Supreme Court will hear case with major implications for liberal 'wealth tax' plans

From Washington Examiner.com (June 28):

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a tax case that could put the fate of the Biden administration's "wealth tax" and other future tax proposals in jeopardy.

The high court decided on Monday to take up Moore v. United States, which challenges the "mandatory repatriation tax" as a violation of the Sixteenth Amendment. If found unconstitutional, it could pump the brakes on President Joe Biden's tax proposal aimed at taxing the U.S.'s ultra-wealthy.

Moore v. United States challenges what counts as taxable income and whether income has to be realized to be taxed. The petitioners argue they did not realize or receive any payment from the company in which they had an investment.

The case centers around the Moores, who made an almost $40,000 investment into an Indian corporation in 2005. They did not receive any money or other payments from the company, despite the corporation making a profit every year.

Under the 2017 tax reform law, which came out of the Trump administration, the petitioners learned that they were subject to a mandatory repatriation tax. This law required taxpayers to pay taxes on reinvested earnings — something the Moores are now challenging as unconstitutional. They paid the tax, worth $14,729, and sued for a refund.

The Sixteenth Amendment, which authorizes Congress to "lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States," is significant to the federal tax system.

The amendment applies to taxes on realized income only, the petitioners argue, and therefore their payment through the mandatory repatriation tax is unconstitutional.

The outcome of this case could have a significant impact on the Biden administration's "wealth tax," with many members of Congress already calling attention to the possibility that the proposal is another unconstitutional tax on unrealized income or gains.

Earlier this year, Biden proposed a 25% minimum tax on all wealth over $100 million, which is estimated to target 0.01% of the nation's population.

If the court rules in favor of the Moores, it could put the wealth tax proposal and changes to the taxing of financial market products at stake.

However, it is not likely that a decision will be made for some time. Hearing for arguments will most likely begin in October, as the Supreme Court has several major decisions to get through before it recesses for the summer. [source]

I hope eventually the Supreme Court rules against the wealth tax. Otherwise America is completely screwed.

Jack Smith: Trump Shouldn't Be Allowed to Tell Jury Biden Targeted Him

From News Max.com (Dec. 27):

Special counsel Jack Smith's office said in court papers filed on Wednesday that former President Donald Trump should be prohibited from making “political attacks” about his federal 2020 election subversion criminal prosecution at trial, specifically that he be barred from telling jurors he is being selectively prosecuted, The Hill has reported.

“Through public statements, filings, and argument in hearings before the court, the defense has attempted to inject into this case partisan political attacks and irrelevant and prejudicial issues that have no place in a jury trial,” senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston wrote in the papersfiled to the court.

“Although the court can recognize these efforts for what they are and disregard them, the jury — if subjected to them — may not,” Gaston explained. “The court should not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation, and should reject his attempt to inject politics into this proceeding.”

The trial is currently scheduled to start on March 4, the first of Trump’s four criminal cases as he runs for the 2024 presidential election.

That trial date has however increasingly come into doubt as Trump appeals his presidential immunity and double jeopardy defenses, with the trial proceedings on hold until these are resolved, according to The Hill.

But prosecutors have continued to meet the various pre-trial deadlines, including Wednesday’s to make any requests to exclude evidence.

Trump attorney John Lauro told prosecutors in a letter earlier this month that “although the prosecution may wish to rush this case to an early and unconstitutional trial in hopes of undermining President Trump’s commanding lead in the upcoming Presidential election, it must nonetheless abide by the Stay Order.”

Lauro insisted that "we will not accept or review the present production, or any additional productions, until and unless the court lifts the Stay Order. If the prosecution continues to violate the Stay Order, we will seek appropriate relief.” [source]

Bastard! What is the DA afraid of? If that's what Trump believes (I believe  he does because it's true) he should have that right to have his say.

Losing Our Religion: Blue Laws Decline While Deaths of Despair Do Not

From Breakpoint.org (Sept. 23, 2022):

A mortal affliction affects much of America’s heartland. Known as “deaths of despair,” both the Rust Belt and Appalachia have seen incredible spikes in rates of addiction, overdoses, violence, and suicide. In addition to the thousands who die each year by various forms of self-harm, thousands more live Gollum-like, trapped by their chemical chains and in loneliness.

It is a complex situation. While we must not diminish anyone’s moral agency, the downward paths we are on are paved, lined, and greased by a number of contributing factors. For example, Beth Macy, the author of the book Dope Sick, has documented the lethal partnership of doctors and drug companies, not to mention the co-option of government oversight agencies, which inflicted a plague of highly addictive opioids on some of America’s poorest areas of the country.

A new recent study, however, points to an additional complexity, an oft-ignored element of this cultural disease: the decline of religion. According to the study’s authors, there is some correlation between the end of so-called “Blue Laws” and the opioid epidemic. In certain parts of the country, Blue Laws have long limited the range of activities allowed on Sundays. Certain businesses were not allowed to be open, and certain things (especially alcohol) could not be sold. Though these laws continue in certain areas, particularly in Europe, they began to disappear in parts of the United States as the 20th century wore on, to the point that now they are few and far between.

Of course, a significant, culture-wide phenomenon like the opioid crisis cannot be reduced to something as simplistic as whether or not people can shop on Sunday. To do that would be to mistake causation for correlation, kind of like saying murders go up with ice cream sales. And this is something the study’s authors readily admit.

Rather than claiming that the end of Blue Laws created the opioid crisis, they use the end of Blue Laws as a marker to track the decline in American religiosity. The diminishing connections to faith in communities across the country, especially in those areas where they were once so strong, are among the factors that contributed to our nation’s chemical plague. In other words, Blue Laws are a kind of canary in the coal mine, marking when we’ve crossed a dangerous line.

In light of these diminishing religious commitments, reinstating Blue Laws likely will not lead to a reversal in rates of addictions or other deaths of despair. Even if they were an important part of our cultural life of faith at one time, too much has changed for such an easy fix. However, what these laws represented and what has been lost as they disappear points to the underlying causes, not only of the opioid crisis but many of our parallel pains as well.

What we need to ask is, in a mix of Friedrich Nietzsche and REM, what is the cost of losing our religion?

As much as we prize our individualism, particularly here in America, human beings aren’t just dust motes of consciousness, floating on the air currents of life. We’re connected, not just to one another, but to a host of other elements through relationships that give us meaning, identity, direction, and hope. To be healthy, as individuals and as communities, these relationships (upward, inward, outward, and downward) must be strong.

Human beings need a connection to something beyond ourselves, something higher and transcendent in order to find ourselves, to know who and what we are, to be sure of our identity. We need connections with one another, especially the links of family and friendship, in order to be accountable, supported, and complete. And, we need proper connection to the physical world around us, so to be tethered to reality through things like meaningful labor, a place to call home, and some part of the world to call “mine.”

Marx got it wrong. Religion isn’t the opiate of the masses, but instead a part of life most needed, irreplaceable by technological convenience or scientific mastery. The loss of religion has been a bad idea wherever it has been tried, and those suffering across Appalachia and the Rust Belt are some of its most obvious victims. By abandoning religion, specifically the Christianity which once provided meaning to these now missing relationships, the essential connection between individuals and communities and a higher purpose has been lost.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said all the way back in 1983, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Blue Laws didn’t hold off the effects of substance abuse, but the religious impulse that such laws represented were part of a way of seeing life and the world, one in which we weren’t just reduced to being cogs or animals or sexual expressions. The Christianity that the world has rejected offers the hope that the world so desperately needs. [source]

Beijing Biden Beckons China To Take Over The U.S. Power Grid

From 100 Percent Fed Up.com (Jan. 24, 2021):

Countless reports and mountains of evidence tie Beijing Biden and his son, Hunter, to China.  The democrat party and some establishment republicans like Mitch McConnell all seem to have frightening ties to China (—–)

It is no surprise, then, that Joe ‘Beijing’ Biden has taken us one step closer to globalist technocratic authoritarianism by revoking President Trump’s Executive Order 13920 which banned Chinese and other foreign involvement in our power grid via his own executive order called “Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis”

Yes, that’s right: somehow, allowing China the possibility to have access to our power grid–a top piece American national security infrastructure–is somehow necessary to combat climate change, promote public health, and promote science.

Does this hurt your brains as much as it does ours?

Here are the details on the original Trump EO from The National Pulse’s Natalie Winters:

“The Trump-era order sought to ban, replace, and set new criteria on bulk-power system (BPS) electric equipment coming from a foreign country or national that poses a national security threat.

“Foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, economy, and way of life. The bulk-power system is a target of those seeking to commit malicious acts against the United States and its people, including malicious cyber activities, because a successful attack on our bulk-power system would present significant risks to our economy, human health and safety, and would render the United States less capable of acting in defense of itself and its allies,” the introduction to the executive order read.

The move “prohibited any acquisition, importation, transfer, or installation of BPS electric equipment by any person or with respect to any property to which a foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, that poses an undue risk to the BPS, the security or resiliency of U.S. critical infrastructure or the U.S. economy, or U.S. national security or the security and safety of U.S. persons.”

The DOE was also tasked with identifying existing BPS electric equipment that violated the aforementioned prescription and “develop recommendations to identify, isolate, monitor, or replace this equipment as appropriate.”

Released on May 1st, 2020, the powers provided in the executive order were utilized by the DOE in early December concerning the Chinese Communist Party.

As of January 16, 2021, then-Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette issued a “prohibition order designed to reduce the risks that entities associated with the People’s Republic of China pose to the Nation’s BPS.”

“The order prohibits utilities that supply critical defense facilities (CDF) from procuring from the People’s Republic of China, specific BPS electric equipment that poses an undue risk to the BPS, the security or resilience of critical infrastructure, the economy, national security, or safety and security of Americans,” a press release adds.”

–

But, Section 7(c) of the new Biden order states that Trump’s 13920 EO is suspended for at least 90 days.  It also states that the future of the Trump’s EO

“(c)  Executive Order 13920 of May 1, 2020 (Securing the United States Bulk-Power System), is hereby suspended for 90 days.  The Secretary of Energy and the Director of OMB shall jointly consider whether to recommend that a replacement order be issued.”

According to Ms. Winters “the fate of the executive order and America’s BPS rests in the hands of Biden’s Secretary of Energy and Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)” who shall “…jointly consider whether to recommend that a replacement order be issued.”

But that is not the end of the deception.  The Biden OMB has serious ties to China, as does Biden’s son:

“The National Pulse exposed Biden’s OMB Head as formerly serving as the president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), an establishment think tank that has taken trips to China and co-authored reports alongside a Chinese Communist Party-backed influence operation.

What’s more, Biden’s son Hunter was previously involved in several business relationships with CEFC China Energy Chairman Ye Jianming.

“After his father left office in 2017, Hunter Biden worked on securing a deal with CEFC China Energy to invest in US energy projects, according to documents released by Republicans,” CNN noted.

Similarly, an investment firm headed by Hunter Biden funneled millions into China General Nuclear Power Corp, a state-owned power company guilty of stealing American nuclear technology for use by the Chinese Communist Party for decades.” [source]

Definitely not a good idea. Then again Briben isn’t look out for America. Just for himself and his crime family

Landmark Publication on Vitamin C for COVID-19

From The Epoch Times.com (Jan. 17, 2021):

Regardless of what the mainstream media wants you to think, many are starting to realize that vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and vitamin D both have an enormous amount of research showing they provide important immune function enhancements, and that your immune function is your frontline defense against all illness, including COVID-19.

The following was reported in the paper "Optimal Nutritional Status for a Well-Functioning Immune System Is an Important Factor to Protect Against Viral Infections," published April 23, 2020:

"The role nutrition plays in supporting the immune system is well-established. A wealth of mechanistic and clinical data show that vitamins, including vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and folate; trace elements, including zinc, iron, selenium, magnesium, and copper; and the omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid play important and complementary roles in supporting the immune system."

“Inadequate intake and status of these nutrients are widespread, leading to a decrease in resistance to infections and as a consequence an increase in disease burden."

High-Dose Vitamin C Acts as Antiviral Drug

As explained by Dr. Andrew Saul, editor-in-chief of the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, at extremely high doses, vitamin C actually acts as an antiviral drug, effectively inactivating viruses.

His Tokyo presentation, "Orthomolecular Medicine and Coronavirus Disease: Historical Basis for Nutritional Treatment," highlights the fact that when used as a treatment, high doses of vitamin C—often 1,000 times more than the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA)—are needed.

It's a cornerstone of medical science that dose affects treatment outcome, but this premise isn't accepted when it comes to vitamin therapy the way it is with drug therapy. Most vitamin C research has used inadequate, low doses, which don't lead to clinical results.

"The medical literature has ignored over 80 years of laboratory and clinical studies on high-dose ascorbate therapy," Saul notes, adding that while it's widely accepted that vitamin C is beneficial in fighting illness, controversy exists over to what extent.

"Moderate quantities provide effective prevention," he says. "Large quantities are therapeutic."

Landmark Paper Puts Vitamin C on COVID-19 Treatment Map

While health authorities and mainstream media have ignored, if not outright opposed, the use of vitamin C and other supplements in the treatment of COVID-19, citing lack of clinical evidence, we now have a landmark review recommending the use of vitamin C as an adjunctive therapy for respiratory infections, sepsis, and COVID-19.

The review was published Dec. 7, 2020, in the journal Nutrients. It was co-written by Dr. Paul Marik who, in 2017, developed a groundbreaking vitamin C-based treatment for sepsis. Marik is now heading up the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which has developed a highly successful treatment for COVID-19.

The COVID-19 protocol was initially dubbed MATH+ (an acronym based on the key components of the treatment), but after several tweaks and updates, the prophylaxis and early outpatient treatment protocol is now known as I-MASK+ while the hospital treatment has been renamed I-MATH+, due to the addition of the drug Ivermectin. Vitamin C remains a central component of the treatment.

The two protocols are available for download on the FLCCC Alliance website in multiple languages. The clinical and scientific rationale for the I-MATH+ hospital protocol has also been peer-reviewed and was published in the Journal of Intensive Care Medicine in mid-December 2020.

As explained in the Nutrients review abstract:

"There are limited proven therapies for COVID-19. Vitamin C's antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulating effects make it a potential therapeutic candidate, both for the prevention and amelioration of COVID-19 infection, and as an adjunctive therapy in the critical care of COVID-19.

“This literature review focuses on vitamin C deficiency in respiratory infections, including COVID-19, and the mechanisms of action in infectious disease, including support of the stress response, its role in preventing and treating colds and pneumonia, and its role in treating sepsis and COVID-19.

“The evidence to date indicates that oral vitamin C (2-8 g/day) may reduce the incidence and duration of respiratory infections and intravenous vitamin C (6-24 g/day) has been shown to reduce mortality, intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital stays, and time on mechanical ventilation for severe respiratory infections ...

“Given the favorable safety profile and low cost of vitamin C, and the frequency of vitamin C deficiency in respiratory infections, it may be worthwhile testing patients' vitamin C status and treating them accordingly with intravenous administration within ICUs and oral administration in hospitalized persons with COVID-19." [read more]

Rep. Comer: 'First Evidence' Against Biden Revealed

From News Max.com (Dec. 19):

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability uncovered "the first example of evidence" that President Joe Biden directly benefited from peddling influence via his family's foreign business dealings, said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee chair.

Comer, speaking on the "Verdict" podcast hosted by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said his committee exposed the evidence during testimony by "the owner" of Americore Health.

"[The president's brother, James Biden,] approached them [Americore] because he had heard they were financially distressed and said that because he's a Biden, and because of his brother's contacts in the Middle East, that he could help them acquire all the capital that they needed to get back on their feet from the Middle East, but they were going to have to pay Jim Biden first," Comer told Cruz and co-host Ben Ferguson on Monday.

"They gave him $600,000, and by all accounts, Jim Biden completely defrauded Americore Health. He never provided any funding or anything else."

Comer then explained Joe Biden's connection.

"Not only was that a pure example of influence peddling, Joe Biden received the last payment from Americore Health," Comer said.

"They sent a check to Jim Biden for $200,000. The exact same day that Jim Biden received that $200,000 check from Americore Health, they wrote Joe Biden a check for the exact same amount, $200,000. So, that was the first example of evidence that we found where Joe Biden directly benefited from the Biden influence peddling scheme."

James Biden has alleged the payment to Joe Biden was a loan repayment.

"From the notes that the whistleblowers have turned over, we know that sometime in 2018, the Bidens figured out that the IRS was breathing down their necks," Comer told Cruz and Ferguson.

"They changed the way they were operating. They went from receiving wires directing through the shells [shell companies] to receiving payments and calling them loans."

National Review reported that Carol Fox, an Americore Chapter 11 trustee, told the House panel that the now-bankrupt healthcare corporation that she saw no records or documentation of a loan from Americore to James Biden.

Instead, Americore chose to provide a loan with no documentation based on the promise that James Biden could bring in funding from the Middle East, the outlet reported.

Fox previously filed a lawsuit against James Biden claiming he made "representations that his last name, 'Biden,' could 'open doors' and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections," National Review reported.

The suit claims Americore sent $600,000 to James and Sara Biden's personal bank accounts in total and demanded James Biden repay Americore the full amount. James Biden ultimately agreed to a settlement payment of $350,000.

"I think James Biden probably committed just many crimes as Hunter Biden. The only reason we don't know about James Biden is he didn't leave a laptop lying around," said Comer, referring to the first son's infamous computer that had been left at a Delaware repair shop.

"At the end of the day, this example with Americore Health sure looks like securities fraud." [source]

The plot thickens more with the Briben crime family.

Colo. Supreme Court Disqualifies Trump; Campaign Hits Dem-Inspired Ruling

From News Max.com (Dec. 19):

Former President Donald Trump cannot appear on the ballot in Colorado in next year's presidential election due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, the state's top court ruled Tuesday in a historic judgment that is likely to find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 4-3 ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court makes Trump the first presidential candidate in U.S. history to be deemed ineligible for the White House under a rarely used provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars officials who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

That provoked a strongly worded attack on the ruling from the Trump 2024 campaign:

"Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice."

The court concluded that the U.S. Constitution bars the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024 from appearing on the ballot because of his role instigating violence against the U.S. government.

"We do not reach these conclusions lightly," the majority justices wrote. "We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach."

The Colorado court said the ruling is stayed until Jan. 4, 2024, to allow for appeals.

One of the dissenting justices, Carlos Samour, said in a lengthy opinion that a lawsuit is not a fair mechanism for determining Trump’s eligibility for the ballot because it deprives him of his right to due process, noting that a jury has not convicted him of insurrection.

“Even if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past - dare I say, engaged in insurrection - there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office,” Samour said.

The ruling applies only to the state's March 5 Republican primary, but its conclusion would likely also affect Trump’s status for the Nov. 5 general election. Nonpartisan U.S. election forecasters view Colorado as safely Democratic, meaning that President Joe Biden will likely carry the state regardless of Trump's fate.

The case was brought by a group of Colorado voters, aided by the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who argued that Trump should be disqualified for inciting his supporters to attack the Capitol in a failed attempt to obstruct the transfer of presidential power to Biden after the 2020 election.

In its statement, Trump's campaign vowed a swift appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, expressing optimism it would speedily rule against an "un-American lawsuit.'

It said: "Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls. They have lost faith in the failed Biden presidency and are now doing everything they can to stop the American voters from throwing them out of office next November. The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision. We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits.”

The decision is a victory for advocacy groups and anti-Trump voters who have mounted several similar legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy under section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was enacted after the Civil War.

The decision reverses a ruling by a lower court judge who found Trump engaged in insurrection by inciting his supporters to violence, but, as president, Trump was not an “officer of the United States” who could be disqualified under the amendment.

A lawyer for Trump argued that the riot at the Capitol was not serious enough to qualify as an insurrection and that Trump’s remarks to his supporters in Washington that day were protected by his right to free speech. The lawyer contended that courts do not have the authority to order Trump removed from the ballot.

Advocates have hoped to use the case to boost a wider disqualification effort and potentially put the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three Trump appointees.

"The court's decision today affirms what our clients alleged in this lawsuit: that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who disqualified himself from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment based on his role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and that Secretary Griswold must keep him off of Colorado’s primary ballot. It is not only historic and justified, but is necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country," said CREW President Noah Bookbinder. [source]

Bogus ruling. Definitely election interference. If Colorado supreme court can do this to Trump, it can do this to any republican presidential candidate they deem not worthy to be on the ballot. Or any other candidate they deem a threat to Briben’s reelection. Just ask RFK Jr. So, much for saving democracy which the Left never really cared for anyway even though they say they do.

And the justices that didn't want to be known for voting for this ruling are cowards.

I hope the Supreme Court overrules this injustice unanimously.

Other articles on the matter:

• The Big BUT in Colorado's Trump Election Decision
• COLORADO BARS TRUMP FROM THE BALLOT [UPDATED]
• Colorado GOP to Change to Caucus System, Ditch Primary If Trump Kept Off Ballot
• Totalitarian Ruling
• Victor Davis Hanson on Colorado Supreme Court Trump Ballot Ruling: ‘Does the Left See Where it is Taking the Country?’
• Maine Secretary of State Removes Trump From 2024 Ballot
  

Excerpts from the book “America’s Expiration Date” Part 1

PERSIA’S AGE OF DECADENCE, ITS DECLINE, AND ITS FALL

When empires and great nations decline, there are multiple reasons that are usually interconnected. Such was the case with Persia. People who were not part of the upper class began organizing riots and other revolts against their rulers.

As this rebellion continued, Persian kings embraced “the dark side of the Force” and were perceived as working with evil spirits (Persian mythology viewed life as a struggle between good and evil). Kings became greedy (imagine that!) and started stealing from the nation’s wealth rather than sharing that wealth with the people.

The political structure joined the social structure in decline. Again, weak rulers created a political vacuum, leading to numerous provincial revolts, especially in Egypt, which hated Persian rule. Provisional satraps (regional officials) were becoming increasingly independent, some carrying on their own foreign policies (imagine each member of a US presidential administration doing that). They even waged war against one another. This constant infighting caused serious economic problems. Without a strong ruler who could train armies (and pay for them), and without an ability to gain wealth, the economy began to suffer.

Taxes were raised and quickly became oppressive, which encouraged more revolts and in turn led to more oppression, a vicious cycle. Persian kings started hoarding gold rather than recirculating it, leading to charges they were stealing from the people. There was also a decrease in crop production, which affected trade.

With limited resources, less attention was given to the arts and to buildings. Still today there remains a gap in Persian art because of this decline. It doesn’t help that the mullahs who now run Iran show little interest in anything artistic or creative.

Finally, there was a decline in science, for which Persians (and other cultures throughout the region) had once been known. This decline in science and invention led to a reduction in weapons production, undermining the safety of the empire—the final reason historians believe it collapsed.

…………

It took Gibbon six volumes to explain the history of Rome’s decline and fall, but one paragraph pretty much summarizes why it destroyed itself.

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.

Source: America's Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers… and the Future of the United States (2020) by Cal Thomas.

The Hydra of Modern Times

From The Epoch Times.com (Jan. 27, 2021):

The myths of the ancient worlds, as we have discussed before, have profound truths and insights to tell us now, if we would but listen to them. One that I find particularly relevant at this present juncture of history is the story of the Lernaean Hydra, or just the Hydra.

To recall, the Hydra was a snake-like monster who in the most authoritative sources had nine heads, one of which was immortal. On top of that, the creature’s breath was a lethal poison and it spat a venom so deadly that there was no cure for it.

The Hydra was the offspring of the loathsome monster Echidna, who mated with the even more ferocious Typhon. It was Typhon who almost defeated the king of the gods himself, Zeus, and in doing so would have destroyed the whole created order if it had been successful. The Hydra lived beside Lake Lerna, guarding an ominous gate leading to the underworld.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that just as the king of heaven had fought and defeated the Typhon monster in the upper world, so here below on earth, it fell to his son, the human hero Hercules, to defeat Typhon’s offspring, the Hydra. This came about as a result of Hercules’s second Labor.

Hercules was ordered by the treacherous and weak king Eurystheus to destroy the Hydra, although Eurystheus’s real objective in setting all 12 of the famous Labors of Hercules was for Hercules himself to be destroyed, for each of the Labors became increasingly difficult, if not impossible to achieve. But, of course, Hercules was half human and half divine; his father was Zeus. This was no ordinary man!

But even being half divine proved not quite enough for Hercules to overcome the Hydra, at least on his own, for as he cut off or clubbed each head to death, another two would sprout in its place. The Hydra thus became more powerful, and Hercules had to retire.

Fortunately, however, Hercules was accompanied by Iolaus, his nephew, and together they resumed the fight. As Hercules destroyed one head, and before it could regenerate into two, Iolaus would sear the neck stump with a red-hot brand and thus prevent its growing again.

Eventually, as one head after another died, the creature also did, leaving only the immortal head. This Hercules chopped off and buried by the roadside. The Hydra, then, was defeated and dead.

So what is the relevance of this story for us? [read more]

REPORT: Joe Biden Rode Record-Breaking ‘Dark Money’ Donations Into The White House

From Daily Caller.com (Jan. 23, 2021):

President Joe Biden rode a record-breaking $145 million in “dark money” donations into the White House, Bloomberg News reported Saturday.

“Dark money” is donations from anonymous donors to outside groups backing a given candidate. Biden’s $145 million is the all-time record for a candidate challenging an incumbent president, according to Bloomberg. Former President Donald Trump received $28 million from such donations.

Many Democrats have called for an end to dark money donations as it is difficult for the public to discover where the donations are coming from.

The pro-Biden outside spending group Priorities USA defended their donations in a statement to Bloomberg.

“We weren’t going to unilaterally disarm against Trump and the right-wing forces that enabled him,” the group’s chairman, Guy Cecil, said in a statement.

Biden’s count tops former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s $113 million in dark money donations from his 2012 challenge to President Barack Obama.

Throughout the entire 2020 campaign season, Trump’s donations totaled $1.96 billion, compared to Biden’s $1.69 billion through November 23. Trump received a heavy fundraising boost between October 15 and November 23 thanks to his challenge to the results of the election.

Trump’s reelection effort had a heavy head start in fundraising, however, given that he didn’t have to go through a party primary. [source]

The 15 Best Zingers, Maxims, And Mic-Drops From Clarence Thomas’ Harvard Concurrence

The Federalist.com (June 30):

The Supreme Court’s Thursday decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College dealt an overdue blow to race-based college admissions, and some of the best punches were thrown by Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurrence.

The court ruled that so-called “affirmative action” at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were in violation of the 14th Amendment and its application via the Civil Rights Act. Policies that discriminate based on race without demonstrating a compelling public interest, the six justices in the majority agreed, are not compatible with our founding principles of equal rights under the law for every American.

In addition to signing on to the majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, Thomas wrote a nearly 60-page concurrence to express his horror at the idea of institutionalized racial discrimination in 21st-century America. Here are 15 of his best lines.

1. The best way to fix discrimination is not more discrimination.

[T]he Constitution continues to embody a simple truth: Two discriminatory wrongs cannot make a right.

2. Courts can’t defer to the discriminating body about whether the discrimination is justified.

Universities’ self-proclaimed righteousness does not afford them license to discriminate on the basis of race. In fact, it is error for a court to defer to the views of an alleged discriminator while assessing claims of racial discrimination. … To the extent past is prologue, the university respondents’ histories hardly recommend them as trustworthy arbiters of whether racial discrimination is necessary to achieve educational goals.

3. Using the 14th Amendment to justify discrimination is “self-defeating.”

Without such guardrails, the Fourteenth Amendment would become self-defeating, promising a Nation based on the equality ideal but yielding a quota- and caste-ridden society steeped in race-based discrimination.

4. Racial preferences don’t end inequality, they increase it.

Both experience and logic have vindicated the Constitution’s colorblind rule and confirmed that the universities’ new narrative cannot stand. Despite the Court’s hope in Grutter that universities would voluntarily end their race-conscious programs and further the goal of racial equality, the opposite appears increasingly true. Harvard and UNC now forthrightly state that they racially discriminate when it comes to admitting students, [and] defend that discrimination as good.

5. History indicates we should be distrustful of “experts” who say racial discrimination is “helpful.”

I would have thought that history had by now taught a “greater humility” when attempting to “distinguish good from harmful uses of racial criteria.” From the Black Codes, to discriminatory and destructive social welfare programs, to discrimination by individual government actors, bigotry has reared its ugly head time and again. Anyone who today thinks that some form of racial discrimination will prove “helpful” should thus tread cautiously, lest racial discriminators succeed (as they once did) in using such language to disguise more invidious motives. … [E]xperts and elites have been wrong before — and they may prove to be wrong again.

6. Dealing unfair advantages to one necessarily means dealing unfair disadvantages to another.

[I]t is not even theoretically possible to “help” a certain racial group without causing harm to members of other racial groups[.] … [T]he zero-sum nature of college admissions — where students compete for a finite number of seats in each school’s entering class — aptly demonstrates the point.

7. Young people today are not liable for the sins of generations past.

[U]niversities’ discriminatory policies burden millions of applicants who are not responsible for the racial discrimination that sullied our Nation’s past. … Whatever their skin color, today’s youth simply are not responsible for instituting the segregation of the 20th century, and they do not shoulder the moral debts of their ancestors.

8. A hyperfocus on race communicates to new generations that they should allow racial differences to influence their perception of others.

[S]orting by race … increasingly encourage[s] our Nation’s youth to view racial differences as important and segregation as routine.

9. The end goal of affirmative action is a world in which people are defined by the color of their skin.

What, then, would be the endpoint of these affirmative action policies? Not racial harmony, integration, or equality under the law. Rather, these policies appear to be leading to a world in which everyone is defined by their skin color, demanding ever-increasing entitlements and preferences on that basis. … That is the same naked racism upon which segregation itself was built. Small wonder, then, that these policies are leading to increasing racial polarization and friction.

10. The only solution to racism is true equality under the law.

Racialism simply cannot be undone by different or more racialism. Instead, the solution announced in the second founding is incorporated in our Constitution: that we are all equal, and should be treated equally before the law without regard to our race. Only that promise can allow us to look past our differing skin colors and identities and see each other for what we truly are: individuals with unique thoughts, perspectives, and goals, but with equal dignity and equal rights under the law.

11. People are defined by their choices, not by their circumstances.

Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything — good or bad — that happens in their lives. A contrary, myopic world view based on individuals’ skin color to the total exclusion of their personal choices is nothing short of racial determinism.

12. Elites at institutions such as Harvard should not be picking “racial winners and losers.”

History has taught us to abhor theories that call for elites to pick racial winners and losers in the name of sociological experimentation.

13. Victimization perpetuates itself with no end.

Must others in the future make sacrifices to re-level the playing field for this new phase of racial subordination? And then, out of whose lives should the debt owed to those further victims be repaid? This vision of meeting social racism with government-imposed racism is thus self-defeating, resulting in a never-ending cycle of victimization.

14. Meritocracy is a “great equalizer.”

[M]eritocratic systems have long refuted bigoted misperceptions of what black students can accomplish. … Such scales have always been a great equalizer — offering a metric for achievement that bigotry could not alter. Racial preferences take away this benefit, eliminating the very metric by which those who have the most to prove can clearly demonstrate their accomplishments — both to themselves and to others.

15. To override the Constitution with a racial agenda is to make the same error as segregationists of the past.

The great failure of this country was slavery and its progeny. And, the tragic failure of this Court was its misinterpretation of the Reconstruction Amendments, as Justice Harlan predicted in Plessy. We should not repeat this mistake merely because we think, as our predecessors thought, that the present arrangements are superior to the Constitution.

[source]

Google DeepMind’s CEO Says Its Next Algorithm Will Eclipse ChatGPT

From Wired.com (June 26):

IN 2016, AN artificial intelligence program called AlphaGo from Google’s DeepMind AI lab made history by defeating a champion player of the board game Go. Now Demis Hassabis, DeepMind’s cofounder and CEO, says his engineers are using techniques from AlphaGo to make an AI system dubbed Gemini that will be more capable than that behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

DeepMind’s Gemini, which is still in development, is a large language model that works with text and is similar in nature to GPT-4, which powers ChatGPT. But Hassabis says his team will combine that technology with techniques used in AlphaGo, aiming to give the system new capabilities such as planning or the ability to solve problems.

“At a high level you can think of Gemini as combining some of the strengths of AlphaGo-type systems with the amazing language capabilities of the large models,” Hassabis says. “We also have some new innovations that are going to be pretty interesting.” Gemini was first teased at Google's developer conference last month, when the company announced a raft of new AI projects.

AlphaGo was based on a technique DeepMind has pioneered called reinforcement learning, in which software learns to take on tough problems that require choosing what actions to take like in Go or video games by making repeated attempts and receiving feedback on its performance. It also used a method called tree search to explore and remember possible moves on the board. The next big leap for language models may involve them performing more tasks on the internet and on computers.

Gemini is still in development, a process that will take a number of months, Hassabis says. It could cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, said in April that creating GPT-4 cost more than $100 million.

Playing Catch-Up

When Gemini is complete it could play a major role in Google’s response to the competitive threat posed by ChatGPT and other generative AI technology. The search company pioneered many techniques that enabled the recent torrent of new AI ideas but chose to develop and deploy products based on them cautiously.

Since ChatGPT’s debut Google has rushed out its own chatbot, Bard, and put generative AI into its search engine and many other products. To juice up AI research the company in April combined Hassabis’ unit DeepMind with Google’s primary AI lab, Brain, to create Google DeepMind. Hassabis says the new team will bring together two powerhouses that have been foundational to the recent AI progress. “If you look at where we are in AI, I would argue that 80 or 90 percent of the innovations come from one or the other,” Hassabis says. “There are brilliant things that have been done by both organizations over the last decade.”

Hassabis has experience with navigating AI gold rushes that roil tech giants—although last time around he himself sparked the frenzy.

In 2014, DeepMind was acquired by Google after demonstrating striking results from software that used reinforcement learning to master simple video games. Over the next several years, DeepMind showed how the technique does things that once seemed uniquely human—often with superhuman skill. When AlphaGo beat Go champion Lee Sedol in 2016, many AI experts were stunned, because they had believed it would be decades before machines would become proficient at a game of such complexity. [read more]

Another article on DeepMind:

Google DeepMind AI Breakthrough Could Help Battery and Chip Development

Democrats Need to Be Destroyed

From Derek Hunter on Town Hall.com (Mar. 27, 2022):

How do you negotiate with a terrorist? You can’t. They want you dead, you don’t want to be dead; where is the compromise? Can you be half-dead? One-quarter dead? Can you offer them an arm if they’ll just leave the rest of you alone? If they accepted, would you believe them? You’d be an idiot to do so, just like you’d be an idiot to believe anything coming out of the mouths of Democrats these days. No “good faith effort” is going to make them honest, they are lying frauds out to destroy everything great in this country. They’re a Terminator for American Exceptionalism. As such, they have no conscience, they can’t be reasoned with, they must be destroyed.

Rush Limbaugh used to say he wanted to convince everyone over to conservatism, but he wanted a few liberals around still just to show people what they were like, otherwise no one would believe there were people that crazy. That was a couple of generations of insanity ago. What currently calls itself Democrats bears no resemblance to what once was “Democrats.”

Just 25 years ago, there was no question that Democrats knew what a “woman” was. Do you really think Bill Clinton or Ted Kennedy were confused by the concept? No man has come forward claiming to have been sexually assaulted by them, so they either knew or managed to bat 1.000 with their guesses.

Nowadays, what a woman is has reverted to a mystery. All the knowledge accumulated throughout all of human history on the subject has been tucked back, far out of sight, so as to obscure even a chromosome test. Even God is confused, having made so many “mistakes” that even the angels in Heaven lost all understanding of what the other gender is. There are now men and other people who may or may not be men, or they’re something else, there’s simply no way to know.

The nation’s hotel doormat, USA Today, ran the dumbest piece ever written in any language in a desperate attempt to defend Ketanji Brown Jackson from criticism over not being able to define “woman.” (The answer, by the way, is: adult human female. Pretty simple.) Entitled, “Marsha Blackburn asked Ketanji Brown Jackson to define 'woman.' Science says there's no simple answer,” this is a skillful piece of propaganda that would make Joseph Goebbels proud.

………

Sorry to say it, but Rush was wrong about this. We don’t need to keep a few around as cautionary tales, we can read about them in books or watch old TV shows or movies. You don’t keep a few termites around to remind you of the damage they’ve done to your house, and we don’t need any Democrats to remind us of the damage they’ve done to the country. Destroy them all. [read more]

He has good points. The Left after all wants to destroy the Right or anyone who doesn’t go along with their agenda or their twisted narrative or world view. And the way to destroy the Left is to take away their power. Vote them out of office and even vote them off the boards of corporations if you are a stock holder. Stock holders have that privilege.

The Lefts tactics and beliefs:

• Rousseau, Guevara, Marx and More: The Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy of the Left
• The Philosophical Background of Our Anti-Social Democratic Party
• EXPOSED: Far-left efforts to DATA MINE and CONTROL our kids [video]
• Democrats are operating a series of 51 'fake news' websites pushing left-wing stories in toss-up states in a bid to turn the midterms in their favor, shocking investigation finds
• Democrats Urged to Wage Psychological War Against Trump
• Democrat bill requires vasectomies for Alabama men
• These 86 Democrats Voted Against Condemning Socialism
• Civilization Versus the New Nihilists
  

'No veterans left behind': Group of almost 60 veterans deboard plane after one was told he wasn't able to fly

From The Blaze.com (May 26, 2022):

Onlookers described it as a powerful show of solidarity. A group of nearly 60 U.S. veterans on their way home from Washington, D.C., decided to deboard a plane when one veteran was told he couldn't fly due to safety concerns.

The group of veterans, all residents of Oklahoma, had just completed a four-day trip to the nation's capital organized by Northeast Oklahoma Veterans Freedom Tour, a nonprofit dedicated to taking veterans on tours of memorials and monuments all around the country.

According to KOTV-TV, they were seated on a plane in Charlotte, N.C., and ready for take-off back to Tulsa when they learned that one member of their group was unable to fly. His oxygen concentrator had run out of batteries and couldn't be recharged using the plane's electrical outlets.

With no way to charge the medical device, American Airlines determined it would be unsafe for the veteran to undertake the flight, per company policies. In the interest of his safety, they informed him that he couldn't fly.

After hearing the unfortunate news, the other veterans aboard the flight made the decision to follow him off the aircraft. One of the group's leaders, Wayne Perego, told KOTV they didn't make the decision lightly; rather, they had made a promise.

"No veteran left behind," Perego recalled in an interview with the outlet.

"We just decided that you know what, we are going to go off the plane also if he's going off. If they're gonna take him off, the whole bunch was gonna go off," he said.

Back inside, the group started looking for other flights or modes of transportation and also where to get more batteries for the oxygen concentrator. They stayed at the airport until 5 a.m. while American booked hotel rooms and taxis.

The next morning, American provided pizza and transport back to the airport. The airline was also able to deliver extra batteries flown in from Norfolk, Virginia, and book the group on a chartered flight — just for the veterans.

When they finally touched down in Tulsa, a crowd of supporters was there to welcome them home.

In a statement, the nonprofit that sponsored the trip wrote, "On behalf of the Northeast Oklahoma Veterans Freedom Tour, we want to apologize to our Veterans for the issue at the Charlotte airport and we wish this would have never happened, we wanted to show our Respect and Honor to each of you during this trip." [source]

Shameful that one veteran wasn’t allowed to fly on the plane.

China Seeks to Buy Eight Pacific Island Nations While Joe Biden and His State Department Are Comatose

From Red State.com (May 25, 2022):

In April, Forbes reported on a “mutual security” pact signed by the Solomon Islands and Communist China. The agreement states that the Chinese Navy (technically, the People’s Liberation Army Navy or PLAN) ‘[M]ay, according to its own needs and with the consent of the Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistics replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in the Solomon Islands.’ The agreement also requires China, upon request of the Solomon Islands government, to send riot control and crowd control assistance, or intervene militarily to prop up the government.

The agreement was the source of profound shock to Australia, which only in November had sent police to assist in restoring order in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara. Oddly enough, one of the targets of the riots was ethnic friction between the Solomon Islanders and, you guessed it, the ethnic Chinese population.

Read more on this deal by my colleague Mike Miller: US Marines Won the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1943 — 79 Years Later, Joe Biden Is Losing It.

Last week, the Financial Times broke the story that China was in talks with Kiribati and one other unnamed South Pacific nation to finalize a similar agreement.

China is intensifying its drive for influence in the Pacific by negotiating security deals with two additional island nations following a pact with the Solomon Islands, according to officials in the US and allied countries.

Beijing’s talks with Kiribati, a Pacific island nation 3,000km from Hawaii where US Indo-Pacific Command is based, are the most advanced, the officials said.

“They are in talks with Kiribati and at least one more Pacific island country over an agreement that would cover much of the same ground as that with Solomon Islands,” said an intelligence official from a US ally.

The warning that Beijing is trying to further increase its clout in the Pacific came as President Joe Biden begins a visit to Asia intended to reassure allies of US commitment to regional security amid China’s push for influence.

The negotiations with Kiribati follow the deal Beijing signed with the Solomon Islands, which some experts believe will allow China to build a naval base in the country located north-east of Australia.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is about to embark on a bribery, corruption, and influence-buying tour of the South Pacific. [read more]

Oklahoma gas station employee wanted to go home early, so he asked someone to rob him at work: Police

From The Blaze.com (June 23):

An Oklahoma gas station employee wanted to leave work early, so he asked someone to rob his store, according to police.

Police responded to a robbery at a gas station convenience store in Tulsa on June 5.

Isaias Jones, the store clerk, allegedly told police that a masked man walked into the convenience store and handed him a note that read: "Give me all your money or I will shoot you." Jones reportedly told police that he complied with the thief and handed over the money from the store's cash register.

Tulsa Police Department identified the alleged robber as Steven Jones – no relation to the gas station clerk. The suspect was arrested on June 8. He admitted that he had robbed the store, but he claimed that his friend had invited him to rob the store.

Alyia Locke, a mutual friend of both men, allegedly asked Jones to rob the gas station store at the behest of the gas station worker.

The Tulsa Police Department said in a statement, "She confessed to setting up the robbery. Locke also provided text messages from Isaias Jones asking for someone to rob the store so he could leave early."

The store clerk was arrested and reportedly told detectives that he asked "Locke to find someone to rob the store because he was tired and wanted to go home," police said.

Isaias Jones purportedly paid Locke after the crime was committed.

Isaias Jones was charged with embezzlement and conspiracy to commit a felony. Steven Jones was charged with conspiracy to commit embezzlement and possession of a firearm after a former conviction of a felony. Alyia Locke was arrested for an outstanding warrant and could also face charges of embezzlement.

The Tulsa Police Department quipped, "Our human resources department, and likely every H.R. department in the world would like to advise people that this is not the recommended way to leave work early."

Both men were reportedly released on bond, but Locke remains in the Tulsa County Jail. [source]

What a stupid snowflake! Didn't he think he would get caught? And the people who helped the employee are boneheads.

16 Bombshells on Hunter Biden From The IRS Whistleblowers

From Free Beacon.com (June 24):

Two IRS whistleblowers leveled serious allegations about Hunter Biden and the government’s investigation of the troubled first son, according to transcripts of testimony released this week.

The whistleblowers, IRS supervisory criminal investigator Gary Shapley and a second unnamed IRS investigator, provided evidence to the House Ways and Means Committee that top Justice Department officials stonewalled an investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign business ventures. They also call into question President Biden’s repeated denials that he has no knowledge of his son’s business dealings.

Here are 16 of the biggest revelations from transcripts of their interviews:

Hunter linked dad to Chinese deal in threat to business partner

Hunter Biden invoked his father’s name in a text message, threatening his Chinese business partner to come down on him with their full weight if the business partner did not fulfill his "commitment."

Biden claimed he was sitting right next to his father in an encrypted message on July 30, 2017, to an associate at CEFC China Energy. While the message does not verify that Joe Biden was sitting with his son, the Washington Free Beacon obtained photographic evidence that places Hunter Biden at his father’s Delaware home the day of the text message.

"I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father," Hunter Biden wrote to CEFC official Henry Zhao. Hunter pressed Zhao to call him to discuss a delay in payment as part of the multimillion-dollar consulting agreement.

"I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. All too often people mistake kindness for weakness—and all too often I am standing over top of them saying I warned you," Hunter wrote.

Joe Biden attended other business meetings with Hunter and his Chinese partners

Biden family friend and business partner Rob Walker told the FBI that the elder Biden often attended business meetings with his son, including when he was vice president.

The bombshell claim undermines Joe Biden’s claims to have never been involved in his son’s business ventures.

Walker said he was present when Joe Biden stopped by a meeting at the Washington, D.C., Four Seasons hotel with executives from CEFC China Energy.

The FBI authenticated Hunter Biden's laptop almost a year before we knew it existed

The FBI authenticated Hunter Biden’s laptop as far back as November 2019 and knew the device was not part of a foreign disinformation campaign.

Democrats had questioned the authenticity of the laptop after it was released in October 2020. They cast doubt on Delaware computer shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, who said Biden had abandoned his computer at his store in April 2019. The Biden campaign even orchestrated an initiative to portray the laptop as a Russian intelligence operation.

But FBI agents authenticated the laptop as Biden’s in November 2019 and found no evidence that its contents were manipulated, according to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.

Investigators also obtained evidence that placed Hunter Biden near Isaac’s computer shop on the day he allegedly dropped it off for repairs. [read more]

The other bombshells:

1. Hunter deducted hooker and sex club payments from his taxes
2. The FBI division that investigates foreign spies was involved in Biden probe
3. The investigation into Biden had porn-related origins
4. Prosecutors wanted to charge Hunter with felonies, but he ended up with misdemeanors
5. Biden’s Department of Justice blocked investigation at multiple turns
6. The IRS whistleblower’s boss corroborated bombshell claims
7. Hunter won’t ever pay tax on $400,000 income from Ukraine
8. Agents wanted to search Biden family homes, but were shot down due to ‘optics’
9. IRS wanted search warrant for Hunter’s storage locker, but prosecutor tipped off his lawyers
10. A mole tipped off Hunter that FBI wanted to interview him
11. Hunter’s lawyer said prosecutors would be committing ‘career suicide’ if he was charged
12. Joe Biden visited FBI Delaware office during investigation
13. Hunter deducted hotel rooms for father and drug dealer from his taxes

Another article on the subject:

Joe Biden ABSOLUTELY benefited from Hunter’s foreign business

 

Excerpts from the book Skin in the Game Part 2

Beware of the person who gives advice, telling you that a certain action on your part is “good for you” while it is also good for him, while the harm to you doesn’t directly affect him.

……..

Laws come and go; ethics stay.

……..

No person in a transaction should have certainty about the outcome while the other one has uncertainty.

…….

The more confined our ethics, the less abstract, the better it works.

……..

Society doesn’t evolve by consensus, voting, majority, committees, verbose meetings, academic conferences, tea and cucumber sandwiches, or polling; only a few people suffice to disproportionately move the needle. All one needs is an asymmetric rule somewhere—and someone with soul in the game. And asymmetry is present in about everything.

…………

The underlying structure of reality matters much more than the participants, something policymakers fail to understand.

Under the right market structure, a collection of idiots produces a well-functioning market.

The researchers Dhananjay Gode and Shyam Sunder came to a surprising result in 1993. You populate markets with zero intelligence agents, that is buying and selling randomly, under some structure such that a proper auction process matches bids and offers in a regular way. And guess what? We get the same allocative efficiency as if market participants were intelligent.

……….

Leave people alone under a good structure and they will take care of things.

Source: Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (2018) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Forget the Marxists: Here's the Real Enemy of America

From American Thinker.com (May 25, 2022):

To win any fight, we must first know our enemy.  There are those who argue we are in a struggle with Marxism, though in reality, we battle the organizational and operational tenets of the Marxist tree, not the ideology itself.  We know that this is not a Marxist movement because it ignores Marxism's core clientele: the workers.  In fact, these people despise the Marxist's traditional constituents.  Instead, they toil for a small minority of the "marginalized" in society whom middle Americans find to be fringe and anathema to their core values.

Even then, their movement doesn't seek a revolution of the marginalized.  They define the ills of society so that governments can unilaterally impose restitutive "justice": defunding law enforcement and prosecution, promoting violence and riots, and forcing curriculum indoctrination throughout the educational system.  They seek power through chaos.

If there is a power that wishes to usurp a democratic and free market society, then to attack with the chaos of a Marxist "revolution" will drive those most affected to willingly surrender freedom for security — You will own nothing and be happy! — and into the warm arms of the promise of a new civilization dedicated to the progress of mankind.  Italy once succumbed to the promises and adopted fascism upon the bourgeoisie's and governing elites' fears from the encroaching evils of socialism, as had been witnessed in Soviet Russia.

Don't be fooled by rhetoric.  Fascism is an evolution of socialism.  The difference is how the economy is managed.  Ludwig von Mises summarized the primary differences between socialism (the Russian pattern) and fascism (the German pattern).  Socialism owns everything, and the individual is simply a serf to the state; fascism "preserves private ownership of the means of production and keeps the appearance of ordinary markets," though these markets are highly controlled by the state.  The German pattern, Nazism, introduced, through its barbarity, the dark specter of fascism, but fascism's evil birth was in Italy.

Disillusionment following WWI was the catalyst for fascism.  Benito Mussolini, an avowed socialist, too became disillusioned and, with the partnership of neo-Hegelian philosopher Giovanni Gentile (who stated, "Fascism is a form of socialism; in fact, it is its most viable form") developed a system and philosophy that nationalized the will of the people and integrated limited markets into the state.

Socialism enslaves the soul; fascism enslaves the illusion of freedom.

Fascism has been described as Corporatism.  Many mistakenly believe that it was centered on capitalism and nationalism and was thus a right-wing movement.  It was not.  Mussolini termed Corporatism (the state) as a means of economic and societal organization and control within the confines of fascism; the state is the corporation, and the individual silos of the economy, which he termed syndicates, are the means to collectivize society.

In a 1926 speech, Mussolini laid out the role of markets within the state:

The Ministry of Corporations is not a bureaucratic organ, nor does it wish to exercise the functions of syndical organizations which are necessarily independent, since they aim at organizing, selecting and improving the members of syndicates[.] ... [I]n the centre and outside, [the] integral corporation becomes an accomplished fact, where balance is achieved between interests and forces of the economic world. ... The achievement of these aims is speeded up by the fact that all economic organizations, acknowledged, safeguarded and supported by the Corporative State, exist within the orbit of Fascism; in other terms they accept the conception of Fascism in theory and in practice.

It is the actual structure of Mussolini's fascism — the partnership between governmental authority and economic syndical cooperation — that is the model for current attempts at using fascism to infiltrate and control global economic, political, and cultural institutions.

Capitalism has the power to shape society and act as a powerful catalyst for change. ...  When we harness the power of both the public and private sectors, we can achieve truly incredible things.

—Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, 2022 Letter to CEOs

No, Larry Fink, Bill Gates, George Soros, nor any of the other Davos creeps is a Mussolini lurking in the weeds.  Each of them is a steward of individual syndicates, but the power rests in the corporation: the World Economic Forum.

Today, we see the WEF as the binding strap on the fascio, or syndicates.  It acts as both an ideological center and an organizing force for universally stated goals for the management of mankind.  A brief listing of these WEF U.S.-based partner corporations (below) demonstrates the syndicates organized under the umbrella of the corporation.

As we enter a unique window of opportunity to shape the recovery, this initiative will offer insights to help inform all those determining the future state of global relations, the direction of national economies, the priorities of societies, the nature of business models and the management of a global commons. Drawing from the vision and vast expertise of the leaders engaged across the Forum's communities, the Great Reset initiative has a set of dimensions to build a new social contract that honours the dignity of every human being.

— World Economic Forum, the Great Reset

The implementation of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), as an example, has been ordered from the WEF to the world financial syndicates, and Mr. Fink is taking his orders seriously by aggressively pushing ESG.  ESG is fast becoming the great culling of industry.  While there has been recent pushback, Davos and the WEF are not deterred.  ESG uses metrics to provide social responsibility scores for corporate commitment to woke management and the war against climate change.  ESG will be a requirement for Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings in the near future.  It is already having deleterious effects on the oil and gas industry and is one of the origins of our current energy crisis.  The energy syndicate, too, has followed its orders.

The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.

— Fascism Doctrine and Institutions, by Benito Mussolini, Giovanni Gentile (1932)

Those outside fascism hold no value.  We must fight back against the tirades of these infantile intellectual dwarfs; fight back against woke capitalism; fight back against the indoctrination of your children; fight back against their unleashing of chaos upon our streets.  Use your two votes, at the ballot box and in your wallet, to push back as much as you can, but there will be more for us to do. 

We are not fighting Marxism, socialism, or communism.  This is a top-down revolution.  We are fighting a fascism that surpasses Mussolini's and Hitler's dreams of complete power over the people, for this is global in nature.  The sooner we can develop the strategy to stave off these attacks and possibly even beat them back, the sooner we can start the long march toward freedom once again.  Without defining and understanding the enemy, we will lose. [source]

FBI Says it Foiled Plot to Kill George W. Bush in Revenge for Iraq War

From Newsmax.com (May 24, 2022):

A plan by terrorists to kill former President George W. Bush in retaliation for the 2003 Iraq War was uncovered earlier this year, according to an FBI search-warrant application filed March 23 and unsealed this week in the Southern District of Ohio, Forbes reported on Tuesday.

Behind the plot was an Iraqi man, Shihab Ahmed Shihab, who was based in Columbus, Ohio, and accused of being connected to ISIS operatives. He traveled to Dallas in November to take video around Bush's home, as well as organizing a squad of fellow Iraqis he hoped to smuggle into the United States over the Mexican border in order to carry out the assassination.

The FBI said the plot was uncovered by two confidential informants, in addition to surveillance of Shihab's WhatsApp messaging platform.

Shihab entered the U.S. himself in 2020 and had an asylum application pending, according to the FBI's search-warrant application.

Last November, Shihab told one of the FBI insiders about his plans and asked him if he knew how to "obtain replica or fraudulent police and/or FBI identifications and badges" to help implement the plan, according to Forbes.

He also asked if it was possible to smuggle the plotters out of the U.S. in the same manner they entered after carrying out the assassination.

George Washington University's Program on Extremism deputy director Seamus Hughes told Forbes that "it's clear this was a sophisticated counterterrorism operation with a lot of moving parts. It was both far reaching and unique in its targeting."

He added that "we haven't seen a plot of this scale in a number of years. It shows that while domestic terrorism rightly takes a good amount of counterterrorism focus, the threats are not there alone."

Bush gave a response through Freddy Ford, chief of staff for the Office of George W. Bush, saying "President Bush has all the confidence in the world in the United States Secret Service and our law enforcement and intelligence communities." [source]

China Is Fueling Hamas Attacks | Opinion

From Newsweek.com (Nov. 26):

One of China's most cynical strategies in its all-encompassing struggle against the United States is to cast itself as a peacemaker while claiming that America fuels conflict. Beijing propagates this false narrative even as it ignites bonfires.

This Chinese doublespeak was on display at the BRICS virtual summit last week, when President Xi Jinping proposed a six-point plan to permanently stop the fighting in Gaza. The Chinese ruler called for an end to "all violence and attacks against civilians," the securing of "humanitarian corridors" and additional aid for Gaza, "the establishment of an independent State of Palestine," the convening of an "international peace conference," the adoption of U.N. General Assembly and Security Council resolutions, and the implementation of "practical measures to prevent the conflict from spilling over and endangering stability in the Middle East as a whole."

Many foreign observers are buying Beijing's China-desires-peace propaganda line. "What China really wants in the Middle East is order," writes Omer Aziz, a former foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, in the Globe and Mail. "A regional war is not in China's interests if it wants to grow economically and keep its own interests—principally Taiwan—in line."

Yet Xi Jinping is not promoting peace in the Middle East. He is rather continuing to stoke war. China's actions in recent years reveal not just that China has been pushing war in the Middle East, but that it knew it was doing so. China, after all, has been continually backing Iran's militant Shiite regime, which openly talks about war and consistently works to destabilize the Sunni states in the Gulf region.

China has for decades been aiding the relentless drive of the Islamic Republic of Iran to develop nuclear weapons. Iran received Chinese uranium-enrichment technology and equipment through the China-sponsored nuclear-black-market ring of Pakistan's A. Q. Khan. And China-proxy North Korea could never transfer ballistic missiles to Iran without Chinese approval, something it has done consistently in recent decades.

Moreover, China has been supplying arms used by proxies of the Islamic Republic. Hamas, for instance, appears to possess old Chinese-made weapons, presumably supplied through Iran. Likewise, the U.S. Navy in 2021 and this year seized Chinese weapons in transit to the Houthi militia in Yemen, another Iranian proxy. Richard Fisher, a China military analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, told me that Beijing also provides weapons to Hezbollah, Iran's third major proxy. [read more]

Not surprising. The Chi-Coms will do just about anything to hurt America and our allies. Definitely not a friend. And yet they will discriminate and oppress the Uyghurs.

U.S. Navy Captures Terrorists Who Tried To Hijack Tanker Tied To Israel

From Daily Wire.com (Nov. 26):

A U.S. Destroyer took five individuals into custody on Sunday after they attempted a terrorist hijacking of an Israeli owned tanker in the Gulf of Aden.

The Liberian-flagged Central Park chemical tanker — which is managed by Zodiac Maritime, a U.K. based firm that is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group — was believed to have been seized earlier in the day.

“US Navy personnel from the USS Mason responded to a distress call from the crew onboard an Israeli linked tanker,” said Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin. “5 armed gunmen tried to hijack the ship in Gulf of Aden. US Navy pursued toward Yemen. Warning shots fired. Gunmen now being interrogated.”

The incident marked the second time over the last few days that terrorists have tried to hijack the ship after Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists previously tried.

“The 5 gunmen boarded from a skiff by pulling up alongside the tanker which I am told ‘has a low free board’,” Griffin said. “The crew had locked themselves in the Citadel (safe room). A Japanese destroyer assisted the USS Mason with the interdiction. 2 Chinese Navy warships in the area did not render assistance.”

The terrorists tried to gain access to the safe room by breaking down the door but were unsuccessful.

“The hijackers exited the vessel and were making their way back to the shores of Yemen when the US Navy personnel pursued and arrested them,” Griffin said. “Warning shots were fired by the U.S. Navy personnel and a U.S. helicopter gunship flew cover. The 5 hijackers who tried to overtake the Israeli linked tanker are now being questioned by the U.S. military under counter piracy authorities.” [source]

Good. Glad the navy captured the terrorists.

Excerpts from the book Skin in the Game Part 1

The flaws of global interventionistas:

1. The first flaw is that they are incapable of thinking in second steps and unaware of the need for them—and about every peasant in Mongolia, every waiter in Madrid, and every car-service operator in San Francisco knows that real life happens to have second, third, fourth, nth steps.
2. The second flaw is that they are also incapable of distinguishing between multidimensional problems and their single-dimensional representations—like multidimensional health and its stripped, cholesterol-reading reduction. They can’t get the idea that, empirically, complex systems do not have obvious one-dimensional cause-and-effect mechanisms, and that under opacity, you do not mess with such a system.
3. The third flaw is that they can’t forecast the evolution of those one helps by attacking, or the magnification one gets from feedback.

The interventionista case is central to our story because it shows how absence of skin in the game has both ethical and epistemological effects (i.e., related to knowledge). We saw that interventionistas don’t learn because they are not the victims of their mistakes, and, as we hinted at with pathemata mathemata:

The same mechanism of transferring risk also impedes learning.

More practically,

You will never fully convince someone that he is wrong; only reality can.

Actually, to be precise, reality doesn’t care about winning arguments: survival is what matters.

For

The curse of modernity is that we are increasingly populated by a class of people who are better at explaining than understanding,

or better at explaining than doing.

So learning isn’t quite what we teach inmates inside the high-security prisons called schools. In biology, learning is something that, through the filter of intergenerational selection, gets imprinted at the cellular level—skin in the game, I [the author] insist, is more filter than deterrence. Evolution can only happen if risk of extinction is present. Further,

There is no evolution without skin in the game.

This last point is quite obvious, but I keep seeing academics with no skin in the game defend evolution while at the same time rejecting skin in the game and risk sharing. They refuse the notion of design by a creator who knows everything, while, at the same time, want to impose human design as if they knew all the consequences. In general, the more people worship the sacrosanct state (or, equivalently, large corporations), the more they hate skin in the game. The more they believe in their ability to forecast, the more they hate skin in the game. The more they wear suits and ties, the more they hate skin in the game.

Returning to our interventionistas, we saw that people don’t learn so much from their—and other people’s—mistakes; rather it is the system that learns by selecting those less prone to a certain class of mistakes and eliminating others.

……….

To summarize so far,

Skin in the game keeps human hubris in check.

Source: Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (2018) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.