One may think this tiny nation who relies entirely on the United States for its existence would consistently and unwavering align to US interests as a ‘thank you’. Instead we see time and again disrespect, subversion and outright hostility. What kind of ‘ally’ spies, manipulates, plots against and steals from its primary patron?

Formation

How this started

The Ottoman Empire ruled over Palestine, and much of the Middle East for hundreds of years. During that time, in Palestine specifically, the population had a religious mix living side by side, peacefully under Ottoman rule. In 1914, before the Balfour Declaration, there were Muslims (82%), Christians (10%) and Jews(7.5%) [Zionism, an Obstacle to Peace].

There was no hatred for America, and certainly no ‘hatred of freedom’ in the Middle East, in fact the opposite. Following WW1 there were a series of commissions to survey the people of the Middle East in an effort to decide upon ‘next steps’. The King-Crane commission showed overwhelmingly that the people surveyed wanted independence from colonial powers, they wanted a ‘Democratic Kingdom’, 54.9% were in favor of ‘guarding of rights of minorities’. Given the option mandates/aid from French, British and Americans, 60% of the respondents chose America first, albeit, in the form of aid vs mandate. This reflects two things, the desire for independence (73.5%) and the belief that America was not a colonial empire like the other two nations. 72% were against ‘the zionist program. The “General Syrian Congress” stated:

We oppose the pretentions of the Zionists to create a Jewish commonwealth in the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine, and oppose Zionist migration to any part of our country; for we do not acknowledge their title, but consider them a grave peril to our people from the national, economical, and political points of view. Our Jewish compatriots shall enjoy our common rights and assume the common responsibilities. [1]

Before we forced a zionist state upon the Middle East, Jews had lived peacefully as neighbors & citizens for hundreds of years. The general consensus of the land was for them to simply continue doing that. The perception of America was favorable, and people seemingly welcomed a relationship built on trade, as our founders intended. Our actions derailed this peaceful coexistence by subjugating the Arabs in the area and robbing them of their rights, property & self-determination.

The Hook is set

Why did we favor the zionist movement at the expense of our relationship with the people of the Middle East? The zionists offered something Arabs could not, access to the Soviet Union. At the time (and today) most zionists originated from the USSR (or its modern breakaway states). The zionists were wanted for terrorism against our ally Great Britain. When they were intercepted by James Jesus Angleton, then leading CIA operations in Italy, he was faced with a choice. Turn the zionists over to the British, or aid them in exchange for them aiding in spying efforts in the Soviet Union.

He made his choice to aid the zionists, and by many accounts they were highly effective sources. It took some time, before the depth of the rot this caused to be fully revealed, by the time it was, it was too late. I go into more details in my JFK Files article.

Our Ally?

There are a myriad of controversies and betrayals that surround our relationship with the zionist state. It is important to bear in mind, throughout it’s entire existence the zionist state has needed the United States for its survival, truer more today than perhaps ever since its founding.

The Lavon Affair, 1954

With fear of Egypt gaining closer ties with the United States, including fears of arms deals, israel sought to undermine Nasser’s government and make it seem ‘unsafe’ for American support [2]. What became known as ‘The Lavon affair’ was an israeli “false flag’ plot to set off bombs at American and British installations in Egypt, the attacks would then be pinned on groups (like the Muslim Brotherhood) that opposed Nasser’s rule.

Nasser, seeking to better arm Egypt after losing 39 soldiers in a related israeli attack, turned to the Soviets for arms. The US responded aggressively and punished them by forcing the World Bank to withdraw a $200 million loan[4]. Nasser responded by nationalizing the Suez, alarming the British & French. The French, seeking Israel to lead an attack they would support, promised to provide Israel with a nuclear reactor (which was later built at Dimona).

To recap, an attempted Israeli led false-flag attack on American interests in Egypt forced Egypt into allying with the Soviets, resulted in the nationalization of the Suez & paved the way for one of the worst governments in the world to gain nuclear capabilities.

JFK, 1963

I alluded to above the situation leading up to Mossad’s involvement with the JFK assassination. I don’t want to rewrite that entire article here, so if interested in a deeper dive I encourage you to read it in full. I conclude that article stating “I generally accept the theory that people in the CIA with unchecked power & the partnership of israeli intelligence (and perhaps others) assassinated JFK”.

In short, Angleton’s life work became his relationship with Mossad. JFK had multiple policies that would completely destroy that relationship (see “Israel motive” below), he had also angered many people in very capable positions within the US spy agencies.

USS LIBERTY, 1967

“But sir, it’s an American ship - I can see the flag!” — Israeli Pilot observing the USS Liberty

“Never mind; hit it.” — IDF War room

— as reported by Haraatz [3]

The USS Liberty was sent “to observe activities” related to the Egypt-Israel war. The ship had requested escorts and were denied, little did they know they were being set up [4]. The israelis took out the guns & all the antenna, aiming to leave it defenseless and unable to call for help. The israelis dropped napalm, used guns and even fired torpedos from their ships, they did everything to sink the ship. Despite their efforts, a skilled radioman was able to get a distress call out. Support was launched and then order to return before it could provide aid [5]. MacNamara (then SecDef) ordered the recall. Subsequent support launches were recalled again and the order was reportedly confirmed by President Johnson himself who claimed to a desire to ‘not embarrass an ally”[6] . 34 Americans were murdered, 171 were seriously wounded.

The betrayal didn’t end there, the US government ‘investigations’ did everything they could to cover up the clear intentional attack on an American ship. The reports were falsified, the crew was threatened with courts martial if they spoke out and everything was pushed under the rug. Our servicemen were sent to their deaths, denied aid by their fellow servicemen and left to die by President Johnson whose primary concern was to “not embarrass an ally” [6]. Sadly, not the first nor the last time ‘our’ leaders would betray America for Israel.

Nukes, Lies, Theft & Blackmail

One of the results of the Lavon Affair was France partnering with Israel to produce a nuclear reactor at Dimona. Israel maintained a position of ambiguity and deception to stall Americans and hide their nuclear pursuits. The cover they provided was hardly convincing by any measure, but it was just enough for our intel agencies and corrupt government to ‘look away’ as Israel built its nuclear armament.

Theft

Israel had a working nuclear reactor at Dimona, but to quickly ramp up a nuclear armament it needed to skip the enrichment step. To do this it targeted NUMEC, a plant in Pennsylvania operated by zionist Zalman Shapiro. Not only did Shapiro help steal hundreds of pounds of nuclear material [Bamford, 116], the site was also used to dump nuclear waste [Bamford, 115]. The CIA knew that israel was stealing the material because of field tests near Dimona that matched the material to NUMEC [Bamford, 117]. The resulting ‘investigation’ yielded plenty of evidence, but no arrests. Subsequent investigators under Carter faced stonewalling and reluctance from the intel agencies (FBI & CIA), ultimately Carter buckled and refused to expose the theft [Bamford, 119].

The initial attempts by an israeli spy named Smyth to send nuclear triggers from the United States was apparently stopped by one alert State Department employee, Glenn R. Cella. He later stated “they [the israelis] have total contempt for our spineless system… in general they got their way and got their way rather easily”[Bamford, 124]. Cella’s actions didn’t go without consequence, for this and asking other questions he was ostracized as an “Arabist” and learned to keep quiet [Hersh, 214]. Despite this glaring attempt to smuggle nuclear triggers to israel, Smyth’s trips to israel and countless other red flags, no agency put an end to the behavior. Hersh’s Samson option provides the accounts of several intelligence agents who learned to 'avoid the topic’ [Hersh, 215]. With ‘looking away’ as our governments policy, 4 years later in 1980, Smyth was able to get the triggers to Tel-Aviv [Bamford, 126].

Blackmail

Our agencies’ betrayal is solidified by the third point. Israel threatens, not only its enemies, but us with their use of nuclear bombs. I don’t mean to say they threaten to nuke us directly (though honestly i wouldn’t put it past them), but they threaten us that if we do not come to their aid they will use nuclear weapons on their enemies.

Hersh details the events in his chapter Nuclear Blackmail. The Egyptian attack during the Yom-Kippur war made significant gains and had the israelis in disarray. With even the defense minister warning of ‘the end’, israel opted to not only arm its nuclear weapons, but make sure that WE knew. The demand was simple, we flood them with supplies to win the war or they ‘might’ have to start using nuclear bombs. The tactic worked and the supplies flooded in. In this video the traitor-spy Jonathan Pollard brags about it the tactic of threatening America with Israeli nukes.

The willful failure of our intel agencies has forced us into servitude for our ‘vassal state’.

Beirut Bombing, 1983

The first question that should be asked is ‘why were we there’. The answer, because amidst the Lebanese civil war, Israel invaded Lebanon to root out the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). A ceasefire was eventually achieved and president-elect Bashir Gemayel (leader of the Phalange milita) had relatively strong ties with israel [7]. The Marines, initially sent to evacuate Americans, became responsible for escorting the PLO out as part of the cease-fire. At this point, unsurprisingly, Israelis did what they could to disrupt the process adding to the already tense situation [8]. Despite this the operation was successful and the Marines withdrew. Gemayal was soon assassinated by a Lebanese Christian of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. In response, israel again went on the offensive pushing into Beirut. Phalange coordinated with and was assisted by the IDF to carry out massacres of Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps [9]. This led the new President (Bashir’s brother) to request a return of the multi-national force to ‘ensure the safety of the population’[8].

A former Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky, wrote in his book that israel knew specific details, including the make & model of the vehicle that would carry the bombs to target the Marine barracks. He claims israel kept that information from America to protect their informant, so that israel wouldn’t be at risk of being hit unaware in some potential future scenario [10]. The estimated 12,000 lbs of explosives leveled the building, killing 241 Americans, including 220 Marines[8].

Israel’s bloodlust dragged US troops back into Lebanon. They allegedly knew specific details that could have prevented the successful attack on our barracks but chose to withhold the information. Perhaps it was to ‘protect their source’, perhaps it was ‘punishment’ for us aiding the PLO withdrawal, or perhaps all of that mixed with the belief that the attack would help solidify ‘israel’s enemies’ as ‘our’ enemies.

9/11

A group of 5 ‘dancing israelis’ were apprehended after appearing to celebrate the attacks on the world trade center as they recorded it. Photos show them holding lighters with the Manhattan skyline in the background (on 9/10/2001), and reports describe them as ‘visibly happy’ as the buildings were burning [11]. The Forward reported that at least 2 of these individuals were flagged as ‘Mossad operatives’ . An unnamed intelligence official speaking to The Forward stated “the FBI came to the conclusion…that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front” [12]. The documents related to the incident were released via FOIA, but are heavily redacted. The attachment discussed below is apparently of high enough level of classification as to be removed and withheld [13].

When asked what the attack meant for israel-US relations Netanyahu responded, on 9/11/2001, that “It’s very good”, trying to salvage the statement, he rephrased “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.”[14]. In context of previous actions, especially the Lavon Affair, which sought to achieve this exact outcome, it is hard not to look at israel with suspicion. There is also mounting evidence that our intelligence agencies, at best, completely dropped the ball and through their apparent incompetence allowed what should have been a preventable attack to occur[15].

NOTE: Ryan Dawson and now Tucker Carlson have gone into much more depth on the multiple failures of our agencies around 9/11.

Wars for Israel

In the late 1990s a series of reports were written first, “A Clean Break: A new Strategy for Securing the Realm”, then “Coping with Crumbling States: A Western Israeli Balance of Power strategy for the Levant”. In these, neocons laid out what they thought was a path to secure israel. The general plan as outlined by Scott Horton in his book “Enough Already”[Horton, pg 67-71] was:

1. Overthrow Saddam & install Jordan’s king

   1. they thought it would lead to an alliance with ‘greater Jordan’ and Turkey, thus pulling Hezbollah away from Iran.

2. Expand the Collapse to Syria.

3. The newly installed puppets would ‘inspire’ Iranians to overthrow their government

One of the taglines was literally “Peace Through Strength” (should be pretty fresh in your mind since Trump keeps saying it).

Knowing that the people who devised this plan were in key positions within the Bush Administration [Horton, pg 70], it becomes clearer why both the ‘dancing Israelis’ & Netanyahu had an ‘optimistic’ outlook on the 9/11 attacks. America soon kicked off what would be decades of wars trying to achieve these goals. While we had reason to go into Afghanistan, multiple accounts state we could have gotten Bin Laden early and ended it. There was no ‘good’ reason to go into Iraq. I cover the extent of our military policy failures in American Victory and the corruption that makes money loving politicians into bloodthirsty ones in War is STILL a Racket.

Iran

I wrote about the recent flare-ups between Israel & Iran first in Tit-for-Tat: Iran v Israel, then more recently in Israe-lies War. So I won’t go deep into the specifics there. I do, however, want to put it in the context of this article.

In the most recent exchange, Israel initiated strikes on Iran as they were negotiating with the United States. Soon, Tel-Aviv was regularly being hit with Iranian strikes and israeli air defenses seemed to be overwhelmed. America was reaching deep into its reserves to fend off the attack. It was at this peak of israeli vulnerability that the United States shifted strategy. Trump, who campaigned (and i think won) on ‘no new wars’, launched a (seemingly telegraphed) strike on Iran. Why the sudden change, even as our own intelligence refuted the nuclear claims? Did Israel resort once again to nuclear blackmail? Did they threaten that if we didn’t come save them they would have to deploy nuclear bombs (that we helped them get). I haven’t found evidence of this, but given the circumstances & israel’s history it is worth considering the possibility.

Propaganda, Intimidation & Subversion

In James Bamford’s SpyFail he details a Mossad backed effort code named “project Butterfly” that sought to damage anti-israel groups & movements, he stated “It would develop ways to disrupt their activities, lead them to be falsely investigated by the authorities and run a hidden media influence campaign against them”[Bamford, pg206]. Israel didn’t stop at ‘movements and groups’, it also targets individuals, often college kids or young professionals with spying & intimidation organizations like canary mission. Perhaps most concerning is the information gathered is funneled back to a israel [Bamford, 228]. To bolster their targeting campaigns, israel sought to recruit [and corrupt] individual Americans, often Jews, into a ‘troll army’ using apps like Act.il [Bamford, 238]. This helped coordinate their efforts and shape a pro-israel narrative, seemingly coming from America [Bamford, 238]. The Harvard Crimson Editorial board summed up the effects in 2022:

“Israel remains America’s favorite first amendment blindspot. Companies that choose to boycott the Jewish state, or otherwise support the pro-Palestine Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement face legal repercussions in at least 26 states. Even for journalists, openly condemning the state’s policies poses an objective professional risk.” [16]

One effort proposed at the time involved “flying members of the network to israel to be trained as “influences”, then back to the United States to Spread propaganda”[Bamford, 210]. At the time the idea was ‘shot down’ because people feared being labeled (correctly) as foreign agents under FARA. Today however, as israel loses the world amidst its ongoing genocide, it seems willing to take on more risk.

Larry Ellison, who Trump just gifted TikTok to, had previously ensured that Rubio was ‘loyal enough’ to Israel before backing his political ambitions in 2015 [17]. Paramount, run by Larry Ellison’s son David Ellison, recently paid $150 million to zionist mouthpiece Bari Weiss and put her in charge of CBS news. For a glimpse at her ‘journalistic integrity’ and ‘investigative skills’ check out this clip (another version with Jimmy Dore commentary). Perhaps in preparation for the impending failure of CBS news, Israel has not stopped there. The recently revealed ‘Esther Project’ pays some influencers ~$7,000 per post, which would require them to register under FARA[18] . As more Americans recognize that Christianity isn’t compatible with zionism, israel has plans to ramp up its presence in churches with ‘mobile museums’ and ‘geo-fencing’ (tracking your phone/digital fingerprint and targeting you with ads etc) [19].

Backing all of these narrative shaping efforts, Israel uses bots. Bamford highlighted Archimedes group and referenced a 2019 Times of Israel article in relation to israel’s use of bots. “The Israeli government official told The Times of Israel that 265 accounts is a drop in the bucket, and that there are probably tens of thousands of bogus accounts operated by numerous companies in Israel alone and millions of such accounts worldwide.” [20]. More recently israel was again caught using bots, this time bolstered by the use of ChatGPT, to target American members of Congress with pro-israel propaganda[21]. The use of bots is likely going to keep getting worse, in 2023 Al Jazeera estimated that over 50% of online activity came from various types of bots [22] (other estimates go as high as 64%).

The list of manipulation tactics goes on & on, if you want a timeline, gives a breakdown of various actions meant to subvert American’s through propaganda & legal manipulations in the below article. recently re-posted a series of articles on Israel’s manipulation as well.

GenXGirl Files

Israel's Coordinated Campaign to Propagandize Conservatives in America

This is a timeline of a sophisticated, well-funded and deliberately opaque influence operation conducted by Israel and its allies within the US to target conservatives. Polling data shows Israel has permanently lost the American left and they are losing the American right, particularly young conservatives. Israel’s campaign seeks to recast criticism of …

Read more

7 months ago · 8 likes · 1 comment · GenXGirl1994

Spying & Disrespect

Spying & intimidation is not solely focused on college kids and young professionals. While israeli agents like ‘Senator’ Ted Cruz pretend it’s all great and ‘friends and allies spy on each other’, Israeli espionage in the United States is extensive and shameful. Jonathan Pollard funneled secrets to israel and caused ‘significant damage’ to the United States[23]. He was sentenced to life in prison, eventually, advocates from israel successfully petitioned for his release [23]. Of course there is all the spying and theft described above as well. Bamford provided multiple quotes, a staffer stated “ no other country close to the United States continues to cross the line on espionage like the israelis do” [Bamford 166]. Scott Shane, a NYT reporter citing former counter-intel people stated “israeli espionage in America is behind only that of China & Russia” [Bamford 167]. Israel has been caught putting stingray devices near the Whitehouse[24]. These work by intercepting the cellphone signal, acting as a tower and allowing the interceptor to gain information. In 2001 there were over 100 israelis (posing often as ‘art students’) deported in connection with intelligence gathering on federal agents [25]. There are also reports that israelis utilized mall kiosks near military bases for intelligence gathering. While there was no official charges for espionage, multiple israelis have been charged, mostly for visa fraud [26].

The disrespect isn’t ‘just espionage’, Tucker Carlson reported that israelis were barging into pentagon briefings and making demands on our military. The hubris of this lesser, dependent state is reminiscent of a spoiled child speaking to a parent.

Corruption

AIPAC’s (and others) grip on American politicians has become increasing clear in recent years. Track AIPAC makes great information packed memes exposing the bribes politicians take. I wrote about these groups, their contributions & influence in ‘The Zionist Voter’. Above I mentioned how Rubio had to be ‘tested’ on his loyalty to israel. Former Congressman Matt Gaetz details the absolute blind obedience to israel that was expected and the “demoralizing’ nature of AIPAC fundraising events [27].

Bamford’s book goes into detail how these money laundering and ‘political contributions’ are set up. It is worth reading it for all the details but this excerpt gives you a good idea

While that covers a good deal of political and monetary corruption, the corruption spreads into a much darker area with Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein has well established connections with israeli intelligence, a plethora of evidence showing our government’s acknowledgment of his role as ‘intelligence’ and all the while nothing done to stop the child-exploiting pedophilia ring he had established to blackmail high profile celebrities & politicians. Check out (Darryl Cooper’s) interview Tucker Carlson here and his follow up with here.

The Martyr Made Substack

Epstein Deep Lore & More w/Ryan Dawson

Sorry for my poor audio. I got a fancy new mic and pre-amp, and apparently I don’t know how to set it up properly. I will get it fixed before the next time you’re forced to hear my voice through it. There is video, but I’m still working on it…

Listen now

9 months ago · 557 likes · 132 comments · Darryl Cooper

Attack on our rights

Historically, blowback from our policy of blindly supporting israel has prompted terror attacks here in the US. Our government, leveraging the fear and anger of the American people, in turn passed liberty destroying bills like the Patriot Act. The CATO institute described the Patriot act as “enabling the most sweeping federal surveillance powers ever” [28].

Under Trump’s “israel first’ policy, his state department has targeted students who protested against genocide, at least 75 of them were identified by the above mentioned israeli spy group ‘Canary Mission’ [29]. While Canary mission’s goal was always to intimidate, it now has government force behind it, at the expense of OUR right to free speech. There has been at least 6 resolutions on ‘anti-semitism’, the ‘antisemitism awareness act’ very clearly sought to curtail free speech in support of zionism & the ongoing genocide [30].

With ‘friends’ like these

There has been much speculation surrounding the assassination of Charlie Kirk. While it is really tempting to dive into the admittedly intriguing conspiracies I want to just point out the ‘kind of friend’ Israel & its supporters/donors are.

Kirk had long been a supporter of israel & zionism, so much so that he even had direct communication (via a letter) with Netanyahu [31]. However, there is evidence that he recently began to shift opinions, perhaps not ‘anti-israel’ just merely ‘not blindly pro-israel’, I’d like to think he recognized zionism’s incompatibility with his Christian faith, but more likely it was the pressure he faced in regards to how he ran his organization. It seems zionist demands of total obedience wore out Kirk’s loyalty. As per the recently exposed messages (below), Kirk was facing significant backlash and attempts to control who he invited to events. Kirk stated “Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes. I cannot and will not be bullied like this… Leaving me no choice but to leave the pro Israel cause”.

What is also interesting, is the fear Kirk had for simply speaking out. Harrison Smith of Infowars, alleges that Kirk feared ‘israel will kill him’ if he turned on them. Candace Owens claims that 3 individuals confirmed, ‘off the record’, that Charlie Kirk expressed “I think they are going to kill me”, she made no claims as to who ‘they’ were. As of now these claims haven’t been ‘verified’ on the record and as such we don’t have any context to the conversations. Candace made an appeal to the ‘sources’ to come forward.

I am not ‘investigating’ anything related to Kirk’s death here. I bring up these statements to show the kind of relationship he had with israel. Kirk, a ‘lifelong’ supporter of israel, seemed to believe that israel would physically harm him, even kill him, simply for ‘abandoning them’. If this were a marriage, where one spouse so clearly feared the other, it would immediately be recognized as dangerous & abusive.

Max Blumenthal has alleged that even US President Donald Trump ‘fears for his life’ and sees israel as a ‘major source of concern’. I haven’t seen others reporting this or substantiating it but it is worth noting the kinds of thoughts ‘friends of israel’ really have about israel.

Note:

I assume Netanyahu was aware, either before Kirks death or shortly thereafter, of Kirk’s changing opinions regarding israel. I think one statement of sympathy is appropriate, the fact that Netanyahu had multiple [a, b, c] comes off as an effort to cement Kirk’s reputation permanently as ‘pro-israel’ and to use his death to the political advantage of israel.

Political Costs

It is hard to quantify the real ‘political costs’ of our actions but there is certainly a cost. I mentioned at the start of this article, the Middle East’s generally favorable attitude towards the United States in the early 1900s. Today many citizens, if not their government view America with disdain. The Washington Institute conducted a study that revealed that most Arabs believe the West supports israel due to ‘the israel lobby’ & hatred of Muslims [32]. As a result of our blind support, Russia, China and Iran had significantly better reputations in relation to the ‘positive role’ in the Gaza genocide [32]. What this means is that although we can bribe and corrupt the ‘leaders’ of these countries, we are rapidly losing the people. If real democracy ever took hold in these nations (im sure a CIA nightmare scenario), our influence would crumble. A vacuum would not persist long, a nation with a favorable reputation like China, Russia or Iran would soon fill the void. There is still a chance to turn things around, ~40% believed the US COULD have a positive role if it chose to[32]. It is time to make that choice before the bribes stop working or the people revolt.

Conclusion

Israel is not “America’s greatest Ally” , its hard to classify it as an ally at all. For decades we have allowed israel to go unchecked and unrestrained. They spy on us, they intimidate and attack American influencers & American college kids, they blackmail us with nuclear war, they corrupt and blackmail our politicians, they sacrifice Americans & outright murder our servicemen. America has spent far too much by every measure on the unappreciative, subversive and genocidal state of israel. It is abundantly clear that the interests of israel do not align with the interests of the United States.

Ultimately, the only thing israel ‘provides us’ is unending wars. For our corrupt politicians running the War Racket, they may genuinely love israel for that, but is that the vision We The People have for the United States of America? Is that the nation we want to leave for future generations?

Leave a comment

Resources

• Horton, Scott. Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism. Auburn, AL: The Libertarian Institute, 2021.

• Bamford, James. SpyFail: Foreign Spies, Moles, Saboteurs, and the Collapse of America’s Counterintelligence. New York: Twelve, 2023.

• Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. New York: Random House, 1991.

1. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv12/d380

2. https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Bulletin_of_the_Atomic_Scientists-2013-Weiss-58-68_%281%29.pdf

3. https://archive.ph/ABnJf#selection-1029.0-1029.50

4. Phil Tourney

5. https://alcpress.org/mirrors/gtr5.com/Witnesses/tully.pdf

6. https://ameu.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/USS-Liberty.pdf

7. https://archive.ph/v0C9V#selection-893.150-893.250

8. https://www.marines.mil/Portals/1/Publications/US%20Marines%20In%20Lebanon%201982-1984%20PCN%2019000309800_1.pdf

9. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/sabra-and-shatila-massacre-40-years-on-explainer

10. https://time.com/archive/6715984/the-spy-who-spilled-the-beans/

11. https://ia904606.us.archive.org/8/items/911-dancing-israelis-information-pack/The%20Dancing%20Israelis%20-%20FBI%20Docs%20Shed%20Light%20on%20Apparent%20Mossad%20Foreknowledge%20of%20911%20Attacks%20--%20Whitney%20Webb_text.pdf

12. https://archive.ph/4gknY

13. https://archive.org/details/DancingIsraelisFBIReport/fbi%20report%20section%201/page/n135/mode/2up

14. https://archive.ph/4kj70#selection-547.190-547.255

15. https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1975531554513260991

16. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/4/29/editorial-bds/

17. dropsite news

18. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-influencers/

19. https://efile.fara.gov/docs/7653-Exhibit-AB-20250927-1.pdf

20. https://www.timesofisrael.com/archimedes-group-outed-by-facebook-for-election-fakery-works-from-holon-office/

21. https://archive.ph/3shBj

22. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/5/22/are-you-chatting-with-an-ai-powered-superbot

23. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jonathan-Pollard

24. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/12/israel-white-house-spying-devices-1491351

25. https://www.salon.com/2002/05/07/students/

26. https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-charges-10-israelis-in-illegal-network-of-mall-kiosks/

27. https://x.com/TimcastNews/status/1975731870664171774

28. https://www.cato.org/commentary/patriot-act-has-threatened-freedom-20-years?gad_campaignid=22458109145

29. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/09/pro-palestinian-deportation-documents-trial-00445238

30. https://www.thefire.org/get-involved/take-action/oppose-antisemitism-awareness-act-congress

31. https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirks-letter-to-netanyahu-revealed-read-in-full-10804835

32. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/united-states-rapidly-losing-arab-hearts-and-minds-through-gaza-war-while

Related Articles

Diligent Gear

Zionism is unAmerican

What we know

The Area

There were people initially apprehended in the area that were later cleared. The first was an older man, who is described as a ‘political agitator’ and seemed to be acting erratically[1] . Later a man was pictured with what is now reported to be a BB gun (this appeared to be a traffic stop).

The area itself is a security nightmare with many buildings opposite the speaking stage. The general consensus at this point is that the shooter was posted on top of one of these buildings (I believe confirmed as of publishing this). As per recent reports (including NY times), the shooter was not even 200 yards away, the building is ~430 feet from the ‘stage’, a mere 143 yards.

The weapon & the shot

An apparent leak of ATF feed (pictured below) claims a discarded .30-06 bolt action rifle was found nearby in the woods and that the weapon and/or ammunition had ‘transgender & anti-fascist ideology’ inscribed upon it. Photos that supposedly show the rifle reveal a mounted scope was used [2]. This is not a shot that requires ‘an expert sniper’ as many claim, if you browse the internet you will find plenty of people capable of this and far more impressive shots. There are also some angles that make it appear possible that this was a chest shot into cheap steel armor that traveled up into the neck. While I am not a ballistics expert, I didn’t see an exit wound and I would expect more damage from a direct hit from a .30-06 to the neck. I don’t have experience with steel armor but the ‘spalling’ issue is often talked about (the military uses ceramic plates). The danger of spalling is when fragments ‘move beyond’ the plate and cause secondary injuries [3], it is also possible (depending on the armor) for the bullet to change trajectory upon impact. I put a screenshot of ChatGPT’s answer to my ricochet question below .

The Escape

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this assassination was the shooter’s ability to get a weapon on site (I assume beforehand), return, take a shot, escape - with the rifle -, and flee undetected. Surveillance video shows him jumping from the roof and running off [4]. The thing I find odd is fleeing with the rifle, how do you do that without someone noticing? Where does someone go? The authorities have released images of the current suspect, I haven’t heard any news of mass transport sightings, so he drove/is driving somewhere?

I believe one critical aspect of his escape was the above mentioned ‘political agitator’, police may have thought ‘they got him’ and didn’t cordon off the area as rapidly or as widely as they should have. This was fortuitous for the shooter and an embarrassment for those on the scene right up to the director of the FBI.

(Recent news) The Shooter

As I was wrapping this up, news broke of the accused shooter being Tyler Robinson a 22 year old from Utah [6] who was reportedly convinced to turn himself in by his father.

Controversy & reactions

"If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech". — Noam Chomsky

It is important to remember, regardless of how you feel about the below topics or others, a father of 2 young kids was murdered for what he said. Some of the things he said may have been ‘wrong’, some of the propaganda he pushed was clearly wrong & directly aided evil, but it was still speech. In America, freedom of speech means the freedom to say vile things.

1A

“…a government organized around jailing, impoverishing, or silencing people based on ‘racism’ is what our enemies wanted.” — Charlie Kirk

Kirk has long been a proponent of free speech & may even be described as a ‘free speech absolutist’, to me that is the ONLY way to be an advocate of free speech. We have to tolerate the idiots & worse. Despite Kirk’s commitment to israel (discussed below) he was adamant that wielding government force against speech was not the path to take[5]. Regardless of how you feel about Kirk’s other positions, this one is commendable, especially as much of the right cheered Trump’s crack down on free speech.

2A

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." — Benjamin Franklin

Kirk was a proponent of the second Amendment and was fielding questions on it when he was murdered. Kirk once stated, “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment”, and now people are trying to use this as a ‘gotcha’. Kirk’s statement is simple acknowledgement of reality, people are violent, if we have guns, there will be people that use them illegally. Without going too deep on the Second Amendment, the point is that Charlie’s 2A stance is probably less “radical” than a lot of gun owners in America

Gaza

Charlie Kirk’s stance on and support of Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians is indefensible in my opinion. He isn’t just anyone who casually consumes cable news, he was a relatively young, intelligent man with access to information. Given his role as a ‘leader’ to many, I set my bar higher than the random internet troll. I expect ‘leaders’ to speak the truth, not just regurgitate propaganda. Still, Kirk’s stance on the Gaza genocide was ‘speech’, it was wrong & he was wrong for pushing israeli propaganda but it was speech. Despite his role, he truly did seem to have a cable news level understanding of the situation & until recently faithfully repeated talking points without question.

This, in my opinion is his most reprehensible of positions, yet it does not justify his murder. It justifies him being shown facts that refute his arguments in the very big & public forums he helped host. To Kirk’s credit, he gave Dave Smith the exact opportunity to do that and Dave delivered.

Following his death, there were many posts regarding his recent ‘doubts’ with the blank check support of israel. He complained to Megyn Kelly about how his character is called into question for anything not completely aligned with israel. He openly talked about Epstein’s ties to Mossad; He was vocally opposed to war with Iran. He mentioned ‘questions’ about October 7th and thought it may have been an ‘inside job’ to Netanyahu’s benefit. He even mentioned media lies in favor of israel & ethnic cleansing. Perhaps he truly was trying to be ‘America First’, given time maybe he would have come around. We will never know now.

Violence & Death

“I recognize the absolute evil of what the zionist forces are doing but I must ‘take no pleasure’ in their death. It’s not for them, it’s for me. It’s a small conscious step I take to guard my own humanity.” — Me, Guarding your Humanity

I don’t expect everyone to mourn Charlie’s death, that would be an absurd demand. I think it is normal to expect people to have empathy and sympathy for his family (and the family of anyone who loses a loved one). Perhaps even indifference is acceptable, but to cheer for the death of another human is not good for your soul. Even if you thought he was as ‘evil’ as they come, you shouldn’t cheer for his death. Remember this too when his murderer faces justice.

I warned in ‘To Save the Soul of America’ that we must collectively fix our moral compass, we cannot reconcile ‘apathy’ with overseas slaughter and the expectation of human decency here at home. We must reject violence abroad so that it horrifies us into action at home. If we see innocents being bombed, shot & starved, we must at MINIMUM ensure we have no part of it. If a woman is attacked on a train, people should rush to her aid, not shuffle to the next car. If a father is killed, support and empathy for the family should be the minimum.

The violence, and apathy towards it, are both a symptom of and a contributor to a growing mental health crisis in this country. We must recognize that suppressing the revulsion to violence because its ‘abroad’ does have an impact on us here at home. We must shift away from convoluted and dishonest policies of ‘good for America’, which have a high cost in blood and little if any benefit to America, to policies that are Good and value human life.

Leviathan

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” — Rahm Emanuel, Obama Chief of Staff

I encourage you to separate the idea of ‘government involvement’ with these violent acts & government seizing an ‘opportunity’. There will plenty of ‘odd’ things to examine and already a myriad of conspiracy theories. Whether or not the government or a government was involved I will leave to others, but make no mistake, every government will squeeze what it can out of this death. Never forget how our government used the collective good will of the people after 9/11 to usher in the Patriot act.

Despite our recent history and countless reasons to distrust our government, I have seen ongoing calls for ‘blank checks’ to government. People effectively, and sometimes knowingly cheer for tyranny in an effort to allay their fears or satisfy their thirst for revenge. The state will not ‘give you back your rights’, the state will not stay within the ‘narrow scope’ of ‘infringement authority’ you give it, do not let your emotions doom us & future generations.

In service (intentionally or not) of government tyranny, many ‘influencers’ online are declaring ‘we are at war’, implying a civil war between the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. Do not buy into these agitators, many are foreign and I doubt the local ones will be ‘in the trenches’ with you. They are seeking engagement, they will use your emotions to get payouts and head off to calmer seas. If people ‘answer the call’ and this escalates, the government will have all the excuse it needs.

There were many calls (and still are) for the government to ban trans people (doesn’t seem like this shooter was trans, just maybe terminally online) from owning firearms under the guise of ‘mental health’. I want to remind you that there was a period of time where the government used that same excuse (mental health) to strip Veterans of their rights[7]. Additionally, the government already views veterans as a ‘domestic terror’ threat [8]. Do not give the government the ability to arbitrarily infringe upon a person’s rights. No one should lose ANY rights without due process, mental health issues are not and should not be a blanket excuse to strip people of rights.

Summary

A man was murdered in the US because someone didn’t like his ideas. His murder left a family without a husband and father. Bad ideas are easily defeated with the truth, not with violence.

The indifference, or worse, celebration of death is a plague on our society. Whether it is the death of innocents in Gaza, or the death of a political pundit in the United States, violent needless death should be revolting to us all. If you find yourself justifying either, think about what that says about you, think about what you have allowed yourself to become and be better.

“Never repay evil with evil but let everyone see that you are interested only in the highest ideals. Do all you can to live at peace with everyone. Never try to get revenge; leave that my friends, to God’s anger As scripture says: vengeance is mine — I will pay them back, The Lord promises…” — Romans 12:17-20

Share

Leave a comment

Related Articles

Resources

1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15086691/Charlie-Kirk-dead-George-Zinn-arrested-shooting-UVU-Utah.html

2. https://archive.ph/3ngdo

3. https://www.highcomarmor.com/the-truth-about-spall-protection/#:~:text=WHY%20STEEL%20PLATES%20CREATE%20SPALLING,needs%20of%20the%20end%2Duser.

4. NBC youtube

5. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1912566643856937203

6. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/suspect-charlie-kirk-shooting-tyler-robinson-rcna230504

7. https://veterans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/the_veterans_2nd_amendment_protection_act_-_copy.pdf

8. https://archive.ph/GdAM0

Your Duty

"It is thy duty to order thy life well in every single act; and if every act does its duty, as far as is possible, be content; and no one is able to hinder thee so that each act shall not do its duty. But something external will stand in the way. Nothing will stand in the way of thy acting justly and soberly and considerately. " — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God” — Micah 6:8

Think on this and ask yourself, “What am I doing”? Is it enough that when you look back you won’t hang your head in shame? Is it enough so that when your children, grand children or Creator ask, you can answer without trepidation? THAT is what you must strive for. Do the good you can do. If you have a platform, use it to at the very least oppose genocide, if you can’t do that really think on what you are valuing. Whatever ‘small’ amount of Good you do DOES have an impact, it may be hard to see it on the world, but it has an impact on YOU and that is all that you are likely able to control.

Destroying their control

Theo Von’s heartfelt acknowledgment of the genocide is one of an increasing number of cracks in the zionist’s propaganda armor. In the face of such clear horror & evil, good honest people are speaking out, regardless of what consequences the zionist controlled propaganda apparatus may try to enact.

Ms. Rachel is being demonized by zionist controlled media for simply praying FOR CHILDREN’S SAFETY! “Stopantisemitism” a zionist propaganda group using ‘hate speech’ accusations to provide cover for israel’s crimes against Palestinians, literally described “this is a prayer for children in Gaza… Please stop hurting them” as “Hamas-like” [1]. The absurdity of this was apparently lost on the zionist agents NYPOST writers.

Note: if you want to read more on israeli intelligence-run (or “affiliated”) groups you should read Spy Fail from James Bamford.

When Douglass Murray went on Joe Rogan “to debate” comic & podcaster Dave Smith on the ‘war in Gaza’, he immediately began attacking Joe. Not because Joe did anything in that moment, but because, according to Murray, Joe (essentially) had too many ‘non-experts’ on. This scorched earth attack, rather than win anyone over revealed the truth to any honest witness, there is nothing defensible about what Israel is doing. Joe seems to speak with much more conviction now in regards to what israel is doing than he was before the ‘debate’. What lasting impact did Murray have? Only the enshrinement of “but have you ever beeeeeeeeen??” in the lexicon of all of us mocking the zionist’s propaganda.

“Leaders”

“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils…And it gives ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without Odium, sometimes even with popularity…” — George Washington, Farewell Address 1796 (I know I quote this a lot, it’s unfortunately very relevant)

While I can understand a ‘regular' citizen, being uninformed/ignorant of what is going on, ‘our leaders’ have no excuse. We should demand that our politicians truly put America first, that their default and unwavering position is that they are opposed to the slaughter of children and that they certainly won’t allow US taxpayer money to help assist such a slaughter.

There are very few who can check any of these boxes, Thomas Massie is the standard that we should hold all others to. If they aren’t as good as him they should be removed from office. Massie shines the light of truth on many of the lies and we have seen how violently the liars recoil from those truths. A surprise to me (perhaps my own bias, not sure) is Marjorie Taylor Greene recently has been making some pretty sensible statements (pictured below). Hopefully more follow suit, again the bar we are setting here is simply ‘don’t sacrifice our interests for a foreign nation’ or put another way, ‘don’t be treasonous’.

On the other side of the spectrum we have Jabba the Floridian Rep Randy Fine, who has called for literally nuking Gaza [2]. While many states have passed unconstitutional laws demanding ‘pledges’ for Israel, Gov Abbott of Texas recently took it to a new level. San Marcos, found that $4.4 of its taxes were going directly to Israel, in a proposed resolution, they recognized the absurd brutality of the israeli regime and the ‘basic First Amendment Rights’ of its citizens [3]. For ‘threatening’ to be decent human beings & for the crime of wanting to use their money to better than town instead of bombing children, Abbot threatened to cut the city off from state aid. His unAmerican, foreign loyalty is a disgrace and should render him ineligible for office (along with all the other traitors).

The Church

The day before his death Pope Francis used his Easter message to bring attention to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza & to call for peace [4] . He had previously (accurately) referred to israeli murdering innocent men woman and children as “terrorism” [5]. Additionally, he said in a call with israeli officials that it is “forbidden to respond to terror with terror”[6]. Notably, upon his death the israeli government shared, then deleted a post offering condolences [7], clearly they are no ‘friend’ to the church.

Pope Leo used his first general address to again call for peace & decency. “I renew my heartfelt appeal to allow the entrance of dignified humanitarian aid to Gaza and to put an end to the hostilities whose heartbreaking price is being paid by children, the elderly and sick people,”[8]. While I appreciate him continuing to draw attention to the issue, I hope he sheds all subtleties and calls them out forcefully.

There is no room for Zionism in Christianity. It is a thoroughly evil ideology which is now responsible for the slaughter of countless men, women & children. They are not content to do it alone, they seek to corrupt and pervert Good people throughout the world to their cause. If that is not the definition of evil that The Church is made to oppose, I don’t know what is.

On “protocol”

"The protocol is that American presidents and vice presidents do not bow before foreign leaders and do not kiss any rings. And obviously, given our history, you can appreciate that," — Vice President JD Vance

Fair enough, I can understand this, but once you take it out of isolation and look at the entirety of behavior, it becomes more absurd. First off, only the most miserable of people (who wont vote for him anyway) would claim a bow or even kissing the ring (which has even been recently discouraged by Popes) is professing subservience (in the political sense). Second, we have seen PLENTY of politicians, including Vance, openly show subservience to zionist leaders. It’s not a ring but that wall might as well be. To be clear my issue isn’t with Vance not kissing the ring, its with him being inconsistent on jumping through the hoops of other ‘foreign leaders’ but drawing the line here.

Having an effect

We can see in polls that Americans have now, finally shifted away from israel, less than half of Americans are ‘more sympathetic' to Israel [9]. According to a PEW poll, more than half of American adults express an unfavorable opinion of israel [10]. We aren’t Free yet, but we are finally (!) moving in the right direction.

While there never was a legitimate ‘voting block’ for zionists (see The Zionist Voter), it was always used as cover for outright corruption & evil. As polls continue to shift the cover this lie provides will shrink. I believe already the opposition (as expressed by MTG above) has led to our capitulation with Yemen. The United States did not win there and the American people made it clear we weren’t interested in more wars for Israel, especially as things got increasingly dangerous for our antiquated carrier groups.

Pressure is also increasing from Europe, a joint statement calling for “full resumption of aid into Gaza” was signed by over a dozen countries [11]. At the UN, 80 members signed a declaration stating “The protection of civilians is not optional. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, and a moral imperative we cannot afford to neglect," and that Gaza is facing the “worst Humanitarian Crisis”[12]. More European countries are warning of potential sanctions on israel & the UK put sanctions on settler organizations and suspended free trade talks with Israel [13].

Desperation

Netanyahu has become increasingly desperate to keep wars ongoing, even as Trump reportedly stated “We will abandon you if you do not end this war”[14]. I honestly doubt the authenticity of that statement , but I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump is beginning to feel the pressure of a population tired of israel’s wars. Newer reports claim that israel is planning to “unilaterally” attack Iran’s nuclear sites[15]. It is important to note that Israel cannot defeat Iran, the US who just effectively lost to Yemen ALSO cannot defeat Iran. This doesn’t matter to israel, they will gladly start a war to lure us in & have us fight & die for them, as long as it makes Iran just a bit weaker.

Violence & Hate

“ Never repay evil with evil but let everyone see that you are interested only in the highest ideals. Do all you can to live at peace with everyone. Never try to get revenge; leave that my friends, to God’s anger As scripture says: vengeance is mine — I will pay them back, The Lord promises…” — Romans 12:17-20

A couple months into the genocide I wrote ‘Guarding your Humanity’, in it I wrote about the dangers of filling ourselves with the same hate that has clearly taken over the zionists. I know what israel is doing is evil, there is NO question. The evils that gave birth to zionism have become its foundation. I know MANY, MANY israelis are complicit if not actively engaged in supporting it. I still see too many parallels in the murder of low level bureaucrats here in DC with how israel claims anyone with any ties to ‘government’ in Gaza “is Khhhhamas”.

I warned in that article how “antisemitism” (real & imagined) gives cover for our corrupt politicians to hide behind and that has not changed. Rodriguez, the gunman in this recent attack is the MVP of the zionist movement right now. As their narrative crumbled he gifted them this attack and they came out in force.

It is unclear if this attack was actually ‘anti-Semitic’, as in he shot these people for “being Jewish” (one of them wasn’t), or if it was a targeted attack due to their (low-level) role in the Israeli government. In his manifesto, he spoke only of Israel’s crimes & not ‘Jews’ so I (for now) assume this was a targeted attack.

Regardless of his motivations & ‘targeting process’ , “our” representatives who are almost entirely owned & operated by israel, will use this to ramp up the attack on our right to free speech. This attack didn’t ‘help’ any Palestinian, the story went from israel shooting at European diplomats [16] in Palestine and starving 14,000 babies to the risk of imminent death [17] to ‘two israelis shot and killed in attack’. Unsurprisingly the zionist controlled corporate media (like the NYpost mentioned above) ran it as the main story, israeli crimes were no where to be found.

Conclusion

"Remember that as it is a shame to be surprised if the fig-tree produces figs, so it is to be surprised if the world produces such and such things of which it is productive" — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

You should not be surprised that people fed decades of zionist propaganda don’t suddenly see how evil zionism is. Over the past 18 months many of us, like Theo, have had that feeling of helplessness as you look on in horror at what ‘our’ governments are doing. As an individual we are not capable of deciding what our fellow countrymen do, nor are we single handedly capable of deciding what our government does. All we can control is our own actions. If we all do our individual duty, we will erode & destroy the wall of propaganda that enables this (and other) evil.

“If, however, you do warn a wicked man to renounce his ways and repent, and he does not repent, then he shall die for his sin, but you yourself will have saved your life” — Ezekiel 33:

Share

Leave a comment

Shop Diligent-gear

Related Articles

Resources

1. https://nypost.com/2025/04/07/us-news/youtube-star-ms-rachel-should-be-probed-by-feds-for-posts-about-gaza-kids-antisemitism-group-says/

2. https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-urges-congress-to-condemn-rep-randy-fines-call-to-nuke-gaza-cites-escalating-pattern-of-genocidal-and-anti-american-rhetoric/

3. https://lrl.texas.gov/scanned/archive/2025/56885.pdf

4. https://abcnews.go.com/International/read-pope-francis-final-easter-address/story?id=121006377#:~:text=%22There%20can%20be%20no%20peace,2025%20in%20Vatican%20City%2C%20Vatican.

5. Pope Francis decried Israeli "terrorism" in Gaza (2023)

6. https://archive.ph/b0W5C

7. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-shares-then-deletes-condolences-over-popes-death-2025-04-22/#:~:text=JERUSALEM%2C%20April%2022%20(Reuters),of%20the%20war%20in%20Gaza.

8. https://apnews.com/article/vatican-pope-leo-gaza-aid-c5b3cf3e4c201c72a9e0f3c1ddf61c01

9. https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-toward-israelis.aspx

10. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/04/08/how-americans-view-israel-and-the-israel-hamas-war-at-the-start-of-trumps-second-term/

11. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/joint-donor-statement-humanitarian-aid-gaza%C2%A0_en

12. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-855202

13. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/20/uk-france-canada-warn-israel-of-sanctions-is-opinion-shifting-on-gaza

14. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-854628

15. https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/20/politics/intelligence-israel-possible-strike-iran-nuclear-facilities

16. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-diplomats-warning-shots-west-bank-jenin/

17. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/20/first-thing-un-says-14000-babies-could-die-in-gaza-in-next-48-hours-under-israeli-aid-blockade

A ‘quick’ search

When it was first released, I randomly clicked on some documents and it was a completely useless attempt. Eventually someone on X pointed me towards the Angleton files which are interesting. The ‘gold mine’ however was finding a searchable text file. I had thought of doing what this guy did but he beat me to it (thankfully, mine would have been messier I think!) ! To ensure accuracy, when i found something of interest I went and searched for the actual document and reviewed it.

The “CIA” did it!?

It is important to contextualize the files, for example, this isn’t the CIA officially taking the position stated, it is them collecting the information. That said, the stuff they collected, shared & didn’t share is pretty telling.

“Gary” Underhill was a former military intelligence analyst & a ‘not employee’ of the CIA[1]. Shortly after JFK’s assassination, he fled DC & told his friend that he feared for his life, claiming a rogue group in the CIA killed JFK.

Who at the CIA ?

Head of 'special projects' James Angleton. Generally ‘special projects’, at least at the time is reported to have focused on counter intelligence. If you look up ‘special activities’ of the CIA today however it conducts ‘direct action missions such as raids, ambushes, sabotage & targeted killings’ [wiki]. I wonder if its ‘roots’ are more in the open now that America is more ‘comfortable’ (or simply accustomed to) what the CIA does.

We see here that Angleton reported only to and directly to the director of the CIA, who, at the time of that report, was Allen Dulles. After the Bay of Pigs, Dulles was forced out of the CIA by JFK. It is worth noting some (i think it was Stone on Joe Rogan) theorize that special operator types that were stranded without air cover thanks to JFK were enraged by what they saw as betrayal and looking for vengeance. The other side of Angleton that is of note is his very close & secret ties to Israeli Intelligence, he specifically requested that these ties be hidden from other agencies, like the FBI who works counter-intelligence in the United States.

His method of circumventing all channels and only reporting to the director (Allen Dulles at the time) was also considered ‘unusual’. It is worth noting the ongoing and deep ties that Angleton had with israel. These ties went so deep that he allegedly worked to undermine our non-proliferation efforts in support of israel acquiring nuclear weapons [2] and his relationship continued well after his ‘retirement’.

More Depth to the Israel Relationship

I think one of the most interesting aspects of Angleton’s testimony was getting some clues to how his allegiance apparently shifted.

Angleton’s first ‘question’ in regards to Israel was what to do with Jews they had detained, release them or turn them over to the British, he chose to release them. His later testimony reveals a bit more of his thinking, there were “three million Jews in the Soviet Union. And the relationship is the only place where you do it with high level agencies who work for ideology and do not work for money”. To Angleton, Jews could be a tool to gain access into the USSR if only we support them. He also discussed how well this functioned.

While initially Angleton saw Jews/Israelis as a tool to be used, I believe his close & personal ties eventually overcame his loyalty to the United States, though perhaps not in HIS mind. He discussed how they ensured, whoever was ‘in charge’ KNEW how this ‘special relationship’ worked, even though they made sure not to write it down…

Later in his testimony, he seemed incapable of comprehending the idea that Israel’s & America’s interest are NOT the same. This thought process plagues many politicians today. Even as he talks about them finding loopholes to undermine our interests he seemingly excuses it because ‘we didn’t have any agreements with them’.

He discusses here an ‘agreement’ that they would work together against ‘soviet bloc intelligence & communism’ but not ‘against the Arabs’.

I think it is important to think of that ‘agreement’ and the False flag attack on the USS Liberty that occurred in 1967. It was a blatant and coordinated effort between Israel (who attacked our ship & killed our sailors) and LBJ et al who sent them there and abandoned them, to get America DIRECTLY involved in the war. We also see the blatant sharing of nuclear secrets below.

More on the theft of nuclear material

Here we have open admission by the FBI of their monitoring individuals who (we now know) had a direct hand in the smuggling of nuclear material to israel. This not only shows a dramatic shift from the JFK policy of wanting to ensure israel didn’t get nukes, to a new one where our intel agencies watch as they steal them (again read SpyFail if this is on particular interest to you). This is also a shift in Angleton’s agreement as nuclear armament is certainly ‘helping israel’ directly against ‘the Arabs’.

In Angleton’s testimony, he is asked several times about him and/or the CIA aiding israel in getting Nuclear weapons. It is important to note that today, officially, the US pretends Israel doesn’t have nukes because it would be a violation of US law for us to send them weapons “if” they did. This means at minimum, every transfer of arms to Israel since ~1975 has violated US & international law.

It is truly a shame that we don’t know what is ‘off the record’ here. He is asked again and he goes on meandering answers, a tactic used when trying to obfuscate the truth by avoiding an actual answer. Later, when someone tries to cut through his nonsense and asks AGAIN directly, they AGAIN go ‘off the record’ for his response. It is hard to ask for better evidence of our intel agencies’ complicity than what was in these files.

I really do think Angleton’s testimony was incredibly interesting and worth reading. The link for this 112 page interview is here, the below screenshots are all from his testimony.

CIA Motive

This video gives a good quick rundown on motives and theories related to JFK’s assassination. Essentially (and sorry for not dropping more sources here but should be easy to find), JFK pulled air support from the Bay of Pigs invasion at ‘the last minute’. This left a lot of the clandestine ‘operator’ types (think special forces, black ops etc) feeling betrayed, abandoned, angry & vengeful. JFK essentially blamed Dulles, then the CIA director & close associate of Angleton, for the failure. Dulles was fired along with many others.

Israel Motive

On the Israel side, JFK wanted to prevent Israel from getting nukes and wrote some ‘strongly worded letters’ to this effect. JFK also was reportedly planning to support a resolution demanding that displaced Palestinians be allowed to return to ‘israel’ (as is the norm under international law), the israelis saw this as more dangerous than all the military forces on their borders. JFK had also been quoted saying “Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away”[3]. Another, ‘fatal blow’ to the relationship was the insistence that the American Zionist Council (AZC) register as required under FARA [4].

Not helping the ‘israel had nothing to do with it’ case is the fact that previously the CIA had been comfortable releasing many files… as long as any mention of israel was redacted. Another file highlights specific interest in Jack “Ruby” Rubenstein’s travel to israel . The interest in Israel & the subsequent efforts to hide israel from releases begs the question of ‘why’?

Another file that began making rounds was actually part of a previous release but adds more weight to the belief that israeli intelligence had a part in assassinating JFK.

A file pertaining to “Alpha 66”, a Cuban resistance group, provides a really key piece of information coming from an article it contains. “Cuban Jews in exile…are furious” that while Jews can essentially break the law for israel, they cannot do so for Cuba. The question I asked myself after reading this is: were there ‘operators’ ‘betrayed’ at the Bay of Pigs, also loyal to israel with many motives to act?

To save ‘his’ relationship

Angleton mentions how he personally created, nurtured & grew this relationship. It seems if he had a ‘life’s work’ to that point it was the US-Israel relationship. His personal relationship with israel crossed boundaries & destroyed his loyalty to the United States. JFK’s policies would have DESTROYED his ‘special relationship’ with israel & israeli intelligence, it would have destroyed his life’s work.

If I am being charitable, I would make the case that Angleton saw the USSR as such a threat & israelis/Jews as such a useful tool, that he would sacrifice everything else to maintain the relationship. Regardless, to me it is clear that he valued his relationship with Israeli Intelligence more than anything else. Angleton literally quits when Colby tries to change the nature of this ‘relationship’.

That blacked out section is a bit hard to read so it is typed here: “I gradually endeavored to open up the Israeli account to a better relationship with our other near eastern activities. We debated this over many months and on several occasions. We could never really agree to it because he insisted on the importance of retaining it where it was. Mr. Angleton had done a very good job of establishing that liaison years ago and knew a lot of the senior israeli who were involved in it. I believe there was inadequate coordination in the Arab areas.”

Unsurprisingly, when Colby begins discussing the “special way the ‘israel account’ had been handled under Mr. Angleton”, the transcript is missing…

Silencers & white smoke

I thought it strange that this was in the files, I asked ChatGPT about ‘cream of wheat’ in ammo, it replied “Yes, Using cream of wheat as a filler in underlaoded ammunition can produce more distinct white puffs of smoke when shooting”, which is notable given the context of the above short documentary (screenshot below). Again, I wonder why THEY underline the piece about muzzle flashes.

In an interview (mentioned below) there is talk of ‘False flag’ operations, while not a ‘new’ idea at the time it was talked of in a way that seems it also wasn’t “well known”. The other interesting piece of information is that the CIA supplied ‘infiltrators’ with FN-Fal rifles (chambered in 7.62). This is made more interesting because of the lies around the ‘magic bullet’ and the ‘lone gunman’.

Assassination experience

More prevalent in the 2nd drop of information is the CIA’s ‘familiarity’ with assassinations.

I didn’t initially mention it, but another ‘hand’ in the murder of JFK was supposedly the mafia, which makes this section on John Roselli interesting. It directly ties the CIA to the mob for the purposes of carrying out assassinations.

This screenshot from Colby’s testimony shows again the discussions of and familiarity with assassinations. When he begins to talk about how the CIA would essentially hide the money for assassinations 6 pages of testimony go missing…

Another document, an interview with a Mr.Taylor, reveals a CIA connection directly to Oswald. George De Mohrenschildt (see previously released docs). Mr. Taylor noted how strange Oswald was and how strange De Mohrenschildt’s relationship with him was. This included providing Oswald with money & clothing.

We STILL don’t have all the info

Surprise!! Despite ‘what is available’ being provided ‘unredacted’, the files are not complete. I think its worth noting that Trump once reportedly said ‘If you saw what was in there you wouldn’t release it either’ and/or ‘it is so horrible you wouldn’t believe it’. NOTHING in these files rises to that level, so where are the rest of the files, what are they STILL hiding?

The first file below shows that they destroyed a ‘control file’ which consisted of copies of communications from Angleton. They state these are mere ‘copies’ and originals exist, but now that the control file is gone, there is literally no way to know. It is also worth mentioning again, Angleton’s close ties with israeli intelligence which is noted here as well.

In this file, I noticed gaps in the transcription as I was reading, I looked through to see if it was just copied out of order, but it was not. Large swaths of this document (maybe others, i didn’t really check) are missing. Initially I shrugged and moved on but the missing part here seems like it would cover some pertinent information. “Mr. Phillips” asserted that he wasn’t ‘comfortable’ with assassinating someone, but ok with ‘overthrowing’ them (in reference to his work in South America). Senator Schweiker began asking for some clarification on this ‘personal commitment line’ and we then lose 7 pages of the conversation. This occurs several more times with no indication (from these at least) as to why.

Additional examples

Angleton’s testimony, to me one of the most interesting documents I have found yet, ends in an ‘off the record’ discussion & I view that as the perfect summation of all of this ‘disclosure’.

Conclusion

This article is meant just as a quick overview & highlight of the recent file release and in no way a ‘definitive work’ on the JFK assassination. There are people who have put in WAY more time than me on this. I see a lot of people recommending Ryan Dawson and Roger Stone, both have done a lot of research on it and I assume are good sources (I’m assuming because honestly, I haven’t looked far into their work either).

I generally accept the theory that people in the CIA with unchecked power & the partnership of israeli intelligence (and perhaps others) assassinated JFK . There are too many ‘oddities’ to overlook. Oswald whether an actual ‘trigger puller’ or not, seems like the first ‘line of defense’ in the ‘false flag’ setup. The next line of defense was the FN-Fal’s fitted with silencers that were ‘given to Cubans’ that JFK “abandoned” at Bay of Pigs. At the time, the Oswald story of a ‘lone gunman’ with a ‘magic bullet’ held well enough that they committed to it. Now they are stuck with it, even as it crumbles & convinces only the most uninformed.

The clear motive of israel & the effort taken to obfuscate the connections to israeli intelligence set off the ‘alarm bells’ of many people. I think the actions that follow JFK’s assassination truly incriminate israeli intelligence. Reading through SpyFail, you can see how the entire intelligence apparatus ‘looks away’ as israel stole secrets & even key material for building nuclear bombs. Perhaps it started as LBJ ‘returning the favor’, perhaps it was rogue groups drunk on power after killing a President. The question I have now is why do we allow it to continue today? Who is truly running things if our President’s cannot put OUR interests first?

As for the ‘truth’ behind JFK’s assassination, I don’t think our government intends to give us any more information & I didn’t see any ‘big reveal’. I think they leaked enough for those that put in time to come to ‘close enough’ conclusions while ensuring the shadowy agencies responsible don’t get too worked up & can keep doing what they want to do.

Twitter thread where i’ll add more as i come across it (if it reaches a certain threshold ill again update this article)

Notes:

1. There was a second file drop that I initially missed I did a similar ‘quick scan and incorporated interesting files into the article on 3/21/2025

2. There was a 3rd drop on 3/21/2025, I have not yet read these, I will try to and again add what i find relevant.

3. This is NOT an exhaustive project. I am using using python & google gemini to take the non-searchable PDFs and turn them into text so i can look through ‘quickly’ for things of interest, the script sometimes truncates the text, meaning i probably missed some stuff. Really interesting stuff, like Angleton’s testimony I read through the entire PDF.

Leave a comment

Shop Diligent Gear

Additional interesting files

There were some other files that were of random interest that I didn’t think quite fit into the overall article above, but are still worth a glance.

The formation of the idea that would become USAID:

There were at least two instances where ‘sources’ had the belief that Israel had a hand in killing JFK. I think its worth noting that the idea was out there at the time and I think it helps build the case, but I don’t consider this a ‘smoking gun’.

Mention of Rothschild Palace in Paris:

Related Articles

Resources

1. https://www.newsweek.com/cia-responsible-jfk-assassination-garry-underhill-2047111

2. https://mondoweiss.net/2017/11/golem-angleton-israel/

3. https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkpof-135-001#?image_identifier=JFKPOF-135-001-p0002

4. https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/from-dallas-to-gaza

Disclosure: The book links in this article are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Free Political Prisoners

This must happen day one. There really is no excuse for it not to be done with the utmost speed, what may be an inconvenience to Trump is more time that these people do not get to live their lives. I also view the speed with which he acts here as an indicator of what is to come, slow means he will be bogged down again like his first term. Day one, shows to me that he has at least learned something!

Trump already promised to free Ross Ulbricht, this is ‘easy’ and requires no political capital. Those that were ‘made an example of’ from January 6 should also be freed, meaning those that didn’t have clear mal-intent. Trespassing should not result in jail time, I place no ‘special value’ on government buildings. Pardoning January 6ers will come with a lot of ‘bad press’ in the corporate media and from the left.

Edward Snowden did a service to the American people by revealing the evil & unlawful spying that is being conducted by our own government and should be pardoned. By picking Tulsi Gabbard to lead intelligence & with Gaetz leading the DOJ, the odds of this became MUCH better[1]. Hopefully they also pardon Julian Assange, he is free from prison but only by pleading guilty. In the spirit of free speech he should also receive a pardon.

End the wars

Ukraine

Trump has already been floating a more ‘realistic’ peace deal. Not much has been published but the message was to ‘focus on peace & not territory’ [2]. This, as I have argued on X, has been the reality for some time. In my opinion the only chance for Ukraine to maintain territorial integrity was after they pushed back the initial Russian offensive but before their own disastrous ‘counter-offensive’. People can and will argue the details of the 2022 peace deal made it a ‘no-go’[3] , I would argue that we are likely to see something similar or worse due to Ukrainian military failures, the difference is the amount of lives lost since 2022. By rejecting peace and revealing growing weakness in their (and the West’s) military failures, we have provided Russia with a stronger negotiating standpoint.

The strongest offer Trump can make, really the only way I see to restore Ukrainian territory is to have the US completely withdraw from NATO . Trump has floated the idea before and even though the establishment tried to set up barriers, there are potential ways out of the agreement. Primarily, the Presidential authority over foreign policy [4].

It should also be noted that as I am writing this, Biden/Harris approved the use of US weapons to strike within Russia. This is another dangerous escalation with little to no strategic value. I see this, much like I describe israeli escalations, as an attempt to ‘lock in’ a wider war before Trump takes office.

Gaza Genocide

Make no mistake, I am in no way delusional. I know America is not suddenly going to become ‘pro-Palestine’ nor do I think we will outright abandon Israel (despite what I WISH would happen). I think that the reality demands we find peace, I have written several times about the damage we are doing to our nation on the behalf of Israel and the longer it goes on the worse it will get. We quite literally gain nothing from our support of Israel, other than manufactured enemies for the Military Industrial Complex to earn money from.

Netanyahu et al, despite their complete reliance on the United States have taken advantage of Biden/Harris being the weakest American leaders we have had, perhaps ever. Despite shifting ‘red lines’ and fake calls for peace, Netanyahu has aggressively sought to drag the US into a war with both Hezbollah & Iran. Israel is now in a precarious position. Despite the huge death toll and destruction the zionists inflict on Gaza, they are failing to achieve their mission in Gaza. The combat in Lebanon is going as poorly as it was predicted to and israel is facing growing internal pressure as a result. Read “Double or nothing” for more details on the military situation.

What this reality provides Trump is an ‘Israel first’ message for peace. It legitimately IS in Israel’s best interest to end the war (just not in Netanyahu’s interest). Without peace the zionist state will continue to deteriorate at an increasingly rapid rate, even the zionists in ‘israel’ acknowledge this fact[5]. If Trump truly wants a lasting peace it must come with a two-state solution, that is the reality on the ground, that is what the entire world supports & that is what most Americans support[6]. This is a goal that Presidents have failed since we created the zionist entity, yet if Trump puts America First he can get it done and would be remembered fondly for it.

I want to emphasize, we CANNOT claim to be ‘America First’ while supporting zionism, we gain NOTHING and it costs us everything. I write in detail here, in “American Victory” what we must strive for. In short, American victory is the preservation of AMERICAN lives, liberty & property.

No new wars

Read “America’s Waning Power” & “A Wider War: Supply Chain & Restraint” to get an idea of the strategic risks & the supply shortages the US is facing. Trump also admits our current weakness here. Quite literally we cannot fight these wars. That includes the ongoing Ukraine war & our support of the Gaza Genocide. For a short exercise, think about the situation around Yemen. The United States Navy is incapable of stopping Yemen from striking ships & Yemen is even launching advanced hypersonic missiles into Tel-Aviv[7]. The mission has been described as ‘the most intense fighting since WW2’[8] , Yemen does not even have a ‘real’ Navy. The carrier we use as the foundation for our force projection is antiquated and will become an increasing liability as missile & drone technology proliferates and advances further.

Iran

Even if we were not facing supply issues, Hezbollah & Iran are both much more formidable than other state & non-state actors we have faced in the past. Hezbollah provides Iran with ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ despite the (current) lack of nuclear weapons. Iran itself has been preparing for decades and has a border comprised of mountain ranges. Iran poses a MUCH greater challenge than Iraq and Afghanistan. A war with Iran would be catastrophic and would likely put a swift end to our crumbling empire and our hegemony.

China

We have interests in other parts of the world that ARE critical to our dominance, namely, the chip industry in Taiwan. As we smash ourselves against the rocks in Eastern Europe & the Middle East, China is sitting back, watching and growing in strength. While I do not believe there is an ‘imminent threat’ of a Taiwan invasion, our haphazard and ill-advised endeavors throughout the world are providing them with a better opportunity each day. China recently laid out red lines and expectations to Biden during their recent meeting [9]. In doing so China is reinforcing all the arguments I made above. We must not continue on this path or we will risk being in such a weakened state that Chinese leadership see no other option but to directly counter our influence.

NATO

As I wrote above, NATO is our largest bargaining chip in securing peace with Russia. In the supply chain article above, I mention how weak most NATO nations really are. Turkey, the second most powerful military in NATO has become closer and closer with Russia in recent years and our ongoing support of Israel’s genocide is pushing them further and further away from us. In reality I think NATO is a hollow organization, using it as a bargaining chip for peace in Ukraine would probably be the best thing NATO has ever accomplished.

Pulling out of NATO would not only serve as a token of peace to Russia but as a token of sincerity to the millions of Americans who want to put America First. While our support of israel is more costly to the ‘America First’ movement, NATO has the potential to take the lead if it pushes us to a hot war with Russia. Withdraw from NATO the day after we tell the zionists to fund & fight their own wars.

Mixed signals

Elon musk supposedly met with Iran’s ambassador to discuss ‘easing tensions’, according to the NYT the meeting was “positive” (as per anonymous Iranians) [10]. Assuming this is happening at the behest of Trump and is reflective of his intent on foreign policy, it is a good sign.

Today Israeli media is reporting that Trump plans to escalate arms shipments to Israel. Not only does this further deplete our supplies, it would push us closer to a war with Iran and Hezbollah and as we weaken ourselves in that losing fight, we incentivize others (China, Russia etc) to make moves against our interests elsewhere.

I haven’t seen anything from Trump explicitly confirming this, though given his appointments I wouldn’t be shocked. He could think this is ‘showing strength’, while he tries to negotiate peace via Musk. I also wouldn’t be at all surprised if our “greatest ally” was trying to sabotage peace efforts that Musk allegedly embarked on today.

Border & immigration

When asked about a ‘grace period’ for illegals Tom Homan (Trump’s newly appointed “border czar”) replied : “Criminals and gang members get no grace period… While we're out prioritizing the public safety threats and national security threats, if you wanna self-deport, you should self-deport because, again, we know who you are, and we're gonna come and find you."[11].

Honestly each of these sub-sections could probably be their own article. Immigration, the causes , the laws, the impacts, the individual cases are very complex and deserve a lot of time. This is really just scratching the surface of the topic.

Securing the Border

I think this is THE MOST IMPORTANT step. I get into other ‘promises’ here but some of them, like ‘public benefits’ have at least some ‘difficult cases’ (I’m thinking the family that has been here for 10 years etc). The best way to solve those complex issues is to ensure people cannot get into the country illegally.

Trump vowed to end ‘migrant flights’, to end ‘catch and release’ and to end sanctuary cities [12]. For sanctuary cities, this will likely be a function of withholding federal funds. I haven’t seen much of anything related to a ‘wall’ this time around, except from former candidate Harris[13].

Migrant flights have accounted for the entry of more than 400,000 ‘inadmissible aliens’ into the United States [14], this is also the often referenced ‘parole’ that is being granted. CHNV as the program is also called allows for up to “30,000 noncitizens per month” to travel to the US and be paroled for “up to two years for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit” [15]. The criteria listed is below

Catch & release was apparently an issue under Trump’s last term as well. In 2018 his office pointed to “statutory and judicial obstacles” that “encourage illegal immigration”[16]. One of the arguments against reversing catch and release is the economic cost, which was (in FY2019) $124 per individual per day in adult detention and $319 per individual per day in ‘family’ detention[17]. Presumably this would be mitigated by immediate deportation (which has its own associated costs & challenges).

Cartels & Black Markets

Trump committed to ‘going to war against the cartels’ [18], this expansion of the war on drugs could potentially exacerbate the immigration problem. Many of the people fleeing from nations south of us are fleeing drug cartel related violence. These cartels are in power and have a market specifically BECAUSE of our war on drugs. We stripped the power of the local governments to benefit from the drug trade and pushed it into the black market. IF, a huge IF, Trump is successful in breaking up cartels (to say I have doubts is an understatement) then this could alleviate some immigration pressure.

Birthright Citizenship

“As part of my plan to secure the border, on Day One of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” — Donald Trump Agenda 47

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” — Section 1 , 14th Amendment, US Constitution

Trump reiterates that at least one parent will have to be a citizen in order for their child to be granted citizenship. I’m not a lawyer, but this just seems completely contradictory to the 14th Amendment. Trump tries to say its ‘interpreted wrong’ primarily (i think) due to the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” [19].

Essentially what Trump is actually promising is to sign an executive order that triggers a Supreme Court review/clarification of the 14th Amendment. This factcheck article has more details and would be worth reading if this is an important issue to you.

Welfare for illegals

According to a report from the house oversight committee illegal immigrants receive about $42 billion from various welfare programs [20]. One of the things specified by Trump was making illegals ineligible for public housing. This seems to stem from a ‘COVID era’ rule change that removed the need to show proper documentation before receiving benefits. Under the new rule, they had 180 days to do so[21]. There was a report from Heritage claiming that ICE is allocating $2.5 billion to house illegals, another report by AP claims this is unfounded. Generally speaking, most Americans (Democrat & Republican) do not believe immigrants should have access to public assistance[23].

The above mention House oversight report states that before the recent surge in illegal immigration, there were ~4 million ‘illegal immigrant’ students in public schools costing ~$68.1 billion dollars per year (at the time, based on the national average cost per student). The schooling issue was apparently decided previous in Plyer v Doe where the Supreme Court ruled that ‘undocumented immigrants’ can attend public schools essentially due to the equal protection clause. If they are going to remain here, then schooling them isn’t the worst idea in terms of our own self interests. Without it, the likelihood that they turn to violence & crime would increase significantly [24]. The question then becomes, how much negative impact are these added students going to have on those who live in & pay taxes to the school district.

Trump’s full video on ‘welfare for illegals’ is here.

Deportation

“We will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” — Donald Trump

Tom Homan stated in a 60 minutes interview that its not going to be ‘sweeps & concentration camps’, it will be ‘targeted arrests’ [25]. That same 60 minutes interview shows clips of Stephen Miller claiming it will likely use the national guard and have large ‘staging grounds’ where ‘planes are waiting’ to deport the illegal immigrants. When asked, Tom states its just ‘work site enforcement’ which is ‘necessary’. Trump states he would invoke the ‘alien enemies act of 1798’ [12]. Which may be legally supported by his ‘war against cartels’ mentioned earlier. This article, from the Brennan Center, dives into the ‘alien enemies act’ and how it could be used/fought against if you are interested in reading more about it

Tom stated his ‘first’ targets would be national security or public safety threats (criminals, terrorists etc) but would not limit enforcement to that group. 60 minutes shows an arrest operation , in it the target, who was previously convicted of assault and ‘ordered deported’ was arrested. The driver, also illegal but not a violent criminal, was let go. The video is pretty interesting, I didn’t have time to validate the cost & money claims made in the video. Personally, I think Tom sounds like a bureaucrat with power that believes in everything he is doing, I don’t consider that a ‘good’ trait.

The logistics, manpower and cost requirements here seem to be the major barrier. I am not sure what methods Trump can carry out unilaterally, but given the popular support for ‘tackling immigration’ he may be able to get funding from Congress. It will likely be easier to secure if he specifically targets the ‘criminals’ and other ‘threats’ specifically. As Tom Homan said, they are the ‘first’ target group. I don’t think they will get near the ‘second group’ in the next four years. I also don’t think most Americans want to go after the more complex cases with families, homes, jobs etc.

Taxes

While campaigning Trump promises to cut or end multiple forms of taxes including taxes on tips, overtime, social security [26] and he even floated replacing the income tax with tariffs while on the Joe Rogan Experience.

The best solution for all Americans is to eliminate the income tax which was enacted by America’s worst President Woodrow Wilson. Trump could likely take unilateral actions such as ‘delaying’ withdrawal of taxes, or reallocating staff/resources away from tax collection. In terms of legal challenges, the NYT states “Tax scholars and some of Mr. Trump’s advisers have said that it would be difficult for a party to claim that they were harmed by a move that saves them money, even if it costs the federal government revenue”[27]. Trump can get an easy win with the American people, rather than have IRS agents ‘idle’ he can lay them off or reassign them to useful departments. Remember, 100% of the time, you will spend YOUR hard earned money in better ways than the government.

Education

Accreditation

Trumps, long named video describes how he will ‘fix’ colleges. The first rant about ‘jihadist’ support is absurd , but the rest isn’t. I actually posted about ending the current accreditation system here. Prior to seeing this video. The fact still stands that the “American Academy” is redundant and can be fulfilled by the private sector as it is being done now.

End the Department of Education

Turns out this was just a rhetoric. A video I saw today, not sure when it was released, shows Trump detailing how he would USE the department of education. I wasn’t told we’d have a department of education ‘for good purposes’ , I was told we would abolish this ineffective and immoral government agency. While this would have been difficult to achieve, if you are going to ‘throw in the towel’ before you even take office, you shouldn’t campaign on it. This seems like another loss on the promises of candidate Trump.

Universal School Choice

The next best thing to abolishing the DOE, is ensuring that parents can help their kids escape government run schools, that means school choice. The concept of school choice means that the funding, your tax dollars, will follow the student regardless of where they attend school. If you want them in a religious school, or private school, the funds will go with them there. This creates competition, a much needed motivator for government schools that often face none.

At a glance, I don’t think, Trump can mandate where state funding is allocated, but he can at the very least divert the federal funding. We can see that most funding comes from the states themselves [28]. He mentions using 529 plans here to help homeschoolers, but 529 plans (as far as I know) are only exempt from state tax, not Federal. Making them a federal income tax write-off as well would help.

Some highlights from his policy

Trumps policy page details more on his stance on education and ‘related’ things. If really interested, I recommend reading through it entirely, this is just what caught my attention.

• “President Trump will also make clear that Title Nine prohibits men from participating in women’s sports.”

• “President Trump will ask Congress to pass a bill”

  • I feel like this is just saying ‘it isn’t gonna happen but look how cool I am’

• direct election of school principals

  • for what term? is this annual? seems a bit messy not sure how that would work, but I guess ‘support’ it is another ‘look at me’ tactic

• Funding preferences for states and districts that abolish teacher tenure

  • This is interesting and could be the ‘lever’ used by Trump on other issues

• “When troubled youth are out of control, the consequences must be “swift, certain, and strong.”

  • I understand who Trump thinks this is aimed at but the reality is that it can be used against ANY student whom the administration does not like.

• “President Trump will support school districts that allow highly trained teachers to carry concealed weapons at school, which will greatly reduce the threat of school shootings.”

  • This is good, but completely ending the ‘gun free’ school zone act of ~1990 would be great and completely end this disastrous era of advertised soft targets

• “To further harden our schools against harm from outside intruders, President Trump will support federal funding to hire veterans, retired police officers, and other trained gunowners as armed guards in our nation’s schools—a measure that will help deter unhinged maniacs and keep our nation’s children out of harm’s way.”

  • This is cool too, I’d do it as a side job for little to no pay if they give me an office to do my FT (I work remote) job, ill just pop out if there is an active shooter. Many others would likely feel the same. Toss in a badge so we can hassle free own fully autos and some range access and a bunch of us will probably pay you to hire us!

Department of Government Efficiency

“Very simply, this meant that if Congress provided more funding than was needed to run the government, the President could refuse to waste the extra funds, and instead return the money to the general treasury and maybe even lower your taxes…” — Donald Trump Agenda47

Trump goes on to state he will challenge the impoundment control act to ‘squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy’. Trump states he will order federal agencies to report areas where they can make cuts. Notably he excludes defense, Medicare & social security. He states impoundment can be used to “starve the warmongers” who “love killing”.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is to be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Vivek was my pick for President this election cycle, his policies were consistently in line with my own beliefs on most, if not all major policies. He was against further supporting israel (he framed it as a very ‘pro-Israel’ stance). Most relevant, he was the only one that actually had a PLAN to cut the size of government. While campaigning he asserted that his target was 75% and that 50% could be done in the first year[29]. Musk is a successful businessman & has experience making drastic cuts (see his takeover of Twitter).

Trump’s video gave some contradictory information, he asserts defense will not be cut, but that he will ‘starve the warmongers’. To do that, you need to cut defense spending. Start with the carrier! DOGE can do a lot of good just with the domestic side of the house, but for real beneficial change to America and to really ‘Smash the Racket’ we need cuts in “defense” spending. It is a scary topic when people see this brought up but know that we can defend our nation for MUCH cheaper if we stop fighting wars all over the world on behalf of foreign nations. I cover this more here.

update: Vivek & Musk published this regarding DOGE

Bitcoin

“Republicans will end Democrats’ unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown and oppose the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency. We will defend the right to mine Bitcoin, and ensure every American has the right to self-custody of their Digital Assets, and transact free from Government Surveillance and Control.” — RNC Platform [30]

The above is the only time Bitcoin is mentioned in the RNC platform. It covers many of the promises he made during Trump’s speech at the at the Bitcoin 2024 conference. He has also committed to “support” nuclear energy production [31] which would be a huge boon to the bitcoin mining industry, along with benefiting other industries and individuals.

Trump also pledged to establish a Bitcoin advisory council. There are plenty of industry leaders available here in the states to help establish ‘transparent regulatory guidance’ created by people that want to see ‘your industry thrive’. I think speculating won’t add too much value. I could have sworn I saw a tweet from Jason P. Lowery though…

Perhaps the most ‘buzz’ creating promise was that of Creation of a Strategic Bitcoin reserve using the Bitcoin the government has already seized, 213,246 Bitcoin [32] . While this is a great ‘starting point’ Senator Lummis’ “Bitcoin Act of 2024” lays out a clearer vision of how this could take place. In her bill [33] she calls for purchasing up to 200,000 bitcoin per year for 5 years to get a total of 1 million bitcoin. For some context, MARA owns ~25,000 Bitcoin, China owns 190,000 Bitcoin[32] and Micro Strategy owns ~252,200 Bitcoin and plans to purchase an additional 42 Billion dollars worth [34]. It is estimated that ‘Satoshi’ owns up to 1.1 million [35].

I wrote in ‘Americas Waning Power’ how we are destroying ourselves with money-printing induced inflation, debt and (many) other ways. I argued there how Bitcoin is a clear alternative to many including the BRICS nations. It has become clear that America must prepare itself for a world where the dollar is NOT the reserve currency. A Bitcoin reserve serves as a ‘fallback plan’ even if those setting it up don’t want to ever need to use it.

Use this link to easily reach out to your representatives and let them know that you want THEM to support senator Lummis’ bill. I sincerely believe this is a net good for America, regardless of any political differences we may have. You simply put in your info and it sends a ‘letter’ on your behalf.

Note: Late in the writing of this article, news broke that Trump is in talks to purchase an exchange (where you can buy/sell bitcoin). I think this is the strongest signal yet that he does intend to move forward with the SBR. Likely trying to capitalize off of his fans purchasing Bitcoin and potentially distributing USGOV purchases across ‘all US exchanges’ or something similar.

Learn about Bitcoin

If looking to learn more about Bitcoin Saifedean Ammous’ “The Bitcoin Standard” is a great starting point. I also highly recommend Nik Bhatia’s “Layered Money”. Saylor.org offers a specialization made by the two writers above & other leaders in the field.

Bitcoin Veterans is a fantastic resource with written material, a weekly podcast & a daily (M-F, 10AM EST) X space where you can join the conversation (I frequently am there speaking as well!).

The 1st Amendment

Trump announces plan to ‘shatter left wing censorship regime’ [36]. I like a LOT of this. The 7 year ‘cooling off period’ to end the revolving door between intel and big tech is great. The only caution flag that I want to wave is related to ‘terrorism’, he includes the ability to take down illegal content “promoting terrorism”. I’m sure many of you have noticed, our government basically uses the ‘terrorist’ label for any nation we plan to bomb. This could be used to censor any anti-war speech. We have seen how our government views our own veterans as a ‘terrorist threat’ [37]. The fact is the government cannot be trusted to make this decision. If it were only direct calls to violence, I think it’d be ok, but anything more than that gives our government, that deserves NO trust, too much power. He does mention a ‘court order’ requirement to take down content, but I think if anything, we should have at least a LITTLE doubt in the fairness of our judicial system at this point.

While that video was great, other clips show Trump repeatedly attacking the first amendment. He vows to cancel visas for anyone protesting israel & to ban anyone who isn’t pro-israel from the country[38]. This is a blatant attack on the right to free speech. Trump is misinformed or outright lies about the levels of support for israel in the US and exaggerates or fabricates ‘anti-semitism’ in the United States. Our right to free speech includes the right to criticize our own government and it CERTAINLY means we can say anything we want about israel and the evil it brings to the world.

2nd Amendment

"Unfortunately, Donald Trump had bad advisers making him bad on the Second Amendment, and that is my issue." — Kyle Rittenhouse

Kyle Rittenhouse rightfully stated that Trump was bad on the 2nd amendment. When Trump took office the first time, he had the house and senate yet passed no favorable legislation. In fact, Trump was quoted in support of un-Constitutional red flag laws ‘Take the guns first, go through due process second”[39]. Additionally, Trump pushed through another un-Constitutional ban against bump stocks, luckily that has been overturned by the Supreme court [40]. In terms of the 2nd Amendment, the only area Trump ‘did good’ seems to be his Supreme (and lower) Court picks, as evidenced by the bump stock outcome.

Personally, I believe Trump owes the American people a lot. He apparently made assurances to re-earn Rittenhouse’s vote. Trump should enact concealed carry reciprocity so that law abiding citizens do not have to fear prosecution for exercising their rights across state lines [41]. Luckily for him, America’s best Congressman, Thomas Massie has already supplied the bill for him. The next thing should be repealing the NFA, which also has a bill in congress already.

If Trump manages to pass reciprocity, repeal the NFA, and appoint pro-gun Judges he would be remembered as the most pro-2A president since the ones who wrote it.

Template:

Republican Representative

Hello,

Thomas Massie (R-KY) has introduced the National Constitutional Carry act that will help protect the rights of your constituents. This will ensure that law abiding citizens do not have to fear prosecution for merely crossing state lines while exercising their second Amendment rights. Additionally, Eric Burlison (R-MO) proposed ‘Repeal the NFA Act’ which similarly protects American’s second Amendment rights from an overzealous and often Constitution breaching federal agency. As you are a Republican the expectation from those who re-elected you would be that you would adamantly support this bill and do all you can to get it passed.

https://massie.house.gov/uploadedfiles/national_constitutional_carry_act.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/450

Democrat Representative

Thomas Massie (R-KY) has introduced the National Constitutional Carry act that will help protect the rights of your constituents. Additionally, Eric Burlison (R-MO) proposed ‘Repeal the NFA Act’ which similarly protects American’s second Amendment rights from an overzealous and often Constitution breaching federal agency. During these uncertain and scary times, I think it is more important than ever that we secure our second amendment rights . I ask that you would adamantly support this bill and do all you can to get it passed. Thank you for helping us stay safe & securing liberty

https://massie.house.gov/uploadedfiles/national_constitutional_carry_act.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/450

Shop Diligent Gear

Cabinet & Other Key Positions

What seemed like a good sign and an early win for the anti-war movement has fallen apart quicker than I can write this article. As the nation celebrated Trump ‘pre-firing’ Mike Pompeo & Nikki Haley, they were soon hit in the face with a wave of terrible appointments. There is a lot to write about here and each time I think I’m done another gets released, so instead of bolting that onto our expectations of Trump, I will write an additional article on his cabinet. In short, it looks like he sold the foreign policy positions for $100 million to Miriam Adelson. All have been pro-israel war hawks which does not bode well for the peace we were promised. Domestically, its not GREAT but there are some good ones with potential. The details will be in a subsequent article.

Conclusion

Trump promised a LOT of big things, a lot of it I am a fan of too, but I want to see results, talk is cheap! We saw stark differences between 2016 candidate Trump and what we got as President. I truly hope it was due to ignorance and inexperience and we get something better this time around. I think that we will know pretty early on what kind of administration this is going to be. If he starts off slow I doubt anything will really happen, he will get bogged down in the bureaucracy he was elected to destroy.

As mentioned, Trumps cabinet is full of ‘israel first’ “Americans” that will sacrifice our interests for israel. We cannot fix this nation if we are dragged into more wars on behalf of a genocidal ethno-state. The blowback for our continued blind support will not be isolated to non-state actors. Nations can take actions, not necessarily violent ones, to undermine our power and influence around the world. The growing BRICS movement and China directly laying out clear ‘red-lines’ are examples of this shift.

IF, and this is a big if, Trump’s domestic appointees & actions actually fix what is wrong with this country, or some of it even, it will severely hamper the war machine’s ability to wage unending war. While a smaller, more efficient government will make America MUCH stronger, it will also clear away the ‘fog of war’ that the ‘deep state’ hides behind. The convoluted and false narratives pushed for ‘why we need war’ with some random nation will have nothing to hide behind. It will become more obvious how detrimental these actions are to the American people.

While I am sure I don’t have to tell the ‘left’ to hold Trump accountable, I do want to remind the ‘right’ and the Libertarians (or other independents/3rd party) to hold Trump accountable. Due to his promises of peace & small government he was given the House & Senate along with the Presidency. If he doesn’t QUICKLY start doing what he promised then voters must hold the Republican party accountable in the mid term elections. The only way to show that voters are serious in their demands is to punish the parties at the ballot box if they break their promise.

Share

Leave a comment

Related Articles

Resources

1. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/edward-snowden-tulsi-gabbard-gaetz-freedom

2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czxrwr078v7o

3. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-2022-peace-proposal-was-a-blueprint-for-the-destruction-of-ukraine/

4. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/08/trump-nato-congress-courts-00188426

5. https://archive.ph/GVLgg

6. https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-israel-has-valid-reasons-for-fighting-fewer-say-the-same-about-hamas/

7. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/9/17/yemens-houthis-file-hypersonic-missile-at-israel-what-to-know

8. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/06/14/us-navy-faces-its-most-intense-combat-world-war-ii-against-yemens-iran-backed-houthi-rebels.html

9. https://x.com/rnaudbertrand/status/1858019192370507904

10. https://archive.ph/lsyv5

11. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-tom-homan-immigration-self-deport-1984187

12. Trump promises Alien enemies act - Forbes

13. https://www.axios.com/2024/08/27/kamala-harris-flip-flops-border-wall

14. https://homeland.house.gov/2024/04/30/new-documents-reveal-airports-used-by-secretary-mayorkas-to-fly-hundreds-of-thousands-of-inadmissible-aliens-into-u-s-via-chnv-mass-parole-scheme/

15. https://www.uscis.gov/CHNV

16. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/need-know-catch-release/

17. https://justiceforimmigrants.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FAQ-Catch-and-release-revised-12_14_18.pdf

18. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/president-donald-j-trump-declares-war-on-cartels

19. https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/08/24/should-birthright-citizenship-be-abolished/birthright-citizenship-is-not-actually-in-the-constitution

20. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Camarota-Testimony.pdf

21. https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/hud-rule-changes-illegal-immigrants-housing-vouchers

22. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ecp.pdf

23. https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/09/27/trump-and-harris-supporters-differ-on-mass-deportations-but-favor-border-security-high-skilled-immigration/

24. https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ecp.pdf

25. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-mass-deportation-plan-cost-consequences-60-minutes-transcript/

26. https://apnews.com/article/trump-taxes-social-security-overtime-tariffs-989016ef41dc1533b05d1871d69c03ff

27. https://archive.ph/gOKhn

28. https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics

29. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/gop-presidential-candidate-vivek-ramaswamy-cut-federal-work/story?id=103152562

30. https://rncplatform.donaldjtrump.com/

31. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/agenda47/agenda47-america-must-have-the-1-lowest-cost-energy-and-electricity-on-earth

32. https://www.coingecko.com/research/publications/government-bitcoin-holdings

33. https://www.lummis.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/BITCOIN-Act-FINAL.pdf

34. https://www.fool.com/investing/2024/11/12/billionaire-michael-saylor-just-delivered-incredib/#:~:text=To%20put%20this%20plan%20into,any%20company%20in%20the%20world.

35. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-bitcoin-does-satoshi-nakamoto-133700742.html

36. https://x.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1855775464734024160

37. https://www.congress.gov/117/meeting/house/113968/witnesses/HHRG-117-VR00-Wstate-JonesS-20211013.pdf

38. https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/1856301740468920655

39. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/376097-trump-take-the-guns-first-go-through-due-process-second/

40. https://www.npr.org/2024/06/14/g-s1-2929/supreme-court-bump-stocks

41. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-concealed-carry-reciprocity-1983740

As a reference I read through this Al Jazeera article on both candidates policies.

Third party votes

I want to get this out of the way first. Many people will try to convince you that a third party vote is a wasted vote. It absolutely is not. If that is how you feel you should vote then do it! In 2020, Libertarians were the margin in some states. In 2024, while Trump was working on his campaign, Libertarians got dedicated time resulting in the pledge to release Ross & increased protection/attention to Bitcoin as well as other commitments. If we blindly voted lock-step with Trump he NEVER would have sat down with us or came to the convention. Punishing the ‘main parties’ by voting for a 3rd party that better reflects your values is a viable way to force change.

Chase Oliver - Libertarian

Jill Stein - Green

Trump

I actually left the Republican party when they picked Trump over Rand Paul, not because of TDS but because a party that wouldn’t pick Rand Paul isn’t one that really aligns that well with my beliefs (I had in previous years written in Ron Paul anyway). 2016 candidate Trump at least had some good talking points though he largely failed to deliver on most things of interest (drain the swamp, gun rights etc). Perhaps the best impact he had is harder to quantify (the court appointees etc.). 2020 Trump felt useless and I think others felt the same way, i think his mishandling of COVID (including debt & money supply increase) sealed his fate.

2024 Trump similarly felt flat & uninteresting in my opinion. Yet now, heading into election day (perhaps facilitated by the attempt on his life), he has a group of people around him that have VERY appealing opinions on things. While I think RFK was far too much of a zionist to be a President, I really like him going after health issues. Vivek, who I actually switched back to Republican to vote for in the primary, is still very close to the campaign. He was one of the few to have an actual plan on reducing the size of government. Elon Musk has shown a good ‘anti-bureaucrat’ reflex and has been floating the idea of cutting trillions in government spending. He and the Great Ron Paul exchanged some very encouraging tweets on X.

I like what a lot of these people have said. I like what some of them stand for. Vivek was the only candidate that said we should end aid to Israel. He still saw them as a ‘strong ally’, but framed it as an ‘America first’ decision. I’m ok with that, not in the absolute sense, but from the reality of American politics sense.

Ron Paul, I can write unending praise for his takes over the years, staunch anti-war , anti-government hero in American politics. Him having the attention and the ear of Elon Musk is a boon to liberty.

Trump Policies Quick Review

• War

  • Ending the Ukraine war is good. Israeli officials are apparently ‘concerned’ by Trump’s claim he would ‘bring a swift end’ to the Gaza war.

• Border

  • Securing the border is a necessity for a variety of reasons. I believe Trump is more capable than Kamala, we have her years as border czar to show the result.

• general scope of government

  • Reducing government size and scope is critically needed, we are on the brink of collapse.

    • Close the department of education

  • Voter ID for voting

  • provide immunity to cops from prosecution — this is a BIG no from me, we need more accountability not less, not likely ‘doable’ but a bad thought for a President to have

  • deport “pro-hamas radicals” a direct attack on the first amendment, would be more concerned if i thought there were a chance of it being enforceable, dumb-low-brain anti-liberty take though

• Economics

  • Ending the income tax (though not committed to, it is great to hear even mentioned).

  • generally, cut taxes increase tariffs

    • I am in support of tariffs TO REPLACE income tax etc

  • A bitcoin reserve was mentioned by Trump, something I think that needs to be part of our policy, at least as a contingency plan.

  • pro nuclear energy

• Freeing Ross Ulbricht is ‘low impact’ on the nation, but huge for Ross & a symbol for liberty.

• Abortion

  • State level decisions

Harris

Let’s take a look at Kamala’s orbit. Liz Cheney, whose father (Dick Cheney) is so corrupt he got a section on my article ‘War is STILL a Racket’ . She praises and emulates the murderous, warmongering piece of garbage. I get it, its her dad, but ANYONE proud of those policies should be booed and ridiculed unendingly, not praised. “Screw your Freedoms” Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed Kamala. She has the endorsement of a bunch of business people who i do not care about and who i think bring little to nothing (in terms of ideas) to the table. I honestly don’t see anyone in her ‘orbit’ of value or worth. No one I personally respect is supporting Harris (at least that I can think of).

Kamala Policies Quick Review

• War

  • Continue funding Ukraine war, continue destroying America and leading us to WW3

  • no change on current Gaza policy, CONTINUED support for israel.

• Border

  • no real plan, several years of ‘border czar’ were a complete failure

• general scope of government

  • increasing size & scope of government

    • more gov’t regulations ‘ to fix housing’

  • No Voter ID for voting

  • ban assault weapons - a stance that should bar her from ANY political office as it is a direct attack on the Constitution

  • oppose school choice (more government)

  • end student loan debts (more government)

• Economics

  • raise minimum wage (more government regulations)

  • more pro-union (i don’t know enough about the ‘PRO act’ to comment much here. generally i’m ok with unions, but not public unions (cops, teachers etc)

• Abortion

  • Federally protected

Conclusion

There are a few things about Trump’s campaign that I really like. I like at least SOME of the people around him. I don’t like the anti liberty things, i don’t like less accountability for cops. I don’t like anti free-speech stance on college campuses. But overall Trump’s promises are MUCH better for liberty and overall they are better for the world. Our large federal government is a plague to MANY nations, reducing it must be a priority. Ending wars must be a priority.

Harris goes in the other direction promising a larger more powerful federal government with unending support for wars. That includes the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I don’t know if Trump will do ANYTHING different but I certainly wont vote for someone actively committing a genocide with the excuse that ‘maybe the other guy will too’.

I can find many reasons to vote for Trump & none to vote for Kamala. That said, I have the …fortune (?)… to live in a state that is ‘already decided’ . I currently plan to write in Thomas Massie due to Trumps ongoing support of Israel.

Were I in a swing state, I don’t think I would do the same. As mentioned, I can see plainly that Trump is better for Americans & I don’t want to enable someone ACTIVELY committing genocide to win. Though I know Trump may be just as bad, perhaps the best we can do is directly punish Kamala for her crimes.

My down ballot votes will be similar strategic moves to oust people working against America, even if the replacement also sucks.

Regardless of who is elected President, I pray that Liberty prevails & America wins this election.

Share

Leave a comment

Related articles

The ‘Jewish vote’

Almost 100% of the time when you say “The Jewish ____”, it is the reason you will be slammed for anti-semitism, yet when our politicians pretend that Jews are a monolith that vote only in service to a foreign nation, they get a free pass.

“When we look at American Jew’s attitudes towards Israel based on a 2020 survey conducted by Pew research 54% have never been, 25% feel ‘very emotionally attached to Israel, 32% ‘somewhat’ and 41% ‘not much/not at all’. In this 2020 survey, 54% felt the level of American support was ‘about right’ and 22% said the US was too supportive.” — Guarding Your Humanity

I thought, MAYBE 25% of American Jews (the ‘very emotionally attached’) vote primarily on ‘israel policy’. I assumed others vote like other Americans, based on a variety of issues and what impacts their daily life the most (or … more likely, whatever party they happened to fall into as a young adult). My estimation was much too high. PRRI has a survey from 2012 that shows only 4% of Jewish respondents voted primarily based on israel though 20% felt ‘support for israel’ was ‘most important’ to their identity’ [1].

Polling of American Jews shows that on average, since 1968 Jews have voted Democrats over Republicans 71% to 26%[2] . In 2020 68% Jewish voters voted for Biden with only 30% voting for Trump [2]. So the “Jewish vote” is NOT in play for Republicans.

What would the impact be for states if parties “abandoned israel” by putting America First? Would states swing wildly? The answer here is , no [1]. Most American Jews live in NY and they make up 9.1% of the State’s population. If 100% of them voted Democrat in 2020, and now switched Republican, NY would still be won by the Democrats (NY was won by a >15% margin in 2020). This is not accounting for Jews that don’t vote, it is assuming (as do the calculations below), that 100% of Jews vote, it does not distinguish between those even eligible to vote or not.

Looking at the states with the smallest margin of victory, only 4 have a TOTAL Jewish population HIGHER than the margin of victory. Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania & Nevada. ALL were won by Biden in 2020. If Biden ‘abandoned israel’ and alienated 100% of the Jewish population it MIGHT make a difference. Now if we say of the Jewish vote only 68% of them were ‘in play’ for Democrats, only 3 states remain ‘flippable’ (GA, AZ, PA). If only Jewish voters ‘very attached’ to israel vote based on israel support, that means only 25% of the total Jewish population is in play. Adjusting the percent down to only 25% means only 2 states have a population > than the margin (GA, AZ). If we adjust again on party lines, no states are left. Again, this is total Jewish population, not factoring in those eligible to vote or those that choose not to vote. I want to note, Florida is ‘close’ and was won by Trump, but if only 30% of Jews vote Republican, it will not make a difference anyway (even at 100% he still would’ve held the state).

It should be clear by the above analysis that the “Jewish vote” is not deciding elections. Remember this each time we see special legislation being pushed/passed in congress and each time we see a Presidential candidate standing in front of a foreign nations flag and pledging allegiance to it at the expense of America.

The “Christian” Zionist vote

The “Christian” Zionist vote. If you want to learn why Christian is in quotes, read the linked article. In total, roughly 14% of Americans identify as ‘white evangelicals’ , its harder than you may think to find the ‘total’ evangelical percentage. This is the oldest religious group, with a median age of 56.

Evangelicals are another voting block that isn’t. We know already that a VERY large majority of African Americans vote Democrat, that in itself suggests a ‘split’ among Christian Evangelicals. The Times of Israel reported in 2021 a MASSIVE drop in support among young evangelicals [18-29], with only 33.6% supporting israel, 24.3% supporting Palestinians and 42.2% saying neither. This is down from 69% support in 2018 and only 5.6% support for Palestinians [3]. Across all age groups, 45% support the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Looking at PRRI data [4], we can get the percentage of White evangelical Christians per state. If all of them were israel first zionists, they would be larger than the margin in 27 states. That is IF they voted only on Israel, in 100% uniform fashion. I think it is safe to assume that Democrats aren’t losing many of the ‘Christian’ zionist votes, so lets take a a look at how it might impact Republicans.

First, 45% support a Palestinian State, so we know they are NOT israel-firsters. If we adjust and say only 55% of them are israel firsters, then they are larger than the margin in 12 states. Based on a PEW poll, we see only 33% of White evangelicals support a ‘one state’ israel solution [5]. If we assume ALL of them are “israel first” voters willing to destroy America for Israel, we would be left with 8 states that could ‘swing’ of those ONLY 2 were actually won by Trump in 2020. This implies that Biden would likely STILL win these states (as Democrats are likely NOT pulling many of these votes to begin with).

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, many saw Republicans taking a hit politically and as a result, many Republicans are shifting on abortion. Yet, in EVERY SINGLE STATE, all 50, the percent who oppose abortion is larger than the TOTAL number of evangelicals. If Republicans were so desperate for hardline votes, why are they not aiming at the VERY large group that are anti-abortion?

Americans

A gallop Poll in march of 2024 show that only 38% of Americans approve of israeli military actions in Gaza. This support generally comes from older Americans who are more or less captured by corporate media and their decades long and ongoing propaganda campaign to convince Americans to sacrifice on behalf of Israel. This capture is discussed a bit in ‘Guarding your Humanity’. Even this poll question is phrased in a way supportive of Israel’s narrative vs the reality of israel’s ongoing Genocide.

Importantly only 36% of Americans support continued military aid to israel. While only 37% are ‘opposed’, another 29% are ‘not sure’ or indifferent and given the nature and cost of aid, should be counted (in my opinion) as against.

Zionist Money & Influence

AIPAC, a group that should be registered with FARA, supports politicians who give unquestioning loyalty to Israel. They openly boast of how they influence our elections in favor of israel and even have ‘AIPAC Handlers’ assigned to each politician in DC. The corruption & betrayal is directly in view. This election cycle (2023-2024) AIPAC has spent almost $42 million on campaign contributions and another $4.6 million on lobbying [6] . AIPAC is the most influential zionist group but their are others, the chart below shows ‘pro israel’ contributors as per opensecrets.org [7]

Those on X/twitter will often see coordinated messages sent out from official handles, very clearly echoing the same message (likely as per instructions). In addition to the money, the israeli government conducts propaganda campaigns directly targeting American politicians [8].

Military Industrial Complex

The entities above are just those openly zionist. In context of the military industrial complex, our support of israel has ALWAYS been a ‘golden goose’ for the industries that profit from war. We knew early on that our support of the zionist project would lead to constant war and I believe THAT was a major reason that our support for it began. I cover the military industrial complex in depth here in , War is Still a Racket.

“Institutional Investors”

Disclosure: The book links in this article are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

If you find yourself wondering ‘why is the media covering up these crimes’, it becomes quite clear when you dig into ownership. Most media companies are primarily owned by ‘institutional investors’ (big banks, investment firms, college endowments etc). These are the same institutional investors that own the military industrial complex. These are the same institutional investors that own “big food” , “big pharma” and “big tech”. All of them stand to profit when the Federal Reserve prints money for more wars (see Fiat Food by Matthew Lysiak and, for historical context, When Money Dies by Adam Ferguson) .

Conclusion

We can see definitively that the “Jewish Vote” is NOT deciding Presidential elections. We can see, and apply logic to understand that Democrat candidates have too many other issues, besides zionism, to pull any ‘Israel first’ votes. Furthermore, we can see that the percent of Evangelicals that are purely ‘israel first’ voters is likely VERY low.

Especially in the current race, it would be beneficial for either party to abandon this ‘sacrifice for israel’ policy. There is no ‘plausible deniability’ for Democrats. There is NOTHIGN for them to hide their corruption behind. They should be called out and shamed until they abandon this policy which much of at least 52% of their voters are against.

For Republicans, the thin veil of this deception is easily pulled away. We can see how little impact these ‘israel first’ voters really have. We can see that given the choices, most of them would not ‘jump ship’. The ‘Republican support’ for zionism is much more likely to be FROM the party, not from an individual’s personal ideology. The surge in popularity around the rhetoric of ‘no new wars’ and ‘America First’ shows that Americans have had enough of fighting these ‘forever wars’. Ending our support of israel’s ongoing atrocities and ending our promise to fight a war with Iran on israel’s behalf would win over MANY disillusioned voters while risking very few.

Instead, what both parties are doing is using a fanatical, morally depraved tiny fraction of these two groups to provide unending cover for war, corruption, greed and treason. These politicians, on behalf of DONORS, not voters, are sacrificing American Lives, Liberty & Property and betraying American interests on behalf of israeli interests. We must reject this lie and hold those powered by greed accountable.

Share

Leave a comment

Related Articles

Resources

1. PRRI 2012 Jewish Values Survey, https://prri.parc.us.com/client/index.html#/search

2. https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/08/01/trump-receiving-historic-levels-jewish-support-us-presidential-race-poll-finds/

3. https://www.timesofisrael.com/support-for-israel-among-young-us-evangelicals-drops-sharply-survey/

4. https://ava.prri.org/home#religious/2023/States/religion1

5. https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/views-of-the-u-s-role-in-the-israel-hamas-war/

6. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?id=D000046963

7. https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=Q05

8. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/05/israel-targeted-lawmakers-in-disinformation-campaign-00161906

“Take great care about what you do and what you teach; always do this, and in this way you will save both yourself and those who listen to you” — 1 Timothy 4:15

I encourage you, regardless of faith or lack thereof, to read the Bible. I myself found it (and I still have more to read) interesting & useful , both in some practical aspects & understanding motivations/beliefs.

Bible Selection

Disclosure: The book links in this article are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

I chose a Bible ‘approved’ by the Catholic Church, The Jerusalem Bible. I read that it does a great job of translating the original content while keeping the true meaning of the words. As a bonus, JRR Tolkien was an editor/contributor.

The Old Testament

I am going to look at the Old Testament, then the New and assess the claims a bit separately. It should be noted that the as Christians, the New Testament ‘fulfills’ the Old [1].

Descendants

In terms of the Old Testament, the foundational lie the Christian Zionists tell themselves is to whom God left the land of Israel. Repeatedly in the Bible, God states it is left ‘to your descendants’. In researching, Genesis 12:3 was cited as the ‘root’ of the belief. However, if we keep reading (a thing I think VERY few people actually do) we see a key point left out by the Zionists.

“I will make you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name so famous that it will be used as a blessing” -- Genesis 12:03

“It is to your descendants that I will give this land” — Genesis 12:8

“All the land within sight I will give to you and your descendants for ever” — Genesis 13:15

There are a LOT of references to leaving the land to Abraham’s descendants, that intent is clear, so who are his descendants? Genetically speaking (and through residence/land ownership) it is modern day Palestinians. We can see in the below excerpt from ‘Zionism, an Obstacle to Peace’ that there is historical & genetic evidence tying Palestinians to the land back to the ancient Canaanites, pre-dating and persisting through the existence of ancient Israel. Even the Bible states how first the nobility were cast out than most of the others in the city. Given the context of the breaching of walls and the specificity of ‘in the city’, it likely means just that.

First deportation
“all the nobles and all the notables, ten thousand of these were exiled, with all the blacksmiths and metalworkers; only the poorest people in the country were left behind” -- 2 Kings 24:14

Second deportation
“The commander of the guard demolished the walls surrounding Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan, commander of the guard, deported the remainder of the population left behind in the city, the deserters who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the common people. The commander of the guard left some of the humbler country people as vineyard workers and ploughmen.” — 2 Kings 25:10-12

A Conditional Gift

In the Bible we see that God demanded that his people adhere to his word. When they did not, when they displeased them HE stripped them of their land. God warned them what would happen if they failed to serve him.

Historians aren’t set exactly on the dates, but the kingdom of Israel existed roughly around 1000 BC after Solomon’s death (~930BC) it split. It was later conquered by Assyrians in ~722 BC. Judah would hold out for a time until the reign of Manasseh doomed it. Though Manasseh’s heir was like his father (displeasing to God), the reign of Josiah was not displeasing to God. Despite much effort God had not forgiven the Israelites their sins. Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon eventually laid siege to and conquered Jerusalem. As noted earlier, he deported people of note, NOT everyone.

God said to Abraham “You on your part shall maintain my Covenant yourself and your descendants after you, generation after generation.” —Genesis 17:09

Excerpts from Deuteronomy 27:15-26:
“A curse on him who displaces his neighbour’s boundary mark” 
“A curse on him who tampers with the rights of the stranger, the orphan and the widow”
“A curse on him who strikes down his neighbour in secret”
“A curse on him who accepts a bribe to take an innocent life”

“for failing to serve… Yahweh will raise against you a far-off nation from the ends of the earth, like an eagle taking wing. This will be a nation whose language you do not understand.” — Deuteronomy 28:47-50

”The King of Assyria invaded the whole country and, coming to Samaria, laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah on the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” — 2 Kings 17:05

“This happened because the Israelites had sinned against Yahweh their God” — 2 Kings 17:07

“He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, copying the shameful practices of the nations whom Yahweh had dispossessed for the sons of Israel”  — 2 Kings 21:2

“Manasseh shed innocent blood, too, in such great quantity that he flooded Jerusalem from end to end, apart from the sins into which he led Judah by doing what is displeasing to Yahweh” — 2 Kings 21:16

“Yet Yahweh did not renounce the heat of his great anger which blazed out against Judah because of all the provocation Manasseh had offered him. Yahweh decreed, “I will thrust Judah away from me too, as I have already thrust Israel; I will cast away Jerusalem, this city I had chosen, and the Temple of which I had said: There my name shall be.” — 2 Kings 23:26

“The End of Israel
Why have you ploughed iniquity, reaped injustice, and eaten the produce, lies? Because you have trusted in your chariots, and in your host of warriors, turmoil is going to break out in your towns, and all your fortresses will be laid waste, as Shalman laid Beth-arbel waste on the day of the battle, when mothers fell, dashed to pieces, on their children. That is what I mean to do to you, House of Israel, because of your great wickedness; and in the storm the king of Israel is going to disappear forever” — Hosea 10:13

“Lament for Israel
Listen to this oracle I speak against you, it is a dirge, House of Israel: She is down and will rise no more, the virgin of Israel. There she lies all alone on her own soil, with no one to lift her up; for thus says the Lord Yahweh to the House of Israel: The town which used to put a thousand in the field will be left with a hundred, and the one which used to put a hundred will be left with ten.” — Amos 5:1

“No special privileges for Israel
Are not you and the Cushites all the same to me, sons of Israel? — it is Yahweh who speaks. Did not I, who brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, bring the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir? Now, my eyes are turned on the sinful kingdom, to wipe it off the face of the earth” — Amos 9:07

Old Testament Ending thoughts

Seven Things hateful to God
There are six things that Yahweh hates, seven that his soul abhors;

• a haughty look

• a lying tongue

• hand that shed innocent blood

• a heart that weaves wicked plots

• feet that hurry to do evil

• a false witness who lies with every breath

• a man who sows dissension among brothers

— Proverbs 6:16-19

We see the sins of the people of Israel leads to God allowing for them to be conquered in 2 Kings. We see God mentioning several times how Israel was destroyed for its sins in the Old Testament. In Amos 9:10, God states the “sinners of my people are going to perish by the sword”. Amos 9:11 speaks of re-building, “That day I will re-erect the tottering hut of David”, yet we see clearly, God has little sympathy for those who sin & don’t truly follow him. In Ezekiel 11 again God speaks of a new covenant, yet he closes with “But those whose hearts are set on their idols and their filthy practices I will call to account for their conduct”. We see more specifications of sin later in Ezekiel (below).

“The Lord Yahweh says this: City shedding blood inside yourself to bring your hour closer, setting up idols on your soil to defile yourself, you have incurred guilt by the blood you have shed, you have defiled yourself with the idols you have made, you have brought your hour closer, you have come to the end of your time…. —Ezekiel 22:03

“Near and far, they will scoff at you, the turbulent city with a tarnished name: where all the princes of Israel live, each one busy shedding blood, and a law to himself; where people despise their fathers and mothers; where they ill-treat the settler; where they oppress the widow and the orphan; where you have no reverence for my sanctuaries and profane my sabbaths; where informers incite to bloodshed;…” —Ezekiel 22:05-09

“…where people take bribes for shedding blood; you charge usury and interest, you rob your neighbor by extortion, you forget all about me — it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks”— Ezekiel 22:12

We saw earlier, that the genetic descendants of ancient Israelites are modern Palestinians. God had enacted his punishment on the kingdom of Israel, destroying it for its sins, often highlighting idol worship & shedding innocent blood. There is nothing I saw stating that Jewish people from diverse backgrounds should be thrust upon Palestine and shed MORE innocent blood to ‘reclaim’ a kingdom that God destroyed. It seems far-fetched that the Nakba and now the ongoing Genocide is what God would seek from his people. The massacres that zionism required and still requires to this day are reminiscent of the very sins that led to the destruction of the Kingdom is Israel to begin with.

The New Testament

Reading the New Testament, there are a few things that stand out. First, NO WHERE do I see God prefacing anything on Zionists being in Palestine (the land of Ancient Israel). I believe the simple truth that killing innocents is sinful, and indeed hateful to God as described in the Old Testament. I think Timothy is pivotal here, “Some people have put conscience aside and wrecked their faith in consequence”, for one truly must put their conscience aside in order to support the slaughter of innocents.

Knowing the facts of how AIPAC has worked its way through our government, Titus, speaking on those who teach falsehoods “with the vile motive of making money” sounds particularly applicable to those pushing for blind support of zionism, especially those claiming to do so because of their ‘Christian faith’. Titus is again applicable, “They claim to have knowledge of God but the things they do are nothing but a denial of him; they are outrageously rebellious and quite incapable of doing good”.

To solidify that there is no ‘Biblical command’ to push modern zionists into Palestine, in Hebrews it states “They abandoned that covenant of mine, and so I on my side deserted them”. It discusses a new covenant later stating “By speaking of a new covenant, he implies that the first one is already old”. Hebrews states that one must “Always be wanting peace with all people”. Furthermore, 1 Corinthians gives further warnings “These things all happened as warnings for us, not to have the wicked lusts for forbidden things that they had”.

Romans asserts that ‘Jews are still the chosen people’ though earlier it states “Pain and suffering will come to every human being who employs himself in evil—Jews first, but Greeks as well; renown, honour & peace will come to everyone who does good—Jews first, but Greeks as well. God has no favorites” —Romans 2:09 . Regardless, again in Hebrews we see how there is a ‘New Sanctuary’ “and he is the minister of the sanctuary and of the true Tent of Meeting which the Lord, and not any man, set up" — Hebrews 8:02 . This appears to be in contrast to the earthly sanctuary of the first covenant (Hebrews 9:01).

"A warning, and the lessons of Israel's History
I want to remind you, brothers, how our fathers were all guided by a cloud above them and how they all passed through the sea. They were all baptised into Moses in this cloud and in this sea; all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, since they all drank from the spiritual rock that followed them as they went, and that rock was Christ. In spite of this most of them failed to please God and their corpses littered the desert. These things all happened as warnings for us, not to have the wicked lusts for forbidden things that they had..." -- 1 Corinthians

“But when the Rebel comes, Satan will set to work: there will be all kinds of miracles and deceptive show of signs and portents, and everything evil that can deceive those who are bound for destruction because they would not grasp the love of the truth which could have saved them. The reason why God is sending a power to delude them and make them believe what is untrue is to condemn all who refused to believe in the truth and chose wickedness instead” — 2 Thessalonians 2:09-12

“Some People have put conscience aside and wrecked their faith in consequence” — 1 Timothy 1:19

“Opposing the false teachers

And in fact you have there a great many people who need to be disciplined, who talk nonsense and try to make others believe it, particularly among those of the Circumcision. They have got to be silenced: men of this kind ruin whole families, by teaching things that they ought not to, and doing it with the vile motive of making money. It was one of themselves, one of their own prophets, who said, ‘Cretans were never anything but liars, dangerous animals and lazy; : and that is a true statement. So you will have to be severe in correcting them, and make them sound in the faith so they they stop taking notice of Jewish myths and doing what they are told to do by people who are no longer interested in the truth. To all who are pure themselves, everything is pure; but to those who have been corrupted and lack faith, nothing can be pure — the corruption is both in their minds and in their consciences. They claim to have knowledge of God but the things they do are nothing but a denial of him; they are outrageously rebellious and quite incapable of doing good.” — Titus 1:10

“…See, the days are coming — it is the Lord who speaks— when I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, but not a covenant like the one I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. They abandoned that covenant of mine, and so I on my side deserted them. It is the Lord who speaks. No, this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel when those days arrive — it is the Lord who speaks. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people. There will be no further need for neighbour to try to teach neighbour, or brother to say to brother, ‘Learn to know the Lord’. No, they will all know me, the least no less than the greatest, since I will forgive their iniquities and never call their sins to mind.  By speaking of a new covenant, he implies that the first one is already old. Now anything old only gets more antiquated until in the end it disappears” — Hebrews 8

“Unfaithfulness is punished

Always be wanting peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one can ever see the Lord. Be careful that no one is deprived of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness should begin to grow and make trouble; this can poison a whole community. And be careful that there is no immorality, or that any of you does not degrade religion like Esau, who sold his birthright for one single meal. As you know, when he wanted to obtain the blessing afterwards, he was rejected and, though he pleaded for it with tears, he was unable to elicit a change of heart.” — Hebrews 12:14-17

“All the same, these people who only insult anything that they do not understand are not reasoning beings, but simply animals born to be caught and killed, and they will quite certainly destroy themselves by their own work of destruction, and get their reward of evil for the evil that they do. They are unsightly blots on your society…” —2 Peter 2:12

“Second  condition: keep the commandments, especially the law of love

We can be sure that we know God only by keeping his commandments. Anyone who says, ‘I know him’, and does not keep his commandments is a liar, refusing to admit the truth.” — 1 John 2:03

Summary

False Prophets
Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep but underneath are ravenous wolves. You will be able to tell them by their fruits. can people pick grapes from Thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, a sound tree produces good fruit but a rotten tree bad fruit. A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit. Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire. I repeat, you will be able to tell them by their fruits. — Matthew 7:15

"Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ" -- Colossians 2:08

We can see that first off, the blood descendants of ancient Israelites are in fact modern day Palestinians. If we think of the descendants as the ‘spiritual descendants’ of Ancient Israelites, the only thing that we see from zionism common with ancient Israel is its late-stage rejection of God. Modern zionism was founded upon many sins including theft & murder of innocents. The state of Israel has these as official tools of their colonialism, along with bribing officials throughout the world (AIPAC etc) to aid them in shedding innocent blood. Zionism, therefore has no claim to Palestine, be it through blood-related ancient ties to the land or religious ones.

Again, I am not a religious scholar, I began reading the Bible to better understand ‘Christian’ zionists and I found shockingly little support for this political ideology. To Christians, it is through acceptance of Jesus Christ that people are saved, I didn’t find anything to support the NEED for “Jews to be in Palestine”. In Ephesians Paul writes “Through him, both of us have in the one Spirit our way to come to the Father”.

In Matthew we are told to “Beware false prophets” and that “You will be able to tell them by their fruits”. So I ask this of the ‘Christian’ Zionists, what are the ‘fruits’ of this belief? As Americans, we have fought several wars on its behalf, we have killed hundreds of thousands, including innocents. In Matthew, we are told of the Massacre of Innocents, where Herod killed all the male children in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus. Now, we support a genocide that has claimed the lives of over 2,000 infants. This is the ‘fruits’ of Zionism.

The flight into Egypt. The massacre of innocents.
After they had left, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, 'Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child adn do away with him'. So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: 
I called my son out of Egypt
Herod was furious when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding district he had all the male children killed who were two years old or under, reckoning by the date he had been careful to ask the wise men. It was then that the words spoken through the prophet Jeremiah were fulfilled:
A voice was heard in Ramah,
Sobbing and loudly Lamenting:
It was Rachel weeping for her children 
refusing to be comforted 
because they were no more.
-- Matthew 2:13

NOTE

I wouldn’t typically take this deep a look into a Religious belief and try to criticize it because I generally wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so. That said, the evil being done with ‘Christian zionism’ as the excuse, makes me feel more comfortable in the hopes of putting an end to the 76+ years of violence and bloodshed done in its name. I again encourage you to look at the Bible yourself and try to come up with your own conclusions.

post on ‘end times’ : https://x.com/write_diligent/status/1844091110089445554

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those that treat you badly” — Luke 6:27

“But I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” — Matthew 5:44

Notes on the ‘End times’

Share

Leave a comment

Resources

1. The Jerusalem Bible

2. https://www.embraceme.org/christian-zionism-course-material

   1. This is a much more robust examination of the biblical text and fulfillment of prophecies, whereas my analysis was more ‘is zionism compatable with the Bible’

3. https://stephensizer.com/

   1. I didn’t reference his work in the article but I did see a couple youtube videos of interest

Diligent-gear

Buy DIligent-Gear

https://www.diligent-gear.com/products/beware-false-prophets

Related Articles

This article examines some of the crimes committed by our troops and how we, as a nation, reacted to them. I think what made these crimes particularly shocking to me was the contrast these cases had to my own experiences while deployed overseas. While it is clear that their are sick individuals amongst us and in our military, I still hold that they are an aberration, not representative of our troops as a whole or of the American people.

Outside of the geopolitical consequences these crimes have on us, the more important question is, what impact does it have on the soul of America. Dr. King feared that we would ‘poison our nations soul’ in Vietnam and perhaps he was right. Since then we have fought in or supported many unnecessary wars, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Apathy and ignorance are the government’s primary tool in ensuring unjust wars and the war crimes that come with them can continue. I believe we must take an honest (and painful) look at these crimes to ensure that they do not occur again. I view these instances as a sickening rot on our nation’s soul, something that must be cut out, violently if need be, in order to keep the whole healthy.

Warning: The below article is a graphic, but I think necessary.

Disclosure: The book links in this article are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

My Lai

I had heard of the My Lai massacre before, I vaguely recalled the pilot who helped put an end to it, but I never looked too far into it. Bill Buppert recently had an episode where he discussed it & he recommended the book “My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness”. This book details the horrific crimes of our soldiers in My Lai on March 16, 1968 and the events that followed.

How it happened

Free Fire Zones

The ‘Free-Fire Zone’, officially meant (according to FM 6-20) “A specific designated area into which any weapon system may fire without additional coordination with the establishing headquarters”. In practice, it was often taken as “kill anything that moves”. Robert Ramsdell of the CIA provided intel for the operation in My Lai. Notably, he suggested that all civilians would have left for market by the time of the operation. In a later interview with Seymour Hersh he stated that ‘everyone was considered suspects’ “because they couldn’t survive in that area unless they were sympathizers”[1]. Despite Ramsdell’s assessment of forces in the area differing from all others, it was the intel provided and used for the mission.

Ambition meets incompetence

“Rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electrical shock ("the Bell Telephone Hour") rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; "the water treatment"; "the airplane," in which a prisoner's arms were tied behind the back and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; and the use of police dogs to maul prisoners” —The Phoenix Program

Howard Jones notes in his book that Ramsdell was “anxious to make his mark” as he had recently taken over the “Phoenix Program”, a brutal intelligence gathering operation designed “to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Lao Dong Party”[2]. In the Phoenix Program, it is noted that one reason for the use of torture was the inexperience of those running the operations. Muldoon, the first director of the Province Interrogation Center program in Vietnam, stated “A lot of guys in Vietnam were career trainees or junior officer trainees”. It isn’t clear to me if Ramsdell was incompetent or evil, but his contribution to the planning surely helped enable the outcome in My Lai.

Calley was ambitious despite his lifelong mediocrity. He was inspired by Audie Murphy (a decorated WW2 Veteran turned actor) and reportedly fixated on the violent aspects of training. Jones’ description of Calley is what many fellow grunts would recognize as your standard ribbon chasing idiot completely captured by the ‘heroism’ in movies (and today in games). A man in his platoon described Calley as “A little kid trying to play war , liked by few and hated by many”. This mediocrity, put to the test in Vietnam surfaced as incompetency making him a liability to those around him and especially those in his command.

Orders

“The absence of written orders, as we can see now, guaranteed considerable leeway in interpreting details of the operation” — Howard Jones, My Lai

The benefit of the lack of orders to the criminal soldiers of My Lai was in deniability and creating doubt. Had orders been written, they could be directly referenced, they could have been used as evidence of the complicity of command or to exonerate them. Instead, investigators had to rely on the memory of those there that day and to determine the truth amid conflicting reports. Some said orders were explicit to ‘kill everything’, others say it was implied.

American troops were trained to fear and suspect everyone in Vietnam, they received “little or no instruction on the treatment of noncombatants” and may not have been able to define a ‘noncombatant’ [1]. Additionally, “in a combat situation" the mere act of running away “meant that person was the enemy and was probably armed”. While Captain Medina, Calley’s commanding officer, noted no contact at the LZ, the lead pilot reported that they were taking fire, and that the LZ was ‘hot’. Medina seemingly took this to mean his company was under attack.

War Crimes

Murder

Reportedly, Major Calhoun had ordered Medina “make sure we’re not shooting anyone that s not necessary. Let’s not be killing any civilians out there”. Despite this, a bit later, Medina, trying to stay ‘on schedule’ ordered Calley to ‘waste’ the prisoners he had with him. Calley ordered two soldiers, Conti & Meadlo to open fire. Conti, a grenadier, claimed he didn’t want to so came up with an excuse (that his weapon wasn’t suitable for the task). Meadlo and Calley opened fire on men, women and children in a ditch. Meadlo began sobbing. Later, a toddler, maybe 2 years old crawled from the ditch while Calley was ‘interrogating’ a monk. Calley grabbed the toddler, threw him back in the ditch and executed him. Meadlo later ‘recomposed’ himself and began assisting in further executions at the ditch. Most of the soldiers there took part in the massacre.

Corporal Schiel, a squad leader, justified to himself, stating repeatedly “I don’t want to do it, but i have to because were were ordered to do it” before opening fire with his men on a family at point blank range. SP4 Gary Roschevitz, boasted of beating a child and then killing a man who tried to intervene. By the accounts provided, he saw it as a joyful sport, trying new weapons to execute unarmed civilians, methodically marching to ‘appropriate range’ to utilize a grenade launcher on groups of civilians allowing others to ‘finish off’ those that survived. He also apparently shot in the head a man, his wife and his two children among other crimes. A man known as “Mr Homicide”, Fred Widmer, saw a boy , 5 who had been shot in the stomach and was crying. He retrieved the pistol of Carter and shot the boy in the neck. The boy got up, walked a couple feet before and fell gasping until his death. Widmer complained the ‘damn the jammed’ . He remarked to another soldier, Stanley near by, “Did you see that fucker die?” Stanley responded “I don’t see how anyone can just kill a kid”. Widmer laughed.

After a ceasefire was ordered, a soldier came across a seven year old boy, apparently in shock, who had been shot in the leg. The soldier knelt beside an Army photographer, Haeberle, and shot the boy three times, killing him.

A reminder, these are some examples, many others participated.

Rape

“PFC Dennis Conti had yanked this young mother aside for oral sex. And even worse, he was forcing her into it by pointing a gun at her four-year-old’s head”. Calley intervened, not due to moral objection only because he felt “if a GI is getting a blow job, he isn’t doing his job”. — My Lai, Jones

Rape was a common theme in Vietnam according to Jones. He described the concept of “double Veterans” those who would rape then kill women. Reading the details provided in Jones’ book are truly horrific. There were at least 2 gang rapes and 20 rapes recorded the day of the massacre. In one case, a woman was gang raped, let go only to be snatched up by another (SGT Hodges) and raped again. Another was gang raped and then the soldiers opened fire on her and her family, including her 12 year old son. She was wounded and awoke later to find them all dead. A widowed mother found the remains of her 10 year old daughter, her clothes were ripped off, her only apparent injury was to her vagina.

Morality & Mercy

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

There were several who outright refused to partake in the killing, even though it carried significant risk to themselves. While I wouldn’t categorize all of these men as ‘heroes’, especially ones like Conti, it is important to note that not everyone on the ground that day was a bloodthirsty monster. While in hindsight, removed from the reality it may be easy to say ‘they should have done more’, these acts of refusal are something and ultimately, perhaps collectively they ended the massacre.

PFC Dennis Bunning was one of the first noted by Jones. Upon entry into My Lai, soldiers killed 6 men and women working in fields. His squad leader, Hodges, one of the rapists detailed above, rebuked him for refusing to open fire when ordered. Bunning replied he “wasn’t going to shoot any of these women and kids”. He was then ordered to the far flank as he ‘couldn’t be relied upon’. Bunning later recounted many of the crimes committed that day.

Dennis Conti, was described above, both for his apparent refusal to murder as well as his willingness to rape.

PFC Leonard Gonzalez, also refused to kill civilians that day. He described what he say as ‘purely evil’. On another occasion Gonzalez had tried to stop the ongoing gang rape of a Vietnamese woman but was unsuccessful.

Gary Crossley shot an elderly man in the arm, reportedly mistaking him for VC. The man yelled ‘No VC’ and his wife, holding their baby pulled the man back inside. Two other soldiers ‘thought they were VC’ and executed them. Crossley was in shock and radioed to Medina that there were ‘only women an children’ in the village, ‘no Viet Cong’. Medina ordered him to “keep going”, Crossley ‘quietly refused’ [1].

A group led by Sergeant Buchanon reportedly did not kill anyone that day. Buchanon stated that they were anxious as they saw no resistance but heard what sounded like a firefight. He ordered his men “to fire when they’re fire on, keep moving…. Don’t shoot unless you’re fired on”.

SP4 James Dursi was encouraged by Meadlo to fire into the crowd. Dursi had killed someone that day. He thought they were VC but it turned out to be a woman carrying a baby. After that he stated Calley “can send me to jail but I am not going to kill anybody”.

PFC Herbert Carter, whose pistol was used to kill the 5 year old boy described above, then shot himself in the foot to get himself away from the carnage.

Harry Stanley refused to partake in the killing, Calley threatened him first with a court Martial, then with execution. Stanley told him to ‘Go to Hell’. When Calley had turned his rifle on Stanley, Stanley drew and readied his .45. The standoff lasted about a minute before Calley relented [3]. Stanley later stated that despite being trained to obey orders, “Murder was totally against my nature. You can’t order me to do this. It’s craziness”.

PFC Robert Maples, a machine gunner, came on site and was also ordered to shoot the civilians. He refused. Calley threw a woman into the ditch and demanded to use Maples’ gun, Maples refused stating “I’m not going to kill these people”. Calley again threatened a court martial. Maples said “You can’t order me to do that Lieutenant”. Calley pointed his rifle at Maples and threatened to shoot him, but members of Maples’ team readied their weapons on Calley. Calley relented and left.

Ronald Grzesik was ordered by Calley to ‘finish off’ the people in the ditch, he refused and was sent back to the village[4]. On return to the village he and his fireteam encountered a group including PFC Smith and led by SGT West . They were assaulting a group of 8 Vietnamese women and children (pictured below) attempting to rape the women. The woman in a red blouse, Ba So fought the soldiers allowing two women to escape. Grzesik realized they would be killed if he didn’t intervene so he broke the group up. Haeberle prepared his camera to take a photo of the altercation. Grzesik moved on, likely not wanting his photo taken. Haeberle took the photo below and watched as the group discussed what to do with them. West shouted ‘waste them’ and he and Smith unloaded on the group. The boy Do Hat survived the initial shooting. As he stood there, likely in shock, one of the two shot and killed him as well.

Hugh Thompson

Hugh Thompson was a gunship pilot circling My Lai that day. He had noted the amount of bodies seen but finally decided to do something when he witnessed someone (later identified as Medina) executing a woman. Colburn and Andreotta, crew/gunners on his helicopter agreed that they had “to do something about this”. He landed his helicopter and confronted the troops on the ground, including Calley. After a tense conversation with Calley, he believed he had done enough to stop the killing. He went into the air and to his horror saw a soldier, Mitchell, killing the wounded in the ditch. Thompson again reported what he saw. Again he was ignored.

Thompson spotted a group of soldiers (led by LT Brooks) closing on a group of civilians and knew they would die without any help. He again landed his helicopter and instructed his crew “if they fire on these people or fire on me while I’m doing that [getting the civilians out] shoot’em”. The presence of US soldiers forcefully intervening, both Colburn and Andreotta were armed with machine guns, caused enough hesitation to stop the impending slaughter. He then radioed the other helicopters to evacuate the civilians, women children and elderly men.

Prior to leaving, they did one more pass over the ditch. Andreotta saw movement, again they landed. Andreotta had to by-pass dying people grasping for him as he said “I can’t help you… you’re too bad off”. He found a child, thought to be maybe 5 years old (he was actually a small 8 year old) clinging to his dead mother. Thompson recalls the boy made him think of his own son back home. The men flew the boy to a hospital. Upon return to base, Thompson reported the war crimes he had seen.

Cover up

Although Thompson did file a report, the massacre was ‘unofficially’ investigated at the most cursory level possible. Those ‘investigating’ ensured that nothing came of the accusations and then even ‘lost’ the report. Medina even advised one of his men, Bernhardt (who also refused to kill civilians) ‘not to write his congressman’ about any of what happened.

It may have stayed buried, or at least more evidence would have been lost or destroyed had it not been for Ronald Ridenhour. Ridenhour had met up with a friend in Vietnam who began confessing to the massacre. Later Ridenhour was able to interview more witnesses and began to compile a complete story. On March 29, 1969 Ridenhour sent a 5 page letter to 30 military, administrative and congressional leaders regarding the My Lai massacre. One recipient Colonel William Wilson, a decorated WW2 veteran, asked to lead an investigation into the claims. The key testimony was that of Paul Meadlo who openly admitted to the killing of civilians at the direction of LT Calley. Despite hoping otherwise Wilson concluded that a massacre had occurred.

News reaches the public

“They didn’t put up a fight or anything. The women huddled against their children and took it. They brought their kids real close to their stomachs and hugged them, and put their bodies over them trying to save them. It didn’t do much good,” — Paul Meado, LT accused of Murdering 109 — Seymour Hersh

The initial response to Hersh’s article was muted. Reality set in when color photographs (taken by Haeberle) reached the public. Then Walter Cronkite aired them on his show. Bernhardt also appeared on multiple news shows to tell the story of what happened. The most shocking event for the American public was when Paul Meadlo appeared on 60 minutes with Mike Wallace.

Meadlo Interview

Paul Meadlo calmly recounted how he murdered civilians this day at My Lai.

Mike Wallace: [asking about the murder of civilians] Men, women and children?

Paul Meadlo: Men, women & children.

Wallace: And Babies?

Meadlo: And babies

Wallace: Obviously, the question comes to my mind, the father of two little kids like that… how can he shoot babies?

Meadlo: I dunno, its just one of them things

Meadlo continues that he ‘felt he was doing the right thing’ and at the time ‘he felt good’. He justified it by saying he lost some ‘good buddies’ there. His father stated that “if it had been me out there I would have swung my rifle around and shot Calley instead, right between the God damned eyes”[5].

Reaction

“To believe, however, that any large percentage of the population could believe the evidence which was presented and approve of the conduct of Lieutenant Calley would be as shocking to my conscience as the conduct itself, since I believe that we are still a civilized nation. If such be the case, then the war in Viet-Nam has brutalized us more than I care to believe, and it must cease. How shocking it is if so many people across the nation have failed to see the moral issue which was involved in the trial of Lieutenant Calley-- that it is unlawful for an American soldier to summarily execute unarmed and unresisting men, women, children, and babies. But how much more appalling it is to see so many of the political leaders of the nation who have failed to see the moral issue, or, having seen it, to compromise it for political motive in the face of apparent public displeasure with the verdict.” — Captain Daniels [Calley Prosecutor] letter to Nixon [6]

Trials

“There was no charge that General Yamashita had approved, much less ordered these barbarities and no evidence that he knew of them other than the inference that he must have because of their extent. ... Nevertheless, the tribunal found Yamashita guilty on the ground that he had " .... failed to provide effective control of his troops as required by the circumstances" and sentenced him to death by hanging.” - Telford Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam

Many troops escaped prosecution due to a supreme court decision that said those who were already discharged couldn’t be charged under the UCMJ (uniform code of military justice). Robert Jordan, the Army’s lead counsel, stated that they could be persecuted, but it needed a White House directive to do so (you will understand soon why this wasn’t pursued). Several of the soldiers on the ground referred to the murders as ‘Nazi-like’, many others saw similarities as well and demanded Nuremberg style prosecution for those involved. Some, including Jones, referred to the Yamashita case which held a Japanese General responsible for the crimes of his troops. There is some debate on whether he ‘knew’ of or ordered the crimes, but it seems he would have been at the very least aware and permissive of them, even if he had not ordered them[7]. In my mind, this means that at the very least up to Medina should have been found guilty. The careless “investigation” by his superiors is highly suspicious as well and does little to exonerate them of guilt.

Calley was court martialed for his crimes & eventually found guilty (more on this later). Medina too faced charges but was found not guilty, Medina evading guilt is as mind boggling as what later happened to Calley’s “life sentence” .

Politicians

“Tell [White House Press Secretary Ron] Ziegler not to comment on it [the My Lai Massacre]” — President Richard Nixon

Nixon took several steps to mitigate & manage the damage caused by the My Lai Massacre. First, he sought ways to discredit those who reported the crimes (including Thompson & Ridenhour). He also from the start, set out to make the issue political, framing it as ‘left vs right’ in order to garner support for the war and for Calley from at least some of the population. Nixon attacked the media’s coverage of the war while again emphasizing the ‘leftist media’. His primary goal was to maintain support for “Vietnamization”. The politicization of the Calley case was noted by then Senator Bayh who points out 115 other Americans were charged with murder for actions in Vietnam and 59 were convicted [7].

Several other politicians showed their moral bankruptcy in face of this as well. Congressman Hebert of Lousiana, was part of a sub-committee on My Lai, where he sought (and succeeded) to interview those involved and then mark the event classified to prevent the prosecution from calling them as witnesses. Alabama governor and presidential hopeful claimed he would “pardon Calley” , and engaged in other absurd attention gathering acts of ‘support’. Jones provides additional examples in his book.

The American Public

There was outrage and disbelief at what had occurred. Many Americans struggled to believe that American troops could commit such crimes. Others, while outraged at the murders, felt that Calley was merely a scapegoat. Calley’s guilt was undeniable, but many others should have faced charges with him. Jones contends that many military figures wanted further prosecutions of everyone involved .

After Calley’s conviction, polls showed that many in the American public disapproved of the verdict, a Gallup poll showed 79% disapproved of the guilty verdict [1]. Jones also noted the many calls made to protest the verdict but the Herald and Review noted “The majority of the callers did not know the crime of which Calley was convicted. And of those who did, many thought Calley and his men killed civilians when caught in a cross fire” [8]. While it provides some solace that the vast majority of Americans weren’t cheering for wanton murder, the misinformed or underinformed still helped provide cover for heinous war crimes.

Outcome

“As the administration had worried would be the case, the Calley verdict had driven a number of doves and hawks together in calling for a withdrawal of America’s Forces” — Jones, My Lai

3 days after Hersh’s article 2 million Americans joined in a day of protests against the war across the country [9]. Despite Nixon’s best efforts, support for the war continued to decline, by 1971 Gallup polls showed 61% of Americans felt US involvement was wrong [9]. Protests surged again following the Kent State Shootings, where national guard members fired on anti-war protestors. Nixon’s own commission later stated that “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable”.

Although My Lai and the trials of those involved perhaps shifting public opinion, no one faced REAL consequences. Many simply left or were effectively forced out of the Army. Calley was initially sentenced to life in prison with hard labor, he was almost immediately moved to house arrest by Nixon. His life sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Army. In 1973, Secretary of the Army subsequently reduced this again to 10 years, which made him eligible for parole in the coming months. His “confinement” lasted a mere 3 years, at his own house for his pivotal role in the murder of hundreds of civilians.

“Calley and Medina ought to have been hung and then drawn and quartered and the remains put at the gates at Fort Benning to remind all who enter of the consequences” — Colonel Harry G. Summers (retired), US Army (Korea & Vietnam Veteran)

A Continuing Problem

“For the push of Fallujah, there [were no civilians]. We were told before we went in that if it moved, it dies. ...” — Justin Sharratt, USMC

While I opened this article stating these cases and people are aberrations, it is important to note that our apathy towards them allows crimes like these to happen. My Lai wasn’t the only massacre in Vietnam and there have been others since. This, again, is why it is critical to examine these cases and demand justice for the victims and punishment for the perpetrators.

Abu Ghraib

I think many, if not most Americans are aware of the brutal and inhumane torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. From my own perspective, it showed again the moral depravity of some of our troops. Multiple Presidents acknowledged the harm its perpetrators did to America and the security of our troops overseas. Despite this, most of these criminals received minor sentences relative to their crimes, ranging from effectively nothing, to 10 years in prison. Even I was at least partially ignorant to just how terrible these crimes were. These soldiers were not ‘in combat’ they are just sadistic and morally bankrupt. For committing some of these crimes I view the criminal as entirely beyond redemption. As if to emphasize how irredeemable some of these soldiers are, 10 years after the incident Lyndie England said in an interview “you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”[10]. Reading the quote below, I feel some should have received the punishment Col. Summers recommended above.

“I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.” — Mehaddi Hilas, Abu Gharib Prisoner [11]

Haditha Massacre

“First to Fight for Right & Freedom and to Keep our Honor Clean; We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine” — Marine Corps Hymn

In 2005 American Marines disgraced themselves, the Marine Corps and their country by carrying out a massacre in Haditha Iraq. This slaughter claimed the lives of 24 men women and children, including a 3 year old girl, shot point blank by American “Marines”. None of those involved served jail time. “To Keep our Honor Clean” would mean that Marines that execute defenseless civilians would, at a minimum, serve serious jail time. If you murder a child, I see no chance of redemption and no justification to waste resources keeping you alive in prison. The specifics of who was truly guilty and who was not, I do not know. One Marine, Justin Sharratt, was accused of herding 3 men into a room and executing them with his pistol. All 3 died with gunshot wounds to the head from his pistol [12]. He stated that at least one of the men was armed and pointing a rifle at him which led to the use of force (claiming the 3 died in a firefight). I don’t know enough to pass definitive judgement, very well placed shots does raise some eyebrows though. Still, assume that was legitimate, what about accountability for the 21 others that were killed, many in their beds, including children?

Gaza

Enabling Genocide

“Several sources described how the ability to shoot without restrictions gave soldiers a way to blow off steam or relieve the dullness of their daily routine” — I’m bored, so I shoot, 972 Magazine

Note: I initially had images from Gaza throughout this section. I moved them to the bottom of the article. I don’t mean to ‘shock’ you, but I truly do believe it is in our interest to at least glance at the evil we are supporting. Even still, these images are a TINY sample of what can be found today, do not think any image or description is ‘the only occurrence’, it is one of many.

The extent of the documentation of israeli war crimes is staggering. While Americans had become outraged by the color photos of dead children in 1969, today we see video of men, women, children and babies executed by israeli forces. Many Americans do their very best to ignore it completely. I think many are ignorant or misinformed, like the callers who professed their support of the murderous Lt. Calley. Some Americans will argue that ‘its not us, its the israelis’ but make no mistake, Israel could not carry out this genocide without the full backing and support of the US government. The blood of these people is on our hands too.

October 7th set a tone for the israelis much like that felt by the soldiers entering My Lai. They were fighting an ‘unseen enemy’ and had a strong desire for vengeance. At the start of the invasion, much of the atrocity propaganda the israeli government pushed out was still believed to be true, mass rapes, beheaded babies, blown up vehicles, all later proved false or the actions of the IDF itself fueled hatred and a lust for vengeance.

While My Lai was noted for the lack of written orders as an oddity, it has been the policy of the israelis since the 1980s not to issue written rules of engagement [14]. Unsurprisingly this has allowed for the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians. The current death toll is over 40,000, the Lancet had estimated a ‘conservative’ 4 indirect deaths per direct death, this math would put the current figure at over 200,000 deaths. The high end of the estimate is 15 deaths per direct death which would over a 600,000 people (>25% of Gaza’s population)[15].

Note: I encourage you all to read I’m Bored so I shoot by 972 magazine.

The accounts in the 972 article provide more evidence to the policy of slaughter enacted by the israelis. “B” describes it as “total freedom of action” “B” elaborates how no real cause is needed, “no need to explain— you just shoot”. He detailed one instance where people were instructed to go one way, if they went the wrong way they were instantly killed.

“A battle started inside; people ran away. Some fled left toward the sea, [but] some ran to the right, including children. Everyone who went to the right was killed — 15 to 20 people. There was a pile of bodies.”

Others detail how any weapon is permissible, “machine guns, tanks, mortars”. They speak on how it is mere formality to get approval to fire on hospitals, schools and other ‘sensitive’ buildings. Much like the soldiers described in the My Lai massacre, aiming for ‘high kill counts’ the zionists have a similar sentiment, labeling all men ‘terrorists’ and eager to show they are “the big guy”.

It is STILL permitted for soldiers to fire upon anyone, even those they know to be civilians. A reservist interviewed by Haaretz said "In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate”. The soldiers reiterate in that article that the rules are not well defined, kill zones are established and basically, anyone they want to kill they can kill [16].The barbarity here cannot be understated. The guardian reported multiple accounts from doctors in which they saw child after child deliberately shot in the head by israeli snipers [17].

State Sanctioned Torture & Rape

“The conditions at Sde Teiman aren’t unique. They’re just the tip of the iceberg,” Shai Parnes, B’Tselem

I mentioned in my article Zionism, an Obstacle to Peace, how Israel has long been known to both torture and rape prisoners. One horrific case noted in that article involved the rape of a 13 year old boy. Defense of Children International reported the rape to US State Department official, Josh Paul. Paul then reported it to the IDF as ‘credible’, the IDF responded by labeling DCI a terrorist organization and seizing all of their equipment. In its report “Welcome to Hell”[18], B’Tselem details how many of the crimes are systemic and intentional. The report covers beatings, various forms of torture and rape of the prisoners.

The fully Rotten soul of Israel

The unchecked criminal activity of the zionists has led to worsening conditions. While many point to Sde Teiman as the ‘Israeli Abu Ghraib’ , it has a feature that Abu Ghraib did not, open governmental support for the crimes committed there. Video was released of a group of soldiers raping a prisoner [19] who had to be hospitalized following the abuse. 10 soldiers were arrested for their crimes, an attempt by the israeli government to give the impression of legitimacy.

This pretense quickly collapsed showing the full rot of the ‘soul of israel’, rioters (some of them armed) broke into the prison holding the soldiers, demanding their release. With the rape undeniable, both on film and noted by doctors in the hospital, Ben-Gvir, the man in charge of Israel’s prison service said “The spectacle of military police officers coming to arrest our best heroes at Sde Teiman is nothing less than shameful,”[20]. Likud party member (PM Netanyahu’s political party) and Knesset member Tally Gotliv joined the rioters in support of the rapists. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the ‘protests’ “are justified and I support them with all my heart”. Hanoch Milwidsky, another Likud party member in the Knesset, when asked by another Knesset member if it was legitimate “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum”, stated that “everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”[21]

Amidst the cover of Israeli escalatory attacks, the israeli government released the rapists, one of whom went on a publicity tour on public TV and was often treated as a hero. What was described as ‘near anarchy’ was averted at the expense of any pretense of international legitimacy and moral goodness.

As horrific and barbaric as the My Lai massacre was, it lasted a few hours. The ongoing genocide in Gaza, which routinely and deliberately targets children, has been going on for nearly a year.

In service to the State

“Out there, lacking restraints, sanctioned to kill, confronted by a hostile country and a relentless enemy, we sank into a brutish state. The descent could be checked only by the net of a man’s inner moral values, the attribute that is called character. There were a few—and I suspect Lieutenant Calley was one—who had no net and plunged all the way down, discovering in their bottommost depths a capacity for malice they probably never suspected was there.” — Philip Caputo (Vietnam Veteran) , Rumor of War

We saw the different levels of moral limits of those in My Lai. Some refused to partake in murder, some, like Thompson tried to prevent it. Conti was ok with rape but apparently drew the line at murder . Calley, Meadlo and many others had seemingly no morality and were the embodiment of evil. Calley knew killing and murder was wrong, yet in his interview with a psychiatrist you could see his framework. His morality, his natural sense of what was right & wrong came secondary to his service of orders. He, like Meadlo, placed orders above all else. They worked through morality like a lawyer working through case laws, seeking a loophole to justify their crimes, all in service of the state.

‘Rules of engagement’ which essentially establish when a soldier can or cannot shoot, are the final obstacle to those without their own ‘net’. If a state, like israel, removes all rules of engagement and trains its people to abandon morality, unnecessary deaths will be the inevitable outcome. If ‘bad intel’ effectively removes rules of engagement, unnecessary deaths will result.

Psychological Conditioning

“Psychologically and morally, it’s much easier to kill a ‘dink’ than it is to shoot a Vietnamese” — American civilian official [from Jones’ book]

“I sent them a good boy and they made him a murderer.” — Paul Meadlo’s mother

I’ve mentioned this before, primarily in Guarding Your Humanity, but there is a science to getting people accustomed to killing. In my opinion it starts at a young age with the violence in our various forms of media. “A” an israeli soldier interviewed by 972 stated “It felt like a computer game. Only after two weeks did I realize that these are [actual] buildings that are falling” [14].

Dr. Hamman, a psychiatrist interviewed Calley, he asked Calley “Well, you keep using the word ‘waste’… I never hear you use the word kill, why not?”, Calley responded “we don’t use that word. Kill refers to our teachings that we are brought up with ever since childhood—Thou shalt not kill. If you use the word kill with the troops, it causes a very negative emotional reaction, so you use the word waste, to get rid of, to destroy”. He further went on to detail that its “The enemy dying” not ‘humans dying’, he thought of the Vietnamese as “potential killers of himself and his men”. [1]

The assumption here is that most people have morality and they must be trained to override what they are taught. Calley and others, however, were morally bankrupt. Bernhardt , a member in his platoon, described emerging from a bomb shelter (this was before My Lai) and seeing Calley ‘with his pants down and a woman kneeling before him while he held a .45 pistol to her head’. He determined that he “really wanted to kill that guy [Calley] but there were just too many guys around”. Bernhardt described Calley as “pure evil…rotten to the core”[1]

Fixing our moral compass

Most Americans profess to be Christians, many others would still agree with the ‘wrongness’ of the things listed in the Bible excerpt above. As we all agree with this, why do we allow our government to conduct so many of these things in our name? Why do we allow the ‘north’ of our moral compass to be led off course by the ‘magnetic pull’ of political machinations?

Hannah Ardent said “The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good”. In light of this, we must actively CHOOSE to be good. To be ‘unaligned’ poses too great a risk for us to do or accept evil. We must FIX our moral compass. We must make a hard definition of ‘north’ like the one described above and we must learn to adhere to it and hold our government to it as well. We cannot put the state before morality, we cannot allow the state to have supremacy over ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.

Individuals should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but actions deserve no such luxury. If you hear a child is murdered, your reaction should be revulsion and outrage. You shouldn’t need to hear of nationality or political ideologies first to decide if the murder of that child is right or wrong.

Collateral Damage

“Unintentional or incidental injury or damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time. Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack.”[22]

One of the most evil ideas in modern times is the concept of ‘collateral damage’. This concept asserts that ‘as long as we didn’t mean to kill them, its ok’. I think this was one of the most important steps in chipping away at our moral compass. The fact that some people will accidentally be killed in war was used to give cover to policies and strategies that did little to prevent such deaths.

We, through the concept of collateral damage put these losses of human life at a near zero cost. We don’t look at the person, the family the town. It’s “just an accident” like a car crash or a fall, “wholly unpreventable”. Avoiding civilian casualties is (in the short term) costly and often risky, it often involves troops on the ground as opposed to air and drone strikes. In the eyes of a merciless government, ‘why bother, the American people don’t seem to care much’.

While some civilian casualties are ‘unavoidable’ it is our duty to, at the very least, ensure the exchange is ‘worth it’. If bombing a wedding would kill dozens along with a ‘terrorist’ who can be easily replaced, why bother? That equation only ‘works out’ if we allow our government to assign zero value to the innocent people around the ‘target’. We must reject the automatic, blank check acceptance of ‘collateral damage’. We must demand accountability and real consequences when innocent lives are lost.

In our sheltered, mostly blind and short sighted view of the world we, our government included, may see this as ‘their problem’ not ‘our problem’ but blowback is detrimental to our interests. The created security risks keep us in forever wars and rob us of lives, liberty & property as I detail in American Victory.

Protesting and Liberty

Today we see many protests, again centered around college campuses. Earlier this year many ‘encampments’ were erected. Unsurprisingly, political leaders and media personalities condemned the activities in a desperate attempt to defend the zionist state and the many flows of money dolled out on its behalf. Donald Trump lamented the current environment where people could protest israel (and AIPAC). His own platform goes even further labeling anti-genocide protestors ‘pro-hamas’ and vowing to deport them, in the same document he pledges to support free speech. For those confused, supporting free speech means supporting all speech, even that which you do not like.

I think that the below excerpt from Nixon’s own commission on ‘campus unrest’ is sufficient enough to simply be reapplied to the protests we see today. While you may incorrectly believe the protestors are ‘wrong’, you are attacking liberty if you seek to use government pressure or force to make them stop. That is a much more ‘anti-America’ stance than protesting a genocide.

Conclusion

“A country without a conscience is a country without a soul, and a country without a soul is a country that cannot survive” —Winston Churchill

“I think there is a good deal of evidence that we thought all along we were a redeemer nation. There was a lot of illusion in our national history. Now its about to be shattered….This is a moment of truth when we realize that we are not a virtuous nation.” — Reinhold Niebuhr on the conviction of Calley

"For this nation to condone the acts of Lieutenant Calley is to make us no better than our enemies and make any pleas by this nation for the humane treatment of our own prisoners meaningless. — Captain Daniels

Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were and still should be inspirational around the world. However, we cannot claim to uphold our founding principles while simultaneously allowing our government or our troops to destroy “the deepest hopes of men the world over”. We must look at the evil we have done and forcefully reject it. All who are responsible, from policy setting on down, MUST be held accountable and the punishment must be severe.

The cost to America is not just political capital, it is not just the added security risks we face, it is a risk to the very soul of America. The “they should have obeyed” mentality that has arisen in support of the growing police state is to me a domestic reflection of the evil we have allowed overseas. We must choose morality, we must choose to be ‘good’, both at the personal and at the government level. What we allow to occur in our name will shape the kind of nation we leave for our children.

Share

Leave a comment

Related Articles

Resources

1. My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness, Howard Jones

2. CIA, A retrospective on Counterinsurgency Operations

3. War Hero relives day he refused to murder, Orlando Sentinel

4. The My Lai Massacre: A military Crime of Obedience

5. PFC Paul Meadlo on the My Lai Massacre (1969)

6. Captain Daniels Letter to Nixon

7. Yamashita, Nuremberg and Vietnam: Command Responsibility Reappraised

8. President's [Calley] move arouses political debate, NY Times

9. The Anti-War Movement AlphaHistory.com

10. Iraq War 10 years later: where are they now? Lynndie England NBC News

11. Abu Ghraib abuse photos show rape

12. Marine cleared in killing of Iraqis

13. The Haditha Massacre Photos that the Military didn't want you to see, the New Yorker

14. I'm bored, so I shoot, 972 Magazine

15. Counting the dead in Gaza: Difficult but essential, the Lancet

16. Israel Created 'kill zones' in Gaza. Anyone who crosses them is shot, Haaretz

17. 'not a normal war': doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza, The Guardian

18. Welcome to Hell, B'Tselem

19. Israeli media airs footage showing alleged sexual abuse of Palestinian detainee, The guardian

20. 'Bordering on anarchy': IDF chief sounds alarm after right-wing mob overruns 2nd base, The times of israel

21. ‘Everything is legitimate’: Israeli leaders defend soldiers accused of rape, Al Jazeera

22. Accountability for Killing, Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America's Post 9/11 wars, Neta Crawford

23. President’s Commission on Campus unrest

Images From Gaza : Warning these are graphic

“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils…And it gives ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without Odium, sometimes even with popularity…” — George Washington, Farewell Address 1796

General

I was not looking for this pick, I wanted Vivek or a dream pick more aligned with my personal values like Thomas Massie or Rand Paul. As I have said before, Trump hasn’t yet earned my vote and there were some picks for VP that would have guaranteed I voted for someone else. While I heard some soundbites from Vance that were ‘good’, I also found aspects that I wholly reject.

Disclosure: The book links in this article are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

When researching this article I came across several articles Vance himself wrote. This is a big plus in my book and something that I believe should be a requirement of any who hold public office. I have been reading the Anti-Federalist Papers & the Constitutional Convention Debates and becoming increasingly unimpressed and angry with our small word using morons in office. While his articles don’t reach that level, it is far better than the soundbites and 10 second slogans we get from most politicians. That said, there is a wide range of quality in his articles. His ‘anti-Ukraine war’ article is great with a lot of data to support his claims. Other topics, he gives an article but with much more surface level information or completely devoid of data (still better than sound bites, but only a bit).

Foreign Policy

Warmonger or Isolationist?

“We need to make sure that the people who have made catastrophic mistakes at the very least have to apologize for it before they advocate for the next catastrophic mistake for the next generation,”

“Iraq was all about freedom, liberty, and democracy, bringing the American way of life to Iraq, and yet what we actually got out of it was Iran becoming even more powerful than they were four years ago,” [1]

“And it’s time to send a message to the world that America is the arsenal of democracy, but we cannot do that unless you get out and stop the focus on Ukraine.”

“we might be able to make enough weapons to be more of a positive force in the world”[2]

Vance is initially a bit hard to pin down on foreign policy, he says a LOT of the right things but he does not apply his logic consistently. He can recognize our forever wars and their visible & hidden costs, yet he still refers to ‘weapon making’ as a “positive force” in the world. As I said in other articles, we need to stop making enemies and we have to stop fighting on behalf of other nations. Vance falls short on foreign policy because he refuses to put America before ALL other nations.

NATO

This video[3], is from his speech/interview in Munich, Feb 2024. He and I are aligned on the inability for the US to maintain its empire, he doesn’t use those words but he says it, more or less. He doesn’t want to “abandon” NATO but he wants Europe to play a larger role in their own defense. He correctly points out the lack of deterrence that Europe itself poses. He states we “live in a world of scarcity” and the “west does not make enough weapons”. He is 100% correct, I wrote about this in America’s Waning Power. In another interview he again points out that French & Germans are not “doing their fare share in their own backyard”[2]. The theme seems pretty consistent.

Ukraine

“Mr. Biden has failed to articulate even basic facts about what Ukraine needs and how this aid will change the reality on the ground.” — JD Vance

Vance was against the Ukraine aid package, his chief argument (from the Munich video) being ‘its not an issue of money, its an issue of munitions’. He is right, it is manpower and munitions, two things Ukraine cannot compete with. Vance stated that this will end in “some negotiated peace” [3]. I argued in my other articles that our foreign endeavors need to be SMART, not open ended chaos. So this at least surface level aligns with that.

Looking at Vance’s April 12, 2024 article, ‘The Math on Ukraine Doesn’t Add Up’, Vance further backs up his claims with facts and figures related to the war. Summarizing, the US doesn’t make enough munitions to overcome Russian advantage & the Ukrainians cannot compete on manpower. He make a solid argument and backs it up. He ends with the call to speak with Russia and ‘broker for peace’.

Asia

“They’re [China] focused on how strong we actually are, and to be strong enough to push back against the Chinese, we’ve got to focus there, and right now, we’re stretched too thin.” JDVance

“The thing that we need to prevent more than anything is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan….It would be catastrophic for this country. It would decimate our entire economy. It would throw this country into a Great Depression.” [1]

“get ourselves in a position where we don’t have to rely on the Chinese and the Taiwanese in the first place.” [4] October 2022

on CHIPS act :
“It’s a great piece of legislation….We [have] just got to go much further, so we don’t have to defend island countries if it’s not in our core national interest.”

The correct position here is that we don’t want to be involved in Taiwan, we don’t want to have to fight (and lose against) China for computer chips. There are two aspects to this, first, commit to building more here in the states, consider it ‘defense spending’ if need be. Second, do not cross from ‘frenemy to enemy’ with China. They rely heavily on trade with us, if they decide to ‘take Taiwan’, we still should be able to trade if that is in the best interest of the United States. I am not willing to trade American lives for Taiwanese chip manufacturers.

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed—in order to give to trade a stable course,” — George Washington’s farewell address

Israel

“But our national security interests can be — and often are — separate from our economic interests. The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict.”

The above quote legitimately makes me excited about Vance and the only thing that ruins that excitement is that he explicitly advocates for an ‘israel exception’ to ALL of his America First rhetoric. He openly calls for stronger actions against Iran and he lauds the failed Abraham accords[5] (which led to Hamas’ Al-Aqsa Flood) .

"A lot of people recognize that we need to do something with Iran—but not these weak little bombing runs. If you're going to punch the Iranians, you punch them hard.”[5]

Everything about his stances on israel & the middle east are counter to what he says about the rest of the world. He complains about the ‘forever wars’ in Iraq & Afghanistan but refuses to acknowledge we were in Iraq for ISRAEL. Additionally, Iran is NOT Iraq. America will not win a war against Iran(A Wider War Iran) and engaging in such a war would probably destroy israel (Double or Nothing). Before you get all up in arms, know what American Victory actually is, the preservation of AMERICAN life, liberty & property and read the other articles written on the situation in the Middle East.

Why Not Israel

Israel has been a source for violence and an obstacle to peace since its inception. The land theft it is based on is un-American. USMC General Smedley Butler tried warning us in ‘War is a Racket’ of the power of the military industrial complex in 1935, yet we didn’t listen. When support for zionism was presented as a source for constant conflict in the middle east, the MIC ensured it was pushed through. This has led to the racket becoming more corrupt and more in the open than ever before. I wrote about it here in ‘War is STILL a Racket’. In short, the zionists are the golden goose for the military industrial complex. The AIPAC people are pushing for ‘peace’ elsewhere because as Vance accurately argues, we cannot support multiple wars and they (israel) want our support (money, munition and lives). Again, support of israel is not supporting American Victory.

Money & Economy

“For two decades, while America has consumed much and made little, there has been no better industry than moving fake currency from one location to another.”[6]

“dollar as the reserve currency has benefits, but it has downsides for American manufacturers…good thing is, things are cheaper, but its bad for exporters” [2]

“we export dollars, don’t export nearly as much as we used to”[2]

"I'm not philosophically against raising taxes on anybody…Raising middle class taxes, I don't like that idea, for obvious reasons”

I like when anyone calls the dollar ‘fake currency’. He seems to have a better grasp on economics/money than a lot of politicians but, that is a REALLY low bar. He should follow Thomas Massie’s lead and read the Bitcoin Standard. I don’t support raising taxes on anyone and believe they should be lowered/eliminated. I am ok with tariffs IF they replace income taxes.

He is opposed to ‘non-productive brain drain’. Meaning, he doesn’t want talent and skill wasted on ‘social media’ luring people in for ad spend [7] & he has reportedly said the same regarding finance. Oddly enough, China recently enacted a policy to combat this as well, they implemented income caps on the financial sector [8]. Vance is more pro-union than many Republicans and sees tariffs as a means to reinvigorate American manufacturing[9].

Overall, he isn’t focusing enough on what is causing the issues he takes note of. He is chasing symptoms and trying to treat symptoms while the root cause dates back to 1913 and America’s worst President Woodrow Wilson. This is when we got the federal reserve & the income tax (among other awful things). The federal reserve effectively robs the wealth of the middle class through inflation. I recommend reading “When Money Dies” which covers collapse of the German mark after WW1 as an example of how inflation steals wealth.

1st Amendment

“These guys have the right to peacefully protest, even if we criticize the message. They do not have the right to set up tent cities on our public spaces and turn our cities into garbage dumps. That is what I think we should not allow, and I think the police should be able to handle that job pretty easily.” Vance

I’d argue that civil disobedience and protesting by its very nature includes ‘occupying’ areas. While he (rightfully) supports the January 6th protestors trespassing in the federal building, he is opposed to college students ‘occupying’ campuses. If they set up on bridge or on streets I might agree to some degree, but setting up on the campus you are protesting isn’t some grand offense. This isn’t nearly as bad a take as some republicans who have no loyalty to nor understanding of the Constitution.

Second Amendment

“I think the red flag laws, in particular, they certainly are a slippery slope. They also don’t solve the problem of gun violence.” [10]

“These restrictions will make it harder for law-abiding Ohioans to exercise their Second Amendment rights and neither will have even a small effect on gun violence in our country.”

Vance seems Republican on guns. He referred to bump stocks as a ‘fake problem’ and that Schumer’s anti-bumpstock bill would “end up just inhibiting the rights of law-abiding Americans”. He isn’t wrong here but even in his article in the Columbus Dispatch, he really isn’t proposing anything to help Americans fight the infringements that already exist. I expect at a minimum a federal push for Constitutional carry that was floated when Trump was first elected (we should also repeal ‘gun free’ schools).

Immigration

“we don’t have a country anymore if we don’t get control of that border…” Vance

Vance asked Powell regarding how immigration impacts inflation, specifically housing inflation. He mentions the downward pressure on wages immigration has and implies that without immigration, wages would increase and “those on the sideline” would enter the workforce. He additionally mentioned the impact on hospital service & school services [11]. He advocates for deportation, in some instances “all who came illegally” in others he states ‘start with the criminals’ , not sure if he is implying to go for all after the criminals or not.

I want to point out the distinction between legal immigration and ILLEGAL immigration. Newsweek (and I’m assuming others) surfaced this as a ‘gotcha’ where Vance stated (in 2010), "Border security is a good start, but if we plan to control the border, then we must also plan to massively increase the number of legal migrants allowed into the country.". This isn’t contradictory you can support more legal immigration and less illegal immigration. I actually, at some level at least, support this stance. I don’t know about “massively increasing” but streamlining the legal immigration process would reduce illegal immigration. Vance did officially abandon this position and called it “a stupid opinion from 15 years ago”.

Family

This isn’t really a ‘government’ issue outside of some vague proposals to encourage more families to have kids. High level, he thinks of marriage as “sacred” as opposed to a simple “contract” [12] and believes kids suffer as a result of divorce. While I agree, kids suffer in divorce, I think it is impossible to prove that kids would be happier if the parents in unhappy/abusive relationships stayed together. I could see him pushing for tax breaks etc to ‘encourage’ families to have kids.

Abortion

"It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term…It's whether a child should be allowed to live…” — Vance when asked about exceptions to abortion for Rape & incest.

Vance was strongly anti abortion by most standards though recently he seems to have accepted ‘states rights’ approach to it that Trump has been promoting. Ohio explicitly voted for abortion[13] and nationally it has been seen as something that has cost Republicans since the overturning of Roe v Wade. Vance additionally voiced support for the accessibility of abortion drugs[14] .

Kristen Welker : “But just to be clear: You support mifepristone being accessible?”

Vance: “Yes, Kristen, I do,”

With that shift he has received pushback from Catholic groups (Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019)[15]. C.J. Doyle from the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts said “This tawdry episode informs us that Vance has no principles, at least none that aren’t for sale, and the asking price is cheap,” [14].

Drugs

Vance’s mother had drug addiction issues and I think this makes the opioid problem more personal to him than many other issues. In an interview with Meet the Press [16], He talks here about working to stop the ‘demand side’ of drug use. He points towards families with ‘stable families and income’ having less issues than others. He then calls “treatment a major source of the story”. On the supply side, he states the below:

“I want to empower the President of the United States, whether that’s a Democrat or Republican, to use the power of the U.S. military to go after these drug cartels”

On China he advocates the following stance “If you don’t stop sending fentanyl precursors to Mexico and to our own ports of entry, we’re going to really penalize you guys economically."

Vance is against legalization but supportive of medically assisted treatment (not sure what that means exactly). He didn’t jump straight to 1990s anti-drug rhetoric, so there can be some room to work there. Marijuana seems like a low importance issue to him[17]. He complained of the smell of weed on the streets when out with kids, not an uncommon complaint (those in/near cities know!)

His stance seems ‘ok’ in comparison to many Republicans, but not great. I believe weed should be legal along with most classes of drugs. The regulation of such drugs would prevent overdoses and drain the money from cartels without committing troops. One of these days I’ll have time for that article, but in the short term, just look at alcohol during prohibition vs after.

Other issues

Project 2025

Vance has stated that it has some “good ideas in there” and has some ties with Heritage Foundation and its founder[18] . Heritage foundation is behind project 2025 so I imagine that this will carry more weight than if Trump had picked someone else. I am working on skim-reading the document but it is ~900 pages long. At a glance, I liked the smaller government aspects (it has a section on the Federal Reserve too), but foreign policy part was way too hawkish. A full review will be out in the next couple weeks if it still seems relevant.

The Trump Flip

From ‘never Trumper’ to Trump’s pick for VP. The swing from vehemently anti Trump to Trump’s VP is pretty large. Alone I am ok with this, people are allowed to and should change their mind when presented with new information. However, along with the other inconsistencies it again brings up the question of authenticity. Its something I am not decided on yet regarding Vance but it is definitely something he is going to have to work to prove.

“Inside” Opinion

This article from the Columbus dispatch says that Vance “isn’t ready” and Trump had “far more credible options, including Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Doug Burgum”. Personally, either of those choices and Trump would have ZERO chance of getting my vote. I wholly reject the concept of career politicians, if you are unemployable outside of government you should remain unemployed (also covered in ‘War is STILL a Racket’.

Conclusion

Vance has shown himself to be ‘flexible’, what is hard, if not impossible, to determine is whether his flexibility comes from a ‘sincere’ place. If he aims to better represent his constituents or learned something new then great! If however this is just what he views as a ‘path to success’ then he is no better than others and the words of the C.J. Doyle above should have been our warning.

Zionism is the thing that ruins JD Vance for me. Without it he checks a lot of boxes. That last stumbling block undoes a lot of good and puts the sincerity of his positions into further question. There is a glimmer of hope, he had refused, despite his AIPAC handlers demanding otherwise, to vote in favor of the Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan aid bill. His position wasn’t good, he simply wanted to vote separately to enthusiastically approve the israel aid while blocking Ukraine aid. Still, it shows some spark of truly being America First. If he wants me to believe him I need to see his Ukraine-style America First policy applied universally. Again, for me Vivek was the better choice (for multiple reasons), the key difference is that Vivek had called for us to end aid to Israel as well. With that apparently costly stance, Vivek proved to me that he is SINCERELY America First.

I am still not sold on Trump/Vance. Vance isn’t really ‘great’ on anything, he is better than most Republicans but that is not saying much. In short, Vance is FAR from the worst possible choice by Trump (looking at you Nikki Haley). Of those floated by Trump, Vance might have been the 2nd best choice after Vivek. I don’t think Vance ‘hurt’ Trump’s chances but I’m not convinced he is helping much either.

wrote an article around a recently leaked dossier on Vance. He is banned on X at the moment for sharing information already publicly leaked.

Share

Leave a comment

Resources

1. https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/04/20/get-progressive-politics-out-foreign-policy-says-j-d-vance/#:~:text=We%20cannot%20continue%20forcing%20American,years%20ago%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20said.

2. https://www.foxnews.com/media/america-risk-another-great-depression-taiwan-falls-china-jd-vance-warns

3. Senator Vance Delivers A "Wake Up Call" To Munich Security Conference

4. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tim-ryan-and-j-d-vance-spar-over-approach-to-china-during-first-of-two-senate-debates-in-ohio-11665452768

5. https://x.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1813077644331933699

6. https://archive.ph/CKAo8

7. https://americancompass.org/oren-cass-and-j-d-vance-on-the-future-of-the-republican-party/

8. https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3269000/china-set-annual-salary-cap-finance-sector-amid-common-prosperity-push-sources-say

9. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/16/nation/jd-vance-economic-policy/

10. https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/06/16/j-d-vance-voices-opposition-to-senate-gun-reform-framework/

11. Senator Vance Questions Jerome Powell On Economic Repercussions Of Immigration

12. https://www.vice.com/en/article/93abve/jd-vance-suggests-people-in-violent-marriages-shouldnt-get-divorced

13. https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/getattachment/cf27c10f-b153-4731-ae9e-e3555a326ed9/The-Right-to-Reproductive-Freedom-with-Protections-for-Health-and-Safety.aspx

14. https://www.ncregister.com/news/catholic-jd-vance-possible-trump-pick-abortion-stance

15. https://religionnews.com/2024/07/15/five-faith-facts-about-j-d-vance/#:~:text=Vance%20converted%20to%20Catholicism%20in,Henry%20Stephan%2C%20a%20Dominican%20friar.

16. Senator Vance Addresses The Fentanyl Crisis On NBC’s “Meet The Press”

17. https://www.marijuanamoment.net/where-trumps-vice-presidential-running-mate-j-d-vance-stands-on-marijuana/

Other JD Vance reads:

https://www.icf.com/insights/health/combating-the-opioid-epidemic-jd-vance

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/opioid-of-the-masses/489911/

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/07/beyond-libertarianism

Quick disclaimer

Clearly all of this is developing still. I am leaning a lot on “sources” on X because it is quickest to get information out there. Importantly, what is clear, someone attempted to assassinate Donald Trump.

Today, as Trump was delivering a speech at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, a shooter posted on a nearby rooftop and fired multiple shots at President Donald Trump. Donald Trump is alive & safe (with an injury to his ear). One bystander was killed, 2 were critically injured. The shooter was killed by Secret Service.

How

The shooter was on a nearby rooftop, reportedly ‘150 yards’ from Trump’s stage. The Federalist is reporting that ‘a source familiar’ stated that there were requests for more security that were “rebuffed time and again”. I have no idea about the validity of that claim nor do I know what is ‘standard’ vs what Trump is already afforded. Regardless, given what we do know as of now, some lapses in security absolutely occurred tonight.

BBC interviewed a man that said he saw a ‘man on the roof’ and the police were confused running about the grounds. He stated that he is “100%” certain that he saw the man, told the police & secret service about it 3-4 minutes before the shooting started. He stated that the secret service shot and killed the man shortly after. This video reportedly shows secret service with ‘eyes on’ the shooter, hard to verify that though. This video again shows the proximity to the President, the below image adding some context to the video.

The Corporate Media

When reports first started coming in I was skeptical. As soon as I saw the video I felt it was pretty clear as to what occurred. Someone tried to kill Donald Trump. The corporate media’s initial reporting was pathetic and should reinforce how untrustworthy they are.

Not only does the media deserve your disdain for their initial reports, they deserve it for leading us here. Corporate media feeds us hatred rather than information and discourse. Both ‘sides’ are fed nonsense and hyperbole because it sells more ad space and gets more clicks. Matt Taibbi’s “Hate Inc” covers it pretty well.

For years now the media has been working to convince us that Donald Trump is a ‘special’ kind of evil. I’d argue, at worst, he is as evil as the rest of them. If you are here, you are probably already aware, but be sure to encourage both friend & “foe” to abandon corporate press as hastily as possible.

Regardless of where you get your information, define your morals outside of the political realm. If you allow politics to define your morals it will lead you astray and poison the mind of otherwise ‘good’ people (can check X for ‘too bad they missed’ for evidence, or look at all those still supporting Genocide in Gaza). Much like I warned about losing sight of our humanity before, we must not let politics blind us nor steer us towards accepting evil.

Political Violence

Had Trump been killed I think that violence may have erupted, it still might. Lets hope that he helps the nation come together after this horrible attack where an innocent American lost their life.

There are many ignorant fools on ‘both sides’ of our political spectrum that think violence will lead to the victory they want. It will not. Political violence, or another ‘civil war’ will not end well for any American. If you hear someone advocating for it, know they are either a Fed or a complete moron with no grasp on the reality of violence. We, as a nation, panicked due to COVID and fought over toilet paper. Imagine food scarcity, no power and legitimate FEAR for life & limb. Better to fight with words and votes.

Conclusion

If you’ve read my other articles you know that I believe our nation is , due to our policy issues (foreign & domestic) , moving towards the collapse of our empire. Despite that, it is shocking to see an assassination attempt on a former President and leading Presidential candidate. I think this event speaks to how perilous the situation truly is. This would not happen in a ‘healthy’ nation.

I, as someone not ‘dedicated’ to Trump felt angry that this occurred and was genuinely impressed by Trump in the immediate aftermath. After getting up, a mic caught Trump’s voice, he instructed Secret Service “Wait , wait wait wait” , he thrust his fist into the air and appeared to say “fight, fight fight”. It is a pretty powerful moment. I think many others will feel the same way.

Again, there is still MUCH to learn about what exactly happened, how it happened and why it happened. This article is based on the information currently available, largely coming from X.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Initial Impressions

I would definitely give ‘home field advantage’ to Biden here. The 2 ‘moderators’ are definitely left leaning and we have seen the CNN bias for the past 8 years. The short answer format (this is unfortunately relatively standard though), mic muting, no audience etc all seem to benefit Biden more than Trump. Right from the start, things looked bad for Biden, he came shuffling out, pointing to … maybe a cameraman(?) and mumbling. Trump walked out relatively normal, I didn’t get much from his entrance.

Inflation, Jobs & Debt

Biden mentioned the COVID unemployment number but he did NOT inherit those numbers like he claims. In March of 2020 unemployment DID reach about 15% (14.8%), this is back when some jobs were deemed ‘essential’ and others were not. The unemployment rate quickly recovered, when Biden took over in January of 2021, the unemployment rate was 6.4% and rapidly declining.

Trump stated “we got hit with COVID… we spent the money necessary so we wouldn’t end up in a Great Depression”. He is probably right! COVID caused everything to crash and under Trump we printed money and took on debt to buy our way out of a crash. In my article Trump & Biden: Money supply, inflation & debt I cover this in more detail. My conclusion there is that Trump caused much of the inflation we see today by increasing the M2 money supply (printing money) in response to COVID. Now, you can argue that is justified (i am always against inflation and its follow on consequences) but that is a different argument.

Both Trump & Biden were bad on debt, as were almost all the Presidents since the Federal Reserve was created. Biden flat out lied about his tax policy. He stated that ‘billionaires pay 8.2% in taxes’ and if they paid ‘24 or 25%’ we could ‘wipe out the debt’ by raising $500 billion in the next 10 years. None of this is true. The wealthiest 1% paid an average tax rate of 25.99% in 2020. The current budget deficit is $1.9 TRILLION PER YEAR. $500 billion over 10 years is a drop in the bucket.

Roe v Wade

Any time something is handled at a lower level of government it is more representative of the people. Ideally, most things would be handled at the local level and the state and especially federal leadership wouldn’t matter much.

I agree with Trump on this topic, he stated that ‘now the states are working it out’, and they are. He also stated he believes in exceptions for “rape, incest and the life of the mother” (high-level) I agree here as well.

Biden claimed that “Fifty-one years, Constitutional Scholarship said it was the right way to go”. In reality, even the extreme left Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg acknowledged Roe was on shaky legal footing.

Terrorist attack?

So this took a little digging. I think Biden mixed up the numbers with the 3 soldiers recently killed (while he was president) in Jordan and the truck attack in NYC while Trump was president. That truck ramming attack resulted in EIGHT people being killed, not 3.

I think it is notable that Biden couldn’t keep his facts straight here, he had a point to make, but mixed up recent events and previous events.

Immigration

Biden claims that “Border Patrol men endorsed me, endorsed my position”, maybe some ones and twos but the union certainly did not (see below).

Biden mentions babies taken away from mothers and put in cages under trump and states that he has 40% fewer people coming across the border. Importantly, at this point Biden loses the ability to put together a coherent sentence and the anchors quickly jump to Trump.

Looking at the ‘national encounter’ information from Customs & Border Patrol, we can see a huge uptick under the Biden Presidency. The ‘40% fewer’ claim, might be based on the year-to-date number for 2024, but that is merely because we have half a year to go. Biden is measurably MUCH worse on immigration than Trump based on this metric.

*note: Southwest encounters accounted for ~82% of all encounters each year. In 2019 I only had Southwest encounter data & used the 82% figure to estimate the total.

Veterans

Biden mentioned the Pact act and all he has done for veterans. Biden quickly got angry and brought up his son’s service and death and called Trump a sucker and loser.

There isn’t a solid source that can put the ‘suckers and losers’ quote on Trump. Given the dishonest nature of those in government & in media, I think Trumps defense of ‘who would say that in front of generals’ makes sense.

The PACT act is good for veterans, it adds a list of illnesses that can be ‘presumed to be’ from exposure to toxic chemicals (like those from burn pits etc.). This is a W for Biden (even if just because it came to his desk during his term).

Bottom line, the VA sucks. It was created to track veteran health issues, we can do that with a database. Make all elected politicians be on the same plan as veterans and veterans will finally (magically) get the level of care they deserve.

Foreign Policy & Wars

I want to add in this quote from George Washington again because it is SO relevant today. I cover this in detail in American Victory.

“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils…And it gives ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without Odium, sometimes even with popularity…” — George Washington, Farewell Address 1796

Gaza & Israel

Trump points out that America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan encouraged ‘our enemies’, I think there is truth to this. I cover our waning power here, there are many aspects of it, but the Afghanistan withdrawal was embarrassing.

The CNN anchors posed the questions in the most pro-israel framing possible. Trump seemed to want to skirt around the topic, it is politically a lose-lose for him. Biden is losing the Arab & Muslim vote for supporting Genocide, all Trump has to do is be quiet. His assertion that he made Iran broke is irrelevant, the weapons that Hezbollah & Hamas has were not accumulated in the past 2-4 years, they have been accumulated over a decade. In reality, Trump’s Abraham accords that sought to cut Palestinians out of ANY regional peace deals is what led to 10/7. It was a last ditch effort to ensure Palestinians wouldn’t be ‘wiped from the board’. An act of desperation from people whose natural rights have been denied to them for over 75 years. I cover it in detail here.

Trump correctly points out that Israel is the one that wants the war to continue, this is 100% true, Netanyahu repeatedly refuses peace. He then tries to insult (?) Biden by calling him a Palestinian, but then calls him a ‘weak one’. If I am being blindly generous, ill take the compliment that Palestinians are strong (76 years of resistance proves that to be true). When asked if Trump would support an independent Palestinian state he said quickly ‘I’d have to see’ before changing the subject.

Biden went on to plead , literally plead, his case for why he is Israel’s ‘number one guy’. He is right about the 2,000lb bombs but it is too little to late. I encourage you to read this section of American Victory if you don’t read the whole article.

NATO & Ukraine

Trump asserts that he will ‘have the war settled’ as President elect. I think that is a bit of a stretch, but I do think we can push for peace relatively easily (same in Gaza, if we so choose).

NATO is not in America’s best interest, Europe is taking advantage of us, mocks us for our lack of infrastructure and healthcare while benefiting wholly from our over-expenditure on military, in part to protect Europe. Again, read American Victory for more details. Trump, in my opinion is one step away from the ‘right answer’ here. He thinks there is a price where it makes sense to risk American lives, liberty & property on behalf of Europe and I argue that there is no monetary value worth the risk.

Biden starts waving the fear flag of Russia invading all of Europe. This is unlikely, one because it would be incredibly difficult. Support through arms and munitions isn’t the same as getting all of Europe to actually fight against a nation. Two, the war was triggered by NATO expansionism, 4 days after Harris affirmed Ukraine’s ‘right’ to join NATO, Russia invaded. This has ALWAYS been a red-line for Russia for many reasons. I think most importantly, it is a huge border and NATO in Ukraine would jeopardize Russian access to the Black Sea.

Trump later spoke about how Ukraine is losing (near the end of the debate). We need to accept this fact and negotiate from this stance. Ukraine will not get the territory back that Russia has claimed, not most of it at least. Russia is effectively in a defensive position there now and will not be easily dislodged.

January 6th & other nonsense

January 6th was primarily a group of protesters trespassing in the federal building. I’m sure some had nefarious goals and those few should be charged with the relevant crimes. While politicians of both parties sat by and did nothing to prevent rioting, pillaging and destruction in OUR communities, they came together to protect what they see as the holy institution of the state. ‘Attack each other fine, but don’t you dare come at the state’ , that is what they want us to get from January 6. It should enrage all Americans.

The prosecution of Trump was a farce, the resulting swell of donations that flooded in after his guilty verdict shows that many Americans agree with this assessment. The neo-nazi coming from the woods? Charlottesville is a city, the protests were in a city, I think the ‘woods’ imagery is just more Biden dementia. Please just read Trump’s actual words here (snopes highlighted in bold the most relevant parts).

Black Americans

I oppose any race-based laws, be they beneficial or harmful. A poor black family doesn’t deserve a tax credit over a poor white family when buying a home. Fix the root cause and make homes more affordable to all. The student loan ‘crisis’ emerges from the government guaranteeing the loans and people taking on loans in excess of what they can reasonably afford (thanks to government guarantees). The loan forgiveness that Biden mentioned has been around a long time and isn’t restricted to specific races. The Nurse corps loan repayment programs was been around since the 1980s. Public service loan forgiveness started in 2007.

Both Trump and Biden both then lie regarding inflation (see above). Trump is trying to fault Biden for inflation while taking credit for the jobs growth, Biden is trying to pretend he saved the jobs. Reality, Trump printed money and took on debt to preserve the economy (stock market, jobs numbers etc). The post COVID recovery was thanks to printing money which then leads to inflation. Read the article I cited above.

Environment

I don’t take any proposal seriously if they are not utilizing nuclear power. It is the best way to get to ‘green’ in the short term. Perhaps long-term we can transition to other forms of energy but they are not a ‘short-term’ viable solution.

More nonsense

Biden claims we are the fastest growing economy in the world. We are not, not by far. It’s absurd claim on its face because we are one of the largest economies. Biden paints a delusional picture of American exceptionalism. We are unable to get our ally israel to stop killing children, Netanyahu mocks Biden openly. We are unable to stop Yemen, one of the worlds poorest countries, from shutting down the Red Sea. We were unable to stop Iran from striking Israel, despite getting multiple allies to join in their defense.

America is weak and getting weaker as I wrote in America’s Waning Power. That is not a ‘Biden’ or a ‘Trump’ thing, that is a fact of world geopolitical changes and the misguided decisions of over 100 years of Republicans and Democrats.

Woodrow Wilson is America’s worst president. Anyone that claims anything else does not know what they are talking about. Wilson ignored the King-Crane commission, which led to the creation of israel and our 76+ years of conflict in the middle east. He created the Federal Reserve which is responsible for inflation and the devaluation of our currency. He created the income tax that robs Americans of huge portions of their income. These actions also allowed for the military industrial complex to engage in constant wars that would be impossible without these aforementioned monetary & theft schemes.

Tariffs increase the price to the end user, this is a simple fact.

Opioid crisis

Neither politician had a solution here. My solution is legalization and regulation. Kids aren’t going out and trying fentanyl and dying, they are trying party drugs laced with fentanyl. Our war on drugs is also responsible for a large portion of the illegal immigration into the country.

Closing

If Biden’s frailty and mental decline is a surprise to you, I encourage you to abandon whatever news agencies you have been using up to this point. I re-listened to the debate while writing this and his frail failing voice was legitimately hard to listen to. He looked surprised for much of the debate. He can be seen forcibly trying to open his eyes wide throughout the debate in an effort to look ‘alert’. Even left wing news agencies agree (now finally) that he is not capable of running, they can no longer hide what many of us have known for years.

The challenges we face are far more severe than abortion or child care. No one proposed a plan to balance our budget. Biden is, undoubtedly, pushing us towards World War 3. When challenged on this, Biden cites article 5 of NATO, assuring the world we would enter WW3 if Europe is attacked. The frailty, both mentally and physically, that Biden displays is a sign of weakness to the world. Seeking peace is the right move in Ukraine, it is the only logical option at this stage. I wish Trump would say the same for Gaza, that conflict too has the potential to spiral out of control and further damage America.

America is facing the decline of our empire, that is true regardless of who is in office. For us to navigate that we need someone who is strong & intelligent. I don’t think that is Trump or Biden, but if forced to choose between the two, no one that cares about America should choose Biden.

Personally, I know I will not, under any circumstance, vote for Biden. I encourage you to vote for someone else as well. Trump has not yet earned my vote. His actions as President, from the money printing, to lockdowns to ‘take the guns first’ all are big marks against him in my book. If he picks the right person for VP I will consider him, I am looking for Vivek as his VP candidate. Anyone else that I saw on his ‘short list’ will result in me definitely voting 3rd party.

For 3rd party candidates, RFK is obviously the one with most momentum at this point. I will look into him more, though his ongoing support of israel and his weakness on the 2A are big concerns for me. Chase Oliver from the Libertarian party might be an option but I don’t know him much and the reaction from those I do ‘know’ makes me doubt he can earn my vote. There is also Jill Stein, who is great on war but not great to terrible on pretty much everything else.

At the end of the day, the only vote you ‘throw away’ is a vote for a candidate who does not actually represent you.

Subscribe now

Share

Leave a comment

Money Supply

Every president since America’s worst president, Woodrow Wilson, has contributed to inflation. The federal reserve is built upon the misguided idea that government printing money and creating inflation will lead to economic growth. This is the ‘2% target inflation’ we hear of. It is often used as a talking point with little honesty in the discussion. M2 is a measure of the total money supply (good video here), and is seen as a good indicator for inflation. The charts and data are pulled from FRED-M2

Trump-flation

That near vertical line of money printing occurred during Trump’s administration. When COVID hit Trump had 2 options. Let the bubble burst ( a bubble he called out as a candidate), or print money to forestall the collapse. Unsurprisingly, we printed our way out of that collapse, 5 months after the COVID crash the S&P500 was above pre-COVID levels. When Trump took office M2 was 13284 and increased to 19384. Money supply increased by 46% ($6.1 Trillion). If you are not assigning Trump blame for inflation, you are not being honest.

Biden-flation

Biden undoubtedly contributed to the decrease of our monetary value by printing money, but not nearly as much as Trump. Under Biden the money supply went from 19384 to peak at 22048 then down to 20863. The decrease was the impact of our increased interest rates (that is how they are supposed to work). As of May, the money supply has increased under Biden 7.6% ($1.479 Trillion).

Debt

The other side of government spending is national debt. Some point to Biden’s $2 trillion ‘American Rescue Plan’ as a reason HE is responsible for inflation, yet I show above the M2 supply. The other side of this equation is debt. It should be noted, the likely long term impact of our out of control debt is rampant inflation as we try to print our way out of debt, we just aren’t officially at that point…yet. Charts and data pulled from FRED-Total Public Debt.

Trump Debt

Under Trump, we saw a debt increase of 41% , from $19.84 trillion to $28.13 trillion. Trump laid $8.29 Trillion of debt on the American people.

Biden Debt

Under Biden, we saw a debt increase from 28.13 trillion to (as of 1/1/2024) 34.58 trillion. This is a $6.45 trillion dollar (22.9% ) increase while he still has about 7 months left in office.

Oil Reserves

Strategic Oil reserves were put into place after the oil embargo of 1973. The idea was that if there was ever a supply disruption, the United States would not be left unprotected.

Energy (including gas) accounts for about 7.3% of CPI (the government consumer price index) [1]. So it makes up a relatively large and very NOTICEABLE part of the inflation calculation. Often times the ‘go-to’ figure when pundits and others talk about inflation is the ‘price at the pumps’. While Trump had a significant hand it the rising inflation, Biden has been depleting our reserves to soften its impact during his entire first term. Around the start of his term we were at 637,921 (thousand barrels) we hit a low of 346,759 July of 2023. We have burned through 46% of our reserves under Biden. This is clearly not sustainable, the current, comparatively favorable metrics above will likely dissipate as we either run out of our SPR or stop tapping into it. It should be noted that across the past 3.5 years, the average price per barrel of oil is $79.74. When Biden first announced releasing reserves in November 2021, gas was at $3.395 per gallon, it peaked in June 2022 at 4.929.

Selling our reserves will avoid people ‘feeling inflation at the pump’ and it will lower the government reported CPI. In regards to debt & money printing, with $23 billion in reserves sold it isn’t enough to directly move the needle much, but perhaps secondary effects can have an impact. Additionally, depletion of the SPR has strategic geopolitical implications that will likely be covered in another article (think back to America’s Waning Power and the Petro-dollar).

The United States has since early this year been working to slowly purchase more reserves for the SPR. A few days ago it was announced that we purchased 3 million barrels. It will be interesting to see how the cessation of sales impacts gas prices & the economy. It should be noted that part of Biden’s plan to mitigate his release of SPR is to prevent its previously congressionally mandated sale that was to offset government spending[2] (which will increase debt).

Conclusion

There are PLENTY of reasons to choose Trump over Biden (I intend to cover more issues in the future and will add in other candidates where possible), but please know that when it comes to inflation Trump is largely responsible. A 46% increase in M2 is HUGE, for added comparison, Obama’s second term had a 26% increase in M2, a ~$3 trillion increase vs Trump’s $6 trillion. If a candidate isn’t coming in and cutting HUGE swaths of government and planning to dismantle the federal reserve than they are NOT GOOD ON INFLATION and they are NOT GOOD on debt.

Share

Leave a comment

Resources

1. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/oilpricesinflation.asp#:~:text=higher%20inflation%20rate.-,Cause%20and%20Effect,2

2. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-buys-3-million-barrels-oil-strategic-petroleum-reserve-2024-06-03/#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20June%203%20(Reuters),largest%20sale%20ever%20in%202022.

3. FRED-M2

4. FRED-Total Public Debt

Economics books I recommend:

Disclosure: The book links below are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

I wanted to list out a few economics books that might help people understand how bad our government is and how much it is destroying our wealth. An easy one to get through is Economics in One Lesson. If you have a bit more time, The Bitcoin Standard is a great book on economics, even if you have no interest in bitcoin itself. I’m about halfway through another book from Saifedean Ammous, Principles of Economics & have enjoyed it so far as well. Audiobook versions are good too but I like them as a supplement more than as a stand alone (especially when looking to resurface points from the books!), I personally like to write & highlight as I read.