by Credit Repair News, Sebastian Pulvera on Tuesday 11 May 2021 02:00 AM UTC-05 | United States Credit Report Repair News. Top Stories to help consumers fix bad credit, gain higher credit score, remove bankruptcy, free annual Equifax, TransUnion, Experian credit report. Free Credit Repair Counseling | (888) 502-1260 | | | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 Centers for Diseases Control (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has "recommended" that children wear masks while playing. Her offered reason is to ensure Covid is not spread by "heavy breathing" of children near each other while around a soccer ball. Dr. Walensky's recommendation is one more example of Covid authoritarians’ refusal to "listen to the science." The science says no to lockdowns and masks. The masks are not blocking the very small viruses in "heavy breathing." Dr. Walensky also ignores the science showing that wearing a mask while exercising or playing sports has negative health effects. Dr. Walensky's most outrageous disregard of science is ignoring the fact that children are statistically unlikely to be at risk of either spreading Covid or becoming very sick from it. Dr. Walensky's recommendation is one of many examples of how children are harmed by the overreaction to coronavirus. Many children have had their physical and mental health damaged because they cannot go to school, play with their friends, or even have a birthday party because of the lockdowns. Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the two major teachers’ unions — the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) — have stood in the way of reopening schools. Teachers' union leaders have claimed it is too dangerous for teachers to resume in-person instruction, even though adults are at little or no risk of getting Covid from children. Sadly, teachers' unions are disregarding the interest of children. Recently released emails show the CDC disregarded the science in favor of the AFT's restrictive guidance when developing recommendations concerning reopening schools. The negative effects of lockdowns and school closings for children have led many parents to consider alternatives to government schools. Some private schools have not just remained open, they have followed the science and not forced their students to wear masks. Many parents are also considering homeschooling. Homeschooling parents obviously can ensure their children are not forced to obey mask, social distancing, and other unscientific mandates.  Parents interested in providing their children with a quality education that emphasizes the ideas of liberty should consider my homeschooling curriculum. The Ron Paul Curriculum provides students with a well-rounded education that includes rigorous programs in history, mathematics, and the physical and natural sciences. The curriculum also provides instruction in personal finance. Students can develop superior communication skills via intensive writing and public speaking courses. Another feature of my curriculum is that it provides students the opportunity to create and run their own internet-based businesses.
The government and history sections of the curriculum emphasize Austrian economics, libertarian political theory, and the history of liberty. However, unlike government schools, my curriculum never puts ideological indoctrination ahead of education. Interactive forums allow students to learn from each other outside of a formal setting. The curriculum’s emphasis on self-directed learning and student interaction makes it ideal for parents who need to work from home but still want to homeschool their children. I encourage parents looking at alternatives to government schools to go to RonPaulCurriculum.com for more information about my homeschooling program. The post Covid Authoritarians Abuse Children appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 This Just In… Face Masks Reduce COVID-19 Infection Rate By An Insignificant 3/10ths Of One-Percent; But Who Is Going To Change Policy At Retail Stores? According to Catherine Austin Fitts, who once held a position at the Department of Housing & Urban Development, the big banks are behind the GREAT RESET that is being foisted upon the American public. The Central Bankers approved a plan in August of 2019 approved a plan called "The Going Direct Reset," just prior to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. The bankers are intentionally taking down the economy to force the public to beg for a reset, and culling the population of senior Americans in nursing homes that account for most of the COVID-19 associated deaths. This is because the bankers and life insurance companies along with the federal government cannot meet their social contract with Americans to provide healthcare and Social Security checks to a growing population of retirees. Fitts: "Beginning in fiscal 1998 fantastic tranches of money began disappearing from the American government." It is now impossible for taxes to continue to meet all of the federal government's obligations. Fitts says: "We now have a war between the people who print money and the people who know how to earn money." In Fitts' mind, the war is between JP Morgan & Associates with their digital money scheme vs. the American Constitutional, free enterprise/freedom of religion system. Blackrock, the largest investment house that is now doing contract work for the US Treasury Department, says it advocates for a financial reset "to avoid the disruptions to income streams as a result of the contrived coronavirus pandemic." But opposite is occurring. Laid-off restaurant employees are being paid more than the current rate of pay NOT TO WORK! There will be no restaurants for waiters to return to. The bankers are the behind-the-scenes agents to force America out of paper money and coins and into digital money that will be issued directly to Americans in the form of universal basic income from the US Treasury Department and will in turn control purchases and therefore everyone's lives. Examples: refuse vaccination and your digital money account will be closed; donate to church and it will be denied because church is a racist, white-dominated, terrorist organization. American retailers as front men The bankers use American retailers as the front men. Notice how the idea paper money harbors the COVID-19 coronavirus was spread via retailers who refused to accept legal tender and asked for the help of Americans because of an allege shortage of coins, which is really a way to turn in all the coinage before digital currency is forced on America. Then we got the requirement to wear face masks to enter retail stores. Science isn't going to get retailers to cease its face mask requirements. Regardless of the science, which is overwhelmingly negative for face masks, American medicine has a difficulty adhering to the science and objecting to face masks. Here is the most recent study. Face masks: the latest science A group of 3030 participants who spent more than 3 hours/day outside their home were given a box of 50 surgical face masks and were assigned to wear them for 60 days with COVID-19 testing by antibody, PCR or hospital diagnosis at 30 days. The study was conducted in a community where face masks were uncommonly worn. Only 7% of participants did not wear face masks as directed. The results of the test were as follows: - 42 of 3030 participants habitually wearing face masks were infected, 1.8% (1.8 in 100).
- 53 of 2009 control participants who did not wear face masks were infected, 2.1% (2.1 in 100).
- Difference: 3/10ths of one percent (3 people in 1000)
Source: Annals Internal Medicine March 2021 In the face mask group, 9 participants (0.5%) were found to develop any of 11 other respiratory viral infections compared to 11 (0.6%) in the no-face-mask group. Again, this was not statistically significant nor meaningful clinically. The results of the study were not considered to be applicable to the formation of public health measures because it was not known how many participants were actually exposed to the virus at home during the study. However, the observed infection rate was similar to that reported in other large studies. Authors of the study conclude: "Our results suggest that the recommendation to wear a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of COVID19 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect…" A critical commentator wrote that the false-positive rate would produce ~19 in each group, which would confound the results, and infection at home when face masks were not being worn would also be confounding. This reveals the circus-type of science being conducted. It is just being done for show. This is a political pandemic, not a biological one. Is infection bad? Another issue that goes unmentioned is that infection among healthy individuals would result in the production of antibodies and T-cells and long-term immunity. In the mind of modern medicine, infection is bad if it was acquired naturally, but good if it was acquired via vaccination. What happened to flattening the curve? Face masks at best only serve to delay and slow infection, which was their original intent, to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed until vaccines became available. There was no comment regarding the fact ~98% of face mask wearers received no benefit because the infection rate was low (~2%). The flip side of the issue is that those who were infected developed some sort of future immunity. That would be good, not bad. And then again, because of mutant viral strains, even if immunity was achieved, it would only be for a short time until exposure to a mutant strain. This data points more towards efforts to improve the effectiveness of the immune system as exposure and infection is likely inevitable, you know, vitamins A, C, D, trace minerals zinc, selenium and the amino acid lysine. There has been no discussion that since vaccines have now become available, that there is no longer any need to slow the rate of infection. Modern medicine struggles to come to the defense of face-masks in the middle of a pandemic. And now that COVID-19 has become endemic, must we wear face masks perpetually? Even for low-low risk groups like children? In another trial, face mask wearers actually experienced an increased risk for infection. So what? Face masks are obviously not about health, they are about social control. Americans will have to overcome their imagined fears There will be no abandonment of face masks until the public overcomes its fears. The case-to-fatality ratio of COVID-19 infection ranges from 0.00% to 1.63% (median 0.23%). In other words, the risk for COVID-19 related death is remote, about the same as the flu, and far lower than many other infectious diseases and diseases in some countries. The fear is not based on truth. America is being destroyed from within If all this was about a "woke" generation, why are more than half of black owned business expected to be out of business by April 2021? It is difficult for Americans to believe that their own elected officials are covertly allowing the destruction of free enterprise. Police are instructed to stand down as rioters have burned down businesses in 200 American cities. Local control can prevail over federal corruption We cannot leave the credit and money-creating responsibilities to central bankers, says Fitts. She advises Americans to take their money out of big banks and shift to community banks, and to create community currencies. Otherwise, Americans will be wearing face masks perpetually and living in financial chains. Woe to the vaccinated: choose whom ye shall believe As for the reported 30% of Americans who have elected to be inoculated, they face both immediate and long-term side effects and no immunity from mutant coronavirus strains. This was by design. The substitution of a nucleotide (pseudo-uridine in place of uridine) in RNA in RNA-vaccines was intentionally manipulated to reduce symptoms but not surveillance by the immune system (imperfect vaccination) that then permits shedding of the virus to uninfected others. Vaccine critics now say the vaccinated should be quarantined as super-spreaders! Licensure of these vaccines will only be accomplished by public health authorities overlooking their many side effects, some mortal. Everyone should posit in their mind that vaccines don't work without an operable immune system that requires zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D, selenium, lysine. Maybe natural immunity is superior to synthetic vaccines. The post Face Masks Are Not About Science, They Are About Instilling Fear & Social Control appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 General Milley, Chief of the Joint Chiefs, addressed the 21 ROTC commissionees out of the Howard University Class of 2021. As with most politicians, his words can be revealing, if you know where to look. Speaking at the HCBU Howard, he asks "Where are the African American Generals?" He might have asked where the Black generals were, but the media corrected him on that. As part of the Biden administration, he is allowed no evil or untoward intention. Milley's point that 2% of the pilots forty years ago were Black, and that this percentage persists today, and that only 2 of 41 (20%) four star generals are Black, might actually speak to different challenge – a challenge of perspective, as this 2019 demographic fact sheet illustrates. If Black Americans are 16% of the military, and yet currently 20% of the flag officers, we probably don't have a performance or a promotion problem at all. Focusing on low pilot numbers could indeed speak to an overall national statistic of minority pilots in the commercial arena, where we find 3% Black commercial pilots. A trend that is improving daily, and for which "improvement" in the trend is somewhat irrelevant, as piloting an airplane remains a field where performance is still a primary focus, and poor performance tends to eliminate poor performers of all creeds, colors and genders. Two key questions we'd ask at the Pentagon upon hearing of a promotion to Flag officer was either "when did he or she get the lobotomy" or "When is the lobotomy scheduled?" If it wasn't a battlefield promotion, and none of them are, we observed that all Generals go to finishing school, and most come out intellectually and morally finished. This has little to do with the US as we like to think of it, nothing to do with race or gender, and everything to do with the empire and power. Milley also spoke of how the oath to defend the Constitution will be your "moral center." This is not only laughable, but also tragic. Many of our military people who succeed inside the real system (not Hollywood's version of the military) are those most morally flexible, or most ignorant, of the US Constitution and the nature of the US "Republic" in the 21st century. A far smaller but significant number reside in military prisons or have done so, precisely because they took that oath to the Constitution seriously and literally. Perhaps Milley could have shared those examples, but they are far too frightening for a freshly woke college graduate. Or are they? It is curious in the context of social justice and defending the Constitution that Milley spoke of international instability and global risk to a [past] era of US unipolarity. A day late and a dollar short does not make for an inspiring speech, yet there it was. It has been precisely the past 70 plus years of US political and military expansion, expeditioneering, and exploitation of large parts of the world – all of it un-Constitutional, most of it unpopular among average Americans, and overwhelming implemented in places populated by poor brown people – that has delivered the present day scenario of instability and risk. Milley seems to think that this instability and risk is something brought about by outside players – the great Chinese machine and the evil Russian oligarchs, among others.  Suddenly, in 2021, the Pentagon story is that we are suddenly challenged as "a global military, economic and political power." Think about it. These words, fervently spoken, belie the fact that the United States military has not won a military war in 50 years (with the exception of three days in Grenada). These words, sincerely uttered, belie the fact that the United States has a debt to GDP ratio that has never been higher since WWII. These words, earnestly whispered, belie the fact that the US is financially reduced to chasing its tail on the petrodollar, and politically marginalized as demonstrated by its frenetic top diplomat incessantly raging to foment the next world war in sleepy backwaters.
Our senior leaders and the institutions they control have become fantasists and wizards. Will our coming generations be able to pull back the curtain, and really help the United States move into a future era of peace and prosperity? Unless they can understand the words, and the culture, of its current leadership, I fear they will be doomed. The post Milley Misfires appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 “This Power Elite directly employs several millions of the country´s working force in its factories, offices and stores, controls many millions more by lending them the money to buy its products, and, through its ownership of the media of mass communication, influences the thoughts, the feelings and the actions of virtually everybody. To parody the words of W. Churchill, never have so many been manipulated so much by so few.” ~ Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). "Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948", Ivan R. Dee Publisher Huxley's take on the control mechanisms present many decades ago were correct, but currently in this country alone, there are hundreds of millions that are under the spell of conditioning, indoctrination, and manipulation by the very few. It takes little effort or imagination in today's environment to see just how weak and controlled are the American people, as they don masks, close their businesses, abandon family, tattle on their neighbors, adhere to all orders given them, and idly watch as their lives are at once controlled and destroyed in open sight. This is all happening for the sake of a fraud based on needless fear. The initial step of this 'pandemic' plot was to test whether or not the people at large would comply with any number of idiotic and blatantly preposterous orders from above. Almost immediately, it became obvious that this population could be fooled into almost anything simply due to fear of a manufactured lie. They were ripe for takeover, and were willing to do whatever they were told, and this state of mind has changed little over the past fifteen months of physiological and psychological terror at the hands of the controlling class. The governing aspect of this plot against the people has been guided by the top tier of power and enforced by the political class. The corrupt and dishonest medical and scientific 'communities' that long ago partnered with the state players, have been used to add feigned legitimacy to a completely illegitimate and immoral operation. The pharmacological element of this public exploitation has been very useful to the 'elite' powers plan, and is proving to be the most deadly, as what is falsely called a 'vaccine' has been according to the CDC, administered to over 152 million people, with over 114 million receiving at least two shots. These poisonous injections have now been taken by 45% of the population, and this will likely lead to continuous sickness and mass fatalities in the future. But it doesn't end there. These injections are filled with much toxic material, extremely dangerous adjuvants, multiple viral agents, fetal and animal tissue, messenger RNA, computer-like operating systems, and invasive nanoparticles that can be used to control recipients of this contaminated poison by radio wave technology. This is only a partial description of what is in these shots, so what else is in them? I fully believe these are meant to serve multiple purposes, and none of them are for the benefit of the people. They can be used to sterilize much of the population, they can be used to kill in the short and long-term, they can incorporate management systems into the bodies and minds of those getting this jab, and they can be used for depopulation efforts. In fact, they can be used for all these things and more simultaneously. This is an inhumane atrocity! Controlling an entire population The control of societies has always been sought by the few, and with the continuous advancements in technology, this desired undertaking to gain dominance has continually become more achievable. This is in large part due to the very idea of democracy, which has made this not only more possible but virtually guaranteed. This of course was by design, but has not been understood by the general population due to the massive amount of propaganda and indoctrination over long periods of time. The notion that democracy leads to freedom, or allows freedom, is ludicrous on its face, but that is still the prevailing notion of the people at large. Responsibility, rational thought, and logic have been replaced by blind emotion and fear due to a powerful structured appeal to man's inner psyche, the more moldable subconscious that is a less critical link. Because of the accepted mob rule effect of this long mistaken thinking, people have become satisfied and accepting of their own collective slavery. The state's motives and extensive confiscation of the minds of men through the political, medical, pharmacological, technological, and especially the communication mediums, have allowed its monopoly on power and control to expand exponentially. Because of the success of this premeditated coup, the supplanting of desired information in the subconscious of the common man in order to gain control has been accomplished without blatant violence, and rather by voluntary consent of the ruled. This is the most effective manner of gaining control over large numbers of people, at least until brute force can be levied without much resistance. In essence, American society, as is the case with most all western societies today, have become programmed to not only think the way they are informed to think, but to act the way they are told to act. This is a conditioned response to outside stimulus through massive propaganda campaigns administered by those nefarious individuals and entities intent on controlling entire populations. An unconscious existence breeds tyranny, and we are in the midst of a period where the bulk of society lives and exists in a rather unconscious state brought about by mass propaganda and a purposeful and successful effort to divide every aspect of society. This is not to say that a complete loss of intelligence is evident, but that brainwashing and indoctrination of the American population has caused rampant widespread ignorance concerning reality and truth. Truth is no longer even sought, as most all eyes are locked on the state controlled forms of news and information. The current degree and magnitude of censorship of all alternative sources of information, especially all valid reporting and commentary that is in opposition to the mainstream (state) narrative, is appallingly obvious. This is a very telling sign that question and debate are being intentionally disallowed by the powerful in order to eliminate discussion. This indicates that lies and deceit are apparent, because those attempting to gain control fear open discussion. The quest for power and control requires the destruction of the individual and of individual thought, and the collective acceptance of rule. Because of this phenomenon, voluntary consent by the governed majority is necessary in order for any totalitarian system to exist or be sustained. So what is to be done to prevent the total devastation of freedom at the hands of the powerful few? It seems consistent considering philosophy and reality that the more information and truth available to all individuals, the more freedom that will exist. With this in mind, it follows that unrestricted education (not schooling) of the masses as individuals is imperative, and censorship at any level is the enemy of the people. If the common man is not allowed due to state sponsored suppression of any opinion or fact, to see or hear all information that is available from every source, then oppression of the people is absolutely assured. This cannot be allowed to stand. Controlling information is controlling people. When the most powerful, their pawns in government, government enforcers, and those partnered with government, disallow the dissemination of any information; all of us are being deprived of opportunity to make informed decisions. Our dilemma is one of self-creation, but was structured by evil forces for the explicit purpose of gaining total control over all of humanity. Our way to individual sovereignty and a life of freedom rests solely on our desire and ability to throw off the chains that bind us by taking charge of our own destiny. That relies on non-compliance, disobedience, and a total disregard for all government mandates, all censorship at every level, all restriction of movement, and adamant refusal to accept any communistic immunity passports. No "normalcy" will ever again be possible until mass individual rebellion against this tyranny is the common core of our society. Without this active shift in attitude by individual Americans, what will be our future? Unimaginable is the answer. Do not be a drone; do not be conditioned by others, simply look to self. “The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.” ~ Aldous Huxley Source links: Covid ‘vaccinations’ in U.S. Mind control through air waves Manipulation of minds by ‘vaccine’ propaganda Eliminating truth and history by censorship Digital gulag and censorship The post The Conditioning and Behavioral Control of Americans Is Firmly in Place appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 Today is a day to celebrate the prophetic voice and witness of Fr. Daniel Berrigan, the non-violent anti-war activist and poet, whose life and witness has touched so many lives. He was born on May 9, 1921 and would have been 100 years old today. He died five years ago, but his spirit continues to animate and inspire so many others. The following essay is from my recent book, Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies. Radical dissidents and prophets have never had an easy time of it. When alive, that is. Once safely dead, however, honors and respect are often heaped on their heads. The dead can't talk back, or so it is assumed. Nor can they cause trouble. Jesuit priest Fr. Daniel Berrigan was one such man. When he died on April 30th, the major media, organs of propaganda and war promotion, noted his death in generally respectful ways. This included The New York Times. But back in 1988 when Daniel was a spry 68 years old, the Times published a review of his autobiography, To Dwell in Peace, which was a nauseating hatchet job aimed at dismissing his anti-war activism through the cheap trick of psychological reductionism and reversal. How could Berrigan really be a Christian, a man of peace, the reviewer Kenneth Woodward (himself a product of eight years of Jesuit education) asked rhetorically, and be so angry? Wasn't he in truth a bitter, ungrateful, and angry – i.e. violent – "celebrity priest" masquerading as an apostle of peace? And therefore, were not his peace activities, his writings, and his uncompromising critique of American society null and void, the rantings of a disturbed man? Furthermore, by the unspoken intentional logic of such an ad hominem attack, were not those who follow in his footsteps, those who hear his words and – God forbid! – take them seriously, were not they too wolves in sheep's clothing, angry children trying to exact revenge on their parents? "Gratefulness, we learn, is not a Berrigan trait," Woodward concluded in his bilious review of a "pervasively angry autobiography." "The Berrigans (note the plural usage), it seems, never learned to laugh at themselves." Such character assassination has long been one tool of the power elite. Silence or kill the prophets one way or another. When Dan and I first met we walked together in the blue cold snowy silence of Ithaca nights. It was December 1967. He was a 46 year old black-bereted whirling dervish orbiting a profound spiritual and poetic stillness; I, a 23 year old Marine intent on declaring myself a conscientious objector before my reserve unit was activated and sent to Vietnam. Dan had been arrested for the first time at a Pentagon demonstration in late October. A few days later his brother, Philip, together with three others, had upped the ante dramatically by pouring blood on draft files in Baltimore. This action, which became known as the Baltimore Four and started a chain of draft board raids over the next years, and the raging Vietnam War that Johnson was dramatically escalating, were the backdrop for my three day visit with Dan. The invitation had been arranged by my inspirational college teacher, Bill Frain, Dan's friend. Walking and talking, talking and walking, we whirled around the Cornell campus where Dan was a chaplain, into and out of town, from apartment to apartment, a gathering here, a Mass there. The intensity was electric. At a party I met and learned from the brilliant Pakistani scholar and activist Eqbal Ahmad. At an apartment Mass led by Dan in his inimitable style I felt as if we were early Jewish-Christians gathering in secret. There was a sense of foreboding, as if something would soon break asunder as the U.S. rained bombs and napalm down on the Vietnamese. I recall a sense of intense agitation on Dan's part, as if events were conspiring to push him to answer an overwhelming question. I knew from the first that he was no J. Alfred Prufrock who would sit on the fence. He would never say, "I am no prophet – and here's no great matter/I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker/And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker/And in short, I was afraid." A poet, yes, a lover of beauty, that I could tell; but I felt his fierceness from the start, and it was something I viscerally connected with. He was preparing for a great leap into the breach; was Odysseus readying to leave Ithaca, not for Troy to wage a violent war, but a peaceful Odysseus readying to leave Ithaca to travel to Vietnam to wage a non-violent war against war – a lifelong journey. I too felt that my life would never be the same and I was venturing out onto unchartered waters. His courage rubbed off on me. In those few days with Dan I unlearned most of the lessons my Jesuit education had instilled in me. Deo et Patria were rent asunder. I had never accepted the Marine slogan that "my rifle is my life," nor had I fully ingested the Jesuits' conservative ideology – what Dan called "consensus, consensus" – that I should become a man successful through speaking out of both sides of my mouth and serving two masters. But at that point I had no Jesuit mentor who embodied another path. In Dan I found that man, or he found me. Contrary to some public images of him, he was a man of indirection as well as bluntness. He had the gift of discernment. Not once during my initial stay with him did he suggest a course of action for me. We talked about the war, of course, of his brother Phil's and others' courage, but we also talked of poetry and art, of the beauty of starry winter nights and the dramatic waterfalls surrounding the Cornell campus. Most of all he wanted to know about me, my family, my background; he listened intently as if he were contemplating his own past as well, weighing the future. I had already decided to leave the Marines one way or the other, but we never discussed this. He arranged for me to speak to a Cornell lawyer who did anti-war work in case I needed legal help. But I felt I was in the presence of a man who knew and respected that such momentous decisions were made in solitary witness to one's conscience. I felt he supported me whatever I did. When I set sail from Ithaca I felt blessed and confirmed. I would never go to war; I knew that. But I also came away with a different lesson: that not participating in the killing wasn't enough. I would have to find ways to resist the forces of violence that were consuming the world. They would have to be my ways, not necessarily Dan's. I was unyielding in my conviction that I would not stay in the Marines no matter what the consequences; but after that I would have to choose and take responsibility for what Dan referred to as "the long haul" – a lifelong commitment to the values we shared. But values are probably too abstract a way to describe what I mean. Dan conveyed to me through his person that each of us must follow his soul's promptings – there was no formula. I was young enough to be his son, and yet he spoke to me as an equal. Despite his adamantine strength of purpose and conviction, he let me see the scarecrow man within. No words can describe the powerful stamp this set on my heart that has never left me. Less than two months later the TET offensive exploded, and Dan was on that night flight to Hanoi with Howard Zinn to bring back three US airmen who had been shot down while bombing North Vietnam. Then the great anti-war leader, Martin Luther King, was executed by government forces in Memphis. The message sent was clear. Shortly Dan was invited by Philip to join the Catonsville action. He gave it prayer and thought, and then jumped in, knowing that the children he had met in the North Vietnamese bomb shelters hiding from American bombs were pleading with him. He later wrote of holding a little boy. In my arms, fathered In a moment's grace, the messiah Of all my tears, I bore reborn A Hiroshima child from hell.
He was a changed man. No longer just a priest-poet, he would now become a revolutionary anti-war activist for life. He wrote in "Mission to Hanoi, 1968." "Instructions for return. Develop for the students the meaning of Ho's 'useless years.' The necessity for escaping once and for all the slavery of 'being useful.' On the other hand, prison, contemplation, life of solitude. Do the things that even 'movement people' tend to despise and misunderstand. To be radical is habitually to do things which society at large despises." Shortly after Catonsville I was privileged to be invited by Bill Frain to a meeting at his house in Queens, New York of the Catonsville Nine. We met deep in his backyard, huddled in a circle away from the prying eyes and listening devices of the FBI. There my education continued. In January I had submitted my request to be discharged from the Marines as a conscientious objector. Now I was gathering with nine incredibly courageous Americans who had taken personal responsibility for the nation's war crimes in an act that sent shock waves around the world. Although I don't recall feeling it at the time, I now realize how blessed I was to have been allowed into that august company. For them to have trusted a 23 year old whom eight of them had never met takes my breath away. I am sure Dan gave the okay. Later that night I drove him back to where he was staying in Yonkers. So true to form, as we crossed the Whitestone Bridge in the dark, this beautiful man spoke of the exquisiteness of the sparkling lights and the illuminated Manhattan skyline. He was a hunger artist for beauty. And we talked again of poetry and family, of our relationships, how important they were, and how fractious relationships could get when one stood up for truth and victims everywhere. He asked about my girlfriend: what did she think about these things? I sensed that without being explicit he was warning me, while simultaneously telling himself that he was in for some sharp criticism from people close to him. As we rolled along in that cocoon of intimate talk, I again realized how rare this man was, how multi-faceted and deep. Afterwards, as I drove home, I kept thinking of the great novel by Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine, a book Bill Frain had introduced me to; of Pietro Spina, the revolutionary in hiding disguised as a priest, and his former teacher, the priest Don Benedetto. Hunted and surveilled by Italy's fascist government, they secretly meet and talk of the need to resist the forces of state and church collaborating in violence and suppression. Dan and the others had dramatically confronted these twin ogres and were willing to face the consequences. My problem was that Dan was both the revolutionary and the priest, but I was neither. Who was I? The meaning, if not the exact words, of Don Benedetto came back to me: "But it is enough for one little man to say 'No!' murmur 'No!' in his neighbor's ear, or write 'No!' on the wall at night, and public order is endangered." And Pietro: "Liberty is something you have to take for yourself. It's no use begging it from others." A few days later another conspiratorial murder took place as Bobby Kennedy was murdered in Los Angeles. First King, then Kennedy. Again I heard Don Benedetto's words: "Killing a man who says 'No!' is a risky business because even a corpse can go on whispering 'No! No! No!' with a persistence and obstinacy that only certain corpses are capable of. And how can you silence a corpse?" Then the police riots at the Democratic convention followed. Fascist forces had been unleashed. The Trial of the Catonsville Nine took place in October, and of course they were convicted – sentenced as Dan so famously put it, for "the burning of paper instead of children." That fall I received a letter from Marine Headquarters in Washington D.C. informing me that I was being released from the Marine Corps so I "could take final vows in a religious order." It was a complete fabrication since I was engaged to be married, but it was a way to get rid of me without honoring my request as a CO. Yet in its weird way it was true: I was religious and I was trying to follow an order, but as one of the dissenters led by Dan and his brave companions who formed a different corps – one dedicated to life, not death. In 1970 when Dan had gone underground instead of reporting for prison, I travelled to the big antiwar event, "America is Hard to Find," at Cornell. Word had gone out that Dan would appear, which he did in Barton Hall in front of a crowd of 15,000, including the FBI who were ready to pounce on him. When Dan appeared on stage and gave a moving speech about the need to oppose the war, silence and a sense of held breath filled the hall. When he finished to thunderous applause, the lights went out and when they came back on he was gone. It was like being at a magic show. He had escaped inside a puppet of one of the twelve apostles – oh what great joy and laughter! A circus act! Puckish Dan, imaginative through and through, irreverently funny, later said, "I was hoping it wasn't a puppet of Judas." That was the man. Once my wife and I were eating dinner with him at the 98th St apartment where he lived with other Jesuits. The conversation turned to Dorothy Day, the founder of The Catholic Worker and long-time pacifist and servant of the poor. Day had been a mentor to Dan. I told him how I had followed his example when I was teaching in Brooklyn and brought my students to The Catholic Worker to meet with Day. Now that Day had died, we asked, what would be the Catholic Church's attitude toward this great dissident? I said that I thought the church would eventually declare her a saint now that she was safely dead. Dan strongly demurred; that would never happen, he said, she was too radical and the institution would not recognize her. Now that Day is being considered for canonization – i.e. declared a saint – I can't help think of the ways the powers-that-be, both ecclesiastical and secular, have characterized him before and after his death. Is irony the right word? I return to a question he had the effrontery to ask, not as an academic exercise but as an existential question demanding a living answer: "What is a human being, anyway?" It is the type of question asked by Emerson and Thoreau, Gandhi and King, dead sages all. In the truest sense he answered that question with his life. A human being is not cannon fodder, a human being is not a piece of paper, not an abstraction, a human being is not a human being when forced to wage war or live off the spoils of war, a human being is not a human being when in the grip of "Lord Nuke." None of these. A human being is a child of God, and as such is called to resist the rule of death in the world, to resist violence with love and non-violence. A human being is a lover. This means a human being is necessarily at odds with the powers-that-be, the governments and corporations that in the name of peace prepare for and wage war. It is a view of human being that is bound to be unpopular, except when it can be affirmed with pieties but contradicted by actions Sainthood is a piety, the kiss of death bestowed as a guilt offering by authorities lacking authority. It is the Judas kiss – a cosmic joke made to make God laugh. Dan wasn't a saint. He was something more – a man – a brave, brilliant, and prophetic inspirational dissident, full of contradictions like us all. He was a true human being of the highest sacramental order – flesh and blood, bread and wine, life and death. At the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, when social panic consumed the nation and people, including the institutional churches, shunned gay men as lepers, only a man of supreme non-judgmental compassion would have befriended and cared for dying patients, as Dan did for many years. This didn't attract headlines as his anti-war activities did, but it symbolized the man. He was a genuine Christian. Today, he is in death what he was in life – a great spiritual leader. Ever faithful, he leads us on, by deeds and words. There are no bars to manhood (or womanhood), he once wrote. Freedom is our birth-right. This mess of mythological pottage, this self-contradictory dream, makes slaves of us," he wrote, "keeps most of us inert and victimized, makes hostages of our children as well as ourselves. And yet we are instructed by the highly placed smilers to keep smiling through, as if the dollars in our pockets or the brains in our heads were still workable, negotiable, a sound tender. As though, in plain fact, our world was not raving mad in its chief parts. And driving us mad, as the admission price to its Fun House.
On the afternoon of April 30, I was cleaning out files and had emptied two large drawers of papers. I noticed there was one green sheet left in one drawer. It was a saying Dan had sent to me about death. "Though invisible to us our dead are not absent." I thought how true that was and wondered when Dan would die, knowing he was failing. The next morning I was informed that Dan had died the previous day. The presence of his absence struck me forcibly. It consoles me in my sadness, as I know it does so many others. On the morning of his funeral, there was a march around lower Manhattan in his honor. Outside the Catholic Worker someone asked me to carry a large photo of Dan, circa 1968. As we proceeded through the rainy streets, it dawned on me that we were walking together again, and although I was now carrying his image, he had carried me for so many years as that indelible stamp on my heart. When I emerged from a coffee shop after urinating, some marchers laughed at the incongruous sight of Dan's photo and me. I pointed to Dan's photo and said, "He really had to go." I think I heard Dan laugh and say, "That's the way to shirk responsibility." I believe he walks beside us still, or in my case, he walks before me, beckoning me on, since I have such a long way to go to learn the lessons that he first taught me long ago on those snowy night walks through Ithaca. No, you can't silence certain corpses. Reprinted with the author's permission. The post Walking with Fr. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., A Criminal for Peace appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 A new May 4 report by independent researcher, Virginia Stoner, reveals US vaccine-death figures. The report is titled, "The Deadly Covid-19 Vaccine Coverup." Stoner uses the US government's own numbers. Here are key quotes from her report: "There has been a massive increase in deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) this year. That's not a 'conspiracy theory', that's an indisputable fact." "We're talking about a huge and unprecedented increase—so massive that in the last 4 months alone, VAERS has received over 40% of all death reports it has ever received in its entire 30+year history." "The increase in VAERS death reports is not due to more vaccination." "Most recently, the death count went from 2794 on April 5, to 3005 on April 12, to 3848 on April 26….1054 deaths in 21 days." "One hypothesis…is that the elderly and infirm, many in long-term care facilities, were the first to be targeted by the COVID-19 vaccine campaign, and they are much more likely to die coincidentally. These coincidental deaths then lead to an increase in suspected vaccine-induced deaths reported to VAERS." "VAERS data just does not support that hypothesis. First, because all age groups—not just seniors—had a dramatic increase in VAERS death reports from COVID-19 vaccines…Across the board, all age groups experienced a dramatic increase in deaths reported to VAERS from the COVID-19 shots—even the under 18 group, which has had very few COVID-19 shots (so far)." Stoner constructs a chart showing reported deaths from vaccinations in years prior to COVID, and deaths reported so far from COVID vaccines. For prior years, we're talking about roughly 100 deaths a year from somewhere between 250 million and 350 million vaccines administered. On the other hand, we're talking about 3800 deaths from about 150 million COVID shots—not in a full year; in only four months. The experts would say neither death figure (100 or 3800) is alarming, given the huge number of vaccines administered. But this is a deception. Over the years, much has been written (even in the mainstream) about what sits behind REPORTED vaccine injuries and deaths. Estimates of TRUE injury numbers range from 10 to 100 times greater than the reported figures. 3800 reported deaths from COVID vaccines would skyrocket when you estimated the true figure. As Stoner points out in her report, public health officials, in Orwellian fashion, keep repeating, "The vaccine is safe and effective." A straightforward analysis of their own numbers completely contradicts their stance. Likewise, the mainstream press, politicians, corporations, and celebrities are on an all-out push to convince the public that the vaccine is a) necessary and b) a marvel, if only the "hesitant" people would "follow the science" and see the light. Well, some cults are small; that one is huge. Virginia Stoner's report is a stark refutation of the conspiracy theory the cult is promoting. When the entire population is being subjected to a vast experiment deploying a never-before-released RNA technology; when the shot in the arm is actually a genetic treatment; when the entire field of genetic research is riddled with pretense and lies and alarming miscalculations, leading to ripple effects in overall genetic structures; what else would you expect? You would expect exactly what Stoner's report shows and implies. The COVID vaccine is a building disaster. Reprinted with permission from Jon Rappoport's blog. The post Covid Jab Deaths: The Numbers Point to a Catastrophe appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 Many policemen have been kicked under the bus. It is now more difficult to attract people to this profession; numerous retirements have occurred, and the quit rate is high. But we need police officers to protect the most vulnerable in society. How can we solve the hemorrhaging of this sector of the labor force? How, then, can policemen, white and black, but particularly the former, save themselves from injustice? Well, at least reduce the risks thereof while remaining in their present jobs? It is simple: embrace avert their eyes from victimless crimes; become libertarians. This is the philosophy predicated upon the non-aggression principle, private property rights and free association. In literary terms, it would be: "That government is best which governs least." Here, the law would only prohibit "uninvited border crossings," such as murder, rape, theft, kidnapping, car-jacking, fraud, and the threats thereof. Full bodied libertarianism would allow for private, not public, police, but we are not now discussing that truly radical step. How, then, can members of the thin blue line better protect themselves? By ignoring all crimes other than those prohibited under libertarian law. For example, Breanna Taylor was shot subsequent to a drug bust. But under libertarianism, all drugs, without exception, would be legal. If the cops operated under the libertarian legal code, they would have refused to honor orders to arrest anyone for such a "crime." Now, of course, outright refusal would have resulted in being summarily fired. But you guys know the drill: misunderstandings, looking the other way, the paperwork got mislaid, heck, we went to the wrong address, etc. No more drug busts, and that goes as well for prostitution and pornography (but only between consenting adults), gambling, etc. Similarly, Eric Garner was killed by police when he resisted arrest. His "crime"? Selling "loosies." Say what? Loosies are cigarettes sold not by the carton, nor by the pack, but individually. You may search high and low in the libertarian code; you will not find any such activity proscribed. Thus, if the police had found something else to occupy their time, this tragedy simply would not have occurred. The same applies to the most recent case in point: George Floyd was arrested for counterfeiting. Now, it is one thing to counterfeit licit money; that indeed, would be a real crime. But counterfeiting counterfeit money? That is a horse of an entirely different color. Although there is some dispute on this matter within the libertarian community, it is not at all clear that this is a real crime. If the police had just been "busy with other responsibilities" this man might now still be alive, and Derek Chauvin and his three colleagues would still be walking honorable beats. Will this advice to adhere to the straight and narrow of libertarianism protect all honorable constables? No, they will still be maligned even when doing their duty in this regard. Consider the case of the even more recent death of 16 year old Ma'Khia Bryant who was shot in the act of knifing another young girl. Now this is black letter libertarian law. The heroic cop who shot her saved the life of the victim. Yet, even he got in trouble. The philosopher LeBron James, who really should stick to what he does best, made what could easily be interpreted as a death threat against him: "You're next!" In a civilized legal order, this basketball champion would now be sitting in a hoosegow. Or, take the case of Rodney King, who was arrested for driving at speeds of 115 miles per hour while drunk on city streets, and thus threatening the lives of innocent pedestrians and other motorists. He, too, was properly arrested. Yet this brought a ton of woe on the right acting officers. So, no, doing your job even under libertarian law will not save you from grief. But it will significantly reduce the probability of such occurrences. Thus, the case for all members of the thin blue line embracing libertarianism. The post Police Should Sometimes Avert Their Eyes appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 Significantly, for the first time ever the pope ignored the requirement that the emperor issue the summons to such a council and assumed responsibility for it himself. The Age of Paradise: Christendom from Pentecost to the First Millennium, by John Strickland The pope who called the Lateran Council was Theodore, but he died before the council was convened; the new pope, Martin, would preside over the council; the year was 649. Never before was an ecumenical council called without being convened by the Roman Emperor. This was a council was called by the bishop in Rome without the authority of the emperor in Constantinople. The immediate issue was that of Monothelitism, but for purposes of this post the issue is secondary. It is sufficient to note that this doctrine was developed as some sort of middle ground regarding the nature of Christ, an issue that divided the Church in the East. The emperor, looking for ways to reunite the empire, sought support for a compromise position – hence, this doctrine, which satisfied almost no one. More relevant is this issue of independence and separation, and how it played out in this first example of what would become a meaningful feature in the Western tradition and seemingly completely absent in the Eastern. The act was the beginning of what might be called the heroic papacy, a self-conscious effort by successive popes to wrest doctrinal authority from caesaropapist emperors and to establish it instead as the prerogative of Rome. Ironic, in that both the pope who called the synod and the author of the canons of the council, Maximos the Confessor, were both from the east. These Eastern patristics would elevate the status of Rome and the papacy to a heroic status, a position never before occupied by any of the major bishoprics before. Maximos was given complete leeway in setting the agenda for the council; his Greek theological credentials were impeccable. And he did not work alone, as a large team of Greek monks and theologians assisted him, having travelled from the east; altogether, one hundred bishops were present. And, it must be reiterated, all without imperial authority. This council would reject Monothelitism as a heresy. In the long run, this decision was vindicated, as demonstrated more than thirty years later, in 680-681, in the Sixth Ecumenical Council convened by Constantine IV in Constantinople. But things didn't go so well in the short run; obviously, the emperor was not happy. Both Maximos and Martin would pay dearly for their defense of Orthodoxy – a position contrary to the emperor's wishes and at a synod called without the emperor's authority. They were both abducted in Rome and brought to trial in Constantinople: Both were tortured; Martin was publicly flogged on the streets of Constantinople, and Maximos had his right hand chopped off and his tongue cut out to prevent continued theological influence. Both died in exile, reviled by a caeseropapist state that demanded the final word in defining Christian doctrine. Meanwhile, developments in the West would begin to offer a glimpse of an entirely different evangelism, and a further manifestation of the roots that would come to separate Eastern and Western governance. Christianity began its spread in the Mediterranean basin, with people acculturated to Roman and Greek tradition. As early as the fourth century, Christianity had indeed broken free of the empire in the East, being planted first in Armenia, and then, even more distantly, in Georgia. Later, an even more distinct eastern Syrian form would emerge in the pagan Persian empire. But in the West, Christianity would appropriate Roman civilization even while transforming it. While initially spread in Latin, the Scriptures would be translated into native languages – Ulfilas, for example, with the Goths in the fourth century… …though notably he elected to exclude the Books of Kings in fear that his militant audience would use these works to justify conquest. The decision had little effect…. After the sixth century, the capacity of Byzantium to reach into western lands declined. As this was the case, the benefit of the rulers' adherence to Arianism as a means to remain separate from Constantinople waned; they soon found it more valuable to claim the Orthodox and catholic faith of their subjects. A most significant example is that of King Reccared of Hispania, who ended his dynasty's allegiance to Arianism in 589, with the council of Toledo. The more difficult task was regarding the lands to the north, beyond the Rhine River. The missionaries would focus their efforts on the nobility, hoping that with their conversion, the subjects would soon follow. This was often, but not always, the case. The result was a form of Christendom distinct from that of the Byzantine East. Some historians have called it the adelskirche, or "nobility-church." It was a church culture centered upon the local court and expressing the values of warrior elites. Militancy was its most notable expression. Any familiarity at all with the environment of the West during the medieval period would make this reality clear. Mercy and humility could be tough to square with this warrior militancy: In one case, a group of warriors submitted to baptism on condition that they be allowed to wage war freely once they were Christians. When the time came for their immersion, they held their right hands up out of the transformative water to prevent the loss, as they saw it, of the power to wield weapons. Most notable of this class would be the Franks, beginning with King Clovis who, at the end of the fifth century, began a successful campaign of expansion to the West. He would ultimately receive baptism in 508, firmly establishing a foothold for Christendom in what had been predominantly a land of Arianism. Missionaries didn't work only through the nobles. A notable example is that of Boniface, who would boldly appropriate local cultural and religious symbols of the native population. Arriving at a pagan shrine, he would knock it to the ground, preaching a sermon on the powerlessness of idols, and call the native population to baptism. His most famous, and notorious, act was felling the sacred oak at Geismar, using its timbers to then erect a Christian temple in which to baptize the locals. Sooner or later, this was bound to bring on his end; the pagans martyred him in 754. Conclusion With the Reformation, centuries later, the West would return to a monopoly authority over both church and government – a state, in other words. Despite the fanciful words we are taught, that there is some form of separation between church and state today thanks to the Enlightenment, it just isn't so. Churches in the West, just as they are all around the world, are evermore beholden to those who hold the levers of authority – be they state actors or nameless and faceless tyrants sitting on positions of global governance. Until this tie is broken, and the Christian Church retakes its proper place, all hopes for liberty are lost. Reprinted with permission from Bionic Mosquito. The post The Separation of Church and State appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 Did you know that the price of corn has risen 142 percent in the last 12 months? Of course corn is used in hundreds of different products we buy at the grocery store, and so everyone is going to feel the pain of this price increase. But it isn't just the price of corn that is going crazy. We are seeing food prices shoot up dramatically all across the industry, and experts are warning that this is just the very beginning. So if you think that food prices are bad now, just wait, because they are going to get a whole lot worse. Typically, Americans spend approximately 10 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food. The following comes directly from the USDA website… In 2019, Americans spent an average of 9.5 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food—divided between food at home (4.9 percent) and food away from home (4.6 percent). Between 1960 and 1998, the average share of disposable personal income spent on total food by Americans, on average, fell from 17.0 to 10.1 percent, driven by a declining share of income spent on food at home.
Needless to say, the poorest Americans spend more of their incomes on food than the richest Americans. According to the USDA, the poorest households spent an average of 36 percent of their disposable personal incomes on food in 2019… As their incomes rise, households spend more money on food, but it represents a smaller overall budget share. In 2019, households in the lowest income quintile spent an average of $4,400 on food (representing 36.0 percent of income), while households in the highest income quintile spent an average of $13,987 on food (representing 8.0 percent of income).
Needless to say, the final numbers for 2020 will be quite a bit higher, and many believe that eventually the percentage of disposable personal income that the average U.S. household spends on food will reach 40 percent. That would mean that many poor households would end up spending well over 50 percent of their personal disposable incomes just on food. At one time that would have been unimaginable, but now everything is changing. As I noted above, the price of corn his increased 142 percent since this time last year… Corn prices have jumped roughly 142% over the past year to $7.56 per bushel, the highest price seen in eight years for the crop. A drought in Brazil and increased demand in China have put pressure on global suppliers.
In other areas we are seeing more moderate inflation, but overall we just witnessed the largest increase in food inflation "in almost nine years"… The average prices in March of 2021 for pork chops and chicken breasts are both up more than 10% compared to March of 2020. Eggs and cheddar cheese are both up 6%. Looking at all consumer goods as a whole, the latest inflation data in the Consumer Price Index from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the largest month-to-month increase in almost nine years.
Meanwhile, the price of lumber just continues to shoot even higher. In New Jersey, one man says that the total cost of lumber used in building his new home will reach $70,000… Tom McCarthy can't finish building a home in Bergen County, New Jersey because of the lumber shortage. "There are pieces of wood that we can't find," said McCarthy, a real estate broker with the Chen Agency who also builds homes with his father on the side. McCarthy estimates the cost of lumber for the home will hit $70,000, nearly double the cost of building the exact same home in a nearby town just eight months ago.
Isn't that nuts? Instead of building a new home, you could try buying an existing one instead, but real estate prices in many areas have gotten completely insane. In northern California, one house recently sold for more than a million dollars over listing price… When a house in Berkeley sold for more than $1 million over its list price in late March 2021, it was covered in media outlets across the Bay Area, including this one. While the Berkeley sale was particularly sensational — it sold for double its list price and received 29 offers — these individual stories are becoming more common in today's real estate market, according to recent data and anecdotes from real estate professionals.
I never imagined that I would see such a thing happen. But one real estate agent says that such wild bidding wars are becoming increasingly common… And that's especially true in the East Bay. "People are not surprised when a home goes $1 million over," said Josh Dickinson, the founder of real estate agency Zip Code East Bay. "When my clients see a house for $1.9 million they're almost conditioned to think it'll go over $3 million in Piedmont or North Berkeley."
This is what the beginning stages of hyperinflation look like, but Federal Reserve officials insist that we have nothing to be concerned about. In fact, Eric Rosengren just told the press that the crazy inflation we are seeing now "is likely to prove temporary"… Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren in an interview with MarketWatch on Wednesday dismissed talk of scaling back asset purchases as premature, and said temporary factors pushing up inflation this spring won't last. "My view is that this acceleration in the rate of price increases is likely to prove temporary," Rosengren said Wednesday.
Do you believe him? I don't. As Simon Black has pointed out, the federal government is just going to continue to borrow and spend trillions upon trillions of dollars… This is the big one. The US federal government is hoping to spend a whopping $11 TRILLION this year, between the regular budget, COVID stimulus already passed, and all the new legislation they're proposing. And it's only May. Obviously Uncle Sam doesn't have the money. So they have to borrow it.
Almost everybody loved it when the federal government started sending out big, fat stimulus checks. But you aren't going to love it when a cart of food costs you $400 at the grocery store. Whenever the government hands out "free money", someone has got to pay for it, and one way we are paying for it is through higher prices. If you do not believe that this is a major national crisis yet, you will soon, because it won't be too long before most of the country is loudly complaining about how nightmarish inflation has become. Reprinted with the author's permission. The post What Will You Do When Inflation Forces U.S. Households To Spend 40 Percent of Their Incomes on Food? appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 The Republican Party has been shamelessly embracing blacks on the sole criteria that they embrace capitalism and rehash stale talking points crediting dead Democrats for starting the Ku Klux Klan. Such overtures are acceptable to many, however, because the modern Republican Party rarely articulates a conservative message. The party does excel at something, however, namely, as a conduit for black pundits to build large platforms. Essentially, blacks without meaningful conservative credentials are using Republicans to cultivate a following without increasing support for Republican politics or conservatism generally. But can we blame them when the only qualification required to be a conservative these days is to condemn the racist history of the Democratic Party? After years of mainstream analyses, it is now firmly rooted in the mind of the Republican Party that it can only survive by becoming less conservative and pandering to minority groups. As a result, today's Republicans proudly promote the big-tent model of conservatism, to their detriment. Although there are varieties of conservatism, the big-tent approach is remarkably unconservative. Conservatism is a specific philosophy with necessary component positions. To be a conservative in the West, one must wish to preserve an intellectual tradition of unique relevance to Westerners. As such, conservatives typically discuss the importance of Judeo-Christian ethics or highlight the Greco-Roman intellectual heritage of the West. Specifically, American conservatives want to preserve the timeless wisdom of the Founding Fathers and to maintain the integrity of institutions such as Congress and the Supreme Court, as stipulated by the Constitution. Yet they also embrace the disruptive nature of innovations wrought by the free market, putting themselves squarely in the tradition of classical liberalism in this regard. While markets are not unique to Western civilization, it was the West that created the legal ingredients necessary for capitalism to flourish. Hence one can contend that advocating capitalism is consonant with the conservative quest to preserve the uniqueness of the West. This is why communists seeking to destroy capitalism are revolutionaries, while the classical liberal defenders of free markets are obviously conservative. Yet true conservatism is rather skeptical of unbridled free markets, and instead aims to manage change. It also prefers an economy dominated by small firms, rather than big corporations. Admittedly, markets disturb traditional sentiments; however, Westerners pioneered the institutionalization of free markets. As such, conservatives espousing classical liberalism are celebrating a type of conservatism. These market issues are often what token black Republicans use to assert a utilitarian case for supporting the Republican Party. These black Republican celebrities argue that blacks are primed to vote for Republicans because free markets are a medium to uplift their people. The typical line is that Democrats have failed to ameliorate the conditions of black Americans, and as such, blacks should depart the Democratic plantation in favor of the free market agenda of Republicans. Read the Whole Article The post Most Black Republicans Aren't True Conservatives appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 It is axiomatic that uninformed people are the easiest to deceive. A corollary to this rule is that people are most certain about the things they understand the least. Scientists are well aware of the gaps in their knowledge, but the evangelist is absolutely certain about the truth of whatever he is peddling. Taken together, intelligence and experience lead to prudence, while stupidity and ignorance lead to foolhardiness. Working backward from this understanding, we can begin to understand why the American ruling class is going insane. The defining feature of this age is that the people in charge are certain about things that are imaginary. The government, for example, has denied Christians a permit to assemble for the National Day of Prayer, because they fear invisible White Nationalists will launch a revolution. They think this because they are sure the January protest at the Capitol was part of a plot to overthrow the government. The nation saw mostly flag-waving boomers taking selfies and laughing with the cops. The political class is told it was cover for an invisible army of white supremacists. These white supremacists are lurking out there on the other side of the razor wire, waiting for the chance to pounce. There is no question that the country is at odds with itself and its ruling class over a long list of issues. The race issue remains as troublesome as it was when Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. Our politics are a disaster of fraud and corruption. These are true things, but the ruling class talks about them from a position of ignorance. They sound so weird, because they have no idea what life is like for the rest of us. This starts with Joe Biden, a man who has spent his adult life in government. His "private sector experience" was at a political law firm for a year fifty years ago. Now, of course, his brain is scrambled eggs, but even if he were still in control of his faculties, he would have no reason to question the claims about invisible Nazis hiding around the capital. Why would he? Everything he knows comes from government. His second-in-command and future leader of the free world (stop laughing) is Kamala Harris, who has never sullied herself in the dreaded private sector. She spent the first four years of her "work life" making sure Speaker of the California Assembly Willie Brown was feeling groovy. Then she ran for office and it has been twenty years of uninterrupted life in one elected office after another. Arguably, the third most powerful person in America is Nancy Pelosi. Under the section titled "Private Sector" on her Wikipedia page is nothing but a string of emoticons to indicate hilarious laughter. Pelosi has never had a real job. In fact, she comes from a family of taxeaters. Her father was a lifelong politician. Her brother was also a lifelong taxeater, largely credited with ruining Baltimore while mayor. Read the Whole Article The post When Fools Rule appeared first on LewRockwell.  | Monday 10 May 2021 11:01 PM UTC-05 We are into our third spring month, and it is still snowing in the northern hemisphere, yet the madmen ruling the planet will not let the media inform the people that the climate experts were wrong about man-made global warming. Earth is facing a deep freeze, and solar scientists are warning us that this cooling, which has accelerated dramatically this year, will continue for several decades. We will only care about climate change when we start to go hungry because of the cold weather. The endless winter is again shortening the growing season. The extension of winter this late into the spring will drive already soaring food prices into the stratosphere. It is May 10, and it is still snowing, and another vast cold front moves as far south as Florida. The trillions spent on the pandemic could have all gone into vertical farming and other technologies to mitigate crop losses, thus saving millions of more lives in the hungry future that is coming our way. The common sense that the longer you ignore a problem, the more it will grow applies to a cooling planet and the damage it will do to our food supply. Though there are many madmen in the world, there is only one mad enough to cool a cooling planet. Bill Gates is probably the most dangerous man on Earth, and there seems to be little anyone can do about it. He is a target that no one can hit, but Tucker Carlson certainly took a shot at him and what he wants to do to the Earth. I think Tucker is right. Gates has a God complex worse than any Guru that has walked the planet. What Tucker does not say that his plan to cool the Earth is a global suicidal project because the Earth is already cooling on its own. Reprinted with permission from Dr.Sircus.com. The post The Madness of Cooling a Cooling Planet appeared first on LewRockwell.  |  |
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