive, of $10.5 million — a figure that astonished defendants and plaintiffs alike in the drawn-out and complex case.
The jury found that several public statements made in 1994 by Rosenthal on behalf of the ADL defamed the Quigleys and resulted in actual and punitive damages.
Rosenthal said the ADL would appeal the decision. “We were shocked and very surprised at the result,” Rosenthal said. “We’re very surprised at the way the jury saw the evidence they did. I think the overall reaction within ADL and, from what I’m hearing, in the community, is complete disbelief that this kind of result has taken place.”
Jay Horowitz, the Quigleys’ attorney, said his clients were pleased with the outcome of the litigation. “We did not expect a verdict of this size,” Horowitz said. The dispute began in late 1994 when the Quigleys, residents of Jefferson County near Evergreen, were accused by their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candace Aronson, of plotting against their family for anti-Semitic reasons.
The dispute apparently began over such trivial matters as fights between their dogs and allegations of stolen ornamental plants. It intensified into an incident in which Candace Aronson believed that William Quigley intended to run over her with his car.
As the dispute grew more heated, the Aronsons began listening to cordless telephone conversations of the Quigleys, which they managed to overhear with a police scanner and later recorded.
After consulting with the ADL, the Aronsons later told area media of overhearing their neighbors tell crude anti-Semitic jokes and make comments that the Aronsons took to be threats against their family.
The Quigleys denied that the threats were ever meant to be serious. Rosenthal’s comments about the Quigleys, made on behalf of the Aronsons after the Denver ADL agreed to state their case publicly, formed the basis of the Quigleys’ defamation lawsuit.
Some of the comments, repeated over and over in numerous media accounts, shocked members of the Colorado Jewish community. In various conversations, the Quigleys refer to attaching images of oven doors to the Aronsons’ house, of burning their children and of wishing their Jewish neighbors had been blown up in a terrorist attack in Israel.
Throughout the various twists and turns of the case, the Quigleys insisted that such comments were made in jest and never constituted genuine threats.
Over the next five years, the case would become a labyrinth of criminal charges filed and later withdrawn, civil lawsuits and counter- suits.
Other developments in various stages of the case: *It was determined that the electronic eavesdropping used by the Aronsons was legal at the time, although soon afterward outlawed by both federal and state statutes. The only charges that the April 28 verdict did not support were those related to the ADL’s alleged violation of the Federal Wiretap Act.
*William Quigley pleaded no contest to a reckless driving charge after driving his car in an allegedly menacing manner in Candace Aronson’s direction.
*Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas withdrew the ethnic intimidation charges he initially filed against the Quigleys and paid them an out-of-court settlement of $75,000.
*The Quigleys sued the Aronsons and the ADL for depriving them of their civil rights. The Aronsons settled for a non-cash settlement, but the ADL and the Quigleys were unable to reach an out-of-court settlement, leading to the most recent trial.
On April 28, the jury found most of the charges leveled by the ADL, based on the tapes, to be “not substantially true.” |
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Elon, it’s not only the ADLby globalintelhub, 08September2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-09-08/elon-its-not-only-adl
Global Intel Hub — The world is watching self-appointed Hero of the Planet as if right out of a Marvel flick, Elon Musk, fight the forces of evil currently ‘in control’ of Planet Earth. This is clearly not about blue vs. red, or right vs. left – it’s about Good vs. Evil. It often seems like Evil will win by default, because it’s well funded and they spend billions on advertising where as the white hats largely work in the shadows, un-credited (because if they show their faces, they would be targeted). But who are the white hats, and grey hats, and dark hats?
Who is behind the Censors, the Trolls, the Bots, the PsyOps? We know some of them:
We’ve been covering this topic of the toxic “Bot Patrol” trying to negatively influence the minds of youths and other ‘truth seekers’ who are new to alternative information, 1 2 3 and 4.
We have shown in these articles, substantial circumstantial evidence, that at least some of these bots are paid CIA/ Military trolls as part of a PsyOps program. Some of them are paid by private groups, NGOs, etc. but in any case, we have shown that they are paid bots, because you can’t grow millions of followers without a) spending money or b) an influencer or c) the platform (X) is giving you free promotion for a government troll in exchange for something else (i.e. don’t sue me.. or give me information on my competitors).
X seems to be the bot platform of choice for some reason, and although Elon is taking huge steps by suing the ADL, there still remains a huge quantity of toxic troll bots on the platform, many of which are claimed to be Satanic, as part of a mass hypnosis ritual. These bots don’t seem to be so widely proliferated on Free Speech platform Gab. And the ADL is the tip of the iceberg, although it remains the most aggressive public actor, in spreading threats of violence against targeted racial groups (such as the Palestinians, for example) and “Supremacism” backed by lawyers and donors with deep pockets.
As pointed out by Free Speech advocate Andrew Torba, it isn’t so simple like suing the ADL:
The one thing Elon has in his favor is deep pockets and a huge following of like minded individuals. But it’s not only the ADL, there is a ‘dark net’ of groups that utilize NGOs, corrupt government offices, private organizations, secret societies, and other agent provocateurs that are aggressively trying to control the minds of the masses. This network is so pervasive, it literally shows up in all parts of society, even the Smithsonian has been caught hiding bones of Giants and other historical evidence that doesn’t fit into the narrative they want to portray. In the below chart, you can see the ADL, while a major node in the network, is only one node of many:  The dark net of groups
This chart was made by Dr. John Coleman, who once worked for the intelligence apparatus before becoming a whistleblower. He has what’s known as HUMANINT or Human Intelligence. As a spymaster, he saw the secret dealings of the Elite, and how they used governments and intelligence agencies to do their dirty work. In the case of the ADL, it’s mostly character assassinations, and defeating lawsuits – in the case of some of their victims, they can be sued into bankruptcy, with the only hope of giving up their project and sacrificing their morals.
Ironically, we obtained a free PDF copy of the work from CIA.gov – Coleman.-.CONSPIRATORS.HIERARCHY.-.THE.STORY.OF.THE.COMMITTEE.OF.300.R So, Elon, if you are going to go after the ADL, it’s just one of the arms of the 100 arm Octopus, if you want to kill the beast, you’ll have to cut off the head.
Try out Gab.com The Home of Free Speech and Freedom! If you want to support Free Speech, support Gab via Gab.VCCross.com  Invest In Gab Free Speech
Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors. |
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 https://public.substack.com/ White House And Dark Money NGO Hype Hate Crisis To Demand CensorshipThe Center for Countering Digital Hate and corporate news media are weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to advance political and financial agendasAlex Gutentag  President Joe Biden, Elon Musk, and Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) (Getty Images) Hate and antisemitism are sharply increasing, say the Biden administration, journalists, NGOs, and the FBI. Groups like the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a British nonprofit, claim that censorship is the only way to combat this crisis.
In July, Biden announced a new agenda to fight rising antisemitism, which includes enforcing more censorship of hate speech. The White House is now “[calling] on Congress to hold social media platforms accountable for spreading hate-fueled violence.”
The CCDH has successfully pressured advertisers into boycotting Twitter (now called X) in an effort to force the company into restoring the “content moderation” policies it had in place before Elon Musk purchased it. In a report published on June 1, the CCDH found that “Twitter fails to act on 99% of hate posted by Twitter Blue subscribers.” Since the CCDH started its pro-censorship campaign, Twitter/X has lost 60-70% of its total advertising revenue.
“The Twitter blue tick used to be a sign of authority and authenticity, but it is now inextricably linked to the promotion of hate and conspiracism,” said the CCDH’s CEO Imran Ahmed, who says he started his group after online radicalization led a man named Thomas Mair to kill former British MP Jo Cox. “Our society has benefited from decades of progress on tolerance, but Elon Musk is undoing those norms at an ever-accelerating rate by allowing hate to prosper on the spaces he administers.”
But there is not adequate data to support these claims. Though media outlets promoted the CCDH “report” about hate speech on Twitter/X, it was comprised entirely of a blog post less than 900 words long, based on a review of a scant 100 Tweets. By comparison, 500 million Tweets are sent every day.
The CCDH “report” showcases ten examples of racist and antisemitic posts, but it does not make the other 91 Tweets it supposedly analyzed available. Of these ten examples, seven of them had fewer than 50 “likes,” and two had only about 50 views. Three of the accounts featured in the report have since been suspended, but the CCDH has not updated its findings.
The CCDH’s disinformation and censorship advocacy should not blind us to real-world hatred. It is true that, according to data from the FBI, hate crimes and incidents are increasing, particularly antisemitic incidents. It is also true that physical assaults on Hasidic Jews in New York City have reached their highest levels in years. Like many Jewish people and other observers, I am disturbed by this trend.
At the same time, we should be evidence-based and make sure people know that, according to the Anti-Defamation League, violence motivated by antisemitism killed a single person in 2022. While all murders are a tragedy, it’s worth noting that the victim was not, in fact, Jewish, and the perpetrator had a history of violence unrelated to antisemitism.
And even while hatred and violence against Hasidic Jews is a real issue in New York City, there is no credible evidence to suggest that antisemitic speech on platforms like Twitter/X causes this violence. As Liel Leibovitz pointed out in Tablet, the New York Times has published several articles criticizing the Orthodox community based on misleading or exaggerated claims, so it can easily be argued that the paper of record is itself guilty of promoting hatred toward religious Jews. But no one is calling for the New York Times to be censored, nor should they.
Although the FBI states that antisemitic attacks are “driven by a belief in the superiority of the white race,” data from Americans Against Antisemitism shows that 97% of antisemitic assaults in New York City from 2018-2022 were perpetrated by other minorities.
There are also many complex factors behind increasing hate crimes and antisemitic incidents. Violence, in general, is rising. Writing in City Journal earlier this month, Kenny Xu explained that “FBI data show that many races were affected by the recent nationwide increase in violence. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of black victims of homicide rose by 28%, while the number of white victims grew by 16%.” This suggests that an uptick in hate crimes may be related to the fact that the overall rate of violence has increased.
Like the CCDH, the NGO Stop AAPI Hate is also, according to Xu, “using questionable data, precut to fit their preferred narrative.” Rather than attempting to address the actual policies and issues that have led to growing violence against Asians and Hasidic Jews, NGOs and the FBI are lumping local problems of crime and public safety together with non-violent and ill-defined hate “incidents” or “offenses.”
Bomb threats against synagogues and physical assaults are serious matters that the FBI must investigate and work to prevent. However, the vast majority of the antisemitic hate offenses the FBI tracks through its Crime Data Explorer are incidents of intimidation or of property damage and vandalism.
While these incidents are concerning, it is important to note that intimidation is often determined through self-reporting and is subject to concept creep, which is exacerbated by the tendency of younger generations to define harm much more expansively than older ones. As Xu pointed out, illusions of increasing hate can easily be created through self-report systems. The more panic is drummed up about hate, the more likely it is that people will submit hate incident reports.
In several back-and-forth emails with Public, the FBI declined to provide the specific data the White House had used to source its claim that Jews “are the victims of 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes.” Wrote an FBI spokesperson in a response to Public, “We do not comment on figures provided by other entities.”
Regardless of whether or not antisemitism is increasing, neither the White House nor the FBI provided any proof that antisemitic incidents were tied to social media. After decades of research and debate, there remains little good evidence that consuming hateful material, whether in the form of books, videos, or social media posts, causes people to act violently in the real world. It is specious to attribute violent behavior to something a person watched or read rather than to some other factor. For example, mental illness more than politics may have led Thomas Maier to kill MP Jo Cox.
Censorship will never be a viable solution for combating hate. The left-liberal consensus used to be that censoring hate speech was not only a violation of civil liberties but was also counterproductive. Prohibiting people from speaking openly can backfire by pushing them into echo chambers where hateful ideas will not be challenged and where extremism can flourish.
Censorship will not protect Jewish people and other minorities; it will endanger them. The Biden Administration and the CCDH are cynically exploiting the real and complex problem of antisemitism to push a misleading political narrative and to strongarm social media platforms into restricting speech online. Why are non-profits and politicians trying to force Twitter/X into a new censorship regime, and why have liberals abandoned the principles of free speech (even for ideas we loathe) — a principle that has guided democracies for centuries? Censorship Makes Hate Worse MIT linguist Noam Chomsky “It is a poor service to the memory of the victims of the holocaust,” wrote MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, “to adopt a central doctrine of their murderers.” |
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https://public.substack.com/ Government Intel And Security Agencies Behind NGO Demands For More Censorship By X/TwitterGroups leading the advertiser boycott of X/Twitter receive money from and have a history of spying for governmentsAlex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger  Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, ADL; MP Damian Collins, CCDH Advisory Board Member; Sasha Havlicek, CEO of ISD Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO, ADL; MP Damian Collins, CCDH Advisory Board Member; Sasha Havlicek, CEO of ISD The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) are nongovernmental organizations, their leaders say. When they demand more censorship of online hate speech, as they are currently doing of X, formerly Twitter, those NGOs are doing it as free citizens and not, say, as government agents.
But the fact of the matter is that the US and other Western governments fund ISD, the UK government indirectly funds CCDH, and, for at least 40 years, ADL spied on its enemies and shared intelligence with the US, Israel and other governments. The reason all of this matters is that ADL’s advertiser boycott against X may be an effort by governments to regain the ability to censor users on X that they had under Twitter before Musk’s takeover last November.
Internal Twitter and Facebook messages show that representatives of the US government, including the White House, FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as the UK government, successfully demanded Facebook and Twitter censorship of their users over the last several years.
ADL is waging a very similar campaign against X/Twitter that it successfully waged against Facebook in 2020. In just three days, 800 companies, including $129 billion consumer products giant Unilever, withdrew tens of millions of dollars in ad revenue from Facebook until it agreed to ADL’s censorship demands. “The Facebook caved to far-left pressure groups and now allows them to silently dictate policy in exchange for ad money,” said Musk yesterday. “That is the relationship they’ve had with X/Twitter for many years. Presumably, they have that with all Western search or social media orgs.”
It’s possible that there has been an increase in hate on X since Elon Musk bought the company. With greater free speech policies comes the possibility of more offensive speech, including racist or antisemitic speech. Bigotry does exist, and it should be challenged.
But there is no good evidence of that. Public has debunked claims by ISD and CCDH of an increase. And researchers have repeatedly debunked ADL’s claims of rising antisemitism for years. In 2009, an Israeli filmmaker found that ADL could not support its claims of an antisemitism crisis. Wrote NPR in a review of the film, “When he presses ADL staffers for evidence to back up their claims of a sharp spike in North American anti-Semitism in 2007, they can offer only wan transgressions…”
Eleven years later, Liel Leibovitz noted in Tablet that ADL had, for a report, “counted hundreds of threatening calls to Jewish community centers made by a mentally troubled Israeli teenager. You had to read the report’s fine print to learn that the number of violent attacks against Jews that year had actually decreased by 47%.”
ADL, ISD, and CCDH have not presented any good evidence that offensive speech online directly causes “hate-motivated violence,” nor that censorship prevents it. Moreover, last week Public reviewed evidence suggesting that the best way to combat hate speech is through open and public debate, which allows people to change their minds, not censorship.
ADL’s main goal is supposed to be stopping “the defamation of the Jewish people,” but the organization is using the legacy of antisemitism and the Holocaust to justify unrelated censorial advocacy work. This is exploitative, and it is defamatory to say that Jews, in general, need and favor censorship. Many Jews on both the left and the right have argued that ADL does not represent their interests. By claiming to speak for all Jewish people while demanding highly unpopular policies, the ADL may be inadvertently driving antisemitism.
As troubling as these highly partisan ideological biases are, what’s most dangerous are the past and present ties between ADL, ISD, CCDH, and governments, particularly security and intelligence organizations, which we detail below. Neither ADL, ISD, nor CCDH have responded to multiple requests for more information or an interview.
While we have yet to uncover documented proof of a conspiracy by the intelligence and security agencies of the US and British governments to censor citizens, there is sufficient evidence to merit an investigation by members of Congress and the British Parliament. ADL’s Spying For Governments FBI Director Robert Mueller gives the keynote speech at the Anti-Defamation League’s 2005 National Commission Meeting November 3, 2005 in New York City. Mueller, who was joined by UN Ambassador John Bolton, spoke on terrorism, extremism and other global topics that are the centerpiece of this years ADL National Commission Meeting. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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